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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org ** This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg eBook, Details Below ** ** Please follow the copyright guidelines in this file. ** <> The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing The Library of the Future Complete Works of William Shakespeare Library of the Future is a TradeMark (TM) of World Library Inc. 1599 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING by William Shakespeare Dramatis Personae Don Pedro, Prince of Arragon. Don John, his bastard brother. Claudio, a young lord of Florence. Benedick, a Young lord of Padua. Leonato, Governor of Messina. Antonio, an old man, his brother. Balthasar, attendant on Don Pedro. Borachio, follower of Don John. Conrade, follower of Don John. Friar Francis. Dogberry, a Constable. Verges, a Headborough. A Sexton. A Boy. Hero, daughter to Leonato. Beatrice, niece to Leonato. Margaret, waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero. Ursula, waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero. Messengers, Watch, Attendants, etc. SCENE.--Messina. ACT I. Scene I. An orchard before Leonato's house. Enter Leonato (Governor of Messina), Hero (his Daughter), and Beatrice (his Niece), with a Messenger. Leon. I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina. Mess. He is very near by this. He was not three leagues off when I left him. Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name. Leon. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio. Mess. Much deserv'd on his part, and equally rememb'red by Don Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion. He hath indeed better bett'red expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how. Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it. Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness. Leon. Did he break out into tears? Mess. In great measure. Leon. A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than those that are so wash'd. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping! Beat. I pray you, is Signior Mountanto return'd from the wars or no? Mess. I know none of that name, lady. There was none such in the army of any sort. Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece? Hero. My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua. Mess. O, he's return'd, and as pleasant as ever he was. Beat. He set up his bills here in Messina and challeng'd Cupid at the flight, and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscrib'd for Cupid and challeng'd him at the burbolt. I pray you, how many hath he kill'd and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he kill'd? For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing. Leon. Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not. Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars. Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it. He is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach. Mess. And a good soldier too, lady. Beat. And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord? Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuff'd with all honourable virtues. Beat. It is so indeed. He is no less than a stuff'd man; but for the stuffing--well, we are all mortal. Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her. They never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them. Beat. Alas, he gets nothing by that! In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man govern'd with one; so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. Mess. Is't possible? Beat. Very easily possible. He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block. Mess. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. Beat. No. An he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil? Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio. Beat. O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease! He is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere 'a be cured. Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady. Beat. Do, good friend. Leon. You will never run mad, niece. Beat. No, not till a hot January. Mess. Don Pedro is approach'd. Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, and John the Bastard. Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble? The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace; for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter. Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so. Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you ask'd her? Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child. Pedro. You have it full, Benedick. We may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an honourable father. Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is. Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick. Nobody marks you. Bene. What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? Beat. Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence. Bene. Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none. Beat. A dear happiness to women! They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! So some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratch'd face. Beat. Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as yours were. Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, a God's name! I have done. Beat. You always end with a jade's trick. I know you of old. Pedro. That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To Don John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord. Being reconciled to the Prince your brother, I owe you all duty. John. I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you. Leon. Please it your Grace lead on? Pedro. Your hand, Leonato. We will go together. Exeunt. Manent Benedick and Claudio. Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato? Bene. I noted her not, but I look'd on her. Claud. Is she not a modest young lady? Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment? or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex? Claud. No. I pray thee speak in sober judgment. Bene. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise. Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport. I pray thee tell me truly how thou lik'st her. Bene. Would you buy her, that you enquire after her? Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel? Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you to go in the song? Claud. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I look'd on. Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter. There's her cousin, an she were not possess'd with a fury,exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you? Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife. Bene. Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i' faith! An thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Enter Don Pedro. Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's? Bene. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance. Bene. You hear, Count Claudio. I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think so; but, on my allegiance--mark you this-on my allegiance! he is in love. With who? Now that is your Grace's part. Mark how short his answer is: With Hero, Leonato's short daughter. Claud. If this were so, so were it utt'red. Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: 'It is not so, nor 'twas not so; but indeed, God forbid it should be so!' Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy. Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought. Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine. Claud. That I love her, I feel. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know. Bene. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me. I will die in it at the stake. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty. Claud. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will. Bene. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a rechate winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is (for the which I may go the finer), I will live a bachelor. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of blind Cupid. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapp'd on the shoulder and call'd Adam. Pedro. Well, as time shall try. 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write 'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.' Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. Bene. I look for an earthquake too then. Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's, commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation. Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you-- Claud. To the tuition of God. From my house--if I had it-- Pedro. The sixth of July. Your loving friend, Benedick. Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither. Ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience. And so I leave you. Exit. Claud. My liege, your Highness now may do me good. Pedro. My love is thine to teach. Teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord? Pedro. No child but Hero; she's his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio? Claud.O my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye, That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love; But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is, Saying I lik'd her ere I went to wars. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently And tire the hearer with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, And I will break with her and with her father, And thou shalt have her. Wast not to this end That thou began'st to twist so fine a story? Claud. How sweetly you do minister to love, That know love's grief by his complexion! But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The fairest grant is the necessity. Look, what will serve is fit. 'Tis once, thou lovest, And I will fit thee with the remedy. I know we shall have revelling to-night. I will assume thy part in some disguise And tell fair Hero I am Claudio, And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale. Then after to her father will I break, And the conclusion is, she shall be thine. In practice let us put it presently. Exeunt. Scene II. A room in Leonato's house. Enter [at one door] Leonato and [at another door, Antonio] an old man, brother to Leonato. Leon. How now, brother? Where is my cousin your son? Hath he provided this music? Ant. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of. Leon. Are they good? Ant. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they show well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: the Prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance, and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top and instantly break with you of it. Leon. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this? Ant. A good sharp fellow. I will send for him, and question him yourself. Leon. No, no. We will hold it as a dream till it appear itself; but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it. [Exit Antonio.] [Enter Antonio's Son with a Musician, and others.] [To the Son] Cousin, you know what you have to do. --[To the Musician] O, I cry you mercy, friend. Go you with me, and I will use your skill.--Good cousin, have a care this busy time. Exeunt. Scene III. Another room in Leonato's house.] Enter Sir John the Bastard and Conrade, his companion. Con. What the goodyear, my lord! Why are you thus out of measure sad? John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit. Con. You should hear reason. John. And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it? Con. If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance. John. I wonder that thou (being, as thou say'st thou art, born under Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour. Con. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace, where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself. It is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdain'd of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any. In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchis'd with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me. Con. Can you make no use of your discontent? John. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Enter Borachio. Who comes here? What news, Borachio? Bora. I came yonder from a great supper. The Prince your brother is royally entertain'd by Leonato, and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage. John. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness? Bora. Marry, it is your brother's right hand. John. Who? the most exquisite Claudio? Bora. Even he. John. A proper squire! And who? and who? which way looks he? Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. John. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this? Bora. Being entertain'd for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the Prince and Claudio, hand in hand in sad conference. I whipt me behind the arras and there heard it agreed upon that the Prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtain'd her, give her to Count Claudio. John. Come, come, let us thither. This may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow. If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me? Con. To the death, my lord. John. Let us to the great supper. Their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were o' my mind! Shall we go prove what's to be done? Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship. Exeunt. <> ACT II. Scene I. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter Leonato, [Antonio] his Brother, Hero his Daughter, and Beatrice his Niece, and a Kinsman; [also Margaret and Ursula]. Leon. Was not Count John here at supper? Ant. I saw him not. Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burn'd an hour after. Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition. Beat. He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick. The one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling. Leon. Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face-- Beat. With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world--if 'a could get her good will. Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. Ant. In faith, she's too curst. Beat. Too curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God's sending that way, for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns,' but to a cow too curst he sends none. Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. Beat. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face. I had rather lie in the woollen! Leon. You may light on a husband that hath no beard. Beat. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the berrord and lead his apes into hell. Leon. Well then, go you into hell? Beat. No; but to the gate, and there will the devil meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven. Here's no place for you maids.' So deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter--for the heavens. He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. Ant. [to Hero] Well, niece, I trust you will be rul'd by your father. Beat. Yes faith. It is my cousin's duty to make cursy and say, 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another cursy, and say, 'Father, as it please me.' Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmaster'd with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none. Adam's sons are my brethren, and truly I hold it a sin to match in my kinred. Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you. If the Prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer. Beat. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time. If the Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes Repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight. Leon. The revellers are ent'ring, brother. Make good room. [Exit Antonio.] Enter, [masked,] Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar. [With them enter Antonio, also masked. After them enter] Don John [and Borachio (without masks), who stand aside and look on during the dance]. Pedro. Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend? Hero. So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away. Pedro. With me in your company? Hero. I may say so when I please. Pedro. And when please you to say so? Hero. When I like your favour, for God defend the lute should be like the case! Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. Hero. Why then, your visor should be thatch'd. Pedro. Speak low if you speak love. [Takes her aside.] Balth. Well, I would you did like me. Marg. So would not I for your own sake, for I have many ill qualities. Balth. Which is one? Marg. I say my prayers aloud. Balth. I love you the better. The hearers may cry Amen. Marg. God match me with a good dancer! Balth. Amen. Marg. And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk. Balth. No more words. The clerk is answered. [Takes her aside.] Urs. I know you well enough. You are Signior Antonio. Ant. At a word, I am not. Urs. I know you by the waggling of your head. Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him. Urs. You could never do him so ill-well unless you were the very man. Here's his dry hand up and down. You are he, you are he! Ant. At a word, I am not. Urs. Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum you are he. Graces will appear, and there's an end. [ They step aside.] Beat. Will you not tell me who told you so? Bene. No, you shall pardon me. Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are? Bene. Not now. Beat. That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the 'Hundred Merry Tales.' Well, this was Signior Benedick that said so. Bene. What's he? Beat. I am sure you know him well enough. Bene. Not I, believe me. Beat. Did he never make you laugh? Bene. I pray you, what is he? Beat. Why, he is the Prince's jester, a very dull fool. Only his gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet. I would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music.] We must follow the leaders. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio]. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not Signior Benedick? Claud. You know me well. I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him swear his affection. Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight. John. Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt. Manet Claudio. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. [Unmasks.] 'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love. Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero! Enter Benedick [unmasked]. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Claud. Whither? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.] Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad? Claud. Not sad, my lord. Pedro. How then? sick? Claud. Neither, my lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!' Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. Pedro. Will you have me, lady? Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour. Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon. Exit. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak'd herself with laughing. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Claud. And I, my lord. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero? Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt. Scene II. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter [Don] John and Borachio. John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. John. Show me briefly how. Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. John. I remember. Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage? Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. John. What proof shall I make of that? Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything. Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the preparation overthrown. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt. Scene III. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick alone. Bene. Boy! [Enter Boy.] Boy. Signior? Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.] Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio. Music [within]. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter Balthasar with Music. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more. Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. Pedro. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balth. Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks! Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.] Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [Balthasar sings.] The Song. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy! The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift. Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it. Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber window. Balth. The best I can, my lord. Pedro. Do so. Farewell. Exit Balthasar [with Musicians]. Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem'd ever to abhor. Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit. Claud. Faith, like enough. Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how. Claud. She did indeed. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick. Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment. Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found 'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet? Claud. That. Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.' Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous. Claud. And she is exceeding wise. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick. Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say. Leon. Were it good, think you? Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit. Claud. He is a very proper man. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness. Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. Claud. And I take him to be valiant. Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear. Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love? Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel. Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready. [They walk away.] Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter. That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]. [Benedick advances from the arbour.] Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Enter Beatrice. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her. Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner. Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come. Bene. You take pleasure then in the message? Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well. Exit. Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit. <> ACT III. Scene I. Leonato's orchard. Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour. There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio. Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her To listen our propose. This is thy office. Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit.] Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter Beatrice.] Now begin; For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. [Beatrice hides in the arbour]. Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. So angle we for Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They approach the arbour.] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful. I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock. Urs. But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They did entreat me to acquaint her of it; But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection And never to let Beatrice know of it. Urs. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman Deserve as full, as fortunate a bed As ever Beatrice shall couch upon? Hero. O god of love! I know he doth deserve As much as may be yielded to a man: But Nature never fram'd a woman's heart Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice. Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprizing what they look on; and her wit Values itself so highly that to her All matter else seems weak. She cannot love, Nor take no shape nor project of affection, She is so self-endeared. Urs. Sure I think so; And therefore certainly it were not good She knew his love, lest she'll make sport at it. Hero. Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, But she would spell him backward. If fair-fac'd, She would swear the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antic, Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed; If low, an agate very vilely cut; If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out And never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth. Urs. Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable. Hero. No, not to be so odd, and from all fashions, As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable. But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit! Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly. It were a better death than die with mocks, Which is as bad as die with tickling. Urs. Yet tell her of it. Hear what she will say. Hero. No; rather I will go to Benedick And counsel him to fight against his passion. And truly, I'll devise some honest slanders To stain my cousin with. One doth not know How much an ill word may empoison liking. Urs. O, do not do your cousin such a wrong! She cannot be so much without true judgment (Having so swift and excellent a wit As she is priz'd to have) as to refuse So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick. Hero. He is the only man of Italy, Always excepted my dear Claudio. Urs. I pray you be not angry with me, madam, Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick, For shape, for bearing, argument, and valour, Goes foremost in report through Italy. Hero. Indeed he hath an excellent good name. Urs. His excellence did earn it ere he had it. When are you married, madam? Hero. Why, every day to-morrow! Come, go in. I'll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow. [They walk away.] Urs. She's lim'd, I warrant you! We have caught her, madam. Hero. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps; Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. Exeunt [Hero and Ursula]. [Beatrice advances from the arbour.] Beat. What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! No glory lives behind the back of such. And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee, Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand. If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee To bind our loves up in a holy band; For others say thou dost deserve, and I Believe it better than reportingly. Exit. Scene II. A room in Leonato's house. Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Leonato. Pedro. I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I toward Arragon. Claud. I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll vouchsafe me. Pedro. Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth. He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a bell; and his tongue is the clapper, for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks. Bene. Gallants, I am not as I have been. Leon. So say I. Methinks you are sadder. Claud. I hope he be in love. Pedro. Hang him, truant! There's no true drop of blood in him to be truly touch'd with love. If he be sad, he wants money. Bene. I have the toothache. Pedro. Draw it. Bene. Hang it! Claud. You must hang it first and draw it afterwards. Pedro. What? sigh for the toothache? Leon. Where is but a humour or a worm. Bene. Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it. Claud. Yet say I he is in love. Pedro. There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman to-day, a Frenchman to-morrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is. Claud. If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs. 'A brushes his hat o' mornings. What should that bode? Pedro. Hath any man seen him at the barber's? Claud. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him, and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuff'd tennis balls. Leon. Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard. Pedro. Nay, 'a rubs himself with civet. Can you smell him out by that? Claud. That's as much as to say, the sweet youth's in love. Pedro. The greatest note of it is his melancholy. Claud. And when was he wont to wash his face? Pedro. Yea, or to paint himself? for the which I hear what they say of him. Claud. Nay, but his jesting spirit, which is new-crept into a lutestring, and now govern'd by stops. Pedro. Indeed that tells a heavy tale for him. Conclude, conclude, he is in love. Claud. Nay, but I know who loves him. Pedro. That would I know too. I warrant, one that knows him not. Claud. Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for him. Pedro. She shall be buried with her face upwards. Bene. Yet is this no charm for the toothache. Old signior, walk aside with me. I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you, which these hobby-horses must not hear. [Exeunt Benedick and Leonato.] Pedro. For my life, to break with him about Beatrice! Claud. 'Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this played their parts with Beatrice, and then the two bears will not bite one another when they meet. Enter John the Bastard. John. My lord and brother, God save you. Pedro. Good den, brother. John. If your leisure serv'd, I would speak with you. Pedro. In private? John. If it please you. Yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I would speak of concerns him. Pedro. What's the matter? John. [to Claudio] Means your lordship to be married tomorrow? Pedro. You know he does. John. I know not that, when he knows what I know. Claud. If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it. John. You may think I love you not. Let that appear hereafter, and aim better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think he holds you well and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect your ensuing marriage--surely suit ill spent and labour ill bestowed! Pedro. Why, what's the matter? John. I came hither to tell you, and, circumstances short'ned (for she has been too long a-talking of), the lady is disloyal. Claud. Who? Hero? John. Even she--Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero. Claud. Disloyal? John. The word is too good to paint out her wickedness. I could say she were worse; think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it. Wonder not till further warrant. Go but with me to-night, you shall see her chamber window ent'red, even the night before her wedding day. If you love her then, to-morrow wed her. But it would better fit your honour to change your mind. Claud. May this be so? Pedro. I will not think it. John. If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know. If you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly. Claud. If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her to-morrow, in the congregation where I should wed, there will I shame her. Pedro. And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to disgrace her. John. I will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses. Bear it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself. Pedro. O day untowardly turned! Claud. O mischief strangely thwarting! John. O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen the Sequel. Exeunt. Scene III. A street. Enter Dogberry and his compartner [Verges], with the Watch. Dog. Are you good men and true? Verg. Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation, body and soul. Dog. Nay, that were a punishment too good for them if they should have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the Prince's watch. Verg. Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry. Dog. First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable? 1. Watch. Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal; for they can write and read. Dog. Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. God hath bless'd you with a good name. To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by nature. 2. Watch. Both which, Master Constable-- Dog. You have. I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favour, sir, why, give God thanks and make no boast of it; and for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch. Therefore bear you the lanthorn. This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's name. 2. Watch. How if 'a will not stand? Dog. Why then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together and thank God you are rid of a knave. Verg. If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the Prince's subjects. Dog. True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince's subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets; for for the watch to babble and to talk is most tolerable, and not to be endured. 2. Watch. We will rather sleep than talk. We know what belongs to a watch. Dog. Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I cannot see how sleeping should offend. Only have a care that your bills be not stol'n. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses and bid those that are drunk get them to bed. 2. Watch. How if they will not? Dog. Why then, let them alone till they are sober. If they make you not then the better answer, You may say they are not the men you took them for. 2. Watch. Well, sir. Dog. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man; and for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why, the more your honesty. 2. Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him? Dog. Truly, by your office you may; but I think they that touch pitch will be defil'd. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company. Verg. You have been always called a merciful man, partner. Dog. Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him. Verg. If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse and bid her still it. 2. Watch. How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us? Dog. Why then, depart in peace and let the child wake her with crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes will never answer a calf when he bleats. Verg. 'Tis very true. Dog. This is the end of the charge: you, constable, are to present the Prince's own person. If you meet the Prince in the night, you may stay him. Verg. Nay, by'r lady, that I think 'a cannot. Dog. Five shillings to one on't with any man that knows the statutes, he may stay him! Marry, not without the Prince be willing; for indeed the watch ought to offend no man, and it is an offence to stay a man against his will. Verg. By'r lady, I think it be so. Dog. Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night. An there be any matter of weight chances, call up me. Keep your fellows' counsels and your own, and good night. Come, neighbour. 2. Watch. Well, masters, we hear our charge. Let us go sit here upon the church bench till two, and then all to bed. Dog. One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you watch about Signior Leonato's door; for the wedding being there tomorrow, there is a great coil to-night. Adieu. Be vigitant, I beseech you. Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges]. Enter Borachio and Conrade. Bora. What, Conrade! 2. Watch. [aside] Peace! stir not! Bora. Conrade, I say! Con. Here, man. I am at thy elbow. Bora. Mass, and my elbow itch'd! I thought there would a scab follow. Con. I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy tale. Bora. Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain, and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee. 2. Watch. [aside] Some treason, masters. Yet stand close. Bora. Therefore know I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats. Con. Is it possible that any villany should be so dear? Bora. Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will. Con. I wonder at it. Bora. That shows thou art unconfirm'd. Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man. Con. Yes, it is apparel. Bora. I mean the fashion. Con. Yes, the fashion is the fashion. Bora. Tush! I may as well say the fool's the fool. But seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion is? 2. Watch. [aside] I know that Deformed. 'A bas been a vile thief this seven year; 'a goes up and down like a gentleman. I remember his name. Bora. Didst thou not hear somebody? Con. No; 'twas the vane on the house. Bora. Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily 'a turns about all the hot-bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty? sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers in the reechy painting, sometime like god Bel's priests in the old church window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirch'd worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club? Con. All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion? Bora. Not so neither. But know that I have to-night wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero. She leans me out at her mistress' chamber window, bids me a thousand times good night--I tell this tale vilely; I should first tell thee how the Prince, Claudio and my master, planted and placed and possessed by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter. Con. And thought they Margaret was Hero? Bora. Two of them did, the Prince and Claudio; but the devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first possess'd them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villany, which did confirm any slander that Don John had made, away went Claudio enrag'd; swore he would meet her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o'ernight and send her home again without a husband. 2. Watch. We charge you in the Prince's name stand! 1. Watch. Call up the right Master Constable. We have here recover'd the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth. 2. Watch. And one Deformed is one of them. I know him; 'a wears a lock. Con. Masters, masters-- 1. Watch. You'll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you. Con. Masters-- 2. Watch. Never speak, we charge you. Let us obey you to go with us. Bora. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men's bills. Con. A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we'll obey you. Exeunt. Scene IV. A Room in Leonato's house. Enter Hero, and Margaret and Ursula. Hero. Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice and desire her to rise. Urs. I will, lady. Hero. And bid her come hither. Urs. Well. [Exit.] Marg. Troth, I think your other rebato were better. Hero. No, pray thee, good Meg, I'll wear this. Marg. By my troth, 's not so good, and I warrant your cousin will say so. Hero. My cousin's a fool, and thou art another. I'll wear none but this. Marg. I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner; and your gown's a most rare fashion, i' faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan's gown that they praise so. Hero. O, that exceeds, they say. Marg. By my troth, 's but a nightgown in respect of yours-- cloth-o'-gold and cuts, and lac'd with silver, set with pearls down sleeves, side-sleeves, and skirts, round underborne with a blush tinsel. But for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on't. Hero. God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy. Marg. 'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man. Hero. Fie upon thee! art not ashamed? Marg. Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I think you would have me say, 'saving your reverence, a husband.' An bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I'll offend nobody. Is there any harm in 'the heavier for a husband'? None, I think, an it be the right husband and the right wife. Otherwise 'tis light, and not heavy. Ask my Lady Beatrice else. Here she comes. Enter Beatrice. Hero. Good morrow, coz. Beat. Good morrow, sweet Hero. Hero. Why, how now? Do you speak in the sick tune? Beat. I am out of all other tune, methinks. Marg. Clap's into 'Light o' love.' That goes without a burden. Do you sing it, and I'll dance it. Beat. Yea, 'Light o' love' with your heels! then, if your husband have stables enough, you'll see he shall lack no barnes. Marg. O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels. Beat. 'Tis almost five o'clock, cousin; 'tis time you were ready. By my troth, I am exceeding ill. Hey-ho! Marg. For a hawk, a horse, or a husband? Beat. For the letter that begins them all, H. Marg. Well, an you be not turn'd Turk, there's no more sailing by the star. Beat. What means the fool, trow? Marg. Nothing I; but God send every one their heart's desire! Hero. These gloves the Count sent me, they are an excellent perfume. Beat. I am stuff'd, cousin; I cannot smell. Marg. A maid, and stuff'd! There's goodly catching of cold. Beat. O, God help me! God help me! How long have you profess'd apprehension? Marg. Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely? Beat. It is not seen enough. You should wear it in your cap. By my troth, I am sick. Marg. Get you some of this distill'd carduus benedictus and lay it to your heart. It is the only thing for a qualm. Hero. There thou prick'st her with a thistle. Beat. Benedictus? why benedictus? You have some moral in this 'benedictus.' Marg. Moral? No, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant plain holy thistle. You may think perchance that I think you are in love. Nay, by'r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list; nor I list not to think what I can; nor indeed I cannot think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in love, or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love. Yet Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man. He swore he would never marry; and yet now in despite of his heart he eats his meat without grudging; and how you may be converted I know not, but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do. Beat. What pace is this that thy tongue keeps? Marg. Not a false gallop. Enter Ursula. Urs. Madam, withdraw. The Prince, the Count, Signior Benedick, Don John, and all the gallants of the town are come to fetch you to church. Hero. Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula. [Exeunt.] Scene V. The hall in Leonato's house. Enter Leonato and the Constable [Dogberry] and the Headborough [verges]. Leon. What would you with me, honest neighbour? Dog. Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you that decerns you nearly. Leon. Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me. Dog. Marry, this it is, sir. Verg. Yes, in truth it is, sir. Leon. What is it, my good friends? Dog. Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter--an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his brows. Verg. Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I. Dog. Comparisons are odorous. Palabras, neighbour Verges. Leon. Neighbours, you are tedious. Dog. It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor Duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship. Leon. All thy tediousness on me, ah? Dog. Yea, in 'twere a thousand pound more than 'tis; for I hear as good exclamation on your worship as of any man in the city; and though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it. Verg. And so am I. Leon. I would fain know what you have to say. Verg. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your worship's presence, ha' ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina. Dog. A good old man, sir; he will be talking. As they say, 'When the age is in, the wit is out.' God help us! it is a world to see! Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verges. Well, God's a good man. An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest soul, i' faith, sir, by my troth he is, as ever broke bread; but God is to be worshipp'd; all men are not alike, alas, good neighbour! Leon. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you. Dog. Gifts that God gives. Leon. I must leave you. Dog. One word, sir. Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship. Leon. Take their examination yourself and bring it me. I am now in great haste, as it may appear unto you. Dog. It shall be suffigance. Leon. Drink some wine ere you go. Fare you well. [Enter a Messenger.] Mess. My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband. Leon. I'll wait upon them. I am ready. [Exeunt Leonato and Messenger.] Dog. Go, good partner, go get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the jail. We are now to examination these men. Verg. And we must do it wisely. Dog. We will spare for no wit, I warrant you. Here's that shall drive some of them to a non-come. Only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication, and meet me at the jail. [Exeunt.] <> ACT IV. Scene I. A church. Enter Don Pedro, [John the] Bastard, Leonato, Friar [Francis], Claudio, Benedick, Hero, Beatrice, [and Attendants]. Leon. Come, Friar Francis, be brief. Only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards. Friar. You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady? Claud. No. Leon. To be married to her. Friar, you come to marry her. Friar. Lady, you come hither to be married to this count? Hero. I do. Friar. If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it. Claud. Know you any, Hero? Hero. None, my lord. Friar. Know you any, Count? Leon. I dare make his answer--none. Claud. O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do! Bene. How now? interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as, ah, ha, he! Claud. Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave: Will you with free and unconstrained soul Give me this maid your daughter? Leon. As freely, son, as God did give her me. Claud. And what have I to give you back whose worth May counterpoise this rich and precious gift? Pedro. Nothing, unless you render her again. Claud. Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness. There, Leonato, take her back again. Give not this rotten orange to your friend. She's but the sign and semblance of her honour. Behold how like a maid she blushes here! O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal! Comes not that blood as modest evidence To witness simple virtue, Would you not swear, All you that see her, that she were a maid By these exterior shows? But she is none: She knows the heat of a luxurious bed; Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty. Leon. What do you mean, my lord? Claud. Not to be married, Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton. Leon. Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof, Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth And made defeat of her virginity-- Claud. I know what you would say. If I have known her, You will say she did embrace me as a husband, And so extenuate the forehand sin. No, Leonato, I never tempted her with word too large, But, as a brother to his sister, show'd Bashful sincerity and comely love. Hero. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you? Claud. Out on the seeming! I will write against it. You seem to me as Dian in her orb, As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown; But you are more intemperate in your blood Than Venus, or those pamp'red animals That rage in savage sensuality. Hero. Is my lord well that he doth speak so wide? Leon. Sweet Prince, why speak not you? Pedro. What should I speak? I stand dishonour'd that have gone about To link my dear friend to a common stale. Leon. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream? John. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true. Bene. This looks not like a nuptial. Hero. 'True!' O God! Claud. Leonato, stand I here? Is this the Prince, Is this the Prince's brother? Is this face Hero's? Are our eyes our own? Leon. All this is so; but what of this, my lord? Claud. Let me but move one question to your daughter, And by that fatherly and kindly power That you have in her, bid her answer truly. Leon. I charge thee do so, as thou art my child. Hero. O, God defend me! How am I beset! What kind of catechising call you this? Claud. To make you answer truly to your name. Hero. Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name With any just reproach? Claud. Marry, that can Hero! Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue. What man was he talk'd with you yesternight, Out at your window betwixt twelve and one? Now, if you are a maid, answer to this. Hero. I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord. Pedro. Why, then are you no maiden. Leonato, I am sorry you must hear. Upon my honour, Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window, Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain, Confess'd the vile encounters they have had A thousand times in secret. John. Fie, fie! they are not to be nam'd, my lord-- Not to be spoke of; There is not chastity, enough in language Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady, I am sorry for thy much misgovernment. Claud. O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been If half thy outward graces had been plac'd About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart! But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! Farewell, Thou pure impiety and impious purity! For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love, And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang, To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, And never shall it more be gracious. Leon. Hath no man's dagger here a point for me? [Hero swoons.] Beat. Why, how now, cousin? Wherefore sink you down? John. Come let us go. These things, come thus to light, Smother her spirits up. [Exeunt Don Pedro, Don Juan, and Claudio.] Bene. How doth the lady? Beat. Dead, I think. Help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar! Leon. O Fate, take not away thy heavy hand! Death is the fairest cover for her shame That may be wish'd for. Beat. How now, cousin Hero? Friar. Have comfort, lady. Leon. Dost thou look up? Friar. Yea, wherefore should she not? Leon. Wherefore? Why, doth not every earthly thing Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny The story that is printed in her blood? Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes; For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, Myself would on the rearward of reproaches Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one? Child I for that at frugal nature's frame? O, one too much by thee! Why had I one? Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes? Why had I not with charitable hand Took up a beggar's issue at my gates, Who smirched thus and mir'd with infamy, I might have said, 'No part of it is mine; This shame derives itself from unknown loins'? But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd, And mine that I was proud on--mine so much That I myself was to myself not mine, Valuing of her--why, she, O, she is fall'n Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea Hath drops too few to wash her clean again, And salt too little which may season give To her foul tainted flesh! Bene. Sir, sir, be patient. For my part, I am so attir'd in wonder, I know not what to say. Beat. O, on my soul, my cousin is belied! Bene. Lady, were you her bedfellow last night? Beat. No, truly, not; although, until last night, I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow. Leon. Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron! Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie, Who lov'd her so that, speaking of her foulness, Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her! let her die. Friar. Hear me a little; For I have only been silent so long, And given way unto this course of fortune, By noting of the lady. I have mark'd A thousand blushing apparitions To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness beat away those blushes, And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire To burn the errors that these princes hold Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool; Trust not my reading nor my observation, Which with experimental seal doth warrant The tenure of my book; trust not my age, My reverence, calling, nor divinity, If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here Under some biting error. Leon. Friar, it cannot be. Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left Is that she will not add to her damnation A sin of perjury: she not denies it. Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse That which appears in proper nakedness? Friar. Lady, what man is he you are accus'd of? Hero. They know that do accuse me; I know none. If I know more of any man alive Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant, Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father, Prove you that any man with me convers'd At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight Maintain'd the change of words with any creature, Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death! Friar. There is some strange misprision in the princes. Bene. Two of them have the very bent of honour; And if their wisdoms be misled in this, The practice of it lives in John the bastard, Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies. Leon. I know not. If they speak but truth of her, These hands shall tear her. If they wrong her honour, The proudest of them shall well hear of it. Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine, Nor age so eat up my invention, Nor fortune made such havoc of my means, Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends, But they shall find awak'd in such a kind Both strength of limb and policy of mind, Ability in means, and choice of friends, To quit me of them throughly. Friar. Pause awhile And let my counsel sway you in this case. Your daughter here the princes left for dead, Let her awhile be secretly kept in, And publish it that she is dead indeed; Maintain a mourning ostentation, And on your family's old monument Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites That appertain unto a burial. Leon. What shall become of this? What will this do? Friar. Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf Change slander to remorse. That is some good. But not for that dream I on this strange course, But on this travail look for greater birth. She dying, as it must be so maintain'd, Upon the instant that she was accus'd, Shall be lamented, pitied, and excus'd Of every hearer; for it so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio. When he shall hear she died upon his words, Th' idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination, And every lovely organ of her life Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit, More moving, delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul Than when she liv'd indeed. Then shall he mourn (If ever love had interest in his liver) And wish he had not so accused her-- No, though be thought his accusation true. Let this be so, and doubt not but success Will fashion the event in better shape Than I can lay it down in likelihood. But if all aim but this be levell'd false, The supposition of the lady's death Will quench the wonder of her infamy. And if it sort not well, you may conceal her, As best befits her wounded reputation, In some reclusive and religious life, Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries. Bene. Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you; And though you know my inwardness and love Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio, Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this As secretly and justly as your soul Should with your body. Leon. Being that I flow in grief, The smallest twine may lead me. Friar. 'Tis well consented. Presently away; For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure. Come, lady, die to live. This wedding day Perhaps is but prolong'd. Have patience and endure. Exeunt [all but Benedick and Beatrice]. Bene. Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while? Beat. Yea, and I will weep a while longer. Bene. I will not desire that. Beat. You have no reason. I do it freely. Bene. Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged. Beat. Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her! Bene. Is there any way to show such friendship? Beat. A very even way, but no such friend. Bene. May a man do it? Beat. It is a man's office, but not yours. Bene. I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange? Beat. As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you. But believe me not; and yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin. Bene. By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me. Beat. Do not swear, and eat it. Bene. I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you. Beat. Will you not eat your word? Bene. With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee. Beat. Why then, God forgive me! Bene. What offence, sweet Beatrice? Beat. You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I loved you. Bene. And do it with all thy heart. Beat. I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest. Bene. Come, bid me do anything for thee. Beat. Kill Claudio. Bene. Ha! not for the wide world! Beat. You kill me to deny it. Farewell. Bene. Tarry, sweet Beatrice. Beat. I am gone, though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay, I pray you let me go. Bene. Beatrice-- Beat. In faith, I will go. Bene. We'll be friends first. Beat. You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy. Bene. Is Claudio thine enemy? Beat. Is 'a not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What? bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then with public accusation, uncover'd slander, unmitigated rancour--O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market place. Bene. Hear me, Beatrice! Beat. Talk with a man out at a window!-a proper saying! Bene. Nay but Beatrice-- Beat. Sweet Hero! she is wrong'd, she is sland'red, she is undone. Bene. Beat-- Beat. Princes and Counties! Surely a princely testimony, a goodly count, Count Comfect, a sweet gallant surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into cursies, valour into compliment, and men are only turn'd into tongue, and trim ones too. He is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie,and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing; therefore I will die a woman with grieving. Bene. Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee. Beat. Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it. Bene. Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wrong'd Hero? Beat. Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul. Bene. Enough, I am engag'd, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go comfort your cousin. I must say she is dead-and so farewell. [Exeunt.] Scene II. A prison. Enter the Constables [Dogberry and Verges] and the Sexton, in gowns, [and the Watch, with Conrade and] Borachio. Dog. Is our whole dissembly appear'd? Verg. O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton. Sex. Which be the malefactors? Dog. Marry, that am I and my partner. Verg. Nay, that's certain. We have the exhibition to examine. Sex. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come before Master Constable. Dog. Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend? Bor. Borachio. Dog. Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah? Con. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade. Dog. Write down Master Gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve God? Both. Yea, sir, we hope. Dog. Write down that they hope they serve God; and write God first, for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves? Con. Marry, sir, we say we are none. Dog. A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him. Come you hither, sirrah. A word in your ear. Sir, I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves. Bora. Sir, I say to you we are none. Dog. Well, stand aside. Fore God, they are both in a tale. Have you writ down that they are none? Sex. Master Constable, you go not the way to examine. You must call forth the watch that are their accusers. Dog. Yea, marry, that's the eftest way. Let the watch come forth. Masters, I charge you in the Prince's name accuse these men. 1. Watch. This man said, sir, that Don John the Prince's brother was a villain. Dog. Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to call a prince's brother villain. Bora. Master Constable-- Dog. Pray thee, fellow, peace. I do not like thy look, I promise thee. Sex. What heard you him say else? 2. Watch. Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully. Dog. Flat burglary as ever was committed. Verg. Yea, by th' mass, that it is. Sex. What else, fellow? 1. Watch. And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her. Dog. O villain! thou wilt be condemn'd into everlasting redemption for this. Sex. What else? Watchmen. This is all. Sex. And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stol'n away. Hero was in this manner accus'd, in this manner refus'd, and upon the grief of this suddenly died. Master Constable, let these men be bound and brought to Leonato's. I will go before and show him their examination. [Exit.] Dog. Come, let them be opinion'd. Verg. Let them be in the hands-- Con. Off, coxcomb! Dog. God's my life, where's the sexton? Let him write down the Prince's officer coxcomb. Come, bind them.--Thou naughty varlet! Con. Away! you are an ass, you are an ass. Dog. Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be prov'd upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow; and which is more, an officer; and which is more, a householder; and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to! and a rich fellow enough, go to! and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass! Exeunt. <> ACT V. Scene I. The street, near Leonato's house. Enter Leonato and his brother [ Antonio]. Ant. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself, And 'tis not wisdom thus to second grief Against yourself. Leon. I pray thee cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless As water in a sieve. Give not me counsel, Nor let no comforter delight mine ear But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine. Bring me a father that so lov'd his child, Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine, And bid him speak to me of patience. Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine, And let it answer every strain for strain, As thus for thus, and such a grief for such, In every lineament, branch, shape, and form. If such a one will smile and stroke his beard, Bid sorrow wag, cry 'hem' when he should groan, Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk With candle-wasters--bring him yet to me, And I of him will gather patience. But there is no such man; for, brother, men Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it, Their counsel turns to passion, which before Would give preceptial medicine to rage, Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, Charm ache with air and agony with words. No, no! 'Tis all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow, But no man's virtue nor sufficiency To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel. My griefs cry louder than advertisement. Ant. Therein do men from children nothing differ. Leon. I pray thee peace. I will be flesh and blood; For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently, However they have writ the style of gods And made a push at chance and sufferance. Ant. Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself. Make those that do offend you suffer too. Leon. There thou speak'st reason. Nay, I will do so. My soul doth tell me Hero is belied; And that shall Claudio know; so shall the Prince, And all of them that thus dishonour her. Enter Don Pedro and Claudio. Ant. Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily. Pedro. Good den, Good den. Claud. Good day to both of you. Leon. Hear you, my lords! Pedro. We have some haste, Leonato. Leon. Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord. Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one. Pedro. Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. Ant. If he could right himself with quarrelling, Some of us would lie low. Claud. Who wrongs him? Leon. Marry, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou! Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword; I fear thee not. Claud. Mary, beshrew my hand If it should give your age such cause of fear. In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword. Leon. Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me I speak not like a dotard nor a fool, As under privilege of age to brag What I have done being young, or what would do, Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days, Do challenge thee to trial of a man. I say thou hast belied mine innocent child; Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart, And she lied buried with her ancestors- O, in a tomb where never scandal slept, Save this of hers, fram'd by thy villany! Claud. My villany? Leon. Thine, Claudio; thine I say. Pedro. You say not right, old man. Leon. My lord, my lord, I'll prove it on his body if he dare, Despite his nice fence and his active practice, His May of youth and bloom of lustihood. Claud. Away! I will not have to do with you. Leon. Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd my child. If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man. And. He shall kill two of us, and men indeed But that's no matter; let him kill one first. Win me and wear me! Let him answer me. Come, follow me, boy,. Come, sir boy, come follow me. Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence! Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will. Leon. Brother-- Ant. Content yourself. God knows I lov'd my niece, And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains, That dare as well answer a man indeed As I dare take a serpent by the tongue. Boys, apes, braggarts, jacks, milksops! Leon. Brother Anthony-- Ant. Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea, And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple, Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys, That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander, Go anticly, show outward hideousness, And speak off half a dozen dang'rous words, How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst; And this is all. Leon. But, brother Anthony-- Ant. Come, 'tis no matter. Do not you meddle; let me deal in this. Pedro. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience. My heart is sorry for your daughter's death; But, on my honour, she was charg'd with nothing But what was true, and very full of proof. Leon. My lord, my lord-- Pedro. I will not hear you. Leon. No? Come, brother, away!--I will be heard. Ant. And shall, or some of us will smart for it. Exeunt ambo. Enter Benedick. Pedro. See, see! Here comes the man we went to seek. Claud. Now, signior, what news? Bene. Good day, my lord. Pedro. Welcome, signior. You are almost come to part almost a fray. Claud. We had lik'd to have had our two noses snapp'd off with two old men without teeth. Pedro. Leonato and his brother. What think'st thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them. Bene. In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both. Claud. We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit? Bene. It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it? Pedro. Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side? Claud. Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrel--draw to pleasure us. Pedro. As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick or angry? Claud. What, courage, man! What though care kill'd a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care. Bene. Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career an you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject. Claud. Nay then, give him another staff; this last was broke cross. Pedro. By this light, he changes more and more. I think he be angry indeed. Claud. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle. Bene. Shall I speak a word in your ear? Claud. God bless me from a challenge! Bene. [aside to Claudio] You are a villain. I jest not; I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have kill'd a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you. Claud. Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer. Pedro. What, a feast, a feast? Claud. I' faith, I thank him, he hath bid me to a calve's head and a capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife's naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too? Bene. Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily. Pedro. I'll tell thee how Beatrice prais'd thy wit the other day. I said thou hadst a fine wit: 'True,' said she, 'a fine little one.' 'No,' said I, 'a great wit.' 'Right,' says she, 'a great gross one.' 'Nay,' said I, 'a good wit.' 'Just,' said she, 'it hurts nobody.' 'Nay,' said I, 'the gentleman is wise.' 'Certain,' said she, a wise gentleman.' 'Nay,' said I, 'he hath the tongues.' 'That I believe' said she, 'for he swore a thing to me on Monday night which he forswore on Tuesday morning. There's a double tongue; there's two tongues.' Thus did she an hour together transshape thy particular virtues. Yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the proper'st man in Italy. Claud. For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not. Pedro. Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man's daughter told us all. Claud. All, all! and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden. Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the sensible Benedick's head? Claud. Yea, and text underneath, 'Here dwells Benedick, the married man'? Bene. Fare you well, boy; you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossiplike humour. You break jests as braggards do their blades, which God be thanked hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your brother the bastard is fled from Messina. You have among you kill'd a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet; and till then peace be with him. [Exit.] Pedro. He is in earnest. Claud. In most profound earnest; and, I'll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice. Pedro. And hath challeng'd thee. Claud. Most sincerely. Pedro. What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit! Enter Constables [Dogberry and Verges, with the Watch, leading] Conrade and Borachio. Claud. He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such a man. Pedro. But, soft you, let me be! Pluck up, my heart, and be sad! Did he not say my brother was fled? Dog. Come you, sir. If justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er weigh more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be look'd to. Pedro. How now? two of my brother's men bound? Borachio one. Claud. Hearken after their offence, my lord. Pedro. Officers, what offence have these men done? Dog. Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves. Pedro. First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what's their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and to conclude, what you lay to their charge. Claud. Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and by my troth there's one meaning well suited. Pedro. Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be understood. What's your offence? Bora. Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer. Do you hear me, and let this Count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light, who in the night overheard me confessing to this man, how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero's garments; how you disgrac'd her when you should marry her. My villany they have upon record, which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master's false accusation; and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain. Pedro. Runs not this speech like iron through your blood? Claud. I have drunk poison whiles he utter'd it. Pedro. But did my brother set thee on to this? Bora. Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it. Pedro. He is compos'd and fram'd of treachery, And fled he is upon this villany. Claud. Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear In the rare semblance that I lov'd it first. Dog. Come, bring away the plaintiffs. By this time our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And, masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass. Verg. Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too. Enter Leonato, his brother [Antonio], and the Sexton. Leon. Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes, That, when I note another man like him, I may avoid him. Which of these is he? Bora. If you would know your wronger, look on me. Leon. Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd Mine innocent child? Bora. Yea, even I alone. Leon. No, not so, villain! thou beliest thyself. Here stand a pair of honourable men-- A third is fled--that had a hand in it. I thank you princes for my daughter's death. Record it with your high and worthy deeds. 'Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it. Claud. I know not how to pray your patience; Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself; Impose me to what penance your invention Can lay upon my sin. Yet sinn'd I not But in mistaking. Pedro. By my soul, nor I! And yet, to satisfy this good old man, I would bend under any heavy weight That he'll enjoin me to. Leon. I cannot bid you bid my daughter live- That were impossible; but I pray you both, Possess the people in Messina here How innocent she died; and if your love Can labour aught in sad invention, Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb, And sing it to her bones--sing it to-night. To-morrow morning come you to my house, And since you could not be my son-in-law, Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter, Almost the copy of my child that's dead, And she alone is heir to both of us. Give her the right you should have giv'n her cousin, And so dies my revenge. Claud. O noble sir! Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me. I do embrace your offer; and dispose For henceforth of poor Claudio. Leon. To-morrow then I will expect your coming; To-night I take my leave. This naughty man Shall fact to face be brought to Margaret, Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong, Hir'd to it by your brother. Bora. No, by my soul, she was not; Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me; But always hath been just and virtuous In anything that I do know by her. Dog. Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass. I beseech you let it be rememb'red in his punishment. And also the watch heard them talk of one Deformed. They say he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God's name, the which he hath us'd so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing for God's sake. Pray you examine him upon that point. Leon. I thank thee for thy care and honest pains. Dog. Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth, and I praise God for you. Leon. There's for thy pains. [Gives money.] Dog. God save the foundation! Leon. Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee. Dog. I leave an arrant knave with your worship, which I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish your worship well. God restore you to health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wish'd, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour. Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges]. Leon. Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell. Ant. Farewell, my lords. We look for you to-morrow. Pedro. We will not fall. Claud. To-night I'll mourn with Hero. [Exeunt Don Pedro and Claudio.] Leon. [to the Watch] Bring you these fellows on.--We'll talk with Margaret, How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow. Exeunt. Scene II. Leonato's orchard. Enter Benedick and Margaret [meeting]. Bene. Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice. Marg. Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty? Bene. In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for in most comely truth thou deservest it. Marg. To have no man come over me? Why, shall I always keep below stairs? Bene. Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth--it catches. Marg. And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit but hurt not. Bene. A most manly wit, Margaret: it will not hurt a woman. And so I pray thee call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers. Marg. Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own. Bene. If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice, and they are dangerous weapons for maids. Marg. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs. Bene. And therefore will come. Exit Margaret. [Sings] The god of love, That sits above And knows me, and knows me, How pitiful I deserve-- I mean in singing; but in loving Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse--why, they were never so truly turn'd over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme. I have tried. I can find out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby' --an innocent rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn'--a hard rhyme; for 'school', 'fool'--a babbling rhyme: very ominous endings! No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor cannot woo in festival terms. Enter Beatrice. Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I call'd thee? Beat. Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. Bene. O, stay but till then! Beat. 'Then' is spoken. Fare you well now. And yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came for, which is, with knowing what hath pass'd between you and Claudio. Bene. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee. Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome. Therefore I will depart unkiss'd. Bene. Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him or I will subscribe him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? Beat. For them all together, which maintain'd so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me? Bene. Suffer love!--a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will. Beat. In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never love that which my friend hates. Bene. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. Beat. It appears not in this confession. There's not one wise man among twenty, that will praise himself. Bene. An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that liv'd in the time of good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps. Beat. And how long is that, think you? Bene. Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum. Therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm (his conscience) find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin? Beat. Very ill. Bene. And how do you? Beat. Very ill too. Bene. Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste. Enter Ursula. Urs. Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old coil at home. It is proved my Lady Hero hath been falsely accus'd, the Prince and Claudio mightily abus'd, and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently? Beat. Will you go hear this news, signior? Bene. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried thy eyes; and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's. Exeunt. Scene III. A churchyard. Enter Claudio, Don Pedro, and three or four with tapers, [followed by Musicians]. Claud. Is this the monument of Leonato? Lord. It is, my lord. Claud. [reads from a scroll] Epitaph. Done to death by slanderous tongues Was the Hero that here lies. Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, Gives her fame which never dies. So the life that died with shame Lives in death with glorious fame. Hang thou there upon the tomb, [Hangs up the scroll.] Praising her when I am dumb. Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn. Song. Pardon, goddess of the night, Those that slew thy virgin knight; For the which, with songs of woe, Round about her tomb they go. Midnight, assist our moan, Help us to sigh and groan Heavily, heavily, Graves, yawn and yield your dead, Till death be uttered Heavily, heavily. Claud. Now unto thy bones good night! Yearly will I do this rite. Pedro. Good morrow, masters. Put your torches out. The wolves have prey'd, and look, the gentle day, Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey. Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well. Claud. Good morrow, masters. Each his several way. Pedro. Come, let us hence and put on other weeds, And then to Leonato's we will go. Claud. And Hymen now with luckier issue speeds Than this for whom we rend'red up this woe. Exeunt. Scene IV The hall in Leonato's house. Enter Leonato, Benedick, [Beatrice,] Margaret, Ursula, Antonio, Friar [Francis], Hero. Friar. Did I not tell you she was innocent? Leon. So are the Prince and Claudio, who accus'd her Upon the error that you heard debated. But Margaret was in some fault for this, Although against her will, as it appears In the true course of all the question. Ant. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well. Bene. And so am I, being else by faith enforc'd To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it. Leon. Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all, Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves, And when I send for you, come hither mask'd. Exeunt Ladies. The Prince and Claudio promis'd by this hour To visit me. You know your office, brother: You must be father to your brother's daughter, And give her to young Claudio. Ant. Which I will do with confirm'd countenance. Bene. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think. Friar. To do what, signior? Bene. To bind me, or undo me--one of them. Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior, Your niece regards me with an eye of favour. Leon. That eye my daughter lent her. 'Tis most true. Bene. And I do with an eye of love requite her. Leon. The sight whereof I think you had from me, From Claudio, and the Prince; but what's your will? Bene. Your answer, sir, is enigmatical; But, for my will, my will is, your good will May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin'd In the state of honourable marriage; In which, good friar, I shall desire your help. Leon. My heart is with your liking. Friar. And my help. Enter Don Pedro and Claudio and two or three other. Here comes the Prince and Claudio. Pedro. Good morrow to this fair assembly. Leon. Good morrow, Prince; good morrow, Claudio. We here attend you. Are you yet determin'd To-day to marry with my brother's daughter? Claud. I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope. Leon. Call her forth, brother. Here's the friar ready. [Exit Antonio.] Pedro. Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what's the matter That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness? Claud. I think he thinks upon the savage bull. Tush, fear not, man! We'll tip thy horns with gold, And all Europa shall rejoice at thee, As once Europa did at lusty Jove When he would play the noble beast in love. Bene. Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low, And some such strange bull leap'd your father's cow And got a calf in that same noble feat Much like to you, for you have just his bleat. Enter [Leonato's] brother [Antonio], Hero, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula, [the ladies wearing masks]. Claud. For this I owe you. Here comes other reckonings. Which is the lady I must seize upon? Ant. This same is she, and I do give you her. Claud. Why then, she's mine. Sweet, let me see your face. Leon. No, that you shall not till you take her hand Before this friar and swear to marry her. Claud. Give me your hand before this holy friar. I am your husband if you like of me. Hero. And when I liv'd I was your other wife; [Unmasks.] And when you lov'd you were my other husband. Claud. Another Hero! Hero. Nothing certainer. One Hero died defil'd; but I do live, And surely as I live, I am a maid. Pedro. The former Hero! Hero that is dead! Leon. She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv'd. Friar. All this amazement can I qualify, When, after that the holy rites are ended, I'll tell you largely of fair Hero's death. Meantime let wonder seem familiar, And to the chapel let us presently. Bene. Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice? Beat. [unmasks] I answer to that name. What is your will? Bene. Do not you love me? Beat. Why, no; no more than reason. Bene. Why, then your uncle, and the Prince, and Claudio Have been deceived; for they swore you did. Beat. Do not you love me? Bene. Troth, no; no more than reason. Beat. Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula Are much deceiv'd; for they did swear you did. Bene. They swore that you were almost sick for me. Beat. They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me. Bene. 'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me? Beat. No, truly, but in friendly recompense. Leon. Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman. Claud. And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her; For here's a paper written in his hand, A halting sonnet of his own pure brain, Fashion'd to Beatrice. Hero. And here's another, Writ in my cousin's hand, stol'n from her pocket, Containing her affection unto Benedick. Bene. A miracle! Here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity. Beat. I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption. Bene. Peace! I will stop your mouth. [Kisses her.] Beat. I'll tell thee what, Prince: a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No. If a man will be beaten with brains, 'a shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruis'd, and love my cousin. Claud. I had well hop'd thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgell'd thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer, which out of question thou wilt be if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee. Bene. Come, come, we are friends. Let's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives' heels. Leon. We'll have dancing afterward. Bene. First, of my word! Therefore play, music. Prince, thou art sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife! There is no staff more reverent than one tipp'd with horn. Enter Messenger. Mess. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight, And brought with armed men back to Messina. Bene. Think not on him till to-morrow. I'll devise thee brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers! Dance. [Exeunt.] THE END <> 2240 ---- None 2263 ---- None 24375 ---- None 24721 ---- None 17028 ---- Eastern Standard Tribe Cory Doctorow Copyright 2004 Cory Doctorow doctorow@craphound.com http://www.craphound.com/est Tor Books, March 2004 ISBN: 0765307596 -- ======= Blurbs: ======= "Utterly contemporary and deeply peculiar -- a hard combination to beat (or, these days, to find)." - William Gibson, Author of Neuromancer -- "Cory Doctorow knocks me out. In a good way." - Pat Cadigan, Author of Synners -- "Cory Doctorow is just far enough ahead of the game to give you that authentic chill of the future, and close enough to home for us to know that he's talking about where we live as well as where we're going to live; a connected world full of disconnected people. One of whom is about to lobotomise himself through the nostril with a pencil. Funny as hell and sharp as steel." - Warren Ellis, Author of Transmetropolitan -- ======================= A note about this book: ======================= Last year, in January 2003, my first novel [ http://craphound.com/down ] came out. I was 31 years old, and I'd been calling myself a novelist since the age of 12. It was the storied dream-of-a-lifetime, come-true-at-last. I was and am proud as hell of that book, even though it is just one book among many released last year, better than some, poorer than others; and even though the print-run (which sold out very quickly!) though generous by science fiction standards, hardly qualifies it as a work of mass entertainment. The thing that's extraordinary about that first novel is that it was released under terms governed by a Creative Commons [ http://creativecommons.org ] license that allowed my readers to copy the book freely and distribute it far and wide. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the book were made and distributed this way. *Hundreds* of *thousands*. Today, I release my second novel, and my third [ http://www.argosymag.com/NextIssue.html ], a collaboration with Charlie Stross is due any day, and two [ http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/show.html?fn.preview_doctorow ] more [ http://www.craphound.com/usrbingodexcerpt.txt ] are under contract. My career as a novelist is now well underway -- in other words, I am firmly afoot on a long road that stretches into the future: my future, science fiction's future, publishing's future and the future of the world. The future is my business, more or less. I'm a science fiction writer. One way to know the future is to look good and hard at the present. Here's a thing I've noticed about the present: MORE PEOPLE ARE READING MORE WORDS OFF OF MORE SCREENS THAN EVER BEFORE. Here's another thing I've noticed about the present: FEWER PEOPLE ARE READING FEWER WORDS OFF OF FEWER PAGES THAN EVER BEFORE. That doesn't mean that the book is *dying* -- no more than the advent of the printing press and the de-emphasis of Bible-copying monks meant that the book was dying -- but it does mean that the book is changing. I think that *literature* is alive and well: we're reading our brains out! I just think that the complex social practice of "book" -- of which a bunch of paper pages between two covers is the mere expression -- is transforming and will transform further. I intend on figuring out what it's transforming into. I intend on figuring out the way that some writers -- that *this writer*, right here, wearing my underwear -- is going to get rich and famous from his craft. I intend on figuring out how *this writer's* words can become part of the social discourse, can be relevant in the way that literature at its best can be. I don't know what the future of book looks like. To figure it out, I'm doing some pretty basic science. I'm peering into this opaque, inscrutable system of publishing as it sits in the year 2004, and I'm making a perturbation. I'm stirring the pot to see what surfaces, so that I can see if the system reveals itself to me any more thoroughly as it roils. Once that happens, maybe I'll be able to formulate an hypothesis and try an experiment or two and maybe -- just maybe -- I'll get to the bottom of book-in-2004 and beat the competition to making it work, and maybe I'll go home with all (or most) of the marbles. It's a long shot, but I'm a pretty sharp guy, and I know as much about this stuff as anyone out there. More to the point, trying stuff and doing research yields a non-zero chance of success. The alternatives -- sitting pat, or worse, getting into a moral panic about "piracy" and accusing the readers who are blazing new trail of "the moral equivalent of shoplifting" -- have a *zero* percent chance of success. Most artists never "succeed" in the sense of attaining fame and modest fortune. A career in the arts is a risky long-shot kind of business. I'm doing what I can to sweeten my odds. So here we are, and here is novel number two, a book called Eastern Standard Tribe, which you can walk into shops all over the world and buy [ http://craphound.com/est/buy.php ] as a physical artifact -- a very nice physical artifact, designed by Chesley-award-winning art director Irene Gallo and her designer Shelley Eshkar, published by Tor Books, a huge, profit-making arm of an enormous, multinational publishing concern. Tor is watching what happens to this book nearly as keenly as I am, because we're all very interested in what the book is turning into. To that end, here is the book as a non-physical artifact. A file. A bunch of text, slithery bits that can cross the world in an instant, using the Internet, a tool designed to copy things very quickly from one place to another; and using personal computers, tools designed to slice, dice and rearrange collections of bits. These tools demand that their users copy and slice and dice -- rip, mix and burn! -- and that's what I'm hoping you will do with this. Not (just) because I'm a swell guy, a big-hearted slob. Not because Tor is run by addlepated dot-com refugees who have been sold some snake-oil about the e-book revolution. Because you -- the readers, the slicers, dicers and copiers -- hold in your collective action the secret of the future of publishing. Writers are a dime a dozen. Everybody's got a novel in her or him. Readers are a precious commodity. You've got all the money and all the attention and you run the word-of-mouth network that marks the difference between a little book, soon forgotten, and a book that becomes a lasting piece of posterity for its author, changing the world in some meaningful way. I'm unashamedly exploiting your imagination. Imagine me a new practice of book, readers. Take this novel and pass it from inbox to inbox, through your IM clients, over P2P networks. Put it on webservers. Convert it to weird, obscure ebook formats. Show me -- and my colleagues, and my publisher -- what the future of book looks like. I'll keep on writing them if you keep on reading them. But as cool and wonderful as writing is, it's not half so cool as inventing the future. Thanks for helping me do it. Here's a summary of the license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0 Attribution. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. 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This License may not be modified without the mutual written agreement of the Licensor and You. -- Dedication For my parents. For my family. For everyone who helped me up and for everyone I let down. You know who you are. Sincerest thanks and most heartfelt apologies. Cory -- 1. I once had a Tai Chi instructor who explained the difference between Chinese and Western medicine thus: "Western medicine is based on corpses, things that you discover by cutting up dead bodies and pulling them apart. Chinese medicine is based on living flesh, things observed from vital, moving humans." The explanation, like all good propaganda, is stirring and stilted, and not particularly accurate, and gummy as the hook from a top-40 song, sticky in your mind in the sleep-deprived noontime when the world takes on a hallucinatory hypperreal clarity. Like now as I sit here in my underwear on the roof of a sanatorium in the back woods off Route 128, far enough from the perpetual construction of Boston that it's merely a cloud of dust like a herd of distant buffalo charging the plains. Like now as I sit here with a pencil up my nose, thinking about homebrew lobotomies and wouldn't it be nice if I gave myself one. Deep breath. The difference between Chinese medicine and Western medicine is the dissection versus the observation of the thing in motion. The difference between reading a story and studying a story is the difference between living the story and killing the story and looking at its guts. School! We sat in English class and we dissected the stories that I'd escaped into, laid open their abdomens and tagged their organs, covered their genitals with polite sterile drapes, recorded dutiful notes *en masse* that told us what the story was about, but never what the story *was*. Stories are propaganda, virii that slide past your critical immune system and insert themselves directly into your emotions. Kill them and cut them open and they're as naked as a nightclub in daylight. The theme. The first step in dissecting a story is euthanizing it: "What is the theme of this story?" Let me kill my story before I start it, so that I can dissect it and understand it. The theme of this story is: "Would you rather be smart or happy?" This is a work of propaganda. It's a story about choosing smarts over happiness. Except if I give the pencil a push: then it's a story about choosing happiness over smarts. It's a morality play, and the first character is about to take the stage. He's a foil for the theme, so he's drawn in simple lines. Here he is: 2. Art Berry was born to argue. There are born assassins. Bred to kill, raised on cunning and speed, they are the stuff of legend, remorseless and unstoppable. There are born ballerinas, confectionery girls whose parents subject them to rigors every bit as intense as the tripwire and poison on which the assassins are reared. There are children born to practice medicine or law; children born to serve their nations and die heroically in the noble tradition of their forebears; children born to tread the boards or shred the turf or leave smoking rubber on the racetrack. Art's earliest memory: a dream. He is stuck in the waiting room of one of the innumerable doctors who attended him in his infancy. He is perhaps three, and his attention span is already as robust as it will ever be, and in his dream -- which is fast becoming a nightmare -- he is bored silly. The only adornment in the waiting room is an empty cylinder that once held toy blocks. Its label colorfully illustrates the blocks, which look like they'd be a hell of a lot of fun, if someone hadn't lost them all. Near the cylinder is a trio of older children, infinitely fascinating. They confer briefly, then do *something* to the cylinder, and it unravels, extruding into the third dimension, turning into a stack of blocks. Aha! thinks Art, on waking. This is another piece of the secret knowledge that older people possess, the strange magic that is used to operate cars and elevators and shoelaces. Art waits patiently over the next year for a grownup to show him how the blocks-from-pictures trick works, but none ever does. Many other mysteries are revealed, each one more disappointingly mundane than the last: even flying a plane seemed easy enough when the nice stew let him ride up in the cockpit for a while en route to New York -- Art's awe at the complexity of adult knowledge fell away. By the age of five, he was stuck in a sort of perpetual terrible twos, fearlessly shouting "no" at the world's every rule, arguing the morals and reason behind them until the frustrated adults whom he was picking on gave up and swatted him or told him that that was just how it was. In the Easter of his sixth year, an itchy-suited and hard-shoed visit to church with his Gran turned into a raging holy war that had the parishioners and the clergy arguing with him in teams and relays. It started innocently enough: "Why does God care if we take off our hats, Gran?" But the nosy ladies in the nearby pews couldn't bear to simply listen in, and the argument spread like ripples on a pond, out as far as the pulpit, where the priest decided to squash the whole line of inquiry with some half-remembered philosophical word games from Descartes in which the objective truth of reality is used to prove the beneficence of God and vice-versa, and culminates with "I think therefore I am." Father Ferlenghetti even managed to work it into the thread of the sermon, but before he could go on, Art's shrill little voice answered from within the congregation. Amazingly, the six-year-old had managed to assimilate all of Descartes's fairly tricksy riddles in as long as it took to describe them, and then went on to use those same arguments to prove the necessary cruelty of God, followed by the necessary nonexistence of the Supreme Being, and Gran tried to take him home then, but the priest -- who'd watched Jesuits play intellectual table tennis and recognized a natural when he saw one -- called him to the pulpit, whence Art took on the entire congregation, singly and in bunches, as they assailed his reasoning and he built it back up, laying rhetorical traps that they blundered into with all the cunning of a cabbage. Father Ferlenghetti laughed and clarified the points when they were stuttered out by some marble-mouthed rhetorical amateur from the audience, then sat back and marveled as Art did his thing. Not much was getting done vis-a-vis sermonizing, and there was still the Communion to be administered, but God knew it had been a long time since the congregation was engaged so thoroughly with coming to grips with God and what their faith meant. Afterwards, when Art was returned to his scandalized, thin-lipped Gran, Father Ferlenghetti made a point of warmly embracing her and telling her that Art was welcome at his pulpit any time, and suggested a future in the seminary. Gran was amazed, and blushed under her Sunday powder, and the clawed hand on his shoulder became a caress. 3. The theme of this story is choosing smarts over happiness, or maybe happiness over smarts. Art's a good guy. He's smart as hell. That's his schtick. If he were a cartoon character, he'd be the pain-in-the-ass poindexter who is all the time dispelling the mysteries that fascinate his buddies. It's not easy being Art's friend. Which is, of course, how Art ("not his real name") ended up sitting 45 stories over the woodsy Massachusetts countryside, hot August wind ruffling his hair and blowing up the legs of his boxers, pencil in his nose, euthanizing his story preparatory to dissecting it. In order to preserve the narrative integrity, Art ("not his real name") may take some liberties with the truth. This is autobiographical fiction, after all, not an autobiography. Call me Art ("not my real name"). I am an agent-provocateur in the Eastern Standard Tribe, though I've spent most of my life in GMT-9 and at various latitudes of Zulu, which means that my poor pineal gland has all but forgotten how to do its job without that I drown it in melatonin precursors and treat it to multi-hour nine-kilolumen sessions in the glare of my travel lantern. The tribes are taking over the world. You can track our progress by the rise of minor traffic accidents. The sleep-deprived are terrible, terrible drivers. Daylight savings time is a widowmaker: stay off the roads on Leap Forward day! Here is the second character in the morality play. She's the love interest. Was. We broke up, just before I got sent to the sanatorium. Our circadians weren't compatible. 4. April 3, 2022 was the day that Art nearly killed the first and only woman he ever really loved. It was her fault. Art's car was running low on lard after a week in the Benelux countries, where the residents were all high-net-worth cholesterol-conscious codgers who guarded their arteries from the depredations of the frytrap as jealously as they squirreled their money away from the taxman. He was, therefore, thrilled and delighted to be back on British soil, Greenwich+0, where grease ran like water and his runabout could be kept easily and cheaply fuelled and the vodka could run down his gullet instead of into his tank. He was in the Kensington High Street on a sleepy Sunday morning, GMT0300h -- 2100h back in EDT -- and the GPS was showing insufficient data-points to even gauge traffic between his geoloc and the Camden High where he kept his rooms. When the GPS can't find enough peers on the relay network to color its maps with traffic data, you know you've hit a sweet spot in the city's uber-circadian, a moment of grace where the roads are very nearly exclusively yours. So he whistled a jaunty tune and swilled his coffium, a fad that had just made it to the UK, thanks to the loosening of rules governing the disposal of heavy water in the EU. The java just wouldn't cool off, remaining hot enough to guarantee optimal caffeine osmosis right down to the last drop. If he was jittery, it was no more so than was customary for ESTalists at GMT+0, and he was driving safely and with due caution. If the woman had looked out before stepping off the kerb and into the anemically thin road, if she hadn't been wearing stylish black in the pitchy dark of the curve before the Royal Garden Hotel, if she hadn't stepped *right in front of his runabout*, he would have merely swerved and sworn and given her a bit of a fright. But she didn't, she was, she did, and he kicked the brake as hard as he could, twisted the wheel likewise, and still clipped her hipside and sent her ass-over-teakettle before the runabout did its own barrel roll, making three complete revolutions across the Kensington High before lodging in the Royal Garden Hotel's shrubs. Art was covered in scorching, molten coffium, screaming and clawing at his eyes, upside down, when the porters from the Royal Garden opened his runabout's upside-down door, undid his safety harness and pulled him out from behind the rapidly flacciding airbag. They plunged his face into the ornamental birdbath, which had a skin of ice that shattered on his nose and jangled against his jawbone as the icy water cooled the coffium and stopped the terrible, terrible burning. He ended up on his knees, sputtering and blowing and shivering, and cleared his eyes in time to see the woman he'd hit being carried out of the middle of the road on a human travois made of the porters' linked arms of red wool and gold brocade. "Assholes!" she was hollering. "I could have a goddamn spinal injury! You're not supposed to move me!" "Look, Miss," one porter said, a young chap with the kind of fantastic dentition that only an insecure teabag would ever pay for, teeth so white and flawless they strobed in the sodium streetlamps. "Look. We can leave you in the middle of the road, right, and not move you, like we're supposed to. But if we do that, chances are you're going to get run over before the paramedics get here, and then you certainly *will* have a spinal injury, and a crushed skull besides, like as not. Do you follow me?" "You!" she said, pointing a long and accusing finger at Art. "You! Don't you watch where you're going, you fool! You could have killed me!" Art shook water off his face and blew a mist from his dripping moustache. "Sorry," he said, weakly. She had an American accent, Californian maybe, a litigious stridency that tightened his sphincter like an alum enema and miraculously flensed him of the impulse to argue. "Sorry?" she said, as the porters lowered her gently to the narrow strip turf out beside the sidewalk. "Sorry? Jesus, is that the best you can do?" "Well you *did* step out in front of my car," he said, trying to marshal some spine. She attempted to sit up, then slumped back down, wincing. "You were going too fast!" "I don't think so," he said. "I'm pretty sure I was doing 45 -- that's five clicks under the limit. Of course, the GPS will tell for sure." At the mention of empirical evidence, she seemed to lose interest in being angry. "Give me a phone, will you?" Mortals may be promiscuous with their handsets, but for a tribalist, one's relationship with one's comm is deeply personal. Art would have sooner shared his underwear. But he *had* hit her with his car. Reluctantly, Art passed her his comm. The woman stabbed at the handset with the fingers of her left hand, squinting at it in the dim light. Eventually, she clamped it to her head. "Johnny? It's Linda. Yes, I'm still in London. How's tricks out there? Good, good to hear. How's Marybeth? Oh, that's too bad. Want to hear how I am?" She grinned devilishly. "I just got hit by a car. No, just now. Five minutes ago. Of course I'm hurt! I think he broke my hip -- maybe my spine, too. Yes, I can wiggle my toes. Maybe he shattered a disc and it's sawing through the cord right now. Concussion? Oh, almost certainly. Pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, missed wages..." She looked up at Art. "You're insured, right?" Art nodded, miserably, fishing for an argument that would not come. "Half a mil, easy. Easy! Get the papers going, will you? I'll call you when the ambulance gets here. Bye. Love you too. Bye. Bye. Bye, Johnny. I got to go. Bye!" She made a kissy noise and tossed the comm back at Art. He snatched it out of the air in a panic, closed its cover reverentially and slipped it back in his jacket pocket. "C'mere," she said, crooking a finger. He knelt beside her. "I'm Linda," she said, shaking his hand, then pulling it to her chest. "Art," Art said. "Art. Here's the deal, Art. It's no one's fault, OK? It was dark, you were driving under the limit, I was proceeding with due caution. Just one of those things. But *you* did hit *me*. Your insurer's gonna have to pay out -- rehab, pain and suffering, you get it. That's going to be serious kwan. I'll go splits with you, you play along." Art looked puzzled. "Art. Art. Art. Art, here's the thing. Maybe you were distracted. Lost. Not looking. Not saying you were, but maybe. Maybe you were, and if you were, my lawyer's going to get that out of you, he's going to nail you, and I'll get a big, fat check. On the other hand, you could just, you know, cop to it. Play along. You make this easy, we'll make this easy. Split it down the middle, once my lawyer gets his piece. Sure, your premiums'll go up, but there'll be enough to cover both of us. Couldn't you use some ready cash? Lots of zeroes. Couple hundred grand, maybe more. I'm being nice here -- I could keep it all for me." "I don't think --" "Sure you don't. You're an honest man. I understand, Art. Art. Art, I understand. But what has your insurer done for you, lately? My uncle Ed, he got caught in a threshing machine, paid his premiums every week for forty years, what did he get? Nothing. Insurance companies. They're the great satan. No one likes an insurance company. Come on, Art. Art. You don't have to say anything now, but think about it, OK, Art?" She released his hand, and he stood. The porter with the teeth flashed them at him. "Mad," he said, "just mad. Watch yourself, mate. Get your solicitor on the line, I were you." He stepped back as far as the narrow sidewalk would allow and fired up his comm and tunneled to a pseudonymous relay, bouncing the call off a dozen mixmasters. He was, after all, in deep cover as a GMTalist, and it wouldn't do to have his enciphered packets' destination in the clear -- a little traffic analysis and his cover'd be blown. He velcroed the keyboard to his thigh and started chording. Trepan: Any UK solicitors on the channel? Gink-Go: Lawyers. Heh. Kill 'em all. Specially eurofag fixers. Junta: Hey, I resemble that remark Trepan: Junta, you're a UK lawyer? Gink-Go: Use autocounsel, dude. L{ia|awye}rs suck. Channel #autocounsel. Chatterbot with all major legal systems on the backend. Trepan: Whatever. I need a human lawyer. Trepan: Junta, you there? Gink-Go: Off raping humanity. Gink-Go: Fuck lawyers. Trepan: /shitlist Gink-Go ##Gink-Go added to Trepan's shitlist. Use '/unshit Gink-Go' to see messages again Gink-Go: Gink-Go: Gink-Go: Gink-Go: ##Gink-Go added to Junta's shitlist. Use '/unshit Gink-Go' to see messages again ##Gink-Go added to Thomas-hawk's shitlist. Use '/unshit Gink-Go' to see messages again ##Gink-Go added to opencolon's shitlist. Use '/unshit Gink-Go' to see messages again ##Gink-Go added to jackyardbackoff's shitlist. Use '/unshit Gink-Go' to see messages again ##Gink-Go added to freddy-kugel's shitlist. Use '/unshit Gink-Go' to see messages again opencolon: Trolls suck. Gink-Go away. Gink-Go: Gink-Go: Gink-Go: ##Gink-Go has left channel #EST.chatter Junta: You were saying? ##Junta (private) (file transfer) ##Received credential from Junta. Verifying. Credential identified: "Solicitor, registered with the Law Society to practice in England and Wales, also registered in Australia." Trepan: /private Junta I just hit a woman while driving the Kensington High Street. Her fault. She's hurt. Wants me to admit culpability in exchange for half the insurance. Advice? ##Junta (private): I beg your pardon? Trepan: /private Junta She's crazy. She just got off the phone with some kinda lawyer in the States. Says she can get $5*10^5 at least, and will split with me if I don't dispute. ##Junta (private): Bloody Americans. No offense. What kind of instrumentation recorded it? Trepan: /private Junta My GPS. Maybe some secams. Eyewitnesses, maybe. ##Junta (private): And you'll say what, exactly? That you were distracted? Fiddling with something? Trepan: /private Junta I guess. ##Junta (private): You're looking at three points off your licence. Statutory increase in premiums totalling EU 2*10^5 over five years. How's your record? ##Transferring credential "Driving record" to Junta. Receipt confirmed. ##Junta (private): Hmmm. ##Junta (private): Nothing outrageous. _Were_ you distracted? Trepan: /private Junta I guess. Maybe. ##Junta (private): You guess. Well, who would know better than you, right? My fee's 10 percent. Stop guessing. You _were_ distracted. Overtired. It's late. Regrettable. Sincerely sorry. Have her solicitor contact me directly. I'll meet you here at 1000h GMT/0400h EDT and go over it with you, yes? Agreeable? Trepan: /private Junta Agreed. Thanks. ##Junta (private) (file transfer) ##Received smartcontract from Junta. Verifying. Smartcontract "Representation agreement" verified. Trepan: /join #autocounsel counselbot: Welcome, Trepan! How can I help you? ##Transferring smartcontract "Representation agreement" to counselbot. Receipt confirmed. Trepan: /private counselbot What is the legal standing of this contract? ##counselbot (private): Smartcontract "Representation agreement" is an ISO standard representation agreement between a client and a solicitor for purposes of litigation in the UK. ##autocounsel (private) (file transfer) ##Received "representation agreement faq uk 2.3.2 2JAN22" from autocounsel. Trepan: /join #EST.chatter Trepan: /private Junta It's a deal ##Transferring key-signed smartcontract "Representation agreement" to Junta. Receipt confirmed. Trepan: /quit Gotta go, thanks! ##Trepan has left channel #EST.chatter "Gotta go, thanks!" 5. Once the messy business of negotiating EU healthcare for foreign nationals had been sorted out with the EMTs and the Casualty Intake triage, once they'd both been digested and shat out by a dozen diagnostic devices from X-rays to MRIs, once the harried house officers had impersonally prodded them and presented them both with hardcopy FAQs for their various injuries (second-degree burns, mild shock for Art; pelvic dislocation, minor kidney bruising, broken femur, whiplash, concussion and mandible trauma for Linda), they found themselves in adjacent beds in the recovery room, which bustled as though it, too, were working on GMT-5, busy as a 9PM restaurant on a Saturday night. Art had an IV taped to the inside of his left arm, dripping saline and tranqs, making him logy and challenging his circadians. Still, he was the more mobile of the two, as Linda was swaddled in smartcasts that both immobilized her and massaged her, all the while osmosing transdermal antiinflammatories and painkillers. He tottered the two steps to the chair at her bedside and shook her hand again. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like hell," he said. She smiled. Her jaw made an audible pop. "Get a picture, will you? It'll be good in court." He chuckled. "No, seriously. Get a picture." So he took out his comm and snapped a couple pix, including one with nightvision filters on to compensate for the dimmed recovery room lighting. "You're a cool customer, you know that?" he said, as he tucked his camera away. "Not so cool. This is all a coping strategy. I'm pretty shook up, you want to know the truth. I could have died." "What were you doing on the street at three AM anyway?" "I was upset, so I took a walk, thought I'd get something to eat or a beer or something." "You haven't been here long, huh?" She laughed, and it turned into a groan. "What the hell is wrong with the English, anyway? The sun sets and the city rolls up its streets. It's not like they've got this great tradition of staying home and surfing cable or anything." "They're all snug in their beds, farting away their lentil roasts." "That's it! You can't get a steak here to save your life. Mad cows, all of 'em. If I see one more gray soy sausage, I'm going to kill the waitress and eat *her*." "You just need to get hooked up," he said. "Once we're out of here, I'll take you out for a genuine blood pudding, roast beef and oily chips. I know a place." "I'm drooling. Can I borrow your phone again? Uh, I think you're going to have to dial for me." "That's OK. Give me the number." She did, and he cradled his comm to her head. He was close enough to her that he could hear the tinny, distinctive ringing of a namerican circuit at the other end. He heard her shallow breathing, heard her jaw creak. He smelled her shampoo, a free-polymer new-car smell, smelled a hint of her sweat. A cord stood out on her neck, merging in an elegant vee with her collarbone, an arrow pointing at the swell of her breast under her paper gown. "Toby, it's Linda." A munchkin voice chittered down the line. "Shut up, OK. Shut up. Shut. I'm in the hospital." More chipmunk. "Got hit by a car. I'll be OK. No. Shut up. I'll be fine. I'll send you the FAQs. I just wanted to say. . ." She heaved a sigh, closed her eyes. "You know what I wanted to say. Sorry, all right? Sorry it came to this. You'll be OK. I'll be OK. I just didn't want to leave you hanging." She sounded groggy, but there was a sob there, too. "I can't talk long. I'm on a shitload of dope. Yes, it's good dope. I'll call you later. I don't know when I'm coming back, but we'll sort it out there, all right? OK. Shut up. OK. You too." She looked up at Art. "My boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Not sure who's leaving who at this point. Thanks." She closed her eyes. Her eyelids were mauve, a tracery of pink veins. She snored softly. Art set an alarm that would wake him up in time to meet his lawyer, folded up his comm and crawled back into bed. His circadians swelled and crashed against the sides of his skull, and before he knew it, he was out. 6. Hospitals operate around the clock, but they still have their own circadians. The noontime staff were still overworked and harried but chipper and efficient, too, without the raccoon-eyed jitters of the night before. Art and Linda were efficiently fed, watered and evacuated, then left to their own devices, blinking in the weak English sunlight that streamed through the windows. "The lawyers've worked it out, I think," Art said. "Good. Good news." She was dopamine-heavy, her words lizard-slow. Art figured her temper was drugged senseless, and it gave him the courage to ask her the question that'd been on his mind since they'd met. "Can I ask you something? It may be offensive." "G'head. I may be offended." "Do you do. . .this. . .a lot? I mean, the insurance thing?" She snorted, then moaned. "It's the Los Angeles Lottery, dude. I haven't done it before, but I was starting to feel a little left out, to tell the truth." "I thought screenplays were the LA Lotto." "Naw. A good lotto is one you can win." She favored him with half a smile and he saw that she had a lopsided, left-hand dimple. "You're from LA, then?" "Got it in one. Orange County. I'm a third-generation failed actor. Grandpa once had a line in a Hitchcock film. Mom was the ditzy neighbor on a three-episode Fox sitcom in the 90s. I'm still waiting for my moment in the sun. You live here?" "For now. Since September. I'm from Toronto." "Canadia! Goddamn snowbacks. What are you doing in London?" His comm rang, giving him a moment to gather his cover story. "Hello?" "Art! It's Fede!" Federico was another provocateur in GMT. He wasn't exactly Art's superior -- the tribes didn't work like that -- but he had seniority. "Fede -- can I call you back?" "Look, I heard about your accident, and I wouldn't have called, but it's urgent." Art groaned and rolled his eyes in Linda's direction to let her know that he, too, was exasperated by the call, then retreated to the other side of his bed and hunched over. "What is it?" "We've been sniffed. I'm four-fifths positive." Art groaned again. Fede lived in perennial terror of being found out and exposed as an ESTribesman, fired, deported, humiliated. He was always at least three-fifths positive, and the extra fifth was hardly an anomaly. "What's up now?" "It's the VP of HR at Virgin/Deutsche Telekom. He's called me in for a meeting this afternoon. Wants to go over the core hours recommendation." Fede was a McKinsey consultant offline, producing inflammatory recommendation packages for Fortune 100 companies. He was working the lazy-Euro angle, pushing for extra daycare, time off for sick relatives and spouses. The last policy binder he'd dumped on V/DT had contained enough obscure leave-granting clauses that an employee who was sufficiently lawyer-minded could conceivably claim 450 days of paid leave a year. Now he was pushing for the abolishment of "core hours," Corporate Eurospeak for the time after lunch but before afternoon naps when everyone showed up at the office, so that they could get some face-time. Enough of this, and GMT would be the laughingstock of the world, and so caught up in internecine struggles that the clear superiority of the stress-feeding EST ethos would sweep them away. That was the theory, anyway. Of course, there were rival Tribalists in every single management consulting firm in the world working against us. Management consultants have always worked on old-boys' networks, after all -- it was a very short step from interning your frat buddy to interning your Tribesman. "That's it? A meeting? Jesus, it's just a meeting. He probably wants you to reassure him before he presents to the CEO, is all." "No, I'm sure that's not it. He's got us sniffed -- both of us. He's been going through the product-design stuff, too, which is totally outside of his bailiwick. I tried to call him yesterday and his voicemail rolled over to a boardroom in O'Malley House." O'Malley House was the usability lab, a nice old row of connected Victorian townhouses just off Picadilly. It was where Art consulted out of. Also, two-hundred-odd usability specialists, product designers, experience engineers, cog-psych cranks and other tinkerers with the mind. They were the hairface hackers of Art's generation, unmanageable creative darlings -- no surprise that the VP of HR would have cause to spend a little face-time with someone there. Try telling Fede that, though. "All right, Fede, what do you want me to do?" "Just -- Just be careful. Sanitize your storage. I'm pushing a new personal key to you now, too. Here, I'll read you the fingerprint." The key would be an unimaginably long string of crypto-gibberish, and just to make sure that it wasn't intercepted and changed en route, Fede wanted to read him a slightly less long mathematical fingerprint hashed out of it. Once it arrived, Art was supposed to generate a fingerprint from Fede's new key and compare it to the one that Fede wanted him to jot down. Art closed his eyes and reclined. "All right, I've got a pen," he said, though he had no such thing. Fede read him the long, long string of digits and characters and he repeated them back, pretending to be noting them down. Paranoid bastard. "OK, I got it. I'll get you a new key later today, all right?" "Do it quick, man." "Whatever, Fede. Back off, OK?" "Sorry, sorry. Oh, and feel better, all right?" "Bye, Fede." "What was *that*?" Linda had her neck craned around to watch him. He slipped into his cover story with a conscious effort. "I'm a user-experience consultant. My coworkers are all paranoid about a deadline." She rolled her eyes. "Not another one. God. Look, we go out for dinner, don't say a word about the kerb design or the waiter or the menu or the presentation, OK? OK? I'm serious." Art solemnly crossed his heart. "Who else do you know in the biz?" "My ex. He wouldn't or couldn't shut up about how much everything sucked. He was right, but so what? I wanted to enjoy it, suckitude and all." "OK, I promise. We're going out for dinner, then?" "The minute I can walk, you're taking me out for as much flesh and entrails as I can eat." "It's a deal." And then they both slept again. 7. Met cute, huh? Linda was short and curvy, dark eyes and pursed lips and an hourglass figure that she thought made her look topheavy and big-assed, but I thought she was fabulous and soft and bouncy. She tasted like pepper, and her hair smelled of the abstruse polymers that kept it hanging in a brusque bob that brushed her firm, long jawline. I'm getting a sunburn, and the pebbles on the roof are digging into my ass. I don't know if I'm going to push the pencil or not, but if I do, it's going to be somewhere more comfortable than this roof. Except that the roof door, which I had wedged open before I snuck away from my attendants and slunk up the firecode-mandated stairwell, is locked. The small cairn of pebbles that I created in front of it has been strewn apart. It is locked tight. And me without my comm. Ah, me. I take an inventory of my person: a pencil, a hospital gown, a pair of boxer shorts and a head full of bad cess. I am 450' above the summery, muggy, verdant Massachusetts countryside. It is very hot, and I am turning the color of the Barbie aisle at FAO Schwartz, a kind of labial pink that is both painful and perversely cheerful. I've spent my life going in the back door and coming out the side door. That's the way it is now. When it only takes two years for your job to morph into something that would have been unimaginable twenty-four months before, it's not really practical to go in through the front door. Not really practical to get the degree, the certification, the appropriate experience. I mean, even if you went back to university, the major you'd need by the time you graduated would be in a subject that hadn't been invented when you enrolled. So I'm good at back doors and side doors. It's what the Tribe does for me -- provides me with entries into places where I technically don't belong. And thank God for them, anyway. Without the Tribes, *no one* would be qualified to do *anything* worth doing. Going out the side door has backfired on me today, though. Oh. Shit. I peer over the building's edge, down into the parking lot. The cars are thinly spread, the weather too fine for anyone out there in the real world to be visiting with their crazy relatives. Half a dozen beaters are parked down there, methane-breathers that the ESTalists call fartmobiles. I'd been driving something much the same on that fateful Leap Forward day in London. I left something out of my inventory: pebbles. The roof is littered, covered with a layer of gray, round riverstones, about the size of wasabi chickpeas. No one down there is going to notice me all the way up here. Not without that I give them a sign. A cracked windshield or two ought to do it. I gather a small pile of rocks by the roof's edge and carefully take aim. I have to be cautious. Careful. A pebble dropped from this height -- I remember the stories about the penny dropped from the top of the CN Tower that sunk six inches into the concrete below. I select a small piece of gravel and carefully aim for the windshield of a little blue Sony Veddic and it's bombs away. I can only follow the stone's progress for a few seconds before my eyes can no longer disambiguate it from the surrounding countryside. What little I do see of its trajectory is disheartening, though: the wind whips it away on an almost horizontal parabola, off towards Boston. Forgetting all about Newton, I try lobbing and then hurling the gravel downward, but it gets taken away, off to neverneverland, and the windscreens remain whole. I go off to prospect for bigger rocks. You know the sort of horror movie where the suspense builds and builds and builds, partially collapsed at regular intervals by something jumping out and yelling "Boo!" whereupon the heroes have to flee, deeper into danger, and the tension rises and rises? You know how sometimes the director just doesn't know when to quit, and the bogeymen keep jumping out and yelling boo, the wobbly bridges keep on collapsing, the small arms fire keeps blowing out more windows in the office tower? It's not like the tension goes away -- it just get boring. Boring tension. You know that the climax is coming soon, that any minute now Our Hero will face down the archvillain and either kick his ass or have his ass kicked, the whole world riding on the outcome. You know that it will be satisfying, with much explosions and partial nudity. You know that afterward, Our Hero will retire to the space-bar and chill out and collect kisses from the love interest and that we'll all have a moment to get our adrenals back under control before the hand pops out of the grave and we all give a nervous jump and start eagerly anticipating the sequel. You just wish it would *happen* already. You just wish that the little climaces could be taken as read, that the director would trust the audience to know that Our Hero really does wade through an entire ocean of shit en route to the final showdown. I'm bored with being excited. I've been betrayed, shot at, institutionalized and stranded on the roof of a nuthouse, and I just want the fucking climax to come by and happen to me, so that I can know: smart or happy. I've found a half-brick that was being used to hold down the tar paper around an exhaust-chimney. I should've used that to hold the door open, but it's way the hell the other side of the roof, and I'd been really pleased with my little pebbly doorstop. Besides, I'm starting to suspect that the doorjamb didn't fail, that it was sabotaged by some malevolently playful goon from the sanatorium. An object lesson or something. I heft the brick. I release the brick. It falls, and falls, and falls, and hits the little blue fartmobile square on the trunk, punching a hole through the cheap aluminum lid. And the fartmobile explodes. First there is a geyser of blue flame as the tank's puncture wound jets a stream of ignited assoline skyward, and then it blows back into the tank and *boom*, the fartmobile is in one billion shards, rising like a parachute in an updraft. I can feel the heat on my bare, sun-tender skin, even from this distance. Explosions. Partial nudity. Somehow, though, I know that this isn't the climax. 8. Linda didn't like to argue -- fight: yes, argue: no. That was going to be a problem, Art knew, but when you're falling in love, you're able to rationalize all kinds of things. The yobs who cornered them on the way out of a bloody supper of contraband, antisocial animal flesh were young, large and bristling with testosterone. They wore killsport armor with strategic transparent panels that revealed their steroid-curdled muscles, visible through the likewise transparent insets they'd had grafted in place of the skin that covered their abs and quads. There were three of them, grinning and flexing, and they boxed in Art and Linda in the tiny, shuttered entrance of a Boots Pharmacy. "Evening, sir, evening, miss," one said. "Hey," Art muttered and looked over the yob's shoulder, trying to spot a secam or a cop. Neither was in sight. "I wonder if we could beg a favor of you?" another said. "Sure," Art said. "You're American, aren't you?" the third said. "Canadian, actually." "Marvelous. Bloody marvelous. I hear that Canada's a lovely place. How are you enjoying England?" "I live here, actually. I like it a lot." "Glad to hear that, sir. And you, Miss?" Linda was wide-eyed, halfway behind Art. "It's fine." "Good to hear," the first one said, grinning even more broadly. "Now, as to that favor. My friends and I, we've got a problem. We've grown bored of our wallets. They are dull and uninteresting." "And empty," the third one interjected, with a little, stoned giggle. "Oh yes, and empty. We thought, well, perhaps you visitors from abroad would find them suitable souvenirs of England. We thought perhaps you'd like to trade, like?" Art smiled in spite of himself. He hadn't been mugged in London, but he'd heard of this. Ever since a pair of Manchester toughs had been acquitted based on the claim that their robbery and menacing of a Pakistani couple had been a simple cross-cultural misunderstanding, crafty British yobs had been taking off increasingly baroque scores from tourists. Art felt the familiar buzz that meant he was about to get into an argument, and before he knew it, he was talking: "Do you really think that'd hold up in court? I think that even the dimmest judge would be able to tell that the idea of a Canadian being mistaken about trading two wallets full of cash for three empty ones was in no way an error in cross-cultural communication. Really now. If you're going to mug us --" "Mug you, sir? Dear oh dear, who's mugging you?" the first one said. "Well, in that case, you won't mind if we say no, right?" "Well, it would be rather rude," the first said. "After all, we're offering you a souvenir in the spirit of transatlantic solidarity. Genuine English leather, mine is. Belonged to my grandfather." "Let me see it," Art said. "Beg pardon?" "I want to see it. If we're going to trade, I should be able to examine the goods first, right?" "All right, sir, all right, here you are." The wallet was tattered and leather, and it was indeed made in England, as the frayed tag sewn into the billfold attested. Art turned it over in his hands, then, still smiling, emptied the card slot and started paging through the ID. "Lester?" Lester swore under his breath. "Les, actually. Hand those over, please -- they don't come with the wallet." "They don't? But surely a real British wallet is hardly complete without real British identification. Maybe I could keep the NHS card, something to show around to Americans. They think socialized medicine is a fairy tale, you know." "I really must insist, sir." "Fuck it, Les," the second one said, reaching into his pocket. "This is stupid. Get the money, and let's push off." "It's not that easy any more, is it?" the third one said. "Fellow's got your name, Les. 'Sbad." "Well, yes, of course I do," Art said. "But so what? You three are hardly nondescript. You think it'd be hard to pick your faces out of a rogues gallery? Oh, and wait a minute! Isn't this a trade? What happened to the spirit of transatlantic solidarity?" "Right," Les said. "Don't matter if you've got my name, 'cos we're all friends, right, sir?" "Right!" Art said. He put the tattered wallet in his already bulging jacket pocket, making a great show of tamping it down so it wouldn't come loose. Once his hand was free, he extended it. "Art Berry. Late of Toronto. Pleased to meetcha!" Les shook his hand. "I'm Les. These are my friends, Tony and Tom." "Fuck!" Tom, the second one, said. "Les, you stupid cunt! Now they got our names, too!" The hand he'd put in his pocket came out, holding a tazer that sparked and hummed. "Gotta get rid of 'em now." Art smiled, and reached very slowly into his pocket. He pulled out his comm, dislodging Les's wallet so that it fell to the street. Les, Tom and Tony stared at the glowing comm in his hand. "Could you repeat that, Tom? I don't think the 999 operator heard you clearly." Tom stared dumbfounded at the comm, watching it as though it were a snake. The numbers "999" were clearly visible on its display, along with the position data that pinpointed its location to the meter. Les turned abruptly and began walking briskly towards the tube station. In a moment, Tony followed, leaving Tom alone, the tazer still hissing and spitting. His face contorted with frustrated anger, and he feinted with the tazer, barking a laugh when Art and Linda cringed back, then he took off at a good run after his mates. Art clamped the comm to his head. "They've gone away," he announced, prideful. "Did you get that exchange? There were three of them and they've gone away." From the comm came a tight, efficient voice, a male emergency operator. The speech was accented, and it took a moment to place it. Then Art remembered that the overnight emergency call-centers had been outsourced by the English government to low-cost cube-farms in Manila. "Yes, Mr. Berry." His comm had already transmitted his name, immigration status and location, creating a degree of customization more typical of fast-food delivery than governmental bureaucracies. That was bad, Art thought, professionally. GMT polezeidom was meant to be a solid wall of oatmeal-thick bureaucracy, courtesy of some crafty, anonymous PDTalist. "Please, stay at your current location. The police will be on the scene shortly. Very well done, sir." Art turned to Linda, triumphant, ready for the traditional, postrhetorical accolades that witnesses of his verbal acrobatics were wont to dole out, and found her in an attitude of abject terror. Her eyes were crazily wide, the whites visible around the irises -- something he'd read about but never seen firsthand. She was breathing shallowly and had gone ashen. Though they were not an actual couple yet, Art tried to gather her into his arms for some manly comforting, but she was stiff in his embrace, and after a moment, planted her palms on his chest and pushed him back firmly, even aggressively. "Are you all right?" he asked. He was adrenalized, flushed. "*What if they'd decided to kill us*?" she said, spittle flying from her lips. "Oh, they weren't going to hurt us," he said. "No guts at all." "God*dammit*, you didn't know that! Where do you get off playing around with *my* safety? Why the hell didn't you just hand over your wallet, call the cops and be done with it? Macho fucking horseshit!" The triumph was fading, fast replaced by anger. "What's wrong with you? Do you always have to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? I just beat off those three assholes without raising a hand, and all you want to do is criticize? Christ, OK, next time we can hand over our wallets. Maybe they'll want a little rape, too -- should I go along with that? You just tell me what the rules are, and I'll be sure and obey them." "You fucking *pig*! Where the fuck do you get off raising your voice to me? And don't you *ever* joke about rape. It's not even slightly funny, you arrogant fucking prick." Art's triumph deflated. "Jesus," he said, "Jesus, Linda, I'm sorry. I didn't realize how scared you must have been --" "You don't know what you're talking about. I've been mugged a dozen times. I hand over my wallet, cancel my cards, go to my insurer. No one's ever hurt me. I wasn't the least bit scared until you opened up your big goddamned mouth." "Sorry, sorry. Sorry about the rape crack. I was just trying to make a point. I didn't know --" He wanted to say, *I didn't know you'd been raped*, but thought better of it -- "it was so...*personal* for you --" "Oh, Christ. Just because I don't want to joke about rape, you think I'm some kind of *victim*, that *I've* been raped" -- Art grimaced -- "well, I haven't, shithead. But it's not something you should be using as a goddamned example in one of your stupid points. Rape is serious." The cops arrived then, two of them on scooters, looking like meter maids. Art and Linda glared at each other for a moment, then forced smiles at the cops, who had dismounted and shed their helmets. They were young men, in their twenties, and to Art, they looked like kids playing dress up. "Evening sir, miss," one said. "I'm PC McGivens and this is PC DeMoss. You called emergency services?" McGivens had his comm out and it was pointed at them, slurping in their identity on police override. "Yes," Art said. "But it's OK now. They took off. One of them left his wallet behind." He bent and picked it up and made to hand it to PC DeMoss, who was closer. The cop ignored it. "Please sir, put that down. We'll gather the evidence." Art lowered it to the ground, felt himself blushing. His hands were shaking now, whether from embarrassment, triumph or hurt he couldn't say. He held up his now-empty palms in a gesture of surrender. "Step over here, please, sir," PC McGivens said, and led him off a short ways, while PC Blaylock closed on Linda. "Now, sir," McGivens said, in a businesslike way, "please tell me exactly what happened." So Art did, tastefully omitting the meat-parlor where the evening's festivities had begun. He started to get into it, to evangelize his fast-thinking bravery with the phone. McGivens obliged him with a little grin. "Very good. Now, again, please, sir?" "I'm sorry?" Art said. "Can you repeat it, please? Procedure." "Why?" "Can't really say, sir. It's procedure." Art thought about arguing, but managed to control the impulse. The man was a cop, he was a foreigner -- albeit a thoroughly documented one -- and what would it cost? He'd probably left something out anyway. He retold the story from the top, speaking slowly and clearly. PC McGivens aimed his comm Artwards, and tapped out the occasional note as Art spoke. "Thank you sir. Now, once more, please?" Art blew out an exasperated sigh. His feet hurt, and his bladder was swollen with drink. "You're joking." "No sir, I'm afraid not. Procedure." "But it's stupid! The guys who tried to mug us are long gone, I've given you their descriptions, you have their *identification* --" But they didn't, not yet. The wallet still lay where Art had dropped it. PC McGivens shook his head slowly, as though marveling at the previously unsuspected inanity of his daily round. "All very true, sir, but it's procedure. Worked out by some clever lad using statistics. All this, it increases our success rate. 'Sproven." Here it was. Some busy tribalist provocateur, some compatriot of Fede, had stirred the oats into Her Majesty's Royal Constabulary. Art snuck a look at Linda, who was no doubt being subjected to the same procedure by PC DeMoss. She'd lost her rigid, angry posture, and was seemingly -- amazingly -- enjoying herself, chatting up the constable like an old pal. "How many more times have we got to do this, officer?" "This is the last time you'll have to repeat it to me." Art's professional instincts perked up at the weasel words in the sentence. "To you? Who else do I need to go over this with?" The officer shook his head, caught out. "Well, you'll have to repeat it three times to PC DeMoss, once he's done with your friend, sir. Procedure." "How about this," Art says, "how about I record this last statement to you with my comm, and then I can *play it back* three times for PC DeMoss?" "Oh, I'm sure that won't do, sir. Not really the spirit of the thing, is it?" "And what *is* the spirit of the thing? Humiliation? Boredom? An exercise in raw power?" PC McGivens lost his faint smile. "I really couldn't say, sir. Now, again if you please?" "What if I don't please? I haven't been assaulted. I haven't been robbed. It's none of my business. What if I walk away right now?" "Not really allowed, sir. It's expected that everyone in England -- HM's subjects *and her guests* -- will assist the police with their inquiries. Required, actually." Reminded of his precarious immigration status, Art lost his attitude. "Once more for you, three more times for your partner, and we're done, right? I want to get home." "We'll see, sir." Art recited the facts a third time, and they waited while Linda finished her third recounting. He switched over to PC DeMoss, who pointed his comm expectantly. "Is all this just to make people reluctant to call the cops? I mean, this whole procedure seems like a hell of a disincentive." "Just the way we do things, sir," PC DeMoss said without rancor. "Now, let's have it, if you please?" From a few yards away, Linda laughed at something PC McGivens said, which just escalated Art's frustration. He spat out the description three times fast. "Now, I need to find a toilet. Are we done yet?" "'Fraid not, sir. Going to have to come by the Station House to look through some photos. There's a toilet there." "It can't wait that long, officer." PC DeMoss gave him a reproachful look. "I'm sorry, all right?" Art said. "I lack the foresight to empty my bladder before being accosted in the street. That being said, can we arrive at some kind of solution?" In his head, Art was already writing an angry letter to the *Times*, dripping with sarcasm. "Just a moment, sir," PC DeMoss said. He conferred briefly with his partner, leaving Art to stare ruefully at their backs and avoid Linda's gaze. When he finally met it, she gave him a sunny smile. It seemed that she -- at least -- wasn't angry any more. "Come this way, please, sir," PC DeMoss said, striking off for the High Street. "There's a pub 'round the corner where you can use the facilities." 9. It was nearly dawn before they finally made their way out of the police station and back into the street. After identifying Les from an online rogues' gallery, Art had spent the next six hours sitting on a hard bench, chording desultorily on his thigh, doing some housekeeping. This business of being an agent-provocateur was complicated in the extreme, though it had sounded like a good idea when he was living in San Francisco and hating every inch of the city, from the alleged pizza to the fucking! drivers! -- in New York, the theory went, drivers used their horns by way of shouting "Ole!" as in, "Ole! You changed lanes!" "Ole! You cut me off!" "Ole! You're driving on the sidewalk!" while in San Francisco, a honking horn meant, "I wish you were dead. Have a nice day. Dude." And the body language was all screwed up out west. Art believed that your entire unconscious affect was determined by your upbringing. You learned how to stand, how to hold your face in repose, how to gesture, from the adults around you while you were growing up. The Pacific Standard Tribe always seemed a little bovine to him, their facial muscles long conditioned to relax into a kind of spacey, gullible senescence. Beauty, too. Your local definition of attractive and ugly was conditioned by the people around you at puberty. There was a Pacific "look" that was indefinably off. Hard to say what it was, just that when he went out to a bar or got stuck on a crowded train, the girls just didn't seem all that attractive to him. Objectively, he could recognize their prettiness, but it didn't stir him the way the girls cruising the Chelsea Antiques Market or lounging around Harvard Square could. He'd always felt at a slight angle to reality in California, something that was reinforced by his continuous efforts in the Tribe, from chatting and gaming until the sun rose, dragging his caffeine-deficient ass around to his clients in a kind of fog before going home, catching a nap and hopping back online at 3 or 4 when the high-octane NYC early risers were practicing work-avoidance and clattering around with their comms. Gradually, he penetrated deeper into the Tribe, getting invites into private channels, intimate environments where he found himself spilling the most private details of his life. The Tribe stuck together, finding work for each other, offering advice, and it was only a matter of time before someone offered him a gig. That was Fede, who practically invented Tribal agent-provocateurs. He'd been working for McKinsey, systematically undermining their GMT-based clients with plausibly terrible advice, creating Achilles' heels that their East-coast competitors could exploit. The entire European trust-architecture for relay networks had been ceded by Virgin/Deutsche Telekom to a scrappy band of AT&T Labs refugees whose New Jersey headquarters hosted all the cellular reputation data that Euros' comms consulted when they were routing their calls. The Jersey clients had funneled a nice chunk of the proceeds to Fede's account in the form of rigged winnings from an offshore casino that the Tribe used to launder its money. Now V/DT was striking back, angling for a government contract in Massachusetts, a fat bit of pork for managing payments to rightsholders whose media was assessed at the MassPike's tollbooths. Rights-societies were a fabulous opportunity to skim and launder and spindle money in plenty, and Virgin's massive repertoire combined with Deutsche Telekom's Teutonic attention to detail was a tough combination to beat. Needless to say, the Route 128-based Tribalists who had the existing contract needed an edge, and would pay handsomely for it. London nights seemed like a step up from San Francisco mornings to Art -- instead of getting up at 4AM to get NYC, he could sleep in and chat them up through the night. The Euro sensibility, with its many nap-breaks, statutory holidays and extended vacations seemed ideally suited to a double agent's life. But Art hadn't counted on the Tribalists' hands-on approach to his work. They obsessively grepped his daily feed of spreadsheets, whiteboard-output, memos and conversation reports for any of ten thousand hot keywords, querying him for deeper detail on trivial, half-remembered bullshit sessions with the V/DT's user experience engineers. His comm buzzed and blipped at all hours, and his payoff was dependent on his prompt response. They were running him ragged. Four hours in the police station gave Art ample opportunity to catch up on the backlog of finicky queries. Since the accident, he'd been distracted and tardy, and had begun to invent his responses, since it all seemed so trivial to him anyway. Fede had sent him about a thousand nagging notes reminding him to generate a new key and phone with the fingerprint. Christ. Fede had been with McKinsey for most of his adult life, and he was superparanoid about being exposed and disgraced in their ranks. Art's experience with the other McKinsey people around the office suggested that the notion of any of those overpaid buzzword-slingers sniffing their traffic was about as likely as a lightning strike. Heaving a dramatic sigh for his own benefit, he began the lengthy process of generating enough randomness to seed the key, mashing the keyboard, whispering nonsense syllables, and pointing the comm's camera lens at arbitrary corners of the police station. After ten minutes of crypto-Tourette's, the comm announced that he'd been sufficiently random and prompted him for a passphrase. Jesus. What a pain in the ass. He struggled to recall all the words to the theme song from a CBC sitcom he'd watched as a kid, and then his comm went into a full-on churn as it laboriously re-ciphered all of his stored files with the new key, leaving Art to login while he waited. Trepan: Afternoon! Colonelonic: Hey, Trepan. How's it going? Trepan: Foul. I'm stuck at a copshop in London with my thumb up my ass. I got mugged. Colonelonic: Yikes! You OK? Ballgravy: Shit! Trepan: Oh, I'm fine -- just bored. They didn't hurt me. I commed 999 while they were running their game and showed it to them when they got ready to do the deed, so they took off. ##Colonelonic laughs Ballgravy: Britain==ass. Lon-dong. Colonelonic: Sweet! Trepan: Thanks. Now if the cops would only finish the paperwork... Colonelonic: What are you doing in London, anyway? Ballgravy: Ass ass ass Colonelonic: Shut up, Bgravy Ballgravy: Blow me Trepan: What's wrong with you, Ballgravy? We're having a grown-up conversation here Ballgravy: Just don't like Brits. Trepan: What, all of them? Ballgravy: Whatever -- all the ones I've met have been tight-ass pricks ##Colonelonic: (private) He's just a troll, ignore him private Colonelonic: Watch this Trepan: How many? Ballgravy: How many what? Trepan: Have you met? Ballgravy: Enough Trepan: > 100? Ballgravy: No Trepan: > 50? Ballgravy: No Trepan: > 10? Ballgravy: Around 10 Trepan: Where are you from? Ballgravy: Queens Trepan: Well, you're not going to believe this, but you're the tenth person from Queens I've met -- and you're all morons who pick fights with strangers in chat-rooms Colonelonic: Queens==ass Trepan: Ass ass ass Ballgravy: Fuck you both ##Ballgravy has left channel #EST.chatter Colonelonic: Nicely done Colonelonic: He's been boring me stupid for the past hour, following me from channel to channel Colonelonic: What are you doing in London, anyway? Trepan: Like I said, waiting for the cops Colonelonic: But why are you there in the first place Trepan: /private Colonelonic It's a work thing. For EST. ##Colonelonic: (private) No shit? Trepan: /private Colonelonic Yeah. Can't really say much more, you understand ##Colonelonic: (private) Cool! Any more jobs? One more day at Merril-Lynch and I'm gonna kill someone Trepan: /private Colonelonic Sorry, no. There must be some perks though. ##Colonelonic: (private) I can pick fights with strangers in chat rooms! Also, I get to play with Lexus-Nexus all I want Trepan: /private Colonelonic That's pretty rad, anyway ##Ballgravy has joined channel #EST.chatter Ballgravy: Homos Trepan: Oh Christ, are you back again, Queens? Colonelonic: I've gotta go anyway Trepan: See ya ##Colonelonic has left channel #EST.chatter ##Trepan has left channel #EST.chatter Art stood up and blinked. He approached the desk sergeant and asked if he thought it would be much longer. The sergeant fiddled with a comm for a moment, then said, "Oh, we're quite done with you sir, thank you." Art repressed a vituperative response, counted three, then thanked the cop. He commed Linda. "What's up?" "They say we're free to go. I think they've been just keeping us here for shits and giggles. Can you believe that?" "Whatever -- I've been having a nice chat with Constable McGivens. Constable, is it all right if we go now?" There was some distant, English rumbling, then Linda giggled. "All right, then. Thank you so much, officer! "Art? I'll meet you at the front doors, all right?" "That's great," Art said. He stretched. His ass was numb, his head throbbed, and he wanted to strangle Linda. She emerged into the dawn blinking and grinning, and surprised him with a long, full-body hug. "Sorry I was so snappish before," she said. "I was just scared. The cops say that you were quite brave. Thank you." Art's adrenals dry-fired as he tried to work up a good angry head of steam, then he gave up. "It's all right." "Let's go get some breakfast, OK?" 10. The parking-lot is aswarm with people, fire engines and ambulances. There's a siren going off somewhere down in the bowels of the sanatorium, and still I can't get anyone to look up at the goddamned roof. I've tried hollering myself hoarse into the updrafts from the cheery blaze, but the wind's against me, my shouts rising up past my ears. I've tried dropping more pebbles, but the winds whip them away, and I've learned my lesson about half-bricks. Weirdly, I'm not worried about getting into trouble. I've already been involuntarily committed by the Tribe's enemies, the massed and devious forces of the Pacific Daylight Tribe and the Greenwich Mean Tribe. I am officially Not Responsible. Confused and Prone to Wandering. Coo-Coo for Coco-Puffs. It's not like I hurt anyone, just decremented the number of roadworthy fartmobiles by one. I got up this morning at four, awakened by the tiniest sound from the ward corridors, a wheel from a pharmaceuticals tray maybe. Three weeks on medically prescribed sleepytime drugs have barely scratched the surface of the damage wrought by years of circadian abuse. I'd been having a fragile shadow of a dream, the ghost of a REM cycle, and it was the old dream, the dream of the doctor's office and the older kids who could manage the trick of making a picture into reality. I went from that state to total wakefulness in an instant, and knew to a certainty that I wouldn't be sleeping again any time soon. I paced my small room, smelled the cheerful flowers my cousins brought last week when they visited from Toronto, watched the horizon for signs of a breaking dawn. I wished futilely for my comm and a nice private channel where I could sling some bullshit and have some slung in my direction, just connect with another human being at a nice, safe remove. They chide me for arguing on the ward, call it belligerence and try to sidetrack me with questions about my motivations, a tactic rating barely above ad hominems in my book. No one to talk to -- the other patients get violent or nod off, depending on their medication levels, and the staff just patronize me. Four AM and I'm going nuts, hamsters in my mind spinning their wheels at a thousand RPM, chittering away. I snort -- if I wasn't crazy to begin with, I'm sure getting there. The hamsters won't stop arguing with each other over all the terrible errors of judgment I've made to get here. Trusting the Tribe, trusting strangers. Argue, argue, argue. God, if only someone else were around, I could argue the definition of sanity, I could argue the ethics of involuntary committal, I could argue the food. But my head is full of argument and there's nowhere to spill it and soon enough I'll be talking aloud, arguing with the air like the schizoids on the ward who muttergrumbleshout through the day and through the night. Why didn't I just leave London when I could, come home, move in with Gran, get a regular job? Why didn't I swear off the whole business of secrecy and provocation? I was too smart for my own good. I could always argue myself into doing the sexy, futuristic thing instead of being a nice, mundane, nonaffiliated individual. Too smart to settle down, take a job and watch TV after work, spend two weeks a year at the cottage and go online to find movie listings. Too smart is too restless and no happiness, ever, without that it's chased by obsessive maundering moping about what comes next. Smart or happy? The hamsters have hopped off their wheels and are gnawing at the blood-brain barrier, trying to get out of my skull. This is a good sanatorium, but still, the toilets are communal on my floor, which means that I've got an unlocked door that lights up at the nurses' station down the corridor when I open the door, and goes berserk if I don't reopen it again within the mandated fifteen-minute maximum potty-break. I figured out how to defeat the system the first day, but it was a theoretical hack, and now it's time to put it into practice. I step out the door and the lintel goes pink, deepens toward red. Once it's red, whoopwhoopwhoop. I pad down to the lav, step inside, wait, step out again. I go back to my room -- the lintel is orange now -- and open it, move my torso across the long electric eye, then pull it back and let the door swing closed. The lintel is white, and that means that the room thinks I'm inside, but I'm outside. You put your torso in, you take your torso out, you do the hokey-pokey and you shake it all about. In the corridor. I pad away from the nurses' station, past the closed doors and through the muffled, narcotized groans and snores and farts that are the twilight symphony of night on the ward. I duck past an intersection, head for the elevator doors, then remember the tattletale I'm wearing on my ankle, which will go spectacularly berserk if I try to leave by that exit. Also, I'm in my underwear. I can't just walk nonchalantly into the lobby. The ward is making wakeful sounds, and I'm sure I hear the soft tread of a white-soled shoe coming round the bend. I double my pace, begin to jog at random -- the hamsters, they tell me I'm acting with all the forethought of a crazy person, and why not just report for extra meds instead of all this *mishegas*? There's definitely someone coming down a nearby corridor. The tread of sneakers, the squeak of a wheel. I've seen what they do to the wanderers: a nice chemical straightjacket, a cocktail of pills that'll quiet the hamsters down for days. Time to get gone. There's an EXIT sign glowing over a door at the far end of the corridor. I pant towards it, find it propped open and the alarm system disabled by means of a strip of surgical tape. Stepping through into the emergency stairwell, I see an ashtray fashioned from a wadded up bit of tinfoil, heaped with butts -- evidence of late-night smoke breaks by someone on the ward staff. Massachusetts's harsh antismoking regs are the best friend an escaping loony ever had. The stairwell is gray and industrial and refreshingly hard-edged after three padded weeks on the ward. Down, down is the exit and freedom. Find clothes somewhere and out I go into Boston. From below, then: the huffing, laborious breathing of some goddamned overweight, middle-aged doc climbing the stairs for his health. I peer down the well and see his gleaming pate, his white knuckles on the railing, two, maybe three flights down. Up! Up to the roof. I'm on the twentieth floor, which means that I've got twenty-five more to go, two flights per, fifty in total, gotta move. Up! I stop two or three times and pant and wheeze and make it ten stories and collapse. I'm sweating freely -- no air-conditioning in the stairwell, nor is there anything to mop up the sweat rolling down my body, filling the crack of my ass, coursing down my legs. I press my face to the cool painted cinderblock walls, one cheek and then the other, and continue on. When I finally open the door that leads out onto the pebbled roof, the dawn cool is balm. Fingers of light are hauling the sunrise up over the horizon. I step onto the roof and feel the pebbles dig into the soft soles of my feet, cool as the bottom of the riverbed whence they'd been dredged. The door starts to swing shut heavily behind me, and I whirl and catch it just in time, getting my fingers mashed against the jamb for my trouble. I haul it back open again against its pneumatic closure mechanism. Using the side of my foot as a bulldozer, I scrape up a cairn of pebbles as high as the door's bottom edge, twice as high. I fall into the rhythm of the work, making the cairn higher and wider until I can't close the door no matter how I push against it. The last thing I want is to get stuck on the goddamn roof. There's detritus mixed in with the pebbles: cigarette butts, burnt out matches, a condom wrapper and a bright yellow Eberhard pencil with a point as sharp as a spear, the eraser as pink and softly resilient as a nipple. I pick up the pencil and twiddle it between forefinger and thumb, tap a nervous rattle against the roof's edge as I dangle my feet over the bottomless plummet until the sun is high and warm on my skin. The hamsters get going again once the sun is high and the cars start pulling into the parking lot below, rattling and chittering and whispering, yes o yes, put the pencil in your nose, wouldn't you rather be happy than smart? 11. Art and Linda in Linda's miniscule joke of a flat. She's two months into a six-month house-swap with some friends of friends who have a fourth-storey walkup in Kensington with a partial (i.e. fictional) view of the park. The lights are on timers and you need to race them to her flat's door, otherwise there's no way you'll fit the archaic key into the battered keyhole -- the windows in the stairwell are so grimed as to provide more of a suggestion of light than light itself. Art's ass aches and he paces the flat's three wee rooms and drinks hormone-enhanced high-energy liquid breakfast from the half-fridge in the efficiency kitchen. Linda's taken dibs on the first shower, which is fine by Art, who can't get the hang of the goddamned-English-plumbing, which delivers an energy-efficient, eat-your-vegetables-and-save-the-planet trickle of scalding water. Art has switched off his comm, his frazzled nerves no longer capable of coping with its perennial and demanding beeping and buzzing. This is very nearly unthinkable but necessary, he rationalizes, given the extraordinary events of the past twenty-four hours. And Fede can go fuck himself, for that matter, that paranoid asshole, and then he can fuck the clients in Jersey and the whole of V/DT while he's at it. The energy bev is kicking in and making his heart race and his pulse throb in his throat and he's so unbearably hyperkinetic that he turns the coffee table on its end in the galley kitchen and clears a space in the living room that's barely big enough to spin around in, and starts to work through a slow, slow set of Tai Chi, so slow that he barely moves at all, except that inside he can feel the moving, can feel the muscles' every flex and groan as they wind up release, move and swing and slide. Single whip slides into crane opens wings and he needs to crouch down low, lower than his woolen slacks will let him, and they're grimy and gross anyway, so he undoes his belt and kicks them off. Down low as white crane opens wings and brush knee, punch, apparent closure, then low again, creakingly achingly low into wave hands like clouds, until his spine and his coccyx crackle and give, springing open, fascia open ribs open smooth breath rising and falling with his diaphragm smooth mind smooth and sweat cool in the mat of his hair. He moves through the set and does not notice Linda until he unwinds into a slow, ponderous lotus kick, closes again, breathes a moment and looks around slowly, grinning like a holy fool. She's in a tartan housecoat with a threadbare towel wrapped around her hair, water beading on her bony ankles and long, skinny feet. "Art! God*damn*, Art! What the hell was that?" "Tai chi," he says, drawing a deep breath in through his nostrils, feeling each rib expand in turn, exhaling through his mouth. "I do it to unwind." "It was beautiful! Art! Art. Art. That was, I mean, wow. Inspiring. Something. You're going to show me how to do that, Art. Right? You're gonna." "I could try," Art says. "I'm not really qualified to teach it -- I stopped going to class ten years ago." "Shut, shut up, Art. You can teach that, damn, you can teach that, I know you can. That was, wow." She rushes forward and takes his hands. She squeezes and looks into his eyes. She squeezes again and tugs his hands towards her hips, reeling his chest towards her breasts tilting her chin up and angling that long jawline that's so long as to be almost horsey, but it isn't, it's strong and clean. Art smells shampoo and sandalwood talc and his skin puckers in a crinkle that's so sudden and massive that it's almost audible. They've been together continuously for the past five days, almost without interruption and he's already conditioned to her smell and her body language and the subtle signals of her face's many mobile bits and pieces. She is afire, he is afire, their bodies are talking to each other in some secret language of shifting centers of gravity and unconscious pheromones, and his face tilts down towards her, slowly with all the time in the world. Lowers and lowers, week-old whiskers actually tickling the tip of her nose, his lips parting now, and her breath moistens them, beads them with liquid condensed out of her vapor. His top lip touches her bottom lip. He could leave it at that and be happy, the touch is so satisfying, and he is contented there for a long moment, then moves to engage his lower lip, moving, tilting. His comm rings. His comm, which he has switched off, rings. Shit. "Hello!" he says, he shouts. "Arthur?" says a voice that is old and hurt and melancholy. His Gran's voice. His Gran, who can override his ringer, switch on his comm at a distance because Art is a good grandson who was raised almost entirely by his saintly and frail (and depressive and melodramatic and obsessive) grandmother, and of course his comm is set to pass her calls. Not because he is a suck, but because he is loyal and sensitive and he loves his Gran. "Gran, hi! Sorry, I was just in the middle of something, sorry." He checks his comm, which tells him that it's only six in the morning in Toronto, noon in London, and that the date is April 8, and that today is the day that he should have known his grandmother would call. "You forgot," she says, no accusation, just a weary and disappointed sadness. He has indeed forgotten. "No, Gran, I didn't forget." But he did. It is the eighth of April, 2022, which means that it is twenty-one years to the day since his mother died. And he has forgotten. "It's all right. You're busy, I understand. Tell me, Art, how are you? When will you visit Toronto?" "I'm fine, Gran. I'm sorry I haven't called, I've been sick." Shit. Wrong lie. "You're sick? What's wrong?" "It's nothing. I -- I put my back out. Working too hard. Stress. It's nothing, Gran." He chances to look up at Linda, who is standing where he left her when he dived reflexively for his comm, staring disbelievingly at him. Her robe is open to her navel, and he sees the three curls of pubic hair above the knot in its belt that curl towards her groin, sees the hourglass made by the edges of her breasts that are visible in the vee of the robe, sees the edge of one areole, the left one. He is in a tee shirt and bare feet and boxers, crouching over his trousers, talking to his Gran, and he locks eyes with Linda and shakes his head apologetically, then settles down to sit cross-legged, hunched over an erection he didn't know he had, resolves to look at her while he talks. "Stress! Always stress. You should take some vacation time. Are you seeing someone? A chiropractor?" He's entangled in the lie. "Yes. I have an appointment tomorrow." "How will you get there? Don't take the subway. Take a taxi. And give me the doctor's name, I'll look him up." "I'll take a cab, it'll be fine, he's the only one my travel insurance covers." "The only one? Art! What kind of insurance do you have? I'll call them, I'll find you a chiropractor. Betty Melville, she has family in London, they'll know someone." God. "It's fine, Gran. How are you?" A sigh. "How am I? On this day, how am I?" "How is your health? Are you keeping busy?" "My health is fine. I keep busy. Father Ferlenghetti came to dinner last night at the house. I made a nice roast, and I'll have sandwiches today." "That's good." "I'm thinking of your mother, you know." "I know." "Do you think of her, Art? You were so young when she went, but you remember her, don't you?" "I do, Gran." He remembers her, albeit dimly. He was barely nine when she died. "Of course -- of course you remember your mother. It's a terrible thing for a mother to live longer than her daughter." His Gran says this every year. Art still hasn't figured out how to respond to it. Time for another stab at it. "I'm glad you're still here, Gran." Wrong thing. Gran is sobbing now. Art drops his eyes from Linda's and looks at the crazy weft and woof of the faded old Oriental rug. "Oh, Gran," he says. "I'm sorry." In truth, Art has mourned and buried his mother. He was raised just fine by his Gran, and when he remembers his mother, he is more sad about not being sad than sad about her. "I'm an old lady, you know that. You'll remember me when I go, won't you Art?" This, too, is a ritual question that Art can't answer well enough no matter how he practices. "Of course, Gran. But you'll be around for a good while yet!" "When are you coming back to Toronto?" He'd ducked the question before, but Gran's a master of circling back and upping the ante. *Now that we've established my imminent demise...* "Soon as I can, Gran. Maybe when I finish this contract. September, maybe." "You'll stay here? I can take the sofa. When do you think you'll arrive? My friends all want to see you again. You remember Mrs. Tomkins? You used to play with her daughter Alice. Alice is single, you know. She has a good job, too -- working at an insurance company. Maybe she can get you a better health plan." "I don't know, Gran. I'll *try* to come back after I finish my contract, but I can't tell what'll be happening then. I'll let you know, OK?" "Oh, Art. Please come back soon -- I miss you. I'm going to visit your mother's grave today and put some flowers on it. They keep it very nice at Mount Pleasant, and the trees are just blooming now." "I'll come back as soon as I can, Gran. I love you." "I love you too, Arthur." "Bye, Gran." "I'll call you once I speak to Betty about the chiropractor, all right?" "All right, Gran." He is going to have to go to the chiropractor now, even though his back feels as good as it has in years. His Gran will be checking up on it. "Bye, Arthur. I love you." "Bye, Gran." "Bye." He shakes his head and holsters the comm back in his pants, then rocks back and lies down on the rug, facing the ceiling, eyes closed. A moment later, the hem of Linda's robe brushes his arm and she lies down next to him, takes his hand. "Everything OK?" "It's just my Gran." And he tells her about this date's significance. "How did she die?" "It was stupid. She slipped in the tub and cracked her skull on the tap. I was off at a friend's place for the weekend and no one found her for two days. She lived for a week on life support, and they pulled the plug. No brain activity. They wouldn't let me into the hospital room after the first day. My Gran practically moved in, though. She raised me after that. I think that if she hadn't had to take care of me, she would have just given up, you know? She's pretty lonely back home alone." "What about your dad?" "You know, there used to be a big mystery about that. Gran and Mom, they were always tragic and secretive when I asked them about him. I had lots of stories to explain his absence: ran off with another woman, thrown in jail for running guns, murdered in a bar fight. I used to be a bit of a celeb at school -- lots of kids didn't have dads around, but they all knew where their fathers were. We could always kill an afternoon making up his who and where and why. Even the teachers got into it, getting all apologetic when we had to do a genealogy project. I found out the truth, finally, when I was nineteen. Just looked it up online. It never occurred to me that my mom would be that secretive about something that was so easy to find out, so I never bothered." "So, what happened to him?" "Oh, you know. He and mom split when I was a kid. He moved back in with his folks in a little town in the Thousand Islands, near Ottawa. Four or five years later, he got a job planting trees for a summer up north, and he drowned swimming in a lake during a party. By the time I found out about him, his folks were dead, too." "Did you tell your friends about him, once you found out?" "Oh, by then I'd lost touch with most of them. After elementary school, we moved across town, to a condo my grandmother retired into on the lakeshore, out in the suburbs. In high school, I didn't really chum around much, so there wasn't anyone to talk to. I did tell my Gran though, asked her why it was such a big secret, and she said it wasn't, she said she'd told me years before, but she hadn't. I think that she and Mom just decided to wait until I was older before telling me, and then after my mom died, she just forgot that she hadn't told me. We got into a big fight over that." "That's a weird story, dude. So, do you think of yourself as an orphan?" Art rolls over on his side, face inches from hers, and snorts a laugh. "God, that's so -- *Dickensian*. No one ever asked me that before. I don't think so. You can't really be an adult and be an orphan -- you're just someone with dead parents. And I didn't find out about my dad until I was older, so I always figured that he was alive and well somewhere. What about your folks?" Linda rolls over on her side, too, her robe slipping off her lower breast. Art is aroused by it, but not crazily so -- somewhere in telling his story, he's figured out that sex is a foregone conclusion, and now they're just getting through some nice foreplay. He smiles down at her nipple, which is brown as a bar of Belgian chocolate, aureole the size of a round of individual cheese and nipple itself a surprisingly chunky square of crinkled flesh. She follows his eyes and smiles at him, then puts his hand over her breast, covers it with hers. "I told you about my mom, right? Wanted to act -- who doesn't? But she was too conscious of the cliche to mope about it. She got some little parts -- nothing fab, then went on to work at a Sony dealership. Ten years later, she bought a franchise. Dad and second-wife run a retreat in West Hollywood for sexually dysfunctional couples. No sibs. Happy childhood. Happy adolescence. Largely unsatisfying adulthood, to date." "Wow, you sound like you've practiced that." She tweaks his nose, then drapes her arm across his chest. "Got me. Always writing my autobiography in my head -- gotta have a snappy opener when I'm cornered by the stalkerazzi." He laces his fingers in hers, moves close enough to smell her toothpaste-sweet breath. "Tell me something unrehearsed about growing up." "That's a stupid request." Her tone is snappish, and her fingers stiffen in his. "Why?" "It just is! Don't try to get under my skin, OK? My childhood was fine." "Look, I don't want to piss you off. I'm just trying to get to know you. Because... you know... I like you. A lot. And I try to get to know the people I like." She smiles her lopsided dimple. "Sorry, I just don't like people who try to mess with my head. My problem, not yours. OK, something unrehearsed." She closes her eyes and treats him to the smooth pinkness of her eyelids, and keeps them closed as she speaks. "I once stole a Veddic Series 7 off my mom's lot, when I was fifteen. It had all the girly safety features, including a tracker and a panic button, but I didn't think my mom would miss it. I just wanted to take it out for a drive. It's LA, right? No wheels, no life. So I get as far as Venice Beach, and I'm cruising the Boardwalk -- this was just after it went topless, so I was swinging in the breeze -- and suddenly the engine dies, right in the middle of this clump of out-of-towners, frat kids from Kansas or something. Mom had called in a dealer override and Sony shut down the engine by radio." "Wow, what did you do?" "Well, I put my shirt back on. Then I popped the hood and poked randomly at the engine, pulling out the user-servicables and reseating them. The thing was newer than new, right? How could it be broken already? The fratboys all gathered around and gave me advice, and I played up all bitchy, you know, 'I've been fixing these things since I was ten, get lost,' whatever. They loved it. I was all spunky. A couple of them were pretty cute even, and the attention was great. I felt safe -- lots of people hanging around, they weren't going to try anything funny. Only I was starting to freak out about the car -- it was really dead. I'd reseated everything, self-tested every component, double-checked the fuel. Nothing nothing nothing! I was going to have to call a tow and my mom was going to kill me. "So I'm trying not to let it get to me, trying to keep it all cool, but I'm not doing a great job. The frat guys are all standing too close and they smell like beer, and I'm not trying to be perky anymore, just want them to stay! away! but they won't back off. I'm trying not to cry. "And then the cops showed up. Not real cops, but Sony's Vehicle Recovery Squad. All dressed up in Vaio gear, stylish as a Pepsi ad, packing lots of semilethals and silvery aeorosol shut-up-and-be-still juice, ready to nab the bad, bad perp who boosted this lovely Veddic Series 7 from Mom's lot. Part of the franchise package, that kind of response. It took me a second to figure it out -- Mom didn't know it was *me* who had the car, so she'd called in a theft and bam, I was about to get arrested. The frat rats tried to run away, which is a bad idea, you just don't ever run from cops -- stupid, stupid, stupid. They ended up rolling around on the ground, screaming and trying to pull their faces off. It took, like a second. I threw my hands in the air. 'Don't shoot!' They gassed me anyway. "So then *I* was rolling around on the ground, feeling like my sinuses were trying to explode out of my face. Feeling like my eyeballs were melting. Feeling like my lungs were all shriveled up into raisins. I couldn't scream, I couldn't even breathe. By the time I could even roll over and open my eyes, they had me cuffed: ankles and wrists in zapstraps that were so tight, they felt like piano wire. I was a cool fifteen year old, but not that cool. I started up the waterworks, boohoohoo, couldn't shut it down, couldn't even get angry. I just wanted to die. The Sony cops had seen it all before, so they put a tarp down on the Veddic's backseat upholstery, threw me in it, then rolled it into their recovery truck and drove me to the police station. "I puked on the tarp twice before they got me there, and almost did it a third time on the way to booking. It got up my sinuses and down my throat, too. I couldn't stop gagging, couldn't stop crying, but by now I was getting pissed. I'd been raised on the whole Sony message: 'A Car for the Rest of Us,' gone with Mom to their Empowerment Seminars, wore the little tee shirts and the temporary tats and chatted up the tire-kickers about the Sony Family while Mom was busy. This wasn't the Sony Family I knew. "I was tied up on the floor beside the desk sergeant's counter, and a Sony cop was filling in my paperwork, and so I spat out the crud from my mouth, stopped sniveling, hawked back my spit and put on my best voice. 'This isn't necessary, sir,' I said. 'I'm not a thief. My mother owns the dealership. It was wrong to take the car, but I'm sure she didn't intend for this to happen. Certainly, I don't need to be tied up in here. Please, take off the restraints -- they're cutting off my circulation.' The Sony cop flipped up his goofy little facemask and squinted at me, then shook his head and went back to his paperwork. "'Look,' I said. 'Look! I'm not a criminal. This is a misunderstanding. If you check my ID and call my mother, we can work this all out. Look!' I read his name off his epaulettes. 'Look! Officer Langtree! Just let me up and we'll sort this out like adults. Come on, I don't blame you -- I'm glad! -- you were right to take me in. This is my mom's merchandise; it's good that you went after the thief and recovered the car. But now you know the truth, it's my mother's car, and if you just let me up, I'm sure we can work this out. Please, Officer Langtree. My wallet's in my back pocket. Just get it out and check my ID before you do this.' "But he just went on filling in the paperwork. 'Why? Why won't you just take a second to check? Why not?' "He turned around again, looked at me for a long time, and I was sure he was going to check, that it was all going to be fine, but then he said, 'Look, I've had about as much of your bullshit as I'm going to take, little girl. Shut your hole or I'll gag you. I just want to get out of here and back to my job, all right?' "'What?' I said, and it sounded like a shriek to me. 'What did you say to me? What the hell did you say to me? Didn't you hear what I said? That's my *mother's car* -- she owns the lot I took it off of. Do you honestly think she wants you to do this? This is the stupidest goddamned thing --' "'That's it,' he said, and took a little silver micropore hood off his belt, the kind that you cinch up under the chin so the person inside can't talk? I started squirming away then, pleading with him, and I finally caught the desk sergeant's eye. 'He can't do this! Please! Don't let him do this! I'm in a *police station* -- why are you letting him do this?' "And the cop smiled and said, 'You're absolutely right, little girl. That's enough of that.' The Sony cop didn't pay any attention. He grabbed my head and stuffed it into the hood and tried to get the chin strap in place. I shook my head as best as I could, and then the hood was being taken off my head again, and the Sony cop looked like he wanted to nail the other cop, but he didn't. The desk sergeant bent down and cut my straps, then helped me to my feet. "'You're not going to give me any trouble, are you?' he said, as he led me around to a nice, ergo office chair. "'No sir!' "'You just sit there, then, and I'll be with you in a moment.' "I sat down and rubbed my wrists and ankles. My left ankle was oozing blood from where it had been rubbed raw. I couldn't believe that the Sony Family could inflict such indignities on my cute little person. I was so goddamn self-righteous, and I know I was smirking as the desk sergeant chewed out the Sony cop, taking down his badge number and so on so that I'd have it. "I thanked the cop profusely, and I kept on thanking him as he booked me and printed me and took my mug shots. I was joking and maybe even flirting a little. I was a cute fifteen-year-old and I knew it. After the nastiness with the Sony cops, being processed into the criminal justice system seemed mild and inoffensive. It didn't really occur to me that I was being *arrested* until my good pal the cop asked me to turn out my pockets before he put me in the cell. "'Wait!' I said. 'Sergeant Lorenzi, wait! You don't have to put me in a *cell*, do you, Sergeant Lorenzi? Sergeant Lorenzi! I don't need to go into a cell! Let me call my mom, she'll come down and drop the charges, and I can wait here. I'll help out. I can get coffee. Sergeant Lorenzi!' "For a second, it looked like he was going to go through with it. Then he relented and I spent the next couple hours fetching and filing and even running out for coffee -- that's how much he trusted me -- while we waited for Mom to show up. I was actually feeling pretty good about it by the time she arrived. Of course, that didn't last too long. "She came through the door like Yosemite Sam, frothing at the chops and howling for my blood. She wanted to press charges, see me locked up to teach me a lesson. She didn't care how the Sony cops had gassed and trussed me -- as far as she was concerned, I'd betrayed her and nothing was going to make it right. She kept howling for the sergeant to give her the papers to sign, she wanted to swear out a complaint, and he just let her run out of steam, his face perfectly expressionless until she was done. "'All right then, Mrs. Walchuk, all right. You swear out the complaint, and we'll hold her overnight until her bail hearing. We only got the one holding cell, though, you understand. No juvenile facility. Rough crowd. A couple of biowar enthusiasts in there right now, caught 'em trying to thrax a bus terminal; a girl who killed her pimp and nailed his privates to the door of his hotel room before she took off; a couple of hard old drunks. No telling what else will come in today. We take away their knives and boots and purses, but those girls like to mess up fresh young things, scar them with the bars or their nails. We can't watch them all the time.' He was leaning right across the desk at my mom, cold and still, and then he nudged my foot with his foot and I knew that he was yanking her chain. "'Is that what you want, then, ma'am?' "Mom looked like she wanted to tell him yes, go ahead, call his bluff, but he was too good at it. She broke. 'No, it's not,' she said. 'I'll take her home and deal with her there.' "'That's fundamentally sound,' he said. 'And Linda, you give me a call if you want to file a complaint against Sony. We have secam footage of the Boardwalk and the Station House if you need it, and I have that guy's badge ID, too.' "Mom looked alarmed, and I held out my raw, bruisey wrists to her. 'They gassed me before they took me in.' "'Did you run? You *never* run from the cops, Linda, you should have known better --' "I didn't run. I put my arms in the air and they gassed me and tied me up and took me in.' "'That can't be, Linda. You must have done *something* --' Mom always was ready to believe that I deserved whatever trouble I got into. She was the only one who didn't care how cute I was. "'No mom. I put my hands in the air. I surrendered. They got me anyway. They didn't care. It'll be on the tape. I'll get it from sergeant Lorenzi when I file my complaint.' "'You'll do no such thing. You stole a car, you endangered lives, and now you want to go sniveling to the authorities because Sony played a little rough when they brought you in? You committed a *criminal act*, Linda. You got treated like a criminal.' "I wanted to smack her. I knew that this was really about not embarrassing her in front of the Sony Family, the nosy chattery ladies with the other franchises that Mom competed against for whuffie and bragging rights. But I'd learned something about drawing flies with honey that afternoon. The Sergeant could have made things very hard on me, but by giving him a little sugar, I turned it into an almost fun afternoon. "Mom took me home and screamed herself raw, and I played it all very contrite, then walked over to the minimall so that I could buy some saline solution for my eyes, which were still as red as stoplights. We never spoke of it again, and on my sixteenth birthday, Mom gave me the keys to a Veddic Series 8, and the first thing I did was download new firmware for the antitheft transponder that killed it. Two months later, it was stolen. I haven't driven a Sony since." Linda smiles and then purses her lips. "Unrehearsed enough?" Art shakes his head. "Wow. What a story." "Do you want to kiss me now?" Linda says, conversationally. "I believe I do," Art says, and he does. Linda pulls the back of his head to hers with one arm, and with the other, she half-shrugs out of her robe. Art pulls his shirt up to his armpits, feels the scorching softness of her chest on his, and groans. His erection grinds into her mons through his Jockey shorts, and he groans again as she sucks his tongue into her mouth and masticates it just shy of hard enough to hurt. She breaks off and reaches down for the waistband of his Jockeys and his whole body arches in anticipation. Then his comm rings. Again. "Fuck!" Art says, just as Linda says, "Shit!" and they both snort a laugh. Linda pulls his hand to her nipple again and Art shivers, sighs, and reaches for his comm, which won't stop ringing. "It's me," Fede says. "Jesus, Fede. What *is it*?" "What is it? Art, you haven't been to the office for more than four hours in a week. It's going on noon, and you still aren't here." Fede's voice is hot and unreasoning. Art feels his own temper rise in response. Where the hell did Fede get off, anyway? "So fucking *what*, Fede? I don't actually work for you, you know. I've been taking care of stuff offsite." "Oh, sure. Art, if you get in trouble, I'll get in trouble, and you know *exactly* what I mean." "I'm not *in* trouble, Fede. I'm taking the day off -- why don't you call me tomorrow?" "What the hell does that mean? You can't just 'take the day off.' I *wrote* the goddamned procedure. You have to fill in the form and get it signed by your supervisor. It needs to be *documented*. Are you *trying* to undermine me?" "You are so goddamned *paranoid*, Federico. I got mugged last night, all right? I've been in a police station for the past eighteen hours straight. I am going to take a shower and I am going to take a nap and I am going to get a massage, and I am *not* going into the office and I am *not* going to fill in any forms. This is not about you." Fede pauses for a moment, and Art senses him marshalling his bad temper for another salvo. "I don't give a shit, Art. If you're not coming into the office, you tell me, you hear? The VP of HR is going berserk, and I know exactly what it's about. He is on to us, you hear me? Every day that you're away and I'm covering for your ass, he gets more and more certain. If you keep this shit up, we're both dead." "Hey, fuck you, Fede." Art is surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth, but once they're out, he decides to go with them. "You can indulge your paranoid fantasies to your heart's content, but don't drag me into them. I got mugged last night. I had a near-fatal car crash a week ago. If the VP of HR wants to find out why I haven't been in the office, he can send me an email and I'll tell him exactly what's going on, and if he doesn't like it, he can toss my goddamned salad. But I don't report to you. If you want to have a discussion, you call me and act like a human goddamned being. Tomorrow. Good-bye, Fede." Art rings the comm off and snarls at it, then switches it off, switches off the emergency override, and briefly considers tossing it out the goddamned window onto the precious English paving stones below. Instead, he hurls it into the soft cushions of the sofa. He turns back to Linda and makes a conscious effort to wipe the snarl off his face. He ratchets a smile onto his lips. "Sorry, sorry. Last time, I swear." He crawls over to her on all fours. She's pulled her robe tight around her, and he slides a finger under the collar and slides it aside and darts in for a kiss on the hollow of her collarbone. She shies away and drops her cheek to her shoulder, shielding the affected area. "I'm not --" she starts. "The moment's passed, OK? Why don't we just cuddle, OK?" 12. Art was at his desk at O'Malley House the next day when Fede knocked on his door. Fede was bearing a small translucent gift-bag made of some cunning combination of rough handmade paper and slick polymer. Art looked up from his comm and waved at the door. Fede came in and put the parcel on Art's desk. Art looked askance at Fede, and Fede just waved at the bag with a go-ahead gesture. Art felt for the catch that would open the bag without tearing the materials, couldn't find it immediately, and reflexively fired up his comm and started to make notes on how a revised version of the bag could provide visual cues showing how to open it. Fede caught him at it and they traded grins. Art probed the bag's orifice a while longer, then happened upon the release. The bag sighed apart, falling in three petals, and revealed its payload: a small, leather-worked box with a simple brass catch. Art flipped the catch and eased the box open. Inside, in a fitted foam cavity, was a gray lump of stone. "It's an axe-head," Fede said. "It's 200,000 years old." Art lifted it out of the box carefully and turned it about, admiring the clean tool marks from its shaping. It had heft and brutal simplicity, and a thin spot where a handle must have been lashed once upon a time. Art ran his fingertips over the smooth tool marks, over the tapered business end, where the stone had been painstakingly flaked into an edge. It was perfect. Now that he was holding it, it was so obviously an axe, so clearly an axe. It needed no instruction. It explained itself. I am an axe. Hit things with me. Art couldn't think of a single means by which it could be improved. "Fede," he said, "Fede, this is incredible --" "I figured we needed to bury the hatchet, huh?" "God, that's awful. Here's a tip: When you give a gift like this, just leave humor out of it, OK? You don't have the knack." Art slapped him on the shoulder to show him he was kidding, and reverently returned the axe to its cavity. "That is really one hell of a gift, Fede. Thank you." Fede stuck his hand out. Art shook it, and some of the week's tension melted away. "Now, you're going to buy me lunch," Fede said. "Deal." They toddled off to Picadilly and grabbed seats at the counter of a South Indian place for a businessmen's lunch of thali and thick mango lassi, which coated their tongues in alkaline sweetness that put out the flames from the spiced veggies. Both men were sweating by the time they ordered their second round of lassi and Art had his hands on his belly, amazed as ever that something as insubstantial as the little platter's complement of veggies and naan could fill him as efficiently as it had. "What are you working on now?" Fede asked, suppressing a curry-whiffing belch. "Same shit," Art said. "There are a million ways to make the service work. The rights-societies want lots of accounting and lots of pay-per-use. MassPike hates that. It's a pain in the ass to manage, and the clickthrough licenses and warnings they want to slap on are heinous. People are going to crash their cars fucking around with the 'I Agree' buttons. Not to mention they want to require a firmware check on every stereo system that gets a song, make sure that this week's copy-protection is installed. So I'm coopering up all these user studies with weasels from the legal departments at the studios, where they just slaver all over this stuff, talking about how warm it all makes them feel to make sure that they're compensating artists and how grateful they are for the reminders to keep their software up to date and shit. I'm modeling a system that has a clickthrough every time you cue up a new song, too. It's going to be perfect: the rights-societies are going to love it, and I've handpicked the peer review group at V/DT, stacked it up with total assholes who love manuals and following rules. It's going to sail through approval." Fede grunted. "You don't think it'll be too obvious?" Art laughed. "There is no such thing as too obvious in this context, man. These guys, they hate the end user, and for years they've been getting away with it because all their users are already used to being treated like shit at the post office and the tube station. I mean, these people grew up with *coin-operated stoves*, for chrissakes! They pay television tax! Feed 'em shit and they'll ask you for second helpings. Beg you for 'em! So no, I don't think it'll be too obvious. They'll mock up the whole system and march right into MassPike with it, grinning like idiots. Don't worry about a thing." "OK, OK. I get it. I won't worry." Art signalled the counterman for their bill. The counterman waved distractedly in the manner of a harried restaurateur dealing with his regulars, and said something in Korean to the busgirl, who along with the Vietnamese chef and the Congolese sous chef, lent the joint a transworld sensibility that made it a favorite among the painfully global darlings of O'Malley House. The bus-girl found a pad and started totting up numbers, then keyed them into a Point-of-Sale terminal, which juiced Art's comm with an accounting for their lunch. This business with hand-noting everything before entering it into the PoS had driven Art to distraction when he'd first encountered it. He'd assumed that the terminal's UI was such that a computer-illiterate busgirl couldn't reliably key in the data without having it in front of her, and for months he'd cited it in net-bullshit sessions as more evidence of the pervasive user-hostility that characterized the whole damned GMT. He'd finally tried out his rant on the counterman, one foreigner to another, just a little Briton-bashing session between two refugees from the Colonial Jackboot. To his everlasting surprise, the counterman had vigorously defended the system, saying that he liked the PoS data-entry system just fine, but that the stack of torn-off paper stubs from the busgirl's receipt book was a good visualization tool, letting him eyeball the customer volume from hour to hour by checking the spike beside the till, and the rubberbanded stacks of yellowing paper lining his cellar's shelves gave him a wonderfully physical evidence of the growing success of his little eatery. There was a lesson there, Art knew, though he'd yet to codify it. User mythology was tricky that way. Every time Art scribbled a tip into his comm and squirted it back at the PoS, he considered this little puzzle, eyes unfocusing for a moment while his vision turned inwards. As his eyes snapped back into focus, he noticed the young lad sitting on the long leg of the ell formed by the counter. He had bully short hair and broad shoulders, and a sneer that didn't quite disappear as he shoveled up the dhal with his biodegradable bamboo disposable spork. He knew that guy from somewhere. The guy caught him staring and they locked eyes for a moment, and in that instant Art knew who the guy was. It was Tom, whom he had last seen stabbing at him with a tazer clutched in one shaking fist, face twisted in fury. Tom wasn't wearing his killsport armor, just nondescript athletic wear, and he wasn't with Lester and Tony, but it was him. Art watched Tom cock his head to jog his memory, and then saw Tom recognize him. Uh-oh. "We have to go. Now," he said to Fede, standing and walking away quickly, hand going to his comm. He stopped short of dialing 999, though -- he wasn't up for another police-station all-nighter. He got halfway up Picadilly before looking over his shoulder, and he saw Fede shouldering his way through the lunchtime crowd, looking pissed. A few paces behind him came Tom, face contorted in a sadistic snarl. Art did a little two-step of indecision, moving towards Fede, then away from him. He met Tom's eyes again, and Tom's ferocious, bared teeth spurred him on. He turned abruptly into the tube station, waved his comm at a turnstile and dove into the thick of the crowd heading down the stairs to the Elephant and Castle platform. His comm rang. "What is *wrong* with you, man?" Fede said. "One of the guys who mugged me," he hissed. "He was sitting right across from us. He's a couple steps behind you. I'm in the tube station. I'll ride a stop and catch a cab back to the office." "He's behind me? Where?" Art's comm lit up with a grainy feed from Fede's comm. It jiggled as Fede hustled through the crowd. "Jesus, Fede, stop! Don't go to the goddamned tube station -- he'll follow you here." "Where do you want me to go? I got to go back to the office." "Don't go there either. Get a cab and circle the block a couple times. Don't lead him back." "This is stupid. Why don't I just call the cops?" "Don't bother. They won't do shit. I've been through this already. I just want to lose that guy and not have him find me again later." "Christ." Art squeaked as Tom filled his screen, then passed by, swinging his head from side to side with saurian rage. "What?" Fede said. "That was him. He just walked past you. He must not know you're with me. Go back to the office, I'll meet you there." "That dipshit? Art, he's all of five feet tall!" "He's a fucking psycho, Fede. Don't screw around with him or he'll give you a Tesla enema." Fede winced. "I hate tazers." "The train is pulling in. I'll talk to you later." "OK, OK." Art formed up in queue with the rest of the passengers and shuffled through the gas chromatograph, tensing up a little as it sniffed his personal space for black powder residue. Once on board, he tore a sani-wipe from the roll in the ceiling, ignoring the V/DT ad on it, and grabbed the stainless steel rail with it, stamping on the drifts of sani-wipe mulch on the train's floor. He made a conscious effort to control his breathing, willed his heart to stop pounding. He was still juiced with adrenaline, and his mind raced. He needed to do something constructive with his time, but his mind kept wandering. Finally, he gave in and let it wander. Something about the counterman, about his slips of paper, about the MassPike. It was knocking around in his brain and he just couldn't figure out how to bring it to the fore. The counterman kept his slips in the basement so that he could sit among them and see how his business had grown, every slip a person served, a ring on the till, money in the bank. Drivers on the MassPike who used traffic jams to download music from nearby cars and then paid to license the songs. Only they didn't. They circumvented the payment system in droves, running bootleg operations out of their cars that put poor old Napster to shame for sheer volume. Some people drove in promiscuous mode, collecting every song in every car on the turnpike, cruising the tunnels that riddled Boston like mobile pirate radio stations, dumping their collections to other drivers when it came time to quit the turnpike and settle up for their music at the toll booth. It was these war-drivers that MassPike was really worried about. Admittedly, they actually made the system go. Your average fartmobile driver had all of ten songs in his queue, and the short-range, broadband connection you had on MassPike meant that if you were stuck in a jam of these cars, your selection would be severely limited. The war-drivers, though, were mobile jukeboxes. The highway patrol had actually seized cars with over 300,000 tracks on their drives. Without these fat caches on the highway, MassPike would have to spend a fortune on essentially replicating the system with their own mobile libraries. The war-drivers were the collective memory of the MassPike's music-listeners. Ooh, there was a tasty idea. The collective memory of MassPike. Like Dark Ages scholars, memorizing entire texts to preserve them against the depredations of barbarism, passing their collections carefully from car to car. He'd investigated the highway patrol reports on these guys, and there were hints there, shadowy clues of an organized subculture, one with a hierarchy, where newbies tricked out their storage with libraries of novel and rare tuneage in a bid to convince the established elite that they were worthy of joining the collective memory. Thinking of war-drivers as a collective memory was like staring at an optical illusion and seeing the vase emerge from the two faces. Art's entire perception of the problem involuted itself in his mind. He heard panting and realized it was him; he was hyperventilating. If these guys were the collective memory of the MassPike, that meant that they were performing a service, reducing MassPike's costs significantly. That meant that they were tastemakers, injecting fresh music into the static world of Boston drivers. Mmmm. Trace that. Find out how influential they were. Someone would know -- the MassPike had stats on how songs migrated from car to car. Even without investigating it, Art just *knew* that these guys were offsetting millions of dollars in marketing. So. So. So. So, *feed* that culture. War-drivers needed to be devoted to make it into the subculture. They had to spend four or five hours a day cruising the freeways to accumulate and propagate their collections. They couldn't *leave* the MassPike until they found someone to hand their collections off to. What if MassPike *rewarded* these guys? What if MassPike charged *nothing* for people with more than, say 50,000 tunes in their cache? Art whipped out his comm and his keyboard and started making notes, snatching at the silver rail with his keyboard hand every time the train jerked and threatened to topple him. That's how the tube cops found him, once the train reached Elephant and Castle and they did their rounds, politely but firmly rousting him. 13. I am already in as much trouble as I can be, I think. I have left my room, hit and detonated some poor cafeteria hash-slinger's fartmobile, and certainly damned some hapless secret smoker to employee Hades for his security lapses. When I get down from here, I will be bound up in a chemical straightjacket. I'll be one of the ward-corner droolers, propped up in a wheelchair in front of the video, tended twice daily for diaper changes, feeding and re-medication. That is the worst they can do, and I'm in for it. This leaves me asking two questions: 1. Why am I so damned eager to be rescued from my rooftop aerie? I am sunburned and sad, but I am more free than I have been in weeks. 2. Why am I so reluctant to take further action in the service of getting someone up onto the roof? I could topple a ventilator chimney by moving the cinderblocks that hold its apron down and giving it the shoulder. I could dump rattling handfuls of gravel down its maw and wake the psychotics below. I could, but I won't. Maybe I don't want to go back just yet. They cooked it up between them. The Jersey customers, Fede, and Linda. I should have known better. When I landed at Logan, I was full of beans, ready to design and implement my war-driving scheme for the Jersey customers and advance the glorious cause of the Eastern Standard Tribe. I gleefully hopped up and down the coast, chilling in Manhattan for a day or two, hanging out with Gran in Toronto. That Linda followed me out made it all even better. We rented cars and drove them from city to city, dropping them off at the city limits and switching to top-grade EST public transit, eating top-grade EST pizza, heads turning to follow the impeccably dressed, buff couples that strolled the pedestrian-friendly streets arm in arm. We sat on stoops in Brooklyn with old ladies who talked softly in the gloaming of the pollution-tinged sunsets while their grandchildren chased each other down the street. We joined a pickup game of street-hockey in Boston, yelling "Car!" and clearing the net every time a fartmobile turned into the cul-de-sac. We played like kids. I got commed during working hours and my evenings were blissfully devoid of buzzes, beeps and alerts. It surprised the hell out of me when I discovered Fede's treachery and Linda's complicity and found myself flying cattle class to London to kick Fede's ass. What an idiot I am. I have never won an argument with Fede. I thought I had that time, of course, but I should have known better. I was hardly back in Boston for a day before the men with the white coats came to take me away. They showed up at the Novotel, soothing and grim, and opened my room's keycard reader with a mental-hygiene override. There were four of them, wiry and fast with the no-nonsense manner of men who have been unexpectedly hammered by outwardly calm psychopaths. That I was harmlessly having a rare cigarette on the balcony, dripping from the shower, made no impression on them. They dropped their faceplates, moved quickly to the balcony and boxed me in. One of them recited a Miranda-esque litany that ended with "Do you understand." It wasn't really a question, but I answered anyway. "No! No I don't! Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my fucking hotel room?" In my heart, though, I knew. I'd lived enough of my life on the hallucinatory edge of sleepdep to have anticipated this moment during a thousand freakouts. I was being led away to the sanatorium, because someone, somewhere, had figured out about the scurrying hamsters in my brain. About time. As soon as I said the f-word, the guns came out. I tried to relax. I knew intuitively that this could either be a routine and impersonal affair, or a screaming, kicking, biting nightmare. I knew that arriving at the intake in a calm frame of mind would make the difference between a chemical straightjacket and a sleeping pill. The guns were nonlethals, and varied: two kinds of nasty aerosol, a dart-gun, and a tazer. The tazer captured my attention, whipping horizontal lightning in the spring breeze. The Tesla enema, they called it in London. Supposedly club-kids used them recreationally, but everyone I knew who'd been hit with one described the experience as fundamentally and uniquely horrible. I slowly raised my hands. "I would like to pack a bag, and I would like to see documentary evidence of your authority. May I?" I kept my voice as calm as I could, but it cracked on "May I?" The reader of the litany nodded slowly. "You tell us what you want packed and we'll pack it. Once that's done, I'll show you the committal document, all right?" "Thank you," I said. They drove me through the Route 128 traffic in the sealed and padded compartment in the back of their van. I was strapped in at the waist, and strapped over my shoulders with a padded harness that reminded me of a rollercoaster restraint. We made slow progress, jerking and changing lanes at regular intervals. The traffic signature of 128 was unmistakable. The intake doctor wanded me for contraband, drew fluids from my various parts, and made light chitchat with me along the way. It was the last time I saw him. Before I knew it, a beefy orderly had me by the arm and was leading me to my room. He had a thick Eastern European accent, and he ran down the house rules for me in battered English. I tried to devote my attention to it, to forget the slack-eyed ward denizens I'd passed on my way in. I succeeded enough to understand the relationship of my legcuff, the door frame and the elevators. The orderly fished in his smock and produced a hypo. "For sleepink," he said. Panic, suppressed since my arrival, welled up and burst over. "Wait!" I said. "What about my things? I had a bag with me." "Talk to doctor in morning," he said, gesturing with the hypo, fitting it with a needle-and-dosage cartridge and popping the sterile wrap off with a thumbswitch. "Now, for sleepink." He advanced on me. I'd been telling myself that this was a chance to rest, to relax and gather my wits. Soon enough, I'd sort things out with the doctors and I'd be on my way. I'd argue my way out of it. But here came Boris Badinoff with his magic needle, and all reason fled. I scrambled back over the bed and pressed against the window. "It's barely three," I said, guessing at the time in the absence of my comm. "I'm not tired. I'll go to sleep when I am." "For sleepink," he repeated, in a more soothing tone. "No, that's all right. I'm tired enough. Long night last night. I'll just lie down and nap now, all right? No need for needles, OK?" He grabbed my wrist. I tried to tug it out of his grasp, to squirm away. There's a lot of good, old-fashioned dirty fighting in Tai Chi -- eye-gouging, groin punches, hold-breaks and come-alongs -- and they all fled me. I thrashed like a fish on a line as he ran the hypo over the crook of my elbow until the vein-sensing LED glowed white. He jabbed down with it and I felt a prick. For a second, I thought that it hadn't taken effect -- I've done enough chemical sleep in my years with the Tribe that I've developed quite a tolerance for most varieties -- but then I felt that unmistakable heaviness in my eyelids, the melatonin crash that signalled the onslaught of merciless rest. I collapsed into bed. I spent the next day in a drugged stupor. I've become quite accustomed to functioning in a stupor over the years, but this was different. No caffeine, for starters. They fed me and I had a meeting with a nice doctor who ran it down for me. I was here for observation pending a competency hearing in a week. I had seven days to prove that I wasn't a danger to myself or others, and if I could, the judge would let me go. "It's like I'm a drug addict, huh?" I said to the doctor, who was used to non sequiturs. "Sure, sure it is." He shifted in the hard chair opposite my bed, getting ready to go. "No, really, I'm not just running my mouth. It's like this: *I* don't think I have a problem here. I think that my way of conducting my life is perfectly harmless. Like a speedfreak who thinks that she's just having a great time, being ultraproductive and coming out ahead of the game. But her friends, they're convinced she's destroying herself -- they see the danger she's putting herself in, they see her health deteriorating. So they put her into rehab, kicking and screaming, where she stays until she figures it out. "So, it's like I'm addicted to being nuts. I have a nonrational view of the world around me. An *inaccurate* view. You are meant to be the objective observer, to make such notes as are necessary to determine if I'm seeing things properly, or through a haze of nutziness. For as long as I go on taking my drug -- shooting up my craziness -- you keep me here. Once I stop, once I accept the objective truth of reality, you let me go. What then? Do I become a recovering nutcase? Do I have to stand ever-vigilant against the siren song of craziness?" The doctor ran his hands through his long hair and bounced his knee up and down. "You could put it that way, I guess." "So tell me, what's the next step? What is my optimum strategy for providing compelling evidence of my repudiation of my worldview?" "Well, that's where the analogy breaks down. This isn't about anything demonstrable. There's no one thing we look for in making our diagnosis. It's a collection of things, a protocol for evaluating you. It doesn't happen overnight, either. You were committed on the basis of evidence that you had made threats to your coworkers due to a belief that they were seeking to harm you." "Interesting. Can we try a little thought experiment, Doctor? Say that your coworkers really *were* seeking to harm you -- this is not without historical precedent, right? They're seeking to sabotage you because you've discovered some terrible treachery on their part, and they want to hush you up. So they provoke a reaction from you and use it as the basis for an involuntary committal. How would you, as a medical professional, distinguish that scenario from one in which the patient is genuinely paranoid and delusional?" The doctor looked away. "It's in the protocol -- we find it there." "I see," I said, moving in for the kill. "I see. Where would I get more information on the protocol? I'd like to research it before my hearing." "I'm sorry," the doctor said, "we don't provide access to medical texts to our patients." "Why not? How can I defend myself against a charge if I'm not made aware of the means by which my defense is judged? That hardly seems fair." The doctor stood and smoothed his coat, turned his badge's lanyard so that his picture faced outwards. "Art, you're not here to defend yourself. You're here so that we can take a look at you and understand what's going on. If you have been set up, we'll discover it --" "What's the ratio of real paranoids to people who've been set up, in your experience?" "I don't keep stats on that sort of thing --" "How many paranoids have been released because they were vindicated?" "I'd have to go through my case histories --" "Is it more than ten?" "No, I wouldn't think so --" "More than five?" "Art, I don't think --" "Have *any* paranoids ever been vindicated? Is this observation period anything more than a formality en route to committal? Come on, Doctor, just let me know where I stand." "Art, we're on your side here. If you want to make this easy on yourself, then you should understand that. The nurse will be in with your lunch and your meds in a few minutes, then you'll be allowed out on the ward. I'll speak to you there more, if you want." "Doctor, it's a simple question: Has anyone ever been admitted to this facility because it was believed he had paranoid delusions, and later released because he was indeed the center of a plot?" "Art, it's not appropriate for me to discuss other patients' histories --" "Don't you publish case studies? Don't those contain confidential information disguised with pseudonyms?" "That's not the point --" "What *is* the point? It seems to me that my optimal strategy here is to repudiate my belief that Fede and Linda are plotting against me -- *even* if I still believe this to be true, even if it *is* true -- and profess a belief that they are my good and concerned friends. In other words, if they are indeed plotting against me, I must profess to a delusional belief that they aren't, in order to prove that I am not delusional." "I read *Catch-22* too, Art. That's not what this is about, but your attitude isn't going to help you any here." The doctor scribbled on his comm briefly, tapped at some menus. I leaned across and stared at the screen. "That looks like a prescription, Doctor." "It is. I'm giving you a mild sedative. We can't help you until you're calmer and ready to listen." "I'm perfectly calm. I just disagree with you. I am the sort of person who learns through debate. Medication won't stop that." "We'll see," the doctor said, and left, before I could muster a riposte. I was finally allowed onto the ward, dressed in what the nurses called "day clothes" -- the civilian duds that I'd packed before leaving the hotel, which an orderly retrieved for me from a locked closet in my room. The clustered nuts were watching slackjaw TV, or staring out the windows, or rocking in place, fidgeting and muttering. I found myself a seat next to a birdy woman whose long oily hair was parted down the middle, leaving a furrow in her scalp lined with twin rows of dandruff. She was young, maybe twenty-five, and seemed the least stuporous of the lot. "Hello," I said to her. She smiled shyly, then pitched forward and vomited copiously and noisily between her knees. I shrank back and struggled to keep my face neutral. A nurse hastened to her side and dropped a plastic bucket in the stream of puke, which was still gushing out of her mouth, her thin chest heaving. "Here, Sarah, in here," the nurse said, with an air of irritation. "Can I help?" I said, ridiculously. She looked sharply at me. "Art, isn't it? Why aren't you in Group? It's after one!" "Group?" I asked. "Group. In that corner, there." She gestured at a collection of sagging sofas underneath one of the ward's grilled-in windows. "You're late, and they've started without you." There were four other people there, two women and a young boy, and a doctor in mufti, identifiable by his shoes -- not slippers -- and his staff of office, the almighty badge-on-a-lanyard. Throbbing with dread, I moved away from the still-heaving girl to the sofa cluster and stood at its edge. The group turned to look at me. The doctor cleared his throat. "Group, this is Art. Glad you made it, Art. You're a little late, but we're just getting started here, so that's OK. This is Lucy, Fatima, and Manuel. Why don't you have a seat?" His voice was professionally smooth and stultifying. I sank into a bright orange sofa that exhaled a cloud of dust motes that danced in the sun streaming through the windows. It also exhaled a breath of trapped ancient farts, barf-smell, and antiseptic, the *parfum de asylum* that gradually numbed my nose to all other scents on the ward. I folded my hands in my lap and tried to look attentive. "All right, Art. Everyone in the group is pretty new here, so you don't have to worry about not knowing what's what. There are no right or wrong things. The only rules are that you can't interrupt anyone, and if you want to criticize, you have to criticize the idea, and not the person who said it. All right?" "Sure," I said. "Sure. Let's get started." "Well, aren't you eager?" the doctor said warmly. "OK. Manuel was just telling us about his friends." "They're not my friends," Manuel said angrily. "They're the reason I'm here. I hate them." "Go on," the doctor said. "I already *told* you, yesterday! Tony and Musafir, they're trying to get rid of me. I make them look bad, so they want to get rid of me." "Why do you think you make them look bad?" "Because I'm better than them -- I'm smarter, I dress better, I get better grades, I score more goals. The girls like me better. They hate me for it." "Oh yeah, you're the cat's ass, pookie," Lucy said. She was about fifteen, voluminously fat, and her full lips twisted in an elaborate sneer as she spoke. "Lucy," the doctor said patiently, favoring her with a patronizing smile. "That's not cool, OK? Criticize the idea, not the person, and only when it's your turn, OK?" Lucy rolled her eyes with the eloquence of teenagedom. "All right, Manuel, thank you. Group, do you have any positive suggestions for Manuel?" Stony silence. "OK! Manuel, some of us are good at some things, and some of us are good at others. Your friends don't hate you, and I'm sure that if you think about it, you'll know that you don't hate them. Didn't they come visit you last weekend? Successful people are well liked, and you're no exception. We'll come back to this tomorrow -- why don't you spend the time until then thinking of three examples of how your friends showed you that they liked you, and you can tell us about it tomorrow?" Manuel stared out the window. "OK! Now, Art, welcome again. Tell us why you're here." "I'm in for observation. There's a competency hearing at the end of the week." Linda snorted and Fatima giggled. The doctor ignored them. "But tell us *why* you think you ended up here." "You want the whole story?" "Whatever parts you think are important." "It's a Tribal thing." "I see," the doctor said. "It's like this," I said. "It used to be that the way you chose your friends was by finding the most like-minded people you could out of the pool of people who lived near to you. If you were lucky, you lived near a bunch of people you could get along with. This was a lot more likely in the olden days, back before, you know, printing and radio and such. Chances were that you'd grow up so immersed in the local doctrine that you'd never even think to question it. If you were a genius or a psycho, you might come up with a whole new way of thinking, and if you could pull it off, you'd either gather up a bunch of people who liked your new idea or you'd go somewhere else, like America, where you could set up a little colony of people who agreed with you. Most of the time, though, people who didn't get along with their neighbors just moped around until they died." "Very interesting," the doctor said, interrupting smoothly, "but you were going to tell us how you ended up here." "Yeah," Lucy said, "this isn't a history lesson, it's Group. Get to the point." "I'm getting there," I said. "It just takes some background if you're going to understand it. Now, once ideas could travel more freely, the chances of you finding out about a group of people somewhere else that you might get along with increased. Like when my dad was growing up, if you were gay and from a big city, chances were that you could figure out where other gay people hung out and go and --" I waved my hands, "be *gay*, right? But if you were from a small town, you might not even know that there was such a thing as being gay -- you might think it was just a perversion. But as time went by, the gay people in the big cities started making a bigger and bigger deal out of being gay, and since all the information that the small towns consumed came from big cities, that information leaked into the small towns and more gay people moved to the big cities, built little gay zones where gay was normal. "So back when the New World was forming and sorting out its borders and territories, information was flowing pretty well. You had telegraphs, you had the Pony Express, you had thousands of little newspapers that got carried around on railroads and streetcars and steamers, and it wasn't long before everyone knew what kind of person went where, even back in Europe and Asia. People immigrated here and picked where they wanted to live based on what sort of people they wanted to be with, which ideas they liked best. A lot of it was religious, but that was just on the surface -- underneath it all was aesthetics. You wanted to go somewhere where the girls were pretty in the way you understood prettiness, where the food smelled like food and not garbage, where shops sold goods you could recognize. Lots of other factors were at play, too, of course -- jobs and Jim Crow laws and whatnot, but the tug of finding people like you is like gravity. Lots of things work against gravity, but gravity always wins in the end -- in the end, everything collapses. In the end, everyone ends up with the people that are most like them that they can find." I was warming to my subject now, in that flow state that great athletes get into when they just know where to swing their bat, where to plant their foot. I knew that I was working up a great rant. "Fast-forward to the age of email. Slowly but surely, we begin to mediate almost all of our communication over networks. Why walk down the hallway to ask a coworker a question, when you can just send email? You don't need to interrupt them, and you can keep going on your own projects, and if you forget the answer, you can just open the message again and look at the response. There're all kinds of ways to interact with our friends over the network: we can play hallucinogenic games, chat, send pictures, code, music, funny articles, metric fuckloads of porn... The interaction is high-quality! Sure, you gain three pounds every year you spend behind the desk instead of walking down the hall to ask your buddy where he wants to go for lunch, but that's a small price to pay. "So you're a fish out of water. You live in Arizona, but you're sixteen years old and all your neighbors are eighty-five, and you get ten billion channels of media on your desktop. All the good stuff -- everything that tickles you -- comes out of some clique of hyperurban club-kids in South Philly. They're making cool art, music, clothes. You read their mailing lists and you can tell that they're exactly the kind of people who'd really appreciate you for who you are. In the old days, you'd pack your bags and hitchhike across the country and move to your community. But you're sixteen, and that's a pretty scary step. "Why move? These kids live online. At lunch, before school, and all night, they're comming in, talking trash, sending around photos, chatting. Online, you can be a peer. You can hop into these discussions, play the games, chord with one hand while chatting up some hottie a couple thousand miles away. "Only you can't. You can't, because they chat at seven AM while they're getting ready for school. They chat at five PM, while they're working on their homework. Their late nights end at three AM. But those are their *local* times, not yours. If you get up at seven, they're already at school, 'cause it's ten there. "So you start to f with your sleep schedule. You get up at four AM so you can chat with your friends. You go to bed at nine, 'cause that's when they go to bed. Used to be that it was stock brokers and journos and factory workers who did that kind of thing, but now it's anyone who doesn't fit in. The geniuses and lunatics to whom the local doctrine tastes wrong. They choose their peers based on similarity, not geography, and they keep themselves awake at the same time as them. But you need to make some nod to localness, too -- gotta be at work with everyone else, gotta get to the bank when it's open, gotta buy your groceries. You end up hardly sleeping at all, you end up sneaking naps in the middle of the day, or after dinner, trying to reconcile biological imperatives with cultural ones. Needless to say, that alienates you even further from the folks at home, and drives you more and more into the arms of your online peers of choice. "So you get the Tribes. People all over the world who are really secret agents for some other time zone, some other way of looking at the world, some other zeitgeist. Unlike other tribes, you can change allegiance by doing nothing more that resetting your alarm clock. Like any tribe, they are primarily loyal to each other, and anyone outside of the tribe is only mostly human. That may sound extreme, but this is what it comes down to. "Tribes are *agendas*. Aesthetics. Ethos. Traditions. Ways of getting things done. They're competitive. They may not all be based on time-zones. There are knitting Tribes and vampire fan-fiction Tribes and Christian rock tribes, but they've always existed. Mostly, these tribes are little more than a sub-culture. It takes time-zones to amplify the cultural fissioning of fan-fiction or knitting into a full-blown conspiracy. Their interests are commercial, industrial, cultural, culinary. A Tribesman will patronize a fellow Tribesman's restaurant, or give him a manufacturing contract, or hire his taxi. Not because of xenophobia, but because of homophilia: I know that my Tribesman's taxi will conduct its way through traffic in a way that I'm comfortable with, whether I'm in San Francisco, Boston, London or Calcutta. I know that the food will be palatable in a Tribal restaurant, that a book by a Tribalist will be a good read, that a gross of widgets will be manufactured to the exacting standards of my Tribe. "Like I said, though, unless you're at ground zero, in the Tribe's native time zone, your sleep sched is just *raped*. You live on sleepdep and chat and secret agentry until it's second nature. You're cranky and subrational most of the time. Close your eyes on the freeway and dreams paint themselves on the back of your lids, demanding their time, almost as heavy as gravity, almost as remorseless. There's a lot of flaming and splitting and vitriol in the Tribes. They're more fractured than a potsherd. Tribal anthropologists have built up incredible histories of the fissioning of the Tribes since they were first recognized -- most of 'em are online; you can look 'em up. We stab each other in the back routinely and with no more provocation than a sleepdep hallucination. "Which is how I got here. I'm a member of the Eastern Standard Tribe. We're centered around New York, but we're ramified up and down the coast, Boston and Toronto and Philly, a bunch of Montreal Anglos and some wannabes in upstate New York, around Buffalo and Schenectady. I was doing Tribal work in London, serving the Eastern Standard Agenda, working with a couple of Tribesmen, well, one Tribesman and my girlfriend, who I thought was unaffiliated. Turns out, though, that they're both double agents. They sold out to the Pacific Daylight Tribe, lameass phonies out in LA, slick Silicon Valley bizdev sharks, pseudo hipsters in San Franscarcity. Once I threatened to expose them, they set me up, had me thrown in here." I looked around proudly, having just completed a real fun little excursion through a topic near and dear to my heart. Mount Rushmore looked back at me, stony and bovine and uncomprehending. "Baby," Lucy said, rolling her eyes again, "you need some new meds." "Could be," I said. "But this is for real. Is there a comm on the ward? We can look it up together." "Oh, *that*'all prove it, all right. Nothing but truth online." "I didn't say that. There're peer-reviewed articles about the Tribes. It was a lead story on the CBC's social science site last year." "Uh huh, sure. Right next to the sasquatch videos." "I'm talking about the CBC, Lucy. Let's go look it up." Lucy mimed taking an invisible comm out of her cleavage and prodding at it with an invisible stylus. She settled an invisible pair of spectacles on her nose and nodded sagely. "Oh yeah, sure, really interesting stuff." I realized that I was arguing with a crazy person and turned to the doctor. "You must have read about the Tribes, right?" The doctor acted as if he hadn't heard me. "That's just fascinating, Art. Thank you for sharing that. Now, here's a question I'd like you to think about, and maybe you can tell us the answer tomorrow: What are the ways that your friends -- the ones you say betrayed you -- used to show you how much they respected you and liked you? Think hard about this. I think you'll be surprised by the conclusions you come to." "What's that supposed to mean?" "Just what I said, Art. Think hard about how you and your friends interacted and you'll see that they really like you." "Did you hear what I just said? Have you heard of the Tribes?" "Sure, sure. But this isn't about the Tribes, Art. This is about you and --" he consulted his comm, "Fede and Linda. They care about you a great deal and they're terribly worried about you. You just think about it. Now," he said, recrossing his legs, "Fatima, you told us yesterday about your mother and I asked you to think about how *she* feels. Can you tell the group what you found out?" But Fatima was off in med-land, eyes glazed and mouth hanging slack. Manuel nudged her with his toe, then, when she failed to stir, aimed a kick at her shin. The doctor held a hand out and grabbed Manuel's slippered toe. "That's all right, let's move on to Lucy." I tuned out as Lucy began an elaborate and well-worn rant about her eating habits, prodded on by the doctor. The enormity of the situation was coming home to me. I couldn't win. If I averred that Fede and Linda were my boon companions, I'd still be found incompetent -- after all, what competent person threatens his boon companions? If I stuck to my story, I'd be found incompetent, and medicated besides, like poor little Fatima, zombified by the psychoactive cocktail. Either way, I was stuck. Stuck on the roof now, and it's getting very uncomfortable indeed. Stuck because I am officially incompetent and doomed and damned to indefinite rest on the ward. Stuck because every passing moment here is additional time for the hamsters to run their courses in my mind, piling regret on worry. Stuck because as soon as I am discovered, I will be stupified by the meds, administered by stern and loving and thoroughly disappointed doctors. I still haven't managed to remember any of their names. They are interchangeable, well shod and endowed with badges on lanyards and soothing and implacable and entirely unappreciative of my rhetorical skills. Stuck. The sheet-metal chimneys stand tall around the roof, unevenly distributed according to some inscrutable logic that could only be understood with the assistance of as-built drawings, blueprints, mechanical and structural engineering diagrams. Surely though, they are optimized to wick hot air out of the giant brick pile's guts and exhaust it. I move to the one nearest the stairwell. It is tarred in place, its apron lined with a double-row of cinderblocks that have pools of brackish water and cobwebs gathered in their holes. I stick my hand in the first and drag it off the apron. I repeat it. Now the chimney is standing on its own, in the middle of a nonsensical cinderblock-henge. My hands are dripping with muck and grotendousness. I wipe them off on the pea gravel and then dry them on my boxer shorts, then hug the chimney and lean forward. It gives, slowly, slightly, and springs back. I give it a harder push, really give it my weight, but it won't budge. Belatedly, I realize that I'm standing on its apron, trying to lift myself along with the chimney. I take a step back and lean way forward, try again. It's awkward, but I'm making progress, bent like an ell, pushing with my legs and lower back. I feel something pop around my sacrum, know that I'll regret this deeply when my back kacks out completely, but it'll be all for naught if I don't keep! on! pushing! Then, suddenly, the chimney gives, its apron swinging up and hitting me in the knees so that I topple forward with it, smashing my chin on its hood. For a moment, I lie down atop it, like a stupefied lover, awestruck by my own inanity. The smell of blood rouses me. I tentatively reach my hand to my chin and feel the ragged edge of a cut there, opened from the tip and along my jawbone almost to my ear. The cut is too fresh to hurt, but it's bleeding freely and I know it'll sting like a bastard soon enough. I go to my knees and scream, then scream again as I rend open my chin further. My knees and shins are grooved with deep, parallel cuts, gritted with gravel and grime. Standing hurts so much that I go back to my knees, holler again at the pain in my legs as I grind more gravel into my cuts, and again as I tear my face open some more. I end up fetal on my side, sticky with blood and weeping softly with an exquisite self-pity that is more than the cuts and bruises, more than the betrayal, more than the foreknowledge of punishment. I am weeping for myself, and my identity, and my smarts over happiness and the thought that I would indeed choose happiness over smarts any day. Too damned smart for my own good. 14. "I just don't get it," Fede said. Art tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice. "It's simple," he said. "It's like a car radio with a fast-forward button. You drive around on the MassPike, and your car automatically peers with nearby vehicles. It grabs the current song on someone else's stereo and streamloads it. You listen to it. If you don't hit the fast-forward button, the car starts grabbing everything it can from the peer, all the music on the stereo, and cues it up for continued play. Once that pool is exhausted, it queries your peer for a list of its peers -- the cars that it's getting its music from -- and sees if any of them are in range, and downloads from them. So, it's like you're exploring a taste-network, doing an automated, guided search through traffic for the car whose owner has collected the music you most want to listen to." "But I hate your music -- I don't want to listen to the stuff on your radio." "Fine. That's what the fast-forward button is for. It skips to another car and starts streamloading off of its drive." Fede started to say something, and Art held up his hand. "And if you exhaust all the available cars, the system recycles, but asks its peers for files collected from other sources. You might hate the songs I downloaded from Al, but the songs I got from Bennie are right up your alley. "The war-drivers backstop the whole system. They've got the biggest collections on the freeway, and they're the ones most likely to build carefully thought-out playlists. They've got entire genres -- the whole history of the blues, say, from steel cylinders on -- on their drives. So we encourage them. When you go through a paypoint -- a toll booth -- we debit you for the stuff that you didn't fast-forward, the stuff you listened to and kept. Unless, that is, you've got more than, say, 10,000 songs onboard. Then you go free. It's counterintuitive, I know, but just look at the numbers." "OK, OK. A radio with a fast-forward button. I think I get it." "But?" "But who's going to want to use this? It's unpredictable. You've got no guarantee you'll get the songs you want to hear." Art smiled. "Exactly!" Fede gave him a go-on wave. "Don't you see? That's the crack-cocaine part! It's the thrill of the chase! Nobody gets excited about beating traffic on a back road that's always empty. But get on the M-5 after a hard day at work and drive it at 100 km/h for two hours without once touching your brakes and it's like God's reached down and parted the Red Seas for you. You get a sense of *accomplishment*! Most of the time, your car stereo's gonna play the same junk you've always heard, just background sound, but sometimes, ah! Sometimes you'll hit a sweet spot and get the best tunes you've ever heard. If you put a rat in a cage with a lever that doesn't give food pellets, he'll push it once or twice and give up. Set the lever to always deliver food pellets and he'll push it when he gets hungry. Set it to *sometimes* deliver food pellets and he'll bang on it until he passes out!" "Heh," Fede said. "Good rant." "And?" "And it's cool." Fede looked off into the middle distance a while. "Radio with a fast-forward button. That's great, actually. Amazing. Stupendous!" He snatched the axe-head from its box on Art's desk and did a little war dance around the room, whooping. Art followed the dance from his ergonomic chair, swiveling around as the interface tchotchkes that branched from its undersides chittered to keep his various bones and muscles firmly supported. His office was more like a three-fifths-scale model of a proper office, in Lilliputian London style, so the war dance was less impressive than it might have been with more room to express itself. "You like it, then," Art said, once Fede had run out of steam. "I do, I do, I do!" "Great." "Great." "So." "Yes?" "So what do we do with it? Should I write up a formal proposal and send it to Jersey? How much detail? Sketches? Code fragments? Want me to mock up the interface and the network model?" Fede cocked an eyebrow at him. "What are you talking about?" "Well, we give this to Jersey, they submit the proposal, they walk away with the contract, right? That's our job, right?" "No, Art, that's not our job. Our job is to see to it that V/DT submits a bad proposal, not that Jersey submits a good one. This is big. We roll this together and it's bigger than MassPike. We can run this across every goddamned toll road in the world! Jersey's not paying for this -- not yet, anyway -- and someone should." "You want to sell this to them?" "Well, I want to sell this. Who to sell it to is another matter." Art waved his hands confusedly. "You're joking, right?" Fede crouched down beside Art and looked into his eyes. "No, Art, I am serious as a funeral here. This is big, and it's not in the scope of work that we signed up for. You and me, we can score big on this, but not by handing it over to those shitheads in Jersey and begging for a bonus." "What are you talking about? Who else would pay for this?" "You have to ask? V/DT for starters. Anyone working on a bid for MassPike, or TollPass, or FastPass, or EuroPass." "But we can't sell this to just *anyone*, Fede!" "Why not?" "Jesus. Why not? Because of the Tribes." Fede quirked him half a smile. "Sure, the Tribes." "What does that mean?" "Art, you know that stuff is four-fifths' horseshit, right? It's just a game. When it comes down to your personal welfare, you can't depend on time zones. This is more job than calling, you know." Art squirmed and flushed. "Lots of us take this stuff seriously, Fede. It's not just a mind-game. Doesn't loyalty mean anything to you?" Fede laughed nastily. "Loyalty! If you're doing all of this out of loyalty, then why are you drawing a paycheck? Look, I'd rather that this go to Jersey. They're basically decent sorts, and I've drawn a lot of pay from them over the years, but they haven't paid for this. They wouldn't give us a free ride, so why should we give them one? All I'm saying is, we can offer this to Jersey, of course, but they have to bid for it in a competitive marketplace. I don't want to gouge them, just collect a fair market price for our goods." "You're saying you don't feel any fundamental loyalty to anything, Fede?" "That's what I'm saying." "And you're saying that I'm a sucker for putting loyalty ahead of personal gain -- after all, no one else is, right?" "Exactly." "Then how did this idea become 'ours,' Fede? I came up with it." Fede lost his nasty smile. "There's loyalty and then there's loyalty." "Uh-huh." "No, really. You and I are a team. I rely on you and you rely on me. We're loyal to something concrete -- each other. The Eastern Standard Tribe is an abstraction. It's a whole bunch of people, and neither of us like most of 'em. It's useful and pleasant, but you can't put your trust in institutions -- otherwise you get Nazism." "And patriotism." "Blind patriotism." "So there's no other kind? Just jingoism? You're either loyal to your immediate circle of friends or you're a deluded dupe?" "No, that's not what I'm saying." "So where does informed loyalty leave off and jingoism begin? You come on all patronizing when I talk about being loyal to the Tribe, and you're certainly not loyal to V/DT, nor are you loyal to Jersey. What greater purpose are you loyal to?" "Well, humanity, for starters." "Really. What's that when it's at home?" "Huh?" "How do you express loyalty to something as big and abstract as 'humanity'?" "Well, that comes down to morals, right? Not doing things that poison the world. Paying taxes. Change to panhandlers. Supporting charities." Fede drummed his fingers on his thighs. "Not murdering or raping, you know. Being a good person. A moral person." "OK, that's a good code of conduct. I'm all for not murdering and raping, and not just because it's *wrong*, but because a world where the social norms include murdering and raping is a bad one for me to live in." "Exactly." "That's the purpose of morals and loyalty, right? To create social norms that produce a world you want to live in." "Right! And that's why *personal* loyalty is important." Art smiled. Trap baited and sprung. "OK. So institutional loyalty -- loyalty to a Tribe or a nation -- that's not an important social norm. As far as you're concerned, we could abandon all pretense of institutional loyalty." Art dropped his voice. "You could go to work for the Jersey boys, sabotaging Virgin/Deutsche Telekom, just because they're willing to pay you to do it. Nothing to do with Tribal loyalty, just a job." Fede looked uncomfortable, sensing the impending rhetorical headlock. He nodded cautiously. "Which means that the Jersey boys have no reason to be loyal to you. It's just a job. So if there were an opportunity for them to gain some personal advantage by selling you out, turning you into a patsy for them, well, they should just go ahead and do it, right?" "Uh --" "Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question. Jersey boys sell you out. You take their fall, they benefit. If there was no institutional loyalty, that's where you'd end up, right? That's the social norm you want." "No, of course it isn't." "No, of course not. You want a social norm where individuals can be disloyal to the collective, but not vice versa." "Yes --" "Yes, but loyalty is bidirectional. There's no basis on which you may expect loyalty from an institution unless you're loyal to it." "I suppose." "You know it. I know it. Institutional loyalty is every bit as much about informed self-interest as personal loyalty is. The Tribe takes care of me, I take care of the Tribe. We'll negotiate a separate payment from Jersey for this -- after all, this is outside of the scope of work that we're being paid for -- and we'll split the money, down the middle. We'll work in a residual income with Jersey, too, because, as you say, this is bigger than MassPike. It's a genuinely good idea, and there's enough to go around. All right?" "Are you asking me or telling me?" "I'm asking you. This will require both of our cooperation. I'm going to need to manufacture an excuse to go stateside to explain this to them and supervise the prototyping. You're going to have to hold down the fort here at V/DT and make sure that I'm clear to do my thing. If you want to go and sell this idea elsewhere, well, that's going to require my cooperation, or at least my silence -- if I turn this over to V/DT, they'll pop you for industrial espionage. So we need each other." Art stood and looked down at Fede, who was a good ten centimeters shorter than he, looked down at Fede's sweaty upper lip and creased brow. "We're a good team, Fede. I don't want to toss away an opportunity, but I also don't want to exploit it at the expense of my own morals. Can you agree to work with me on this, and trust me to do the right thing?" Fede looked up. "Yes," he said. On later reflection, Art thought that the *yes* came too quickly, but then, he was just relieved to hear it. "Of course. Of course. Yes. Let's do it." "That's just fine," Art said. "Let's get to work, then." They fell into their traditional division of labor then, Art working on a variety of user-experience plans, dividing each into subplans, then devising protocols for user testing to see what would work in the field; Fede working on logistics from plane tickets to personal days to budget and critical-path charts. They worked side by side, but still used the collaboration tools that Art had grown up with, designed to allow remote, pseudonymous parties to fit their separate work components into the same structure, resolving schedule and planning collisions where it could and throwing exceptions where it couldn't. They worked beside each other and each hardly knew the other was there, and that, Art thought, when he thought of it, when the receptionist commed him to tell him that "Linderrr" -- freakin' teabags -- was there for him, that was the defining characteristic of a Tribalist. A norm, a modus operandi, a way of being that did not distinguish between communication face-to-face and communication at a distance. "Linderrr?" Fede said, cocking an eyebrow. "I hit her with my car," Art said. "Ah," Fede said. "Smooth." Art waved a hand impatiently at him and went out to the reception area to fetch her. The receptionist had precious little patience for entertaining personal visitors, and Linda, in track pants and a baggy sweater, was clearly not a professional contact. The receptionist glared at him as he commed into the lobby and extended his hand to Linda, who took it, put it on her shoulder, grabbed his ass, crushed their pelvises together and jammed her tongue in his ear. "I missed you," she slurped, the buzz of her voice making him writhe. "I'm not wearing any knickers," she continued, loud enough that he was sure that the receptionist heard. He felt the blush creeping over his face and neck and ears. The receptionist. Dammit, why was he thinking about the receptionist? "Linda," he said, pulling away. Introduce her, he thought. Introduce them, and that'll make it less socially awkward. The English can't abide social awkwardness. "Linda, meet --" and he trailed off, realizing he didn't actually know the receptionist's name. The receptionist glared at him from under a cap of shining candy-apple red hair, narrowing her eyes, which were painted in high style with Kubrick action-figure faces. "My *name* is Tonaishah," she hissed. Or maybe it was *Tanya Iseah*, or *Taneesha*. He still didn't know her goddamned name. "And this is Linda," he said, weakly. "We're going out tonight." "And won't you have a dirty great time, then?" Tonaishah said. "I'm sure we will," he said. "Yes," Tonaishah said. Art commed the door and missed the handle, then snagged it and grabbed Linda's hand and yanked her through. "I'm a little randy," she said, directly into his ear. "Sorry." She giggled. "Someone you have to meet," he said, reaching down to rearrange his pants to hide his boner. "Ooh, right here in your office?" Linda said, covering his hand with hers. "Someone with *two* eyes," he said, moving her hand to his hip. "Ahh," she said. "What a disappointment." "I'm serious. I want you to meet my friend Fede. I think you two will really hit it off." "Wait," Linda said. "Isn't this a major step? Meeting the friends? Are we getting that serious already?" "Oh, I think we're ready for it," Art said, draping an arm around her shoulders and resting his fingertips on the upper swell of her breast. She ducked out from under his arm and stopped in her tracks. "Well, I don't. Don't I get a say in this?" "What?" Art said. "Whether it's time for me to meet your friends or not. Shouldn't I have a say?" "Linda, I just wanted to introduce you to a coworker before we went out. He's in my office -- I gotta grab my jacket there, anyway." "Wait, is he a friend or a coworker?" "He's a friend I work with. Come on, what's the big deal?" "Well, first you spring this on me, then you change your story and tell me he's a coworker, now he's a friend again. I don't want to be put on display for your pals. If we're going to meet your friends, I'll dress for it, put on some makeup. This isn't fair." "Linda," Art said, placating. "No," she said. "Screw it. I'm not here to meet your friends. I came all the way across town to meet you at your office because you wanted to head back to your place after work, and you play headgames with me like this?" "All right," Art said. "I'll show you back out to the lobby and you can wait with Tonaishah while I get my jacket." "Don't take that tone with me," she said. "What tone?" Art said. "Jesus Christ! You can't wait in the hall, it's against policy. You don't have a badge, so you have to be with me or in the lobby. I don't give a shit if you meet Fede or not." "I won't tell you again, Art," she said. "Moderate your tone. I won't be shouted at." Art tried to rewind the conversation and figure out how they came to this pass, but he couldn't. Was Linda really acting *this* nuts? Or was he just reading her wrong or pushing her buttons or something? "Let's start over," he said, grabbing both of her hands in his. "I need to get my jacket from my office. You can come with me if you want to, and meet my friend Fede. Otherwise you can wait in the lobby, I won't be a minute." "Let's go meet Fede," she said. "I hope he wasn't expecting anything special, I'm not really dressed for it." He stifled a snotty remark. After all that, she was going to go and meet Fede? So what the hell were they arguing about? On the other hand, he'd gotten his way, hadn't he? He led her by the hand to his office, and beyond every doorway they passed was a V/DT Experience Designer pretending not to peek at them as they walked by, having heard every word through the tricky acoustics of O'Malley House. "Fede," he said, stiffly, "This is Linda. Linda, this is Fede." Fede stood and treated Linda to his big, suave grin. Fede might be short and he might have paranoid delusions, but he was trim and well groomed, with the sort of finicky moustache that looked like a rotting caterpillar if you didn't trim it every morning. He liked to work out, and had a tight waist and a gut you could bounce a quarter off of, and liked to wear tight shirts that showed off his overall fitness, made him stand out among the spongy mouse-potatoes of the corporate world. Art had never given it much thought, but now, standing with Fede and Linda in his tiny office, breathing in Fede's Lilac Vegetal and Linda's new-car-smell shampoo, he felt paunchy and sloppy. "Ah," Fede said, taking her hand. "The one you hit with your car. It's a pleasure. You seem to be recovering nicely, too." Linda smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek, a few strands of her bobbed hair sticking to his moustache like cobwebs as she pulled away. "It was just a love tap," she said. "I'll be fine." "Fede's from New York," Art said. "We colonials like to stick together around the office. And Linda's from Los Angeles." "Aren't there any, you know, British people in London?" Linda said, wrinkling her nose. "There's Tonaishah," Art said weakly. "Who?" Fede said. "The receptionist," Linda said. "Not a very nice person." "With the eyes?" Fede said, wriggling his fingers around his temples to indicate elaborate eye makeup. "That's her," Linda said. "Nasty piece of work," Fede said. "Never trusted her." "*You're* not another UE person, are you?" Linda said, sizing Fede up and giving Art a playful elbow in the ribs. "Who, me? Nah. I'm a management consultant. I work in Chelsea mostly, but when I come slumming in Piccadilly, I like to comandeer Art's office. He's not bad, for a UE-geek." "Not bad at all," Linda said, slipping an arm around Art's waist, wrapping her fingers around the waistband of his trousers. "Did you need to grab your jacket, honey?" Art's jacket was hanging on the back of his office door, and to get at it, he had to crush himself against Linda and maneuver the door shut. He felt her breasts soft on his chest, felt her breath tickle his ear, and forgot all about their argument in the corridor. "All right," Art said, hooking his jacket over his shoulder with a finger, feeling flushed and fluttery. "OK, let's go." "Lovely to have met you, Fede," Linda said, taking his hand. "And likewise," Fede said. 15. Vigorous sex ensued. 16. Art rolled out of bed at dark o'clock in the morning, awakened by circadians and endorphins and bladder. He staggered to the toilet in the familiar gloom of his shabby little rooms, did his business, marveled at the tenderness of his privates, fumbled for the flush mechanism -- "British" and "Plumbing" being two completely opposite notions -- and staggered back to bed. The screen of his comm, nestled on the end table, washed the room in liquid-crystal light. He'd tugged the sheets off of Linda when he got up, and there she was, chest rising and falling softly, body rumpled and sprawled after their gymnastics. It had been transcendent and messy, and the sheets were coarse with dried fluids. He knelt on the bed and fussed with the covers some, trying for an equitable -- if not chivalrously so -- division of blankets. He bent forward to kiss at a bite-mark he'd left on her shoulder. His back went "pop." Somewhere down in the lumbar, somewhere just above his tailbone, a deep and unforgiving *pop*, ominous as the cocking of a revolver. He put his hand there and it felt OK, so he cautiously lay back. Three-quarters of the way down, his entire lower back seized up, needles of fire raced down his legs and through his groin, and he collapsed. He *barked* with pain, an inhuman sound he hadn't known he could make, and the rapid emptying of his lungs deepened the spasm, and he mewled. Linda opened a groggy eye and put her hand on his shoulder. "What is it, hon?" He tried to straighten out, to find a position in which the horrible, relentless pain returned whence it came. Each motion was agony. Finally, the pain subsided, and he found himself pretzelled, knees up, body twisted to the left, head twisted to the right. He did not dare budge from this posture, terrified that the pain would return. "It's my back," he gasped. "Whah? Your back?" "I -- I put it out. Haven't done it in years. I need an icepack, OK? There're some headache pills in the medicine cabinet. Three of those." "Seriously?" "Look, I'd get 'em myself, but I can't even sit up, much less walk. I gotta ice this down now before it gets too inflamed." "How did it happen?" "It just happens. Tai Chi helps. Please, I need ice." Half an hour later, he had gingerly arranged himself with his knees up and his hips straight, and he was breathing deeply, willing the spasms to unclench. "Thanks," he said. "What now? Should I call a doctor?" "He'd just give me painkillers and tell me to lose some weight. I'll probably be like this for a week. Shit. Fede's going to kill me. I was supposed to go to Boston next Friday, too." "Boston? What for? For how long?" Art bunched the sheets in his fists. He hadn't meant to tell her about Boston yet -- he and Fede hadn't worked out his cover story. "Meetings," he said. "Two or three days. I was going to take some personal time and go see my family, too. Goddamnit. Pass me my comm, OK?" "You're going to *work* now?" "I'm just going to send Fede a message and send out for some muscle-relaxants. There's a twenty-four-hour chemist's at Paddington Station that delivers." "I'll do it, you lie flat." And so it began. Bad enough to be helpless, weak as a kitten and immobile, but to be at the whim of someone else, to have to provide sufficient excuse for every use of his comm, every crawl across the flat... Christ. "Just give me my comm, please. I can do it faster than I can explain how to do it." In thirty-six hours, he was ready to tear the throat out of anyone who tried to communicate with him. He'd harangued Linda out of the flat and crawled to the kitchen floor, painstakingly assembling a nest of pillows and sofa cushions, close to the icemaker and the painkillers and toilet. His landlady, an unfriendly Chinese lady who had apparently been wealthy beyond words in Hong Kong and clearly resented her reduced station, agreed to sign for the supply drops he commed to various retailers around London. He was giving himself a serious crick in his neck and shoulder from working supine, comm held over his head. The painkillers weighted his arms and churned his guts, and at least twice an hour, he'd grog his way into a better position, forgetting the tenderness in his back, and bark afresh as his nerves shrieked and sizzled. Two days later and he was almost unrecognizable, a gamey, unshaven lump in the tiny kitchen, his nest gray with sweat and stiff with spilled take-away curry. He suspected that he was overmedicating, forgetting whether he'd taken his tablets and taking more. In one of his more lucid moments, he realized that there was a feedback cycle at play here -- the more pills he took, the less equipped he was to judge whether he'd taken his pills, so the more pills he took. His mind meandered through a solution to this, a timer-equipped pillcase that reset when you took the lid off and chimed if you took the lid off again before the set interval had elapsed. He reached for his comm to make some notes, found it wedged under one of his hocks, greasy with sweat, batteries dead. He hadn't let his comm run down in a decade, at least. His landlady let Linda in on the fourth day, as he was sleeping fitfully with a pillow over his face to shut out the light from the window. He'd tried to draw the curtains a day -- two days? -- before, but had given up when he tried to pull himself upright on the sill only to collapse in a fresh gout of writhing. Linda crouched by his head and stroked his greasy hair softly until he flipped the pillow off his face with a movement of his neck. He squinted up at her, impossibly fresh and put together and incongruous in his world of reduced circumstances. "Art. Art. Art. Art! You're a mess, Art! Jesus. Why aren't you in bed?" "Too far," he mumbled. "What would your grandmother say? Dear-oh-dearie. Come on, let's get you up and into bed, and then I'm going to have a doctor and a massage therapist sent in. You need a nice, hot bath, too. It'll be good for you and hygienic besides." "No tub," he said petulantly. "I know, I know. Don't worry about it. I'll sort it out." And she did, easing him to his feet and helping him into bed. She took his house keys and disappeared for some unknowable time, then reappeared with fresh linen in store wrappers, which she lay on the bed carefully, making tight hospital corners and rolling him over, nurse-style, to do the other side. He heard her clattering in the kitchen, running the faucets, moving furniture. He reminded himself to ask her to drop his comm in its charger, then forgot. "Come on, time to get up again," she said, gently peeling the sheets back. "It's OK," he said, waving weakly at her. "Yes, it is. Let's get up." She took his ankles and gradually turned him on the bed so that his feet were on the floor, then grabbed him by his stinking armpits and helped him to his feet. He stumbled with her into his crowded living room, dimly aware of the furniture stacked on itself around him. She left him hanging on the door lintel and then began removing his clothes. She actually used a scissors to cut away his stained tee shirt and boxer shorts. "All right," she said, "into the tub." "No tub," he said. "Look down, Art," she said. He did. An inflatable wading pool sat in the middle of his living room, flanked by an upended coffee table and his sofa, standing on its ear. The pool was full of steaming, cloudy water. "There's a bunch of eucalyptus oil and Epsom salts in there. You're gonna love it." That night, Art actually tottered into the kitchen and got himself a glass of water, one hand pressed on his lower back. The cool air of the apartment fanned the mentholated liniment on his back and puckered goose pimples all over his body. After days of leaden limbs, he felt light and clean, his senses singing as though he was emerging from a fever. He drank the water, and retrieved his comm from its cradle. He propped several pillows up on his headboard and fired up his comm. Immediately, it began to buzz and hum and chatter and blink, throwing up alerts about urgent messages, pages and calls pending. The lightness he'd felt fled him, and he began the rotten business of triaging his in-box. One strong impression emerged almost immediately: Fede wanted him in Boston. The Jersey clients were interested in the teasers that Fede had forwarded to them. The Jersey clients were obsessed with the teasers that Fede had forwarded to them. The Jersey clients were howling for more after the teasers that Fede had forwarded to them. Fede had negotiated some big bucks on approval if only Art would go and talk to the Jersey clients. The Jersey clients had arranged a meeting with some of the MassPike decision-makers for the following week, and now they were panicking because they didn't have anything *except* the teasers Fede had forwarded to them. You should really try to go to Boston, Art. We need you in Boston, Art. You have to go to Boston, Art. Art, go to Boston. Boston, Art. Boston. Linda rolled over in bed and peered up at him. "You're *not* working again, are you?" "Shhh," Art said. "It's less stressful if I get stuff done than if I let it pile up." "Then why is your forehead all wrinkled up?" "I have to go to Boston," he said. "Day after tomorrow, I think." "Jesus, are you insane? Trying to cripple yourself?" "I can recover in a hotel room just as well as I can recover here. It's just rest from here on in, anyway. And a hotel will probably have a tub." "I can't believe I'm hearing this. You're not going to *recover* in Boston. You'll be at meetings and stuff. Christ!" "I've got to do this," Art said. "I just need to figure out how. I'll go business class, take along a lumbar pillow, and spend every moment that I'm not in a meeting in a tub or getting a massage. I could use a change of scenery about now, anyway." "You're a goddamned idiot, you know that?" Art knew it. He also knew that here was an opportunity to get back to EST, to make a good impression on the Jersey clients, to make his name in the Tribe and to make a bundle of cash. His back be damned, he was sick of lying around anyway. "I've got to go, Linda." "It's your life," she said, and tossed aside the covers. "But I don't have to sit around watching you ruin it." She disappeared into the hallway, then reemerged, dressed and with her coat on. "I'm out of here." "Linda," Art said. "No," she said. "Shut up. Why the fuck should I care if you don't, huh? I'm going. See you around." "Come on, let's talk about this." East-Coast pizza. Flat Boston twangs. The coeds rushing through Harvard Square and oh, maybe a side trip to New York, maybe another up to Toronto and a roti at one of the halal Guyanese places on Queen Street. He levered himself painfully out of bed and hobbled to the living room, where Linda was arguing with a taxi dispatcher over her comm, trying to get them to send out a cab at two in the morning. "Come on," Art said. "Hang that up. Let's talk about this." She shot him a dirty look and turned her back, kept on ranting down the comm at the dispatcher. "Linda, don't do this. Come on." "I am on the phone!" she said to him, covering the mouthpiece. "Shut the fuck up, will you?" She uncovered the mouthpiece. "Hello? Hello?" The dispatcher had hung up. She snapped the comm shut and slammed it into her purse. She whirled to face Art, snorting angry breaths through her nostrils. Her face was such a mask of rage that Art recoiled, and his back twinged. He clasped at it and carefully lowered himself onto the sofa. "Don't do this, OK?" he said. "I need support, not haranguing." "What's there to say? Your mind's already made up. You're going to go off and be a fucking idiot and cripple yourself. Go ahead, you don't need my permission." "Sit down, please, Linda, and talk to me. Let me explain my plan and my reasons, OK? Then I'll listen to you. Maybe we can sort this out and actually, you know, come to understand each other's point of view." "Fine," she said, and slammed herself into the sofa. Art bounced and he seized his back reflexively, waiting for the pain, but beyond a low-grade throbbing, he was OK. "I have a very large opportunity in Boston right now. One that could really change my life. Money, sure, but prestige and profile, too. A dream of an opportunity. I need to attend one or two meetings, and then I can take a couple days off. I'll get Fede to OK a first-class flight -- we get chits we can use to upgrade to Virgin Upper; they've got hot tubs and massage therapists now. I'll check into a spa -- they've got a bunch on Route 128 -- and get a massage every morning and have a physiotherapist up to the room every night. I can't afford that stuff here, but Fede'll spring for it if I go to Boston, let me expense it. I'll be a good lad, I promise." "I still think you're being an idiot. Why can't Fede go?" "Because it's my deal." "Why can't whoever you're meeting with come here?" "That's complicated." "Bullshit. I thought you wanted to talk about this?" "I do. I just can't talk about that part." "Why not? Are you afraid I'll blab? Christ, Art. Give me some credit. Who the hell would I blab *to*, anyway?" "Look, Linda, the deal itself is confidential -- a secret. A secret's only a secret if you don't tell it to anyone, all right? So I'm not going to tell you. It's not relevant to the discussion, anyway." "Art. Art. Art. Art, you make it all sound so reasonable, and you can dress it up with whatever words you want, but at the end of the day, we both know you're full of shit on this. There's no *way* that doing this is better for you than staying here in bed. If Fede's the problem, let me talk to him." "Jesus, no!" "Why not?" "It's not appropriate, Linda. This is a work-related issue. It wouldn't be professional. OK, I'll concede that flying and going to meeting is more stressful than not flying and not going to meetings, but let's take it as a given that I *really* need to go to Boston. Can't we agree on that, and then discuss the ways that we can mitigate the risks associated with the trip?" "Jesus, you're an idiot," she said, but she seemed to be on the verge of smiling. "But I'm *your* idiot, right?" Art said, hopefully. "Sure, sure you are." She *did* smile then, and cuddle up to him on the sofa. "They don't have fucking *hot tubs* in Virgin Upper, do they?" "Yeah," Art said, kissing her earlobe. "They really do." 17. Once the blood coursing from my shins slows and clots, I take an opportunity to inspect the damage more closely. The cuts are relatively shallow, certainly less serious than they were in my runamuck imagination, which had vivid slashes of white bone visible through the divided skin. I cautiously pick out the larger grit and gravel and turn my attention spinewards. I have done a number on my back, that much is certain. My old friends, the sacroiliac joints, feel as tight as drumheads, and they creak ominously when I shift to a sitting position with my back propped up on the chimney's upended butt, the aluminum skirting cool as a kiss on my skin. They're only just starting to twinge, a hint of the agonies to come. My jaw, though, is pretty bad. My whole face feels swollen, and if I open my mouth the blood starts anew. You know, on sober reflection, I believe that coming up to the roof was a really bad idea. I use the chimney to lever myself upright again, and circle it to see exactly what kind of damage I've done. There's a neat circular hole in the roof where the chimney used to be, gusting warm air into my face as I peer into its depths. The hole is the mouth of a piece of shiny metal conduit about the circumference of a basketball hoop. When I put my head into it, I hear the white noise of a fan, somewhere below in the building's attic. I toss some gravel down the conduit and listen to the report as it *ping*s off the fan blades down below. That's a good, loud sound, and one that is certain to echo through the building. I rain gravel down the exhaust tube by the handful, getting into a mindless, shuffling rhythm, wearing the sides of my hands raw and red as I scrape the pebbles up into handy piles. Soon I am shuffling afield of the fallen chimney, one hand on my lumbar, crouched over like a chimp, knees splayed in an effort to shift stress away from my grooved calves. I'm really beating the shit out of that poor fan, I can tell. The shooting-gallery rattle of the gravel ricocheting off the blades is dulling now, sometimes followed by secondary rattles as the pebbles bounce back into the blades. Not sure what I'll do if the fan gives out before someone notices me up here. It's not an issue, as it turns out. The heavy fire door beyond the chimney swings open abruptly. A hospital maintenance gal in coveralls, roly-poly and draped with tool belts and bandoliers. She's red-faced from the trek up the stairs, and it gives her the aspect of a fairy tale baker or candy-seller. She reinforces this impression by putting her plump hands to her enormous bosom and gasping when she catches sight of me. It comes to me that I am quite a fucking sight. Bloody, sunburnt, wild-eyed, with my simian hunch and my scabby jaw set at a crazy angle to my face and reality both. Not to mention my near nudity, which I'm semipositive is not her idea of light entertainment. "Hey," I say. "I, uh, I got stuck on the roof. The door shut." Talking reopens the wound on my jaw and I feel more blood trickling down my neck. "Unfortunately, I only get one chance to make a first impression, huh? I'm not, you know, really *crazy,* I was just a little bored and so I went exploring and got stuck and tried to get someone's attention, had a couple accidents... It's a long story. Hey! My name's Art. What's yours?" "Oh my Lord!" she said, and her hand jumps to the hammer in its bandolier holster on her round tummy. She claws at it frantically. "Please," I say, holding my hands in front of me. "Please. I'm hurt is all. I came up here to get some fresh air and the door swung shut behind me. I tripped when I knocked over the chimney to get someone's attention. I'm not dangerous. Please. Just help me get back down to the twentieth floor -- I think I might need a stretcher crew, my back is pretty bad." "It's Caitlin," she says. "I beg your pardon?" "My name is Caitlin," she says. "Hi, Caitlin," I said. I extend my hand, but she doesn't move the ten yards she would have to cross in order to take it. I think about moving towards her, but think better of it. "You're not up here to jump, are you?" "Jump? Christ, no! Just stuck is all. Just stuck." Linda's goddamned boyfriend was into all this flaky Getting to Yes shit, subliminal means of establishing rapport and so on. Linda and I once spent an afternoon at the Children's Carousel uptown in Manhattan, making fun of all his newage theories. The one that stood out in my mind as funniest was synching your breathing -- "What you resist persists, so you need to turn resistance into assistance," Linda recounted. You match breathing with your subject for fifteen breaths and they unconsciously become receptive to your suggestions. I have a suspicion that Caitlin might bolt, duck back through the door and pound down the stairs on her chubby little legs and leave me stranded. So I try it, match my breath to her heaving bosom. She's still panting from her trek up the stairs and fifteen breaths go by in a quick pause. The silence stretches, and I try to remember what I'm supposed to do next. Lead the subject, that's it. I slow my breathing down gradually and, amazingly, her breath slows down along with mine, until we're both breathing great, slow breaths. It works -- it's flaky and goofy California shit, but it works. "Caitlin," I say calmly, making it part of an exhalation. "Yes," she says, still wary. "Have you got a comm?" "I do, yes." "Can you please call downstairs and ask them to send up a stretcher crew? I've hurt my back and I won't be able to handle the stairs." "I can do that, yes." "Thank you, Caitlin." It feels like cheating. I didn't have to browbeat her or puncture her bad reasoning -- all it took was a little rapport, a little putting myself in her shoes. I can't believe it worked, but Caitlin flips a ruggedized comm off her hip and speaks into it in a calm, efficient manner. "Thank you, Caitlin," I say again. I start to ease myself to a sitting position, and my back gives way, so that I crash to the rooftop, mewling, hands clutched to my spasming lumbar. And then Caitlin's at my side, pushing my hands away from my back, strong thumbs digging into the spasming muscles around my iliac crests, soothing and smoothing them out, tracing the lines of fire back to the nodes of the joints, patiently kneading the spasms out until the pain recedes to a soft throbbing. "My old man used to get that," she said. "All us kids had to take turns working it out for him." I'm on my back, staring up over her curves and rolls and into her earnest, freckled face. "Oh, God, that feels good," I say. "That's what the old man used to say. You're too young to have a bad back." "I have to agree," I say. "All right, I'm going to prop your knees up and lay your head down. I need to have a look at that ventilator." I grimace. "I'm afraid I did a real number on it," I say. "Sorry about that." She waves a chubby pish-tosh at me with her freckled hand and walks over to the chimney, leaving me staring at the sky, knees bent, waiting for the stretcher crew. When they arrive, Caitlin watches as they strap me onto the board, tying me tighter than is strictly necessary for my safety, and I realize that I'm not being tied *down*, I'm being tied *up*. "Thanks, Caitlin," I say. "You're welcome, Art." "Good luck with the ventilator -- sorry again." "That's all right, kid. It's my job, after all." 18. Virgin Upper's hot tubs were more theoretically soothing than actually so. They had rather high walls and a rather low water level, both for modesty's sake and to prevent spills. Art passed through the miniature sauna/shower and into the tub after his massage, somewhere over Newfoundland, and just as the plane hit turbulence, buffeting him with chlorinated water that stung his eyes and got up his nose and soaked the magazine on offshore investing that he'd found in the back of his seat pocket. He landed at JFK still smelling of chlorine and sandalwood massage oil and the cantaloupe-scented lotion in the fancy toilets. Tension melted away from him as he meandered to the shuttle stop. The air had an indefinable character of homeliness, or maybe it was the sunlight. Amateur Tribal anthropologists were always thrashing about light among themselves, arguing about the sun's character varying from latitude to latitude, filtered through this city's pollution signature or that. The light or the air, the latitude or the smog, it felt like home. The women walked with a reassuring, confident *clack clack clack* of heel on hard tile; the men talked louder than was necessary to one another or to their comms. The people were a riot of ethnicities and their speech was a riotous babel of accents, idioms and languages. Aggressive pretzel vendors vied with aggressive panhandlers to shake down the people waiting on the shuttle bus. Art bought a stale, sterno-reeking pretzel that was crusted with inedible volumes of yellowing salt and squirted a couple bucks at a panhandler who had been pestering him in thick Jamaican patois but thanked him in adenoidal Brooklynese. By the time he boarded his connection to Logan he was joggling his knees uncontrollably in his seat, his delight barely contained. He got an undrinkable can of watery Budweiser and propped it up on his tray table alongside his inedible pretzel and arranged them in a kind of symbolic tableau of all things ESTian. He commed Fede from the guts of the tunnels that honeycombed Boston, realizing with a thrill as Fede picked up that it was two in the morning in London, at the nominal GMT+0, while here at GMT-5 -- at the default, plus-zero time zone of his life, livelihood and lifestyle -- it was only 9PM. "Fede!" Art said into the comm. "Hey, Art!" Fede said, with a false air of chipperness that Art recognized from any number of middle-of-the-night calls. There was a cheap Malaysian comm that he'd once bought because of its hyped up de-hibernate feature -- its ability to go from its deepest power-saving sleepmode to full waking glory without the customary thirty seconds of drive-churning housekeeping as it reestablished its network connection, verified its file system and memory, and pinged its buddy-list for state and presence info. This Malaysian comm, the Crackler, had the uncanny ability to go into suspended animation indefinitely, and yet throw your workspace back on its display in a hot instant. When Art actually laid hands on it, after it meandered its way across the world by slow boat, corrupt GMT+8 Posts and Telegraphs authorities, over-engineered courier services and Revenue Canada's Customs agents, he was enchanted by this feature. He could put the device into deep sleep, close it up, and pop its cover open and poof! there were his windows. It took him three days and an interesting crash to notice that even though he was seeing his workspace, he wasn't able to interact with it for thirty seconds. The auspicious crash revealed the presence of a screenshot of his pre-hibernation workspace on the drive, and he realized that the machine was tricking him, displaying the screenshot -- the illusion of wakefulness -- when he woke it up, relying on the illusion to endure while it performed its housekeeping tasks in the background. A little stopwatch work proved that this chicanery actually added three seconds to the overall wake-time, and taught him his first important user-experience lesson: perception of functionality trumps the actual function. And here was Fede, throwing up a verbal screenshot of wakefulness while he churned in the background, housekeeping himself into real alertness. "Fede, I'm here, I'm in Boston!" "Good Art, good. How was the trip?" "Wonderful. Virgin Upper was fantastic -- dancing girls, midget wrestling, hash brownies..." "Good, very good." "And now I'm driving around under Boston through a land-yacht regatta. The boats are mambo, but I think that banana patch the hotel soon." "Glad to hear it." Art heard water running dimly, realized that Fede was taking a leak. "Meeting with the Jersey boys tomorrow. We're having brunch at a strip club." "OK, OK, very funny," Fede said. "I'm awake. What's up?" "Nothing. I just wanted to check in with you and let you know I arrived safe and sound. How're things in London?" "Your girlfriend called me." "Linda?" "You got another girlfriend?" "What did she want?" "She wanted to chew me out for sending you overseas with your 'crippling back injury.' She told me she'd hold me responsible if you got into trouble over there." "God, Fede, I'm sorry. I didn't put her up to it or anything --" "Don't worry about it. I'm glad that there's someone out there who cares about you. We're getting together for dinner tonight." "Fede, you know, I think Linda's terrific, but she's a little, you know, volatile." "Art, everyone in O'Malley House knows just how volatile she is. 'I won't tell you again, Art. Moderate your tone. I won't be shouted at.'" "Christ, you heard that, too?" "Don't worry about it. She's cool and I like her and I can stand to be shouted at a little. When did you say you were meeting with Perceptronics?" The word shocked him. They never mentioned the name of the Jersey clients. It started as a game, but soon became woven into Fede's paranoid procedures. Now they had reached the endgame. Within a matter of weeks, they'd be turning in their resignations to V/DT and taking the final flight across the Atlantic and back to GMT-5, provocateurs no longer. "Tomorrow afternoon. We're starting late to give me time to get a full night's sleep." The last conference call with Perceptronics had gone fantastically. His normal handlers -- sour men with nasty minds who glommed onto irrelevancies in V/DT's strategy and teased at them until they conjured up shadowy and shrewd conspiracies where none existed -- weren't on that call. Instead, he'd spent a rollicking four hours on the line with the sharp and snarky product designers and engineers, bouncing ideas back and forth at speed. Even over the phone, the homey voices and points of view felt indefinably comfortable and familiar. They'd been delighted to start late in the day for his benefit, and had offered to work late and follow up with a visit to a bar where he could get a burger the size of a baby's head. "We're meeting at Perceptronics' branch office in Acton tomorrow and the day after, then going into MassPike. The Perceptronics guys sound really excited." Just saying the name of the company was a thrill. "That's really excellent, Art. Go easy, though --" "Oh, don't worry about me. My back's feeling miles better." And it was, loose and supple the way it did after a good workout. "That's good, but it's not what I meant. We're still closing this deal, still dickering over price. I need another day, maybe, to settle it. So go easy tomorrow. Give me a little leverage, OK?" "I don't get it. I thought we had a deal." "Nothing's final till it's vinyl, you know that. They're balking at the royalty clause" -- Fede was proposing to sell Perceptronics an exclusive license on the business-model patent he'd filed for using Art's notes in exchange for jobs, a lump-sum payment and a royalty on every sub-license that Perceptronics sold to the world's toll roads -- "and we're renegotiating. They're just playing hardball, is all. Another day, tops, and I'll have it sorted." "I'm confused. What do you want me to do?" "Just, you know, *stall* them. Get there late. Play up your jetlag. Leave early. Don't get anything, you know, *done*. Use your imagination." "Is there a deal or isn't there, Fede?" "There's a deal, there's a deal. I'll do my thing, you'll do your thing, and we'll both be rich and living in New York before you know it. Do you understand?" "Not really." "OK, that'll have to be good enough for now. Jesus, Art, I'm doing my best here, all right?" "Say hi to Linda for me, OK?" "Don't be pissed at me, Art." "I'm not pissed. I'll stall them. You do your thing. I'll take it easy, rest up my back." "All right. Have a great time, OK?" "I will, Fede." Art rang off, feeling exhausted and aggravated. He followed the tunnel signs to the nearest up-ramp, wanting to get into the sunlight and architecture and warm himself with both. A miniscule BMW Flea blatted its horn at him when he changed lanes. Had he cut the car off? He was still looking the wrong way, still anticipating oncoming traffic on the right. He raised a hand in an apologetic wave. It wasn't enough for the Flea's driver. The car ran right up to his bumper, then zipped into the adjacent lane, accelerated and cut him off, nearly causing a wreck. As it was, Art had to swerve into the parking lane on Mass Ave -- how did he get to Mass Ave? God, he was lost already -- to avoid him. The Flea backed off and switched lanes again, then pulled up alongside of him. The driver rolled down his window. "How the fuck do you like it, jackoff? Don't *ever* fucking cut me off!" He was a middle aged white guy in a suit, driving a car that was worth a year's wages to Art, purple-faced and pop-eyed. Art felt something give way inside, and then he was shouting back. "When I want your opinion, I'll squeeze your fucking head, you sack of shit! As it is, I can barely contain my rage at the thought that a scumbag like you is consuming *air* that the rest of us could be breathing! Now, roll up your goddamned window and drive your fucking bourge-mobile before I smash your fucking head in!" He shut his mouth, alarmed. What the hell was he saying? How did he end up standing here, outside of his car, shouting at the other driver, stalking towards the Flea with his hands balled into fists? Why was he picking a fight with this goddamned psycho, anyway? A year in peaceful, pistol-free London had eased his normal road-rage defense systems. Now they came up full, and he wondered if the road-rager he'd just snapped at would haul out a Second-Amendment Special and cap him. But the other driver looked as shocked as Art felt. He rolled up his window and sped off, turning wildly at the next corner -- Brookline, Art saw. Art got back into his rental, pulled off to the curb and asked his comm to generate an optimal route to his hotel, and drove in numb silence the rest of the way. 19. They let me call Gran on my second day here. Of course, Linda had already called her and briefed her on my supposed mental breakdown. I had no doubt that she'd managed to fake hysterical anxiety well enough to convince Gran that I'd lost it completely; Gran was already four-fifths certain that I was nuts. "Hi, Gran," I said. "Arthur! My God, how are you?" "I'm fine, Gran. It's a big mistake is all." "A mistake? Your lady friend called me and told me what you'd done in London. Arthur, you need help." "What did Linda say?" "She said that you threatened to kill a coworker. She said you threatened to kill *her*. That you had a knife. Oh, Arthur, I'm so worried --" "It's not true, Gran. She's lying to you." "She told me you'd say that." "Of course she did. She and Fede -- a guy I worked with in London -- they're trying to get rid of me. They had me locked up. I had a business deal with Fede, we were selling one of my ideas to a company in New Jersey. Linda talked him into selling to some people she knows in LA instead, and they conspired to cut me out of the deal. When I caught them at it, they got me sent away. Let me guess, she told you I was going to say this, too, right?" "Arthur, I know --" "You know that I'm a good guy. You raised me. I'm not nuts, OK? They just wanted to get me out of the way while they did their deal. A week or two and I'll be out again, but it will be too late. Do you believe that you know me better than some girl I met a month ago?" "Of *course* I do, Arthur. But why would the hospital take you away if --" "If I wasn't crazy? I'm in here for observation -- they want to find *out* if I'm crazy. If *they're* not sure, then you can't be sure, right?" "All right. Oh, I've been sick with worry." "I'm sorry, Gran. I need to get through this week and I'll be free and clear and I'll come back to Toronto." "I'm going to come down there to see you. Linda told me visitors weren't allowed, is that true?" "No, it's not true." I thought about Gran seeing me in the ward amidst the pukers and the screamers and the droolers and the *fondlers* and flinched away from the phone. "But if you're going to come down, come for the hearing at the end of the week. There's nothing you can do here now." "Even if I can't help, I just want to come and see you. It was so nice when you were here." "I know, I know. I'll be coming back soon, don't worry." If only Gran could see me now, on the infirmary examination table, in four-point restraint. Good thing she can't. A doctor looms over me. "How are you feeling, Art?" "I've had better days," I say, with what I hope is stark sanity and humor. Aren't crazy people incapable of humor? "I went for a walk and the door swung shut behind me." "Well, they'll do that," the doctor says. "My name is Szandor," he says, and shakes my hand in its restraint. "A pleasure to meet you," I say. "You're a *doctor* doctor, aren't you?" "An MD? Yup. There're a couple of us around the place." "But you're not a shrink of any description?" "Nope. How'd you guess?" "Bedside manner. You didn't patronize me." Dr. Szandor tries to suppress a grin, then gives up. "We all do our bit," he says. "How'd you get up on the roof without setting off your room alarm, anyway?" "If I tell you how I did it, I won't be able to repeat the trick," I say jokingly. He's swabbing down my shins now with something that stings and cools at the same time. From time to time, he takes tweezers in hand and plucks loose some gravel or grit and plinks it into a steel tray on a rolling table by his side. He's so gentle, I hardly feel it. "What, you never heard of doctor-patient confidentiality?" "Is that thing still around?" "Oh sure! We had a mandatory workshop on it yesterday afternoon. Those are always a lot of fun." "So, you're saying that you've got professional expertise in the keeping of secrets, huh? I suppose I could spill it for you, then." And I do, explaining my little hack for tricking the door into thinking that I'd left and returned to the room. "Huh -- now that you explain it, it's pretty obvious." "That's my job -- figuring out the obvious way of doing something." And we fall to talking about my job with V/DT, and the discussion branches into the theory and practice of UE, only slowing a little when he picks the crud out of the scrape down my jaw and tugs through a couple of quick stitches. It occurs to me that he's just keeping me distracted, using a highly evolved skill for placating psychopaths through small talk so that they don't thrash while he's knitting their bodies back together. I decide that I don't care. I get to natter on about a subject that I'm nearly autistically fixated on, and I do it in a context where I know that I'm sane and smart and charming and occasionally mind-blowing. "...and the whole thing pays for itself through EZPass, where we collect the payments for the music downloaded while you're on the road." As I finish my spiel, I realize *I've* been keeping *him* distracted, standing there with the tweezers in one hand and a swab in the other. "Wow!" he said. "So, when's this all going to happen?" "You'd use it, huh?" "Hell, yeah! I've got a good twenty, thirty thousand on my car right now! You're saying I could plunder anyone else's stereo at will, for free, and keep it, while I'm stuck in traffic, and because I'm a -- what'd you call it, a super-peer? -- a super-peer, it's all free and legal? Damn!" "Well, it may be a while before you see it on the East Coast. It'll probably roll out in LA first, then San Francisco, Seattle..." "What? Why?" "It's a long story," I say. "And it ends with me on the roof of a goddamned nuthouse on Route 128 doing a one-man tribute to the Three Stooges." 20. Three days later, Art finally realized that something big and ugly was in the offing. Fede had repeatedly talked him out of going to Perceptronics's offices, offering increasingly flimsy excuses and distracting him by calling the hotel's front desk and sending up surprise massage therapists to interrupt Art as he stewed in his juices, throbbing with resentment at having been flown thousands of klicks while injured in order to check into a faceless hotel on a faceless stretch of highway and insert this thumb into his asshole and wait for Fede -- *who was still in fucking London!* -- to sort out the mess so that he could present himself at the Perceptronics Acton offices and get their guys prepped for the ever-receding meeting with MassPike. "Jesus, Federico, what the fuck am I *doing* here?" "I know, Art, I know." Art had taken to calling Fede at the extreme ends of circadian compatibility, three AM and eleven PM and then noon on Fede's clock, as a subtle means of making the experience just as unpleasant for Fede as it was for Art. "I screwed up," Fede yawned. "I screwed up and now we're both paying the price. You handled your end beautifully and I dropped mine. And I intend to make it up to you." "I don't *want* more massages, Fede. I want to get this shit done and I want to come home and see my girlfriend." Fede tittered over the phone. "What's so funny?" "Nothing much," Fede said. "Just sit tight there for a couple minutes, OK? Call me back once it happens and tell me what you wanna do, all right?" "Once what happens?" "You'll know." It was Linda, of course. Knocking on Art's hotel room door minutes later, throwing her arms -- and then her legs -- around him, and banging him stupid, half on and half off the hotel room bed. Riding him and then being ridden in turns, slurping and wet and energetic until they both lay sprawled on the hotel room's very nice Persian rugs, dehydrated and panting and Art commed Fede, and Fede told him it could take a couple weeks to sort things out, and why didn't he and Linda rent a car and do some sight-seeing on the East Coast? That's exactly what they did. Starting in Boston, where they cruised Cambridge, watching the cute nerdyboys and geekygirls wander the streets, having heated technical debates, lugging half-finished works of technology and art through the sopping summertime, a riot of townie accents and highbrow engineerspeak. Then a week in New York, where they walked until they thought their feet would give out entirely, necks cricked at a permanent, upward-staring angle to gawp at the topless towers of Manhattan. The sound the sound the sound of Manhattan rang in their ears, a gray and deep rumble of cars and footfalls and subways and steampipes and sirens and music and conversation and ring tones and hucksters and schizophrenic ranters, a veritable Las Vegas of cacophony, and it made Linda uncomfortable, she who was raised in the white noise susurrations of LA's freeway forests, but it made Art feel *wonderful*. He kept his comm switched off, though the underfoot rumble of the subway had him reaching for it a hundred times a day, convinced that he'd left it on in vibe-alert mode. They took a milk-run train to Toronto, chuffing through sleepy upstate New York towns, past lakes and rolling countryside in full summer glory. Art and Linda drank ginger beer in the observation car, spiking it with rum from a flask that Linda carried in a garter that she wore for the express purpose of being able to reach naughtily up her little sundress and produce a bottle of body-temperature liquor in a nickel-plated vessel whose shiny sides were dulled by the soft oil of her thigh. Canada Customs and Immigration separated them at the border, sending Art for a full inspection -- a privilege of being a Canadian citizen and hence perennially under suspicion of smuggling goods from the tax havens of the US into the country -- and leaving Linda in their little Pullman cabin. When Art popped free of the bureaucracy, his life thoroughly peered into, he found Linda standing on the platform, leaning against a pillar, back arched, one foot flat against the bricks, corresponding dimpled knee exposed to the restless winds of the trainyard. From Art's point of view, she was a gleaming vision skewered on a beam of late day sunlight that made her hair gleam like licorice. Her long and lazy jaw caught and lost the sun as she talked animatedly down her comm, and Art was struck with a sudden need to sneak up behind her and run his tongue down the line that began with the knob of her mandible under her ear and ran down to the tiny half-dimple in her chin, to skate it on the soft pouch of flesh under her chin, to end with a tasting of her soft lips. Thought became deed. He crept up on her, smelling her new-car hair products on the breeze that wafted back from her, and was about to begin his tonguing when she barked, "Fuck *off*! Stop calling me!" and closed her comm and stormed off trainwards, leaving Art standing on the opposite side of the pillar with a thoroughly wilted romantic urge. More carefully, he followed her into the train, back to their little cabin, and reached for the palm-pad to open the door when he heard her agitated comm voice. "No, goddamnit, no. Not yet. Keep calling me and not *ever*, do you understand?" Art opened the door. Linda was composed and neat and sweet in her plush seat, shoulders back, smile winning. "Hey honey, did the bad Customs man finally let you go?" "He did! That sounded like a doozy of a phone conversation, though. What's wrong?" "You don't want to know," she said. "All right," Art said, sitting down opposite her, knee-to-knee, bending forward to plant a kiss on the top of her exposed thigh. "I don't." "Good." He continued to kiss his way up her thigh. "Only..." "Yes?" "I think I probably do. Curiosity is one of my worst failings of character." "Really?" "Quite so," he said. He'd slid her sundress right up to the waistband of her cotton drawers, and now he worried one of the pubic hairs that poked out from the elastic with his teeth. She shrieked and pushed him away. "Someone will see!" she said. "This is a border crossing, not a bordello!" He sat back, but inserted a finger in the elastic before Linda straightened out her dress, so that his fingertip rested in the crease at the top of her groin. "You are *naughty*," she said. "And curious," Art agreed, giving his fingertip a playful wiggle. "I give up. That was my fucking ex," she said. "That is how I will refer to him henceforth. 'My fucking ex.' My fucking, pain-in-the-ass, touchy-feely ex. My fucking ex, who wants to have the Talk, even though it's been months and months. He's figured out that I'm stateside from my calling times, and he's offering to come out to meet me and really Work Things Out, Once And For All." "Oh, my," Art said. "That boy's got too much LA in him for his own good. There's no problem that can't be resolved through sufficient dialog." "We never really talked about him," Art said. "Nope, we sure didn't." "Did you want to talk about him now, Linda?" "'Did you want to talk about him now, Linda?' Why yes, Art, I would. How perceptive of you." She pushed his hand away and crossed her arms and legs simultaneously. "Wait, I'm confused," Art said. "Does that mean you want to talk about him, or that you don't?" "Fine, we'll talk about him. What do you want to know about my fucking ex?" Art resisted a terrible urge to fan her fires, to return the vitriol that dripped from her voice. "Look, you don't want to talk about him, we won't talk about him," he managed. "No, let's talk about my fucking ex, by all means." She adopted a singsong tone and started ticking off points on her fingers. "His name is Toby, he's half-Japanese, half-white. He's about your height. Your dick is bigger, but he's better in bed. He's a user-experience designer at Lucas-SGI, in Studio City. He never fucking shuts up about what's wrong with this or that. We dated for two years, lived together for one year, and broke up just before you and I met. I broke it off with him: He was making me goddamned crazy and he wanted me to come back from London and live with him. I wanted to stay out the year in England and go back to my own apartment and possibly a different boyfriend, and he made me choose, so I chose. Is that enough of a briefing for you, Arthur?" "That was fine," Art said. Linda's face had gone rabid purple, madly pinched, spittle flecking off of her lips as she spat out the words. "Thank you." She took his hands and kissed the knuckles of his thumbs. "Look, I don't like to talk about it -- it's painful. I'm sorry he's ruining our holiday. I just won't take his calls anymore, how about that?" "I don't care, Linda, Honestly, I don't give a rat's ass if you want to chat with your ex. I just saw how upset you were and I thought it might help if you could talk it over with me." "I know, baby, I know. But I just need to work some things out all on my own. Maybe I will take a quick trip out west and talk things over with him. You could come if you want -- there are some wicked bars in West Hollywood." "That's OK," Art said, whipsawed by Linda's incomprehensible mood shifts. "But if you need to go, go. I've got plenty of old pals to hang out with in Toronto." "You're so understanding," she cooed. "Tell me about your grandmother again -- you're sure she'll like me?" "She'll love you. She loves anything that's female, of childbearing years, and in my company. She has great and unrealistic hopes of great-grandchildren." "Cluck." "Cluck?" "Just practicing my brood-hen." 21. Doc Szandor's a good egg. He's keeping the shrinks at bay, spending more time with me than is strictly necessary. I hope he isn't neglecting his patients, but it's been so long since I had a normal conversation, I just can't bear to give it up. Besides, I get the impression that Szandor's in a similar pit of bad conversation with psychopaths and psychotherapists and is relieved to have a bit of a natter with someone who isn't either having hallucinations or attempting to prevent them in others. "How the hell do you become a user-experience guy?" "Sheer orneriness," I say, grinning. "I was just in the right place at the right time. I had a pal in New York who was working for a biotech company that had made this artificial erectile tissue." "Erectile tissue?" "Yeah. Synthetic turtle penis. Small and pliable and capable of going large and rigid very quickly." "Sounds delightful." "Oh, it was actually pretty cool. You know the joke about the circumcisionist's wallet made from foreskins?" "Sure, I heard it premed -- he rubs it and it becomes a suitcase, right?" "That's the one. So these guys were thinking about making drawbridges, temporary shelters, that kind of thing out of it. They even had a cute name for it: 'Ardorite.'" "Ho ho ho." "Yeah. So they weren't shipping a whole lot of product, to put it mildly. Then I spent a couple of weeks in Manhattan housesitting for my friend while he was visiting his folks in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. He had a ton of this stuff lying around his apartment, and I would come back after walking the soles off my shoes and sit in front of the tube playing with it. I took some of it down to Madison Square Park and played with it there. I liked to hang out there because it was always full of these very cute Icelandic *au pairs* and their tots, and I was a respectable enough young man with about 200 words of Icelandic I'd learned from a friend's mom in high school and they thought I was adorable and I thought they were blond goddesses. I'd gotten to be friends with one named Marta, oh, Marta. Bookmark Marta, Szandor, and I'll come back to her once we're better acquainted. "Anyway, Marta was in charge of Machinery and Avarice, the spoiled monsterkinder of a couple of BBD&O senior managers who'd vaulted from art school to VPdom in one year when most of the gray eminences got power-thraxed. Machinery was three and liked to bang things against other things arythmically while hollering atonally. Avarice was five, not toilet trained, and prone to tripping. I'd get Marta novelty coffee from the Stinkbucks on Twenty-third and we'd drink it together while Machinery and Avarice engaged in terrible, life-threatening play with the other kids in the park. "I showed Marta what I had, though I was tactful enough not to call it *synthetic turtle penis*, because while Marta was earthy, she wasn't *that* earthy and, truth be told, it got me kinda hot to watch her long, pale blue fingers fondling the soft tissue, then triggering the circuit that hardened it. "Then Machinery comes over and snatches the thing away from Marta and starts pounding on Avarice, taking unholy glee in the way the stuff alternately softened and stiffened as he squeezed it. Avarice wrestled it away from him and tore off for a knot of kids and by the time I got there they were all crowded around her, spellbound. I caught a cab back to my buddy's apartment and grabbed all the Ardorite I could lay hands on and brought it back to the park and spent the next couple hours running an impromptu focus group, watching the kids and their bombshell nannies play with it. By the time that Marta touched my hand with her long cool fingers and told me it was time for her to get the kids home for their nap, I had twenty-five toy ideas, about eight different ways to use the stuff for clothing fasteners, and a couple of miscellaneous utility uses, like a portable crib. "So I ran it down for my pal that afternoon over the phone, and he commed his boss and I ended up eating Thanksgiving dinner at his boss's house in Westchester." "Weren't you worried he'd rip off your ideas and not pay you anything for them?" Szandor's spellbound by the story, unconsciously unrolling and re-rolling an Ace bandage. "Didn't even cross my mind. Of course, he tried to do just that, but it wasn't any good -- they were engineers; they had no idea how normal human beings interact with their environments. The stuff wasn't self-revealing -- they added a million cool features and a manual an inch thick. After prototyping for six months, they called me in and offered me a two-percent royalty on any products I designed for them." "That musta been worth a fortune," says Szandor. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? Actually, they folded before they shipped anything. Blew through all their capital on R&D, didn't have anything left to productize their tech with. But my buddy *did* get another gig with a company that was working on new kitchen stuff made from one-way osmotic materials and he showed them the stuff I'd done with the Ardorite and all of a sudden I had a no-fooling career." "Damn, that's cool." "You betcha. It's all about being an advocate for the user. I observe what users do and how they do it, figure out what they're trying to do, and then boss the engineers around, getting them to remove the barriers they've erected because engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff." The doctor chuckles. "Look," he says, producing a nicotine pacifier, one of those fake cigs that gives you the oral fix and the chemical fix and the habit fix without the noxious smoke, "it's not my area of specialty, but you seem like a basically sane individual, modulo your rooftop adventures. Certainly, you're not like most of the people we've got here. What are you doing here?" Doctor Szandor is young, younger even than me, I realize. Maybe twenty-six. I can see some fancy tattoo-work poking out of the collar of his shirt, see some telltale remnant of a fashionable haircut in his grown-out shag. He's got to be the youngest staff member I've met here, and he's got a fundamentally different affect from the zombies in the lab coats who maintain the zombies in the felt slippers. So I tell him my story, the highlights, anyway. The more I tell him about Linda and Fede, the dumber my own actions sound to me. "Why the hell did you stick with this Linda anyway?" Szandor says, sucking on his pacifier. "The usual reasons, I guess," I say, squirming. "Lemme tell you something," he says. He's got his feet up on the table now, hands laced behind his neck. "It's the smartest thing my dad ever said to me, just as my high-school girl and me were breaking up before I went away to med school. She was nice enough, but, you know, *unstable.* I'd gotten to the point where I ducked and ran for cover every time she disagreed with me, ready for her to lose her shit. "So my dad took me aside, put his arm around me, and said, 'Szandor, you know I like that girlfriend of yours, but she is crazy. Not a little crazy, really crazy. Maybe she won't be crazy forever, but if she gets better, it won't be because of you. Trust me, I know this. You can't fuck a crazy girl sane, son.'" I can't help smiling. "Truer words," I say. "But harsh." "Harsh is relative," he says. "Contrast it with, say, getting someone committed on trumped-up evidence." It dawns on me that Doc Szandor believes me. "It dawns on me that you believe me." He gnaws fitfully at his pacifier. "Well, why not? You're not any crazier than I am, that much is clear to me. You have neat ideas. Your story's plausible enough." I get excited. "Is this your *professional* opinion?" "Sorry, no. I am not a mental health professional, so I don't have professional opinions on your mental health. It is, however, my amateur opinion." "Oh, well." "So where are you at now, vis-a-vis the hospital?" "Well, they don't tell me much, but as near as I can make out, I am stuck here semipermanently. The court found me incompetent and ordered me held until I was. I can't get anyone to explain what competency consists of, or how I achieve it -- when I try, I get accused of being 'difficult.' Of course, escaping onto the roof is a little beyond difficult. I have a feeling I'm going to be in pretty deep shit. Do they know about the car?" "The car?" "In the parking lot. The one that blew up." Doc Szandor laughs hard enough that his pacifier shoots across the room and lands in a hazmat bucket. "You son of a bitch -- that was you?" "Yeah," I say, and drum my feet against the tin cupboards under the examination table. "That was *my fucking car*!" "Oh, Christ, I'm sorry," I say. "God." "No no no," he says, fishing in his pocket and unwrapping a fresh pacifier. "It's OK. Insurance. I'm getting a bike. Vroom, vroom! What a coincidence, though," he says. Coincidence. He's making disgusting hamster-cage noises, grinding away at his pacifier. "Szandor, do you sometimes sneak out onto the landing to have a cigarette? Use a bit of tinfoil for your ashtray? Prop the door open behind you?" "Why do you ask?" "'Cause that's how I got out onto the roof." "Oh, shit," he says. "It's our secret," I say. "I can tell them I don't know how I got out. I'm incompetent, remember?" "You're a good egg, Art," he says. "How the hell are we going to get you out of here?" "Hey what?" "No, really. There's no good reason for you to be here, right? You're occupying valuable bed space." "Well, I appreciate the sentiment, but I have a feeling that as soon as you turn me loose, I'm gonna be doped up to the tits for a good long while." He grimaces. "Right, right. They like their meds. Are your parents alive?" "What? No, they're both dead." "Aha. Died suddenly?" "Yeah. Dad drowned, Mom fell --" "Ah ah ah! Shhh. Mom died suddenly. She was taking Haldol when it happened, a low antianxiety dose, right?" "Huh?" "Probably she was. Probably she had a terrible drug interaction. Sudden Death Syndrome. It's hereditary. And you say she fell? Seizure. We'll sign you up for a PET scan, that'll take at least a month to set up. You could be an epileptic and not even know it. Shaking the radioisotopes loose for the scan from the AEC, woah, that's a week's worth of paperwork right there! No Thorazine for you young man, not until we're absolutely sure it won't kill you dead where you stand. The hospital counsel gave us all a very stern lecture on this very subject not a month ago. I'll just make some notes in your medical history." He picked up his comm and scribbled. "Never woulda thought of that," I say. "I'm impressed." "It's something I've been playing with for a while now. I think that psychiatric care is a good thing, of course, but it could be better implemented. Taking away prescription pads would be a good start." "Or you could keep public stats on which doctors had prescribed how much of what and how often. Put 'em on a chart in the ward where the patients' families could see 'em." "That's *nasty*!" he says. "I love it. We're supposed to be accountable, right? What else?" "Give the patients a good reason to wear their tracking bracelets: redesign them so they gather stats on mobility and vitals and track them against your meds and other therapies. Create a dating service that automatically links patients who respond similarly to therapies so they can compare notes. Ooh, by comparing with location data from other trackers, you could get stats on which therapies make people more sociable, just by counting the frequency with which patients stop and spend time in proximity to other patients. It'd give you empirical data with which you track your own progress." "This is great stuff. Damn! How do you do that?" I feel a familiar swelling of pride. I like it when people understand how good I am at my job. Working at V/DT was hard on my ego: after all, my job there was to do a perfectly rotten job, to design the worst user experiences that plausibility would allow. God, did I really do that for two whole goddamned years? "It's my job," I say, and give a modest shrug. "What do you charge for work like that?" "Why, are you in the market?" "Who knows? Maybe after I figure out how to spring you, we can go into biz together, redesigning nuthatches." 22. Linda's first meeting with Art's Gran went off without a hitch. Gran met them at Union Station with an obsolete red cap who was as ancient as she was, a vestige of a more genteel era of train travel and bulky luggage. Just seeing him made Art's brain whir with plans for conveyor systems, luggage escalators, cart dispensers. They barely had enough luggage between the two of them to make it worth the old man's time, but he dutifully marked their bags with a stub of chalk and hauled them onto his cart, then trundled off to the service elevators. Gran gave Art a long and teary hug. She was less frail than she'd been in his memory, taller and sturdier. The smell of her powder and the familiar acoustics of Union Station's cavernous platform whirled him back to his childhood in Toronto, to the homey time before he'd gotten on the circadian merry-go-round. "Gran, this is Linda," he said. "Oh, it's so *nice* to meet you," Gran said, taking Linda's hands in hers. "Call me Julie." Linda smiled a great, pretty, toothy smile. "Julie, Art's told me all about you. I just *know* we'll be great friends." "I'm sure we will. Are you hungry? Did they feed you on the train? You must be exhausted after such a long trip. Which would you rather do first, eat or rest?" "Well, *I'm* up for seeing the town," Linda said. "Your grandson's been yawning his head off since Buffalo, though." She put her arm around his waist and squeezed his tummy. "What a fantastic couple you make," Gran said. "You didn't tell me she was so *pretty*, Arthur!" "Here it comes," Art said. "She's going to ask about great-grandchildren." "Don't be silly," Gran said, cuffing him gently upside the head. "You're always exaggerating." "Well *I* think it's a splendid idea," Linda said. "Shall we have two? Three? Four?" "Make it ten," Art said, kissing her cheek. "Oh, I couldn't have ten," Linda said. "But five is a nice compromise. Five it will be. We'll name the first one Julie if it's a girl, or Julius if it's a boy." "Oh, we *are* going to get along," Gran said, and led them up to the curb, where the red cap had loaded their bags into a cab. They ate dinner at Lindy's on Yonge Street, right in the middle of the sleaze strip. The steakhouse had been there for the better part of a century, and its cracked red-vinyl booths and thick rib eyes smothered in horseradish and HP Sauce were just as Art had remembered. Riding up Yonge Street, the city lights had seemed charming and understated; even the porn marquees felt restrained after a week in New York. Art ate a steak as big as his head and fell into a postprandial torpor whence he emerged only briefly to essay a satisfied belch. Meanwhile, Gran and Linda nattered away like old friends, making plans for the week: the zoo, the island, a day trip to Niagara Falls, a ride up the CN Tower, all the touristy stuff that Art had last done in elementary school. By the time Art lay down in his bed, belly tight with undigested steak, he was feeling wonderful and at peace with the world. Linda climbed in beside him, wrestled away a pillow and some covers, and snuggled up to him. "That went well," Art said. "I'm really glad you two hit it off." "Me too, honey," Linda said, kissing his shoulder through his tee shirt. He'd been able to get his head around the idea of sharing a bed with his girlfriend under his grandmother's roof, but doing so nude seemed somehow wrong. "We're going to have a great week," he said. "I wish it would never end." "Yeah," she said, and began to snore into his neck. The next morning, Art woke stiff and serene. He stretched out on the bed, dimly noted Linda's absence, and padded to the bathroom to relieve his bladder. He thought about crawling back into bed, was on the verge of doing so, when he heard the familiar, nervewracking harangue of Linda arguing down her comm. He opened the door to his old bedroom and there she was, stark naked and beautiful in the morning sun, comm in hand, eyes focused in the middle distance, shouting. "No, goddamnit, no! Not here. Jesus, are you a moron? I said *no*!" Art reached out to touch her back, noticed that it was trembling, visibly tense and rigid, and pulled his hand back. Instead, he quietly set about fishing in his small bag for a change of clothes. "This is *not* a good time. I'm at Art's grandmother's place, all right? I'll talk to you later." She threw her comm at the bed and whirled around. "Everything all right?" Art said timidly. "No, goddamnit, no it isn't." Art pulled on his pants and kept his eyes on her comm, which was dented and scratched from a hundred thousand angry hang ups. He hated it when she got like this, radiating anger and spoiling for a fight. "I'm going to have to go, I think," she said. "Go?" "To California. That was my fucking ex again. I need to go and sort things out with him." "Your ex knows who I am?" She looked blank. "You told him you were at my grandmother's place. He knows who I am?" "Yeah," she said. "He does. I told him, so he'd get off my back." "And you have to go to California?" "Today. I have to go to California today." "Jesus, today? We just got here!" "Look, you've got lots of catching up to do with your Gran and your friends here. You won't even miss me. I'll go for a couple days and then come back." "If you gotta go," he said. "I gotta go." He explained things as best as he could to Gran while Linda repacked her backpack, and then saw Linda off in a taxi. She was already savaging her comm, booking a ticket to LA. He called Fede from the condo's driveway. "Hey, Art! How's Toronto?" "How'd you know I was in Toronto?" Art said, but he knew, he *knew* then, though he couldn't explain how he knew, he knew that Linda and Fede had been talking. He *knew* that Linda had been talking to Fede that morning, and not her fucking ex (God, he was thinking of the poor schmuck that way already, "fucking ex"). Christ, it was *five in the morning* on the West Coast. It couldn't be the ex. He just knew. "Lucky guess," Fede said breezily. "How is it?" "Oh, terrific. Great to see the old hometown and all. How're things with Perceptronics? When should I plan on being back in Boston?" "Oh, it's going all right, but slow. Hurry up and wait, right? Look, don't worry about it, just relax there, I'll call you when the deal's ready and you'll go back to Boston and we'll sort it out and it'll all be fantastic and don't worry, really, all right?" "Fine, Fede." Art wasn't listening any more. Fede had gone into bullshit mode, and all Art was thinking of was why Linda would talk to Fede and then book a flight to LA. "How're things in London?" he said automatically. "Fine, fine," Fede said, just as automatically. "Not the same without you, of course." "Of course," Art said. "Well, bye then." "Bye," Fede said. Art felt an unsuspected cunning stirring within him. He commed Linda, in her cab. "Hey, dude," he said. "Hey," she said, sounding harassed. "Look, I just spoke to my Gran and she's really upset you had to go. She really liked you." "Well, I liked her, too." "Great. Here's the thing," he said, and drew in a breath. "Gran made you a sweater. She made me one, too. She's a knitter. She wanted me to send it along after you. It looks pretty good. So, if you give me your ex's address, I can FedEx it there and you can get it." There was a lengthy pause. "Why don't I just pick it up when I see you again?" Linda said, finally. *Gotcha*, Art thought. "Well, I know that'd be the *sensible* thing, but my Gran, I dunno, she really wants me to do this. It'd make her so happy." "I dunno -- my ex might cut it up or something." "Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't do that. I could just schedule the delivery for after you arrive, that way you can sign for it. What do you think?" "I really don't think --" "Come on, Linda, I know it's nuts, but it's my Gran. She *really* likes you." Linda sighed. "Let me comm you the address, OK?" "Thanks, Linda," Art said, watching the address in Van Nuys scroll onto his comm's screen. "Thanks a bunch. Have a great trip -- don't let your ex get you down." Now, armed with Linda's fucking ex's name, Art went to work. He told Gran he had some administrative chores to catch up on for an hour or two, promised to have supper with her and Father Ferlenghetti that night, and went out onto the condo's sundeck with his keyboard velcroed to his thigh. Trepan: Hey! Colonelonic: Trepan! Hey, what's up? I hear you're back on the East Coast! Trepan: True enough. Back in Toronto. How's things with you? Colonelonic: Same as ever. Trying to quit the dayjob. Trepan: /private Colonelonic Are you still working at Merril-Lynch? ## Colonelonic (private): Yeah. Trepan: /private Colonelonic Still got access to Lexus-Nexus? ## Colonelonic (private): Sure -- but they're on our asses about abusing the accounts. Every search is logged and has to be accounted for. Trepan: /private Colonelonic Can you get me background on just one guy? ## Colonelonic (private): Who is he? Why? Trepan: /private Colonelonic It's stupid. I think that someone I know is about to go into biz with him, and I don't trust him. I'm probably just being paranoid, but... ## Colonelonic (private): I don't know, man. Is it really important? Trepan: /private Colonelonic Oh, crap, look. It's my girlfriend. I think she's screwing this guy. I just wanna get an idea of who he is, what he does, you know. ## Colonelonic (private): Heh. That sucks. OK -- check back in a couple hours. There's a guy across the hall who never logs out of his box when he goes to lunch. I'll sneak in there and look it up on his machine. Trepan: /private Colonelonic Kick ass. Thanks. ##Transferring addressbook entry "Toby Ginsburg" to Colonelonic. Receipt confirmed. Trepan: /private Colonelonic Thanks again! ## Colonelonic (private): Check in with me later -- I'll have something for you then. Art logged off, flushed with triumph. Whatever Fede and Linda were cooking up, he'd get wise to it and then he'd nail 'em. What the hell was it, though? 23. My cousins visited me a week after I arrived at the nuthouse. I'd never been very close to them, and certainly our relationship had hardly blossomed during the week I spent in Toronto, trying to track down Linda and Fede's plot. I have two cousins. They're my father's sister's kids, and I didn't even meet them until I was about twenty and tracking down my family history. They're Ottawa Valley kids, raised on government-town pork, aging hippie muesli, and country-style corn pone. It's a weird mix, and we've never had a conversation that I would consider a success. Ever met a violent, aggressive hippie with an intimate knowledge of whose genitals one must masticate in order to get a building permit or to make a pot bust vanish? It ain't pretty. Cousin the first is Audie. She's a year older than me, and she's the smart one on that side of the family, the one who ended up at Queen's University for a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MA in Poli Sci, and even so finished up back in Ottawa, freelancing advice to clueless MPs dealing with Taiwanese and Sierra Leonese OEM importers. Audie's married to a nice fella whose name I can never remember and they're gonna have kids in five years; it's on a timetable that she actually showed me once when I went out there on biz and stopped in to see her at the office. Cousin the second is Alphie -- three years younger than me, raised in the shadow of his overachieving sister, he was the capo of Ottawa Valley script kiddies, a low-rent hacker who downloaded other people's code for defeating copyright use-control systems and made a little biz for himself bootlegging games, porn, music and video, until the WIPO bots found him through traffic analysis and busted his ass, bankrupting him and landing him in the clink for sixty days. Audie and Alfie are blond and ruddy and a little heavyset, all characteristics they got from their father's side, so add that to the fact that I grew up without being aware of their existence and you'll understand the absence of any real fellow-feeling for them. I don't dislike them, but I have so little in common with them that it's like hanging out with time travelers from the least-interesting historical era imaginable. But they came to Boston and looked me up in the nuthatch. They found me sitting on the sofa in the ward, post-Group, arms and ankles crossed, dozing in a shaft of sunlight. It was my habitual napping spot, and I found that a nap between Group and dinner was a good way to sharpen my appetite and anasthetize my taste buds, which made the mealtime slop bearable. Audie shook my shoulder gently. I assumed at first that she was one of the inmates trying to get me involved in a game of Martian narco-checkers, so I brushed her hand away. "They've probably got him all doped up," Audie said. The voice was familiar and unplaceable and so I cracked my eyelid, squinting up at her silhouette in the afternoon sun. "There he is," she said. "Come on, up and at 'em, tiger." I sat up abruptly and scrubbed at my eyes. "Audie?" I asked. "Yup. And Alphie." Alphie's pink face hove into view. "Hi, Art," he mumbled. "Jesus," I said, getting to my feet. Audie put out a superfluous steadying hand. "Wow." "Surprised?" Audie said. "Yeah!" I said. Audie thrust a bouquet of flowers into my arms. "What are you doing here?" "Oh, your grandmother told me you were here. I was coming down to Boston for work anyway, so I flew in a day early so I could drop in. Alphie came down with me -- he's my assistant now." I almost said something about convicted felons working for government contractors, but I held onto my tongue. Consequently, an awkward silence blossomed. "Well," Audie said, at last. "Well! Let's have a look at you, then." She actually took a lap around me, looking me up and down, making little noises. "You look all right, Art. Maybe a little skinny, even. Alphie's got a box of cookies for you." Alphie stepped forward and produced the box, a family pack of President's Choice Ridiculous Chocoholic Extra Chewies, a Canadian store brand I'd been raised on. Within seconds of seeing them, my mouth was sloshing with saliva. "It's good to see you, Audie, Alphie." I managed to say it without spitting, an impressive feat, given the amount of saliva I was contending with. "Thanks for the care package." We stared at each other blankly. "So, Art," Alphie said, "So! How do you like it here?" "Well, Alphie," I said. "I can't say as I do, really. As far as I can tell, I'm sane as I've ever been. It's just a bunch of unfortunate coincidences and bad judgment that got me here." I refrain from mentioning Alphie's propensity for lapses in judgment. "Wow," Alphie said. "That's a bummer. We should do something, you know, Audie?" "Not really my area of expertise," Audie said in clipped tones. "I would if I could, you know that, right Art? We're family, after all." "Oh, sure," I say magnanimously. But now that I'm looking at them, my cousins who got into a thousand times more trouble than I ever did, driving drunk, pirating software, growing naughty smokables in the backyard, and got away from it unscathed, I feel a stirring of desperate hope. "Only..." "Only what?" Alphie said. "Only, maybe, Audie, do you think you could, that is, if you've got the time, do you think you could have a little look around and see if any of your contacts could maybe set me up with a decent lawyer who might be able to get my case reheard? Or a shrink, for that matter? Something? 'Cause frankly it doesn't really seem like they're going to let me go, ever. Ever." Audie squirmed and glared at her brother. "I don't really know anyone that fits the bill," she said at last. "Well, not *firsthand,* sure, why would you? You wouldn't." I thought that I was starting to babble, but I couldn't help myself. "You wouldn't. But maybe there's someone that someone you know knows who can do something about it? I mean, it can't hurt to ask around, can it?" "I suppose it can't," she said. "Wow," I said, "that would just be fantastic, you know. Thanks in advance, Audie, really, I mean it, just for trying, I can't thank you enough. This place, well, it really sucks." There it was, hanging out, my desperate and pathetic plea for help. Really, there was nowhere to go but down from there. Still, the silence stretched and snapped and I said, "Hey, speaking of, can I offer you guys a tour of the ward? I mean, it's not much, but it's home." So I showed them: the droolers and the fondlers and the pukers and my horrible little room and the scarred ping-pong table and the sticky decks of cards and the meshed-in TV. Alphie actually seemed to dig it, in a kind of horrified way. He started comparing it to the new Kingston Pen, where he'd done his six-month bit. After seeing the first puker, Audie went quiet and thin-lipped, leaving nothing but Alphie's enthusiastic gurgling as counterpoint to my tour. "Art," Audie said finally, desperately, "do you think they'd let us take you out for a cup of coffee or a walk around the grounds?" I asked. The nurse looked at a comm for a while, then shook her head. "Nope," I reported. "They need a day's notice of off-ward supervised excursions." "Well, too bad," Audie said. I understood her strategy immediately. "Too bad. Nothing for it, then. Guess we should get back to our hotel." I planted a dry kiss on her cheek, shook Alphie's sweaty hand, and they were gone. I skipped supper that night and ate cookies until I couldn't eat another bite of rich chocolate. # "Got a comm?" I ask Doc Szandor, casually. "What for?" "Wanna get some of this down. The ideas for the hospital. Before I go back out on the ward." And it *is* what I want to do, mostly. But the temptation to just log on and do my thing -- oh! "Sure," he says, checking his watch. "I can probably stall them for a couple hours more. Feel free to make a call or whatever, too." Doc Szandor's a good egg. 24. Father Ferlenghetti showed up at Art's Gran's at 7PM, just as the sun began to set over the lake, and Art and he shared lemonade on Gran's sunporch and watched as the waves on Lake Ontario turned harshly golden. "So, Arthur, tell me, what are you doing with your life?" the Father said. He had grown exquisitely aged, almost translucent, since Art had seen him last. In his dog collar and old-fashioned aviator's shades, he looked like a waxworks figure. Art had forgotten all about the Father's visit until Gran stepped out of her superheated kitchen to remind him. He'd hastily showered and changed into fresh slacks and a mostly clean tee shirt, and had agreed to entertain the priest while his Gran finished cooking supper. Now, he wished he'd signed up to do the cooking. "I'm working in London," he said. "The same work as ever, but for an English firm." "That's what your grandmother tells me. But is it making you happy? Is it what you plan to do with the rest of your life?" "I guess so," Art said. "Sure." "You don't sound so sure," Father Ferlenghetti said. "Well, the *work* part's excellent. The politics are pretty ugly, though, to tell the truth." "Ah. Well, we can't avoid politics, can we?" "No, I guess we can't." "Art, I've always known that you were a very smart young man, but being smart isn't the same as being happy. If you're very lucky, you'll get to be my age and you'll look back on your life and be glad you lived it." Gran called him in for dinner before he could think of a reply. He settled down at the table and Gran handed him a pen. "What's this for?" he asked. "Sign the tablecloth," she said. "Write a little something and sign it and date it, nice and clear, please." "Sign the tablecloth?" "Yes. I've just started a fresh one. I have everyone sign my tablecloth and then I embroider the signatures in, so I have a record of everyone who's been here for supper. They'll make a nice heirloom for your children -- I'll show you the old ones after we eat." "What should I write?" "It's up to you." While Gran and the Father looked on, Art uncapped the felt-tip pen and thought and thought, his mind blank. Finally, he wrote, "For my Gran. No matter where I am, I know you're thinking of me." He signed it with a flourish. "Lovely. Let's eat now." Art meant to log in and see if Colonelonic had dredged up any intel on Linda's ex, but he found himself trapped on the sunporch with Gran and the Father and a small stack of linen tablecloths hairy with embroidered wishes. He traced their braille with his fingertips, recognizing the names of his childhood. Gran and the Father talked late into the night, and the next thing Art knew, Gran was shaking him awake. He was draped in a tablecloth that he'd pulled over himself like a blanket, and she folded it and put it away while he ungummed his eyes and staggered off to bed. Audie called him early the next morning, waking him up. "Hey, Art! It's your cousin!" "Audie?" "You don't have any other female cousins, so yes, that's a good guess. Your Gran told me you were in Canada for a change." "Yup, I am. Just for a little holiday." "Well, it's been long enough. What do you do in London again?" "I'm a consultant for Virgin/Deutsche Telekom." He has this part of the conversation every time he speaks with Audie. Somehow, the particulars of his job just couldn't seem to stick in her mind. "What kind of consultant?" "User experience. I help design their interactive stuff. How's Ottawa?" "They pay you for that, huh? Well, nice work if you can get it." Art believed that Audie was being sincere in her amazement at his niche in the working world, and not sneering at all. Still, he had to keep himself from saying something snide about the lack of tangible good resulting from keeping MPs up to date on the poleconomy of semiconductor production in PacRim sweatshops. "They sure do. How's Ottawa?" "Amazing. And why London? Can't you find work at home?" "Yeah, I suppose I could. This just seemed like a good job at the time. How's Ottawa? "Seemed, huh? You going to be moving back, then? Quitting?" "Not anytime soon. How's Ottawa?" "Ottawa? It's beautiful this time of year. Alphie and Enoch and I were going to go to the trailer for the weekend, in Calabogie. You could drive up and meet us. Swim, hike. We've built a sweatlodge near the dock; you and Alphie could bake up together." "Wow," Art said, wishing he had Audie's gift for changing the subject. "Sounds great. But. Well, you know. Gotta catch up with friends here in Toronto. It's been a while, you know. Well." The image of sharing a smoke-filled dome with Alphie's naked, cross-legged, sweat-slimed paunch had seared itself across his waking mind. "No? Geez. Too bad. I'd really hoped that we could reconnect, you and me and Alphie. We really should spend some more time together, keep connected, you know?" "Well," Art said. "Sure. Yes." Relations or no, Audie and Alphie were basically strangers to him, and it was beyond him why Audie thought they should be spending time together, but there it was. *Reconnect, keep connected.* Hippies. "We should. Next time I'm in Canada, for sure, we'll get together, I'll come to Ottawa. Maybe Christmas. Skating on the canal, OK?" "Very good," Audie said. "I'll pencil you in for Christmas week. Here, I'll send you the wish lists for Alphie and Enoch and me, so you'll know what to get." Xmas wishlists in July. Organized hippies! What planet did his cousins grow up on, anyway? "Thanks, Audie. I'll put together a wishlist and pass it along to you soon, OK?" His bladder nagged at him. "I gotta run now, all right?" "Great. Listen, Art, it's been, well, great to talk to you again. It really makes me feel whole to connect with you. Don't be a stranger, all right?" "Yeah, OK! Nice to talk to you, too. Bye!" "Safe travels and wishes fulfilled," Audie said. "You too!" 25. Now I've got a comm, I hardly know what to do with it. Call Gran? Call Audie? Call Fede? Login to an EST chat and see who's up to what? How about the Jersey clients? There's an idea. Give them everything, all the notes I built for Fede and his damned patent application, sign over the exclusive rights to the patent for one dollar and services rendered (i.e., getting me a decent lawyer and springing me from this damned hole). My last lawyer was a dickhead. He met me at the courtroom fifteen minutes before the hearing, in a private room whose fixtures had the sticky filthiness of a bus-station toilet. "Art, yes, hello, I'm Allan Mendelson, your attorney. How are you? He was well over 6'6", but weighed no more than 120 lbs and hunched over his skinny ribs while he talked, dry-washing his hands. His suit looked like the kind of thing you'd see on a Piccadilly Station homeless person, clean enough and well-enough fitting, but with an indefinable air of cheapness and falsehood. "Well, not so good," I said. "They upped my meds this morning, so I'm pretty logy. Can't concentrate. They said it was to keep me calm while I was transported. Dirty trick, huh?" "What?" he'd been browsing through his comm, tapping through what I assumed was my file. "No, no. It's perfectly standard. This isn't a trial, it's a hearing. We're all on the same side, here." He tapped some more. "Your side." "Good," Art said. "My grandmother came down, and she wants to testify on my behalf." "Oooh," the fixer said, shaking his head. "No, not a great idea. She's not a mental health professional, is she?" "No," I said. "But she's known me all my life. She knows I'm not a danger to myself or others." "Sorry, that's not appropriate. We all love our families, but the court wants to hear from people who have qualified opinions on this subject. Your doctors will speak, of course." "Do I get to speak?" "If you *really* want to. That's not a very good idea, either, though, I'm afraid. If the judge wants to hear from you, she'll address you. Otherwise, your best bet is to sit still, no fidgeting, look as sane and calm as you can." I felt like I had bricks dangling from my limbs and one stuck in my brain. The new meds painted the world with translucent whitewash, stuffed cotton in my ears and made my tongue thick. Slowly, my brain absorbed all of this. "You mean that my Gran can't talk, I can't talk, and all the court hears is the doctors?" "Don't be difficult, Art. This is a hearing to determine your competency. A group of talented mental health professionals have observed you for the past week and they've come to some conclusions based on those observations. If everyone who came before the court for a competency hearing brought out a bunch of irrelevant witnesses and made long speeches, the court calendar would be backlogged for decades. Then other people who were in for observation wouldn't be able to get their hearings. It wouldn't work for anyone. You see that, right?" "Not really. I really think it would be better if I got to testify on my behalf. I have that right, don't I?" He sighed and looked very put-upon. "If you insist, I'll call you to speak. But as your lawyer, it's my professional opinion that you should *not* do this." "I really would prefer to." He snapped his comm shut. "I'll meet you in the courtroom, then. The bailiff will take you in." "Can you tell my Gran where I am? She's waiting in the court, I think." "Sorry. I have other cases to cope with -- I can't really play messenger, I'm afraid." When he left the little office, I felt as though I'd been switched off. The drugs weighted my eyelids and soothed my panic and outrage. Later, I'd be livid, but right then I could barely keep from folding my arms on the grimy table and resting my head on them. The hearing went so fast I barely even noticed it. I sat with my lawyer and the doctors stood up and entered their reports into evidence -- I don't think they read them aloud, even, just squirted them at the court reporter. My Gran sat behind me, on a chair that was separated from the court proper by a banister. She had her hand on my shoulder the whole time, and it felt like an anvil there to my dopey muscles. "All right, Art," my jackass lawyer said, giving me a prod. "Here's your turn. Stand up and keep it brief." I struggled to my feet. The judge was an Asian woman about my age, a small round head set atop a shapeless robe and perched on a high seat behind a high bench. "Your Honor," I said. I didn't know what to say next. All my wonderful rhetoric had fled me. The judge looked at me briefly, then went back to tapping her comm. Maybe she was playing solitaire or looking at porn. "I asked to have a moment to address the Court. My lawyer suggested that I not do this, but I insisted. "Here's the thing. There's no way for me to win here. There's a long story about how I got here. Basically, I had a disagreement with some of my coworkers who were doing something that I thought was immoral. They decided that it would be best for their plans if I was out of the way for a little while, so that I couldn't screw them up, so they coopered this up, told the London police that I'd gone nuts. "So I ended up in an institution here for observation, on the grounds that I was dangerously paranoid. When the people at the institution asked me about it, I told them what had happened. Because I was claiming that the people who had me locked up were conspiring to make me look paranoid, the doctors decided that I *was* paranoid. But tell me, how could I demonstrate my non-paranoia? I mean, as far as I can tell, the second I was put away for observation, I was guaranteed to be found wanting. Nothing I could have said or done would have made a difference." The judge looked up from her comm and gave me another once-over. I was wearing my best day clothes, which were my basic London shabby chic white shirt and gray wool slacks and narrow blue tie. It looked natty enough in the UK, but I knew that in the US it made me look like an overaged door-to-door Mormon. The judge kept looking at me. *Call to action,* I thought. *End your speeches with a call to action*. It was another bit of goofy West Coast Vulcan Mind Control, courtesy of Linda's fucking ex. "So here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to stand up here and let you know what had happened to me and ask you for advice. If we assume for the moment that I'm *not* crazy, how should I demonstrate that here in the court?" The judge rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder, making glossy black waterfalls of her hair. The whole hearing is very fuzzy for me, but that hair! Who ever heard of a civil servant with good hair? "Mr. Berry," she said, "I'm afraid I don't have much to tell you. It's my responsibility to listen to qualified testimony and make a ruling. You haven't presented any qualified testimony to support your position. In the absence of such testimony, my only option is to remand you into the custody of the Department of Mental Health until such time as a group of qualified professionals see fit to release you." I expected her to bang a gavel, but instead she just scritched at her comm and squirted the order at the court reporter and I was led away. I didn't even have a chance to talk to Gran. 26. ##Received address book entry "Toby Ginsburg" from Colonelonic. ## Colonelonic (private): This guy's up to something. Flew to Boston twice this week. Put a down payment on a house in Orange County. _Big_ house. _Big_ down payment. A car, too: vintage T-bird convertible. A gas burner! Bought CO2 credits for an entire year to go with it. Trepan: /private Colonelonic Huh. Who's he working for? ## Colonelonic (private): Himself. He Federally incorporated last week, something called "TunePay, Inc." He's the Chairman, but he's only a minority shareholder. The rest of the common shares are held by a dummy corporation in London. Couldn't get any details on that without using a forensic accounting package, and that'd get me fired right quick. Trepan: /private Colonelonic It's OK. I get the picture. I owe you one, all right? ## Colonelonic (private): sweat.value==0 Are you going to tell me what this is all about someday? Not some bullshit about your girlfriend? Trepan: /private Colonelonic Heh. That part was true, actually. I'll tell you the rest, maybe, someday. Not today, though. I gotta go to London. Art's vision throbbed with his pulse as he jammed his clothes back into his backpack with one hand while he booked a ticket to London on his comm with the other. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he ordered the taxi while scribbling a note to Gran on the smart-surface of her fridge. He was verging on berserk by the time he hit airport security. The guard played the ultrasound flashlight over him and looked him up and down with his goggles, then had him walk through the chromatograph twice. Art tried to breathe calmly, but it wasn't happening. He'd take two deep breaths, think about how he was yup, calming down, pretty good, especially since he was going to London to confront Fede about the fact that his friend had screwed him stabbed him in the back using his girlfriend to distract him and meanwhile she was in Los Angeles sleeping with her fucking ex who was going to steal his idea and sell it as his own that fucking prick boning his girl right then almost certainly laughing about poor old Art, dumbfuck stuck in Toronto with his thumb up his ass, oh Fede was going to pay, that's right, he was -- and then he'd be huffing down his nose, hyperventilating, really losing his shit right there. The security guard finally asked him if he needed a doctor. "No," Art said. "That's fine. I'm just upset. A friend of mine died suddenly and I'm flying to London for the funeral." The guard seemed satisfied with this explanation and let him pass, finally. He fought the urge to get plastered on the flight and vibrated in his seat instead, jiggling his leg until his seatmate -- an elderly businessman who'd spent the flight thus far wrinkling his brow at a series of spreadsheets on his comm -- actually put a hand on Art's knee and said, "Switch off the motor, son. You're gonna burn it out if you idle it that high all the way to Gatwick." Art nearly leapt out of his seat when the flight attendant wheeled up the duty-free cart, bristling with novelty beakers of fantastically old whiskey shaped like jigging Scotchmen and drunken leprechauns swinging from lampposts. By the time he hit UK customs he was supersonic, ready to hammer an entire packet of Player's filterless into his face and light them with a blowtorch. It wasn't even 0600h GMT, and the Sikh working the booth looked three-quarters asleep under his turban, but he woke right up when Art stepped past the red line and slapped both palms on the counter and used them as a lever to support him as he pogoed in place. "Your business in England, sir?" "I work for Virgin/Deutsche Telekom. Let me beam you my visa." His hands were shaking so badly he dropped his comm to the hard floor with an ominous clatter. He snatched it up and rubbed at the fresh dent in the cover, then flipped it open and stabbed at it with a filthy fingernail. "Thank you, sir. Door number two, please." Art took one step towards the baggage carousel when the words registered. Customs search! Godfuckingdammit! He jittered in the private interview room until another Customs officer showed up, overrode his comm and read in his ID and credentials, then stared at them for a long moment. "Are you quite all right, sir?" "Just a little wound up," Art said, trying desperately to sound normal. He thought about telling the dead friend story again, but unlike a lowly airport security drone, the Customs man had the ability and inclination to actually verify it. "Too much coffee on the plane. Need to have a slash like you wouldn't believe." The Customs man grimaced slightly, then chewed a corner of his little moustache. "Everything else is all right, though?" "Everything's fine. Back from a business trip to the States and Canada, all jetlagged. You know. Can you believe the bastards actually expect me at the office today?" This might work. Piss and moan about the office until he gets bored and lets him go. "I mean, you work your guts out, fly halfway around the world and do it some more, get strapped into a torture seat -- you think Virgin springs for business-class tickets for its employees? Hell no! -- for six hours, then they want you at the goddamned office." "Virgin?" the Customs man said, eyebrows going up. "But you flew in on BA, sir." Shit. Of course he hadn't booked a Virgin flight. That's what Fede'd be expecting him to do, he'd be watching for Art to use his employee discount and hop a flight back. "Yes, can you believe it?" Art thought furiously. "They called me back suddenly, wouldn't even let me wait around for one of their own damned planes. One minute I'm eating breakfast, the next I'm in a taxi heading for the airport. I forgot half of my damned underwear in the hotel room! You'd think they could cope with *one little problem* without crawling up my cock, wouldn't you?" "Sir, please, calm down." The Customs man looked alarmed and Art realized that he'd begun to pace. "Sorry, sorry. It just sucks. Bad job. Time to quit, I think." "I should think so," the Customs man said. "Welcome to England." Traffic was early-morning light and the cabbie drove like a madman. Art kept flinching away from the oncoming traffic, already unaccustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road. England seemed filthy and gray and shabby to him now, tiny little cars with tiny, anal-retentive drivers filled with self-loathing, vegetarian meat-substitutes and bad dentistry. In his rooms in Camden Town, Art took a hasty and vengeful census of his stupid belongings, sagging rental furniture and bad art prints hanging askew (not any more, not after he smashed them to the floor). Bad English clothes (toss 'em onto the floor, looking for one thing he'd be caught dead wearing in NYC, and guess what, not a single thing). Stupid keepsakes from the Camden market, funny novelty lighters, retro rave flyers preserved in glassine envelopes. He was about to overturn his ugly little pressboard coffee table when he realized that there was something on it. A small, leather-worked box with a simple brass catch. Inside, the axe-head. Two hundred thousand years old. Heavy with the weight of the ages. He hefted it in his hand. It felt ancient and lethal. He dropped it into his jacket pocket, instantly deforming the jacket into a stroke-y left-hanging slant. He kicked the coffee table over. Time to go see Fede. 27. I have wished for a comm a hundred thousand times an hour since they stuck me in this shithole, and now that I have one, I don't know who to call. Not smart. Not happy. I run my fingers over the keypad, think about all the stupid, terrible decisions that I made on the way to this place in my life. I feel like I could burst into tears, like I could tear the hair out of my head, like I could pound my fists bloody on the floor. My fingers, splayed over the keypad, tap out the old nervous rhythms of the phone numbers I've know all my life, my first house, my Mom's comm, Gran's place. Gran. I tap out her number and hit the commit button. I put the phone to my head. "Gran?" "Arthur?" "Oh, Gran!" "Arthur, I'm so worried about you. I spoke to your cousins yesterday, they tell me you're not doing so good there." "No, no I'm not." The stitches in my jaw throb in counterpoint with my back. "I tried to explain it all to Father Ferlenghetti, but I didn't have the details right. He said it didn't make any sense." "It doesn't. They don't care. They've just put me here." "He said that they should have let you put your own experts up when you had your hearing." "Well, of *course* they should have." "No, he said that they *had* to, that it was the law in Massachusetts. He used to live there, you know." "I didn't know." "Oh yes, he had a congregation in Newton. That was before he moved to Toronto. He seemed very sure of it." "Why was he living in Newton?" "Oh, he moved there after university. He's a Harvard man, you know." "I think you've got that wrong. Harvard doesn't have a divinity school." "No, this was *after* divinity school. He was doing a psychiatry degree at Harvard." Oh, my. "Oh, my." "What is it, Arthur?" "Do you have Father Ferlenghetti's number, Gran?" 28. Tonaishah's Kubrick-figure facepaint distorted into wild grimaces when Art banged into O'Malley House, raccoon-eyed with sleepdep, airline crud crusted at the corners of his lips, whole person quivering with righteous smitefulness. He commed the door savagely and yanked it so hard that the gas-lift snapped with a popping sound like a metal ruler being whacked on a desk. The door caromed back into his heel and nearly sent him sprawling, but he converted its momentum into a jog through the halls to his miniature office -- the last three times he'd spoken to Fede, the bastard had been working out of his office -- stealing his papers, no doubt, though that hadn't occurred to Art until his plane was somewhere over Ireland. Fede was halfway out of Art's chair when Art bounded into the office. Fede's face was gratifyingly pale, his eyes thoroughly wide and scared. Art didn't bother to slow down, just slammed into Fede, bashing foreheads with him. Art smelled a puff of his own travel sweat and Fede's spicy Lilac Vegetal, saw blood welling from Fede's eyebrow. "Hi, pal!" he said, kicking the door shut with a crash that resounded through the paper-thin walls. "Art! Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?" Fede backed away to the far corner of the office, sending Art's chair over backwards, wheels spinning, ergonomic adjustment knobs and rods sticking up in the air like the legs of an overturned beetle. "TunePay, Inc.?" Art said, booting the chair into Fede's shins. "Is that the best fucking name you could come up with? Or did Toby and Linda cook it up?" Fede held his hands out, palms first. "What are you talking about, buddy? What's wrong with you?" Art shook his head slowly. "Come on, Fede, it's time to stop blowing smoke up my cock." "I honestly have no idea --" "*Bullshit!*" Art bellowed, closing up with Fede, getting close enough to see the flecks of spittle flying off his lips spatter Fede's face. "I've had enough bullshit, Fede!" Abruptly, Fede lurched forward, sweeping Art's feet out from underneath him and landing on Art's chest seconds after Art slammed to the scratched and splintered hardwood floor. He pinned Art's arms under his knees, then leaned forward and crushed Art's windpipe with his forearm, bearing down. "You dumb sack of shit," he hissed. "We were going to cut you in, after it was done. We knew you wouldn't go for it, but we were still going to cut you in -- you think that was your little whore's idea? No, it was mine! I stuck up for you! But not anymore, you hear? Not anymore. You're through. Jesus, I gave you this fucking job! I set up the deal in Cali. Fuck-off heaps of money! I'm through with you, now. You're done. I'm ratting you out to V/DT, and I'm flying to California tonight. Enjoy your deportation hearing, you dumb Canuck boy-scout." Art's vision had contracted to a fuzzy black vignette with Fede's florid face in the center of it. He gasped convulsively, fighting for air. He felt his bladder go, and hot urine stream down his groin and over his thighs. An instant later, Fede sprang back from him, face twisted in disgust, hands brushing at his urine-stained pants. "Damn it," he said, as Art rolled onto his side and retched. Art got up on all fours, then lurched erect. As he did, the axe head in his pocket swung wildly and knocked against the glass pane beside his office's door, spiderwebbing it with cracks. Moving with dreamlike slowness, Art reached into his pocket, clasped the axe head, turned it in his hand so that the edge was pointing outwards. He lifted it out of his pocket and held his hand behind his back. He staggered to Fede, who was glaring at him, daring him to do something, his chest heaving. Art windmilled his arm over his head and brought the axe head down solidly on Fede's head. It hit with an impact that jarred his arm to the shoulder, and he dropped the axe head to the floor, where it fell with a thud, crusted with blood and hair for the first time in 200,000 years. Fede crumpled back into the office's wall, slid down it into a sitting position. His eyes were open and staring. Blood streamed over his face. Art looked at Fede in horrified fascination. He noticed that Fede was breathing shallowly, almost panting, and realized dimly that this meant he wasn't a murderer. He turned and fled the office, nearly bowling Tonaishah over in the corridor. "Call an ambulance," he said, then shoved her aside and fled O'Malley House and disappeared into the Piccadilly lunchtime crowd. 29. I am: sprung. Father Ferlenghetti hasn't been licensed to practice psychiatry in Massachusetts for forty years, but the court gave him standing. The judge actually winked at me when he took the stand, and stopped scritching on her comm as the priest said a lot of fantastically embarrassing things about my general fitness for human consumption. The sanitarium sent a single junior doc to my hearing, a kid so young I'd mistaken him for a hospital driver when he climbed into the van with me and gunned the engine. But no, he was a doctor who'd apparently been briefed on my case, though not very well. When the judge asked him if he had any opinions on Father Ferlenghetti's testimony, he fumbled with his comm while the Father stared at him through eyebrows thick enough to hide a hamster in, then finally stammered a few verbatim notes from my intake interview, blushed, and sat down. "Thank you," the judge said, shaking her head as she said it. Gran, seated beside me, put one hand on my knee and one hand on the knee of Doc Szandor's brother-in-law, a hotshot Harvard Law post-doc whom we'd retained as corporate counsel for a new Limited Liability Corporation. We'd signed the articles of incorporation the day before, after Group. It was the last thing Doc Szandor did before resigning his post at the sanitarium to take up the position of Chief Medical Officer at HumanCare, LLC, a corporation with no assets, no employees, and a sheaf of shitkicking ideas for redesigning mental hospitals using off-the-shelf tech and a little bit of UE mojo. 30. Art was most of the way to the Tube when he ran into Lester. Literally. Lester must have seen him coming, because he stepped right into Art's path from out of the crowd. Art ploughed into him, bounced off of his dented armor, and would have fallen over had Lester not caught his arm and steadied him. "Art, isn't it? How you doin', mate?" Art gaped at him. He was thinner than he'd been when he tried to shake Art and Linda down in the doorway of the Boots, grimier and more desperate. His tone was just as bemused as ever, though. "Jesus Christ, Lester, not now, I'm in a hurry. You'll have to rob me later, all right?" Lester chuckled wryly. "Still a clever bastard. You look like you're having some hard times, my old son. Maybe that you're not even worth robbing, eh?" "Right. I'm skint. Sorry. Nice running into you, now I must be going." He tried to pull away, but Lester's fingers dug into his biceps, emphatically, painfully. "Hear you ran into Tom, led him a merry chase. You know, I spent a whole week in the nick on account of you." Art jerked his arm again, without effect. "You tried to rob me, Les. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, all right? Now let me go -- I've got a train to catch." "Holidays? How sweet. Thought you were broke, though?" A motorized scooter pulled up in the kerb lane beside them. It was piloted by a smart young policewoman with a silly foam helmet and outsized pads on her knees and elbows. She looked like the kid with the safety-obsessed mom who inflicts criminally dorky fashions on her daughter, making her the neighborhood laughingstock. "Everything all right, gentlemen?" Lester's eyes closed, and he sighed a put-upon sigh that was halfway to a groan. "Oh, yes, officer," Art said. "Peter and I were just making some plans to see our auntie for supper tonight." Lester opened his eyes, then the corners of his mouth incremented upwards. "Yeah," he said. "'Sright. Cousin Alphonse is here all the way from Canada and Auntie's mad to cook him a proper English meal." The policewoman sized them up, then shook her head. "Sir, begging your pardon, but I must tell you that we have clubs in London where a gentleman such as yourself can find a young companion, legally. We thoroughly discourage making such arrangements on the High Street. Just a word to the wise, all right?" Art blushed to his eartips. "Thank you, Officer," he said with a weak smile. "I'll keep that in mind." The constable gave Lester a hard look, then revved her scooter and pulled into traffic, her arm slicing the air in a sharp turn signal. "Well," Lester said, once she was on the roundabout, "*Alphonse*, seems like you've got reason to avoid the law, too." "Can't we just call it even? I did you a favor with the law, you leave me be?" "Oh, I don't know. P'raps I should put in a call to our friend PC McGivens. He already thinks you're a dreadful tosser -- if you've reason to avoid the law, McGivens'd be bad news indeed. And the police pay very well for the right information. I'm a little financially embarrassed, me, just at this moment." "All right," Art said. "Fine. How about this: I will pay you 800 Euros, which I will withdraw from an InstaBank once I've got my ticket for the Chunnel train to Calais in hand and am ready to get onto the platform. I've got all of fifteen quid in my pocket right now. Take my wallet and you'll have cabfare home. Accompany me to the train and you'll get a month's rent, which is more than the police'll give you." "Oh, you're a villain, you are. What is it that the police will want to talk to you about, then? I wouldn't want to be aiding and abetting a real criminal -- could mean trouble." "I beat the piss out of my coworker, Lester. Now, can we go? There's a plane in Paris I'm hoping to catch." 31. I have a brand-new translucent Sony Veddic, a series 12. I bought it on credit -- not mine, mine's sunk; six months of living on plastic and kiting balance-payments with new cards while getting the patents filed on the eight new gizmos that constitute HumanCare's sole asset has blackened my good name with the credit bureaus. I bought it with the company credit card. The *company credit card*. Our local Baby Amex rep dropped it off himself after Doc Szandor faxed over the signed contract from the Bureau of Health. Half a million bucks for a proof-of-concept install at the very same Route 128 nuthatch where I'd been "treated." If that works, we'll be rolling out a dozen more installs over the next year: smart doors, public drug-prescription stats, locator bracelets that let "clients" -- I've been learning the nuthouse jargon, and have forcibly removed "patient" from my vocabulary -- discover other clients with similar treatment regimens on the ward, bells and whistles galore. I am cruising the MassPike with HumanCare's first-ever employee, who is, in turn, holding onto HumanCare's first-ever paycheck. Caitlin's husband has been very patient over the past six months as she worked days fixing the ailing machinery at the sanitarium and nights prototyping my designs. He's been likewise patient with my presence on his sagging living-room sofa, where I've had my nightly ten-hour repose faithfully since my release. Caitlin and I have actually seen precious little of each other considering that I've been living under her roof. (Doc Szandor's Cambridge apartment is hardly bigger than my room at the hospital, and between his snoring and the hard floor, I didn't even last a whole night there.) We've communicated mostly by notes commed to her fridge and prototypes left atop my suitcase of day-clothes and sharp-edged toiletries at the foot of my makeshift bed when she staggered in from her workbench while I snored away the nights. Come to think of it, I haven't really seen much of Doc Szandor, either -- he's been holed up in his rooms, chatting away on the EST channels. I am well rested. I am happy. My back is loose and my Chi is flowing. I am driving my few belongings to a lovely two-bedroom -- one to sleep in, one to work in -- flat overlooking Harvard Square, where the pretty co-eds and their shaggy boyfriends tease one another in the technical argot of a dozen abstruse disciplines. I'm looking forward to picking up a basic physics, law, medicine and business vocabulary just by sitting in my window with my comm, tapping away at new designs. We drive up to a toll plaza and I crank the yielding, human-centric steering wheel toward the EZPass lane. The dealer installed the transponder and gave me a brochure explaining the Sony Family's approach to maximum driving convenience. But as I approach the toll gate, it stays steadfastly down. The Veddic's HUD flashes an instruction to pull over to the booth. A bored attendant leans out of the toll booth and squirts his comm at me, and the HUD comes to life with an animated commercial for the new, improved TunePay service, now under direct MassPike management. The TunePay scandal's been hot news for weeks now. Bribery, corruption, patent disputes -- I'd been gratified to discover that my name had been removed from the patent applications, sparing me the nightly hounding Fede and Linda and her fucking ex had been subjected to on my comm as the legal net tightened around them. I end up laughing so hard that Caitlin gets out of the car and walks around to my side, opens the door, and pulls me bodily to the passenger side. She serenely ignores the blaring of the horns from the aggravated, psychotic Boston drivers stacked up behind us, walks back to the driver's side and takes the wheel. "Thanks," I tell her, and lay a hand on her pudgy, freckled arm. "You belong in a loony bin, you know that?" she says, punching me in the thigh harder than is strictly necessary. "Oh, I know," I say, and dial up some music on the car stereo. -- Acknowledgements This novel was workshopped by the Cecil Street Irregulars, the Novelettes and the Gibraltar Point gang, and received excellent feedback from the first readers on the est-preview list (especially Pat York). Likewise, I'm indebted to all the people who read and commented on this book along the way. Thanks go to my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, for reading this so quickly -- minutes after I finished it! Likewise to my agent, Don Maass, thank you. Thanks to Irene Gallo and Shelley Eshkar for knocking *two* out of the park with their cover-designs for my books. Thanks to my co-editors at Boing Boing and all the collaborators I've written with, who've made me a better writer. Thanks, I suppose, to the villains in my life, who inspired me to write this book rather than do something ugly that I'd regret. Thanks to Paul Boutin for commissioning the *Wired* article of the same name. Thanks to the readers and bloggers and Tribespeople who cared enough to check out my first book and liked it enough to check out this one. Thanks to Creative Commons for the licenses that give me the freedom to say "Some Rights Reserved." -- Bio Cory Doctorow (www.craphound.com) is the author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, A Place So Foreign and Eight More, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Science Fiction (with Karl Schroeder). He was raised in Toronto and lives in San Francisco, where he works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org), a civil liberties group. He's a journalist, editorialist and blogger. Boing Boing (boingboing.net), the weblog he co-edits, is the most linked-to blog on the Net, according to Technorati. He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2000 Hugos. You can download this book for free from craphound.com/est. -- ========================== Machine-readable metadata: ========================== Eastern Standard Tribe 2004-2-9 A novel by Cory Doctorow Cory Doctorow Cory Doctorow eof 41005 ---- The Great Court Scandal, by Willian Le Queux. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THE GREAT COURT SCANDAL, BY WILLIAN LE QUEUX. PREFACE. WILLIAM LE QUEUX. William Le Queux, one of the most popular of present-day authors, was born in London on July 2, 1864. He has followed many callings in his time. After studying art in Paris, he made a tour on foot through France and Germany. Then he drifted into journalism, attaching himself to the Paris "Morning News." Later, he crossed to London, where he joined the staff of the "Globe" in the Gallery of the House of Commons. This was in 1888, and he continued to report Parliament till 1891, when he was appointed a sub-editor on the "Globe." Along with his work as a journalist he developed his faculty for fiction, and in 1893 resigned his position on the press to take up novel-writing as a business. His first book was "Guilty Bonds" published in 1890. Since that date he has issued an average of three novels a year. One of Mr. Le Queux's recreations is revolver practice, and that may account for the free use of the "shooting iron" which distinguishes some of his romances. PROLOGUE. "The Ladybird will refuse to have anything to do with the affair, my dear fellow. It touches a woman's honour, and I know her too well." "Bah! We'll compel her to help us. She must." "She wouldn't risk it," declared Harry Kinder, shaking his head. "Risk it! Well, we'll have to risk something! We're in a nice hole just now! Our traps at the Grand, with a bill of two thousand seven hundred francs to pay, and `the Ladybird' coolly sends us from London a postal order for twenty-seven shillings and sixpence--all she has!" "She might have kept it and bought a new sunshade or a box of chocolates with it." "The little fool! Fancy sending twenty-seven bob to three men stranded in Paris! I can't see why old Roddy thinks so much of her," remarked Guy Bourne to his companion. "Because she's his daughter, and because after all you must admit that she's jolly clever with her fingers." "Of course we know that. She's the smartest woman in London. But what makes you think that when the suggestion is made to her she will refuse?" "Well, just this. She's uncommonly good-looking, dresses with exquisite taste, and when occasion demands can assume the manner of a high-born lady, which is, of course, just what we want; but of late I've noticed a very great change in her. She used to act heedless of risk, and entirely without pity or compunction. Nowadays, however, she seems becoming chicken-hearted." "Perhaps she's in love," remarked the other with a sarcastic grin. "That's just it. I honestly think that she really is in love," said the short, hard-faced, clean-shaven man of fifty, whose fair, rather scanty hair, reddish face, tightly-cut trousers, and check-tweed suit gave him a distinctly horsey appearance, as he seated himself upon the edge of the table in the shabby sitting-room _au troisieme_ above the noisy Rue Lafayette, in Paris. "`The Ladybird' in love! Whatever next!" ejaculated Guy Bourne, a man some ten years his junior, and extremely well, even rather foppishly, dressed. His features were handsome, his hair dark, and outwardly he had all the appearance of a well-set-up Englishman. His gold sleeve-links bore a crest and cipher in blue enamel, and his dark moustache was carefully trained, for he was essentially a man of taste and refinement. "Well," he added, "I've got my own opinion, old chap, and you're quite welcome to yours. `The Ladybird' may be in love, as you suspect, but she'll have to help us in this. It's a big thing, I know; but look what it means to us! If she's in love, who's the jay?" he asked, lighting a cigarette carelessly. "Ah! now you ask me a question." "Well," declared Bourne rather anxiously, "whoever he may be, the acquaintanceship must be broken off--and that very quickly, too. For us the very worst catastrophe would be for our little `Ladybird' to fall in love. She might, in one of her moments of sentimentality, be indiscreet, as all women are apt to be; and if so--well, it would be all up with us. You quite recognise the danger?" "I do, most certainly," the other replied, with a serious look, as he glanced around the poorly-furnished room, with its painted wood floor in lieu of carpet. "As soon as we're back we must keep our eyes upon her, and ascertain the identity of this secret lover." "But she's never shown any spark of affection before," Bourne said, although he knew that the secret lover was actually himself. "We must ask Roddy all about it. Being her father, he may know something." "I only wish we were back in London again, sonny," declared Kinder. "Paris has never been safe for us since that wretched affair in the Boulevard Magenta. Why Roddy brought us over I can't think." "He had his eye on something big that unfortunately hasn't come off. Therefore we're now landed at the Grand with a big hotel bill and no money to pay it with. The Johnnie in the bureau presented it to me this morning, and asked for payment. I bluffed him that I was going down to the bank and would settle it this evening." "With twenty-seven and sixpence!" remarked the clean-shaven man with sarcasm. "Yes," responded his companion grimly. "I only wish we could get our traps away. I've got all my new rig-out in my trunk, and can't afford to lose it." "We must get back to London somehow," Harry said decisively. "Every moment we remain here increases our peril. They have our photographs at the Prefecture, remember, and here the police are pretty quick at making an arrest. We're wanted, even now, for the Boulevard Magenta affair. A pity the Doctor hit the poor old chap so hard, wasn't it?" "A thousand pities. But the Doctor was always erratic--always in fear of too much noise being made. He knocked the old fellow down when there was really no necessity: a towel twisted around his mouth would have been quite as effectual, and the affair would not have assumed so ugly a phase as it afterwards did. No; you're quite right, Harry, old chap; Paris is no place for us nowadays." "Ah!" Kinder sighed regretfully. "And yet we've had jolly good times here, haven't we? And we've brought off some big things once or twice, until Latour and his cadaverous crowd became jealous of us, and gave us away that morning at the St. Lazare station, just when Roddy was working the confidence of those two American women. By Jove! we all had a narrow escape, and had to fly." "I remember. Two agents pounced upon me, but I managed to give them the slip and get away that night to Amiens. A good job for us," the younger man added, "that Latour won't have a chance to betray his friends for another fifteen years." "What! has he been lagged?" asked the horsey man as he bit the end off a cigar. "Yes, for a nasty affair down at Marseilles. He was opening a banker's safe--that was his speciality, you know--and he blundered." "Then I'm not sorry for him," Kinder declared, crossing the room and looking out of the window into the busy thoroughfare below. It was noon, on a bright May day, and the traffic over the granite setts in the Rue Lafayette was deafening, the huge steam trams snorting and clanging as they ascended the hill to the Gare du Nord. Guy Bourne was endeavouring to solve a very serious financial difficulty. The three shabbily-furnished rooms in which they were was a small apartment which Roddy Redmayne, alias "The Mute," alias Ward, alias Scott-Martin, and alias a dozen other names beside, had taken for a month, and were, truth to tell, the temporary headquarters of "The Mute's" clever and daring gang of international thieves, who moved from city to city plying their profession. They had been unlucky--as they were sometimes. Harry Kinder had succeeded in getting some jewellery two days before, only to discover to his chagrin that the diamonds were paste. He had seen them in a bad light, otherwise, expert that he was, he would never have touched them. He always left pearls religiously alone. There were far too many imitations, he declared. For three weeks the men had done themselves well in Paris, and spent a considerable amount in ingratiating themselves with certain English and American visitors who were there for the season. Kinder and Bourne worked the big hotels--the Grand, the Continental, and the Chatham, generally frequenting the American bar at the latter place each afternoon about four o'clock, on the keen lookout for English pigeons to pluck. This season, however, ill-luck seemed to constantly follow them, with the result that they had spent their money all to no purpose, and now found themselves with a large hotel bill, and without the wherewithal to discharge it. Guy Bourne's life had been a veritable romance. The son of a wealthy country squire, he had been at Eton and at Balliol, and his father had intended him to enter the Church, for he had an uncle a bishop, and was sure of a decent preferment. A clerical career had, however, no attractions for Guy, who loved all kinds of sport, especially racing, a pastime which eventually proved his downfall. Like many other young men, he became mixed up with a very undesirable set--that unscrupulous company that frequents racecourses--and finding his father's door shut to him, gradually sank lower until he became the friend of Kinder and one of the associates and accomplices of the notorious Roddy Redmayne-- known as "The Mute"--a king among Continental thieves. Like the elder man who stood beside him, he was an audacious, quick-witted, and ingenious thief, very merry and easy-going. He was a man who lived an adventurous life, and generally lived well, too; unscrupulous about annexing other people's property, and therefore retaining nowadays few of the traits of the gentleman. At first he had not been altogether bad; at heart he hated and despised himself; yet he was a fatalist, and had long ago declared that the life of a thief was his destiny, and that it was no use kicking against the pricks. An excellent linguist, a well-set-up figure, a handsome countenance, his hair slightly turning grey, he was always witty, debonair and cosmopolitan, and a great favourite with women. They voted him a charming fellow, never for one moment suspecting that his polished exterior and gentlemanly bearing concealed the fact that he had designs upon their jewellery. His companion, Harry Kinder, was a man of entirely different stamp; rather coarse, muscular, well versed in all the trickery and subterfuge of the international criminal; a clever pickpocket, and perhaps one of the most ingenious sharpers in all Europe. He had followed the profession ever since a lad; had seen the interior of a dozen different prisons in as many countries; and invariably showed fight if detected. Indeed, Harry Kinder was a "tough customer," as many agents of police had discovered to their cost. "Then you really don't think `the Ladybird' will have anything to do with the affair?" Guy remarked at last, standing beside him and gazing aimlessly out of the window. "I fear she won't. If you can persuade her, then it'll all be plain sailing. They'll help us, and the risk won't be very much. Yet after all it's a dirty trick to play, isn't it?" His companion shrugged his shoulders, saying, "Roddy sees no harm in it, and we must live the same as other people. We simply give our services for a stated sum." "Well," declared Kinder, "I've never drawn back from any open and straightforward bit of business where it was our wits against another's, or where the victim is a fool or inexperienced; but I tell you that I draw a line at entrapping an innocent woman, and especially an English lady." "What!" cried Bourne. "You've become conscientious all at once! Do you intend to back out of it altogether?" "I've not yet decided what I shall do. The only thing is that I shall not persuade `the Ladybird' either way. I shall leave her entirely in Roddy's hands." "Then you'd better tell Roddy plainly when he comes back. Perhaps you're in love, just as you say `the Ladybird' is!" "Love! Why, my dear Guy--love at my age! I was only in love once--when I was seventeen. She sat in a kind of fowl-pen and sold stamps in a grocer's shop at Hackney. Since then I can safely say that I've never made a fool of myself over a woman. They are charming all, from seventeen to seventy, but there is not one I've singled out as better than the rest." "Ah, Harry!" declared Guy with a smile, "you're a queer fellow. You are essentially a lady's man, and yet you never fall in love. We all thought once that you were fond of `the Ladybird.'" "`The Ladybird!'" laughed the elder man. "Well, what next? No. `The Ladybird' has got a lover in secret somewhere, depend upon it. Perhaps it is yourself. We shall get at the truth when we return to town." "When? Do you contemplate leaving your things at the Grand, my dear fellow? We can't. We must get money from somewhere--money, and to-day. Why not try some of the omnibuses, or the crowd at one of the railway stations? We might work together this afternoon and try our luck," Guy suggested. "Better the Cafe Americain, or Maxim's to-night," declared Kinder, who knew his Paris well. "There's more money there, and we're bound to pick up a jay or two." At that moment the sharp click of a key in the lock of the outer door caused them to pause, and a moment later they were joined by an elderly, grey-haired, gentlemanly-looking man in travelling-ulster and grey felt hat, who carried a small brown kit-bag which, by its hotel labels, showed sign of long travel. "Hulloa, Roddy!" Kinder cried excitedly in his Cockney dialect. "Luck, I see! What have you got?" "Don't know yet," was the newcomer's reply, his intonation also that of a born Londoner. "I got it from a young woman who arrived by the _rapide_ at the Gare de l'Est." And throwing off his travelling get-up he placed the kit-bag upon the table. Then touching a spring in the lock he lifted it again, and there remained upon the table a lady's dressing-bag with a black waterproof cover. "Looks like something good," declared Guy, watching eagerly. The innocent-looking kit-bag was one of those specially constructed for the use of thieves. The bottom was hinged, with double flaps opening inward. The interior contained sharp iron grips, so that the bag, when placed upon any object smaller than it, would cover it entirely, the flaps forming the bottom opening inward, while the grips, descending, held the bag or other object tight. So the kit-bag, when removed, would also remove the object concealed within it. Roddy, a grey-faced, cool, crafty old fellow of sixty, bore such a serious expression that one might readily have taken him for a dissenting minister or a respectable surgeon. He carefully took off the outer cover of the crocodile-skin dressing-case, examined its gilt lock, and then, taking from his pocket a piece of steel about six inches long, with a pointed end, almost a miniature of a burglar's jemmy, he quickly prised it open. The trio eagerly looked within, and saw that it was an elegantly-fitted bag, with gold-topped bottles, and below some miscellaneous articles and letters lay a small, cheap leather bag. In a moment the wily old thief had it open, and next instant there was displayed a magnificent bodice ornament in diamonds, a pair of exquisite pearl earrings, several fine bracelets, a long rope of splendid pearls, a fine ruby brooch, and a quantity of other ornaments. "Excellent!" exclaimed Guy. "We're on our feet once more! Well done, Roddy, old man! We were just thinking that we'd have to pick the pockets of some poor wretches if things didn't change, and I never like doing that." "No," remarked the leader of the gang, critically examining one after another of the articles he had stolen. "I wonder to whom these belong?" he added. "They're uncommonly good stuff, at any rate. Ascertain what those letters say." Guy took up the letters and glanced at the superscriptions upon the envelopes. "By Heaven!" he gasped next instant, and crushing the letters in his hand stood staring at the open bag. "What infernal irony of Fate is this? What curse is there upon us now? Look! They are hers--hers! And we have taken them!" The three men exchanged glances, but no word was uttered. The startling truth held Guy Bourne speechless, staggered, stupefied. CHAPTER ONE. CONCERNS A COURT INTRIGUE. The bright moon shed a white light over the great, silent courtyards of the Imperial palace at Vienna. A bugle had just sounded, the guards had changed with a sudden clang of arms that rang out in the clear night, followed by the sound of men marching back to the guardhouse. A sharp word of command, a second bugle note, and then all was quiet again, save for the slow, measured tread of the sentries at each angle of the ponderous palace. From without all looked grim and gloomy, in keeping with that strange fate that follows the hapless Hapsbourgs; yet beyond those black walls, in the farther wing of the Imperial palace were life and gaiety and music; indeed there was presented perhaps the most magnificent scene in all Europe. The first Court ball of the season was at its height, and the aged Emperor Francis-Joseph was himself present--a striking figure in his uniform and orders. Filled with the most brilliant patrician crowd in all the world--the women in tiaras and blazing with jewels, and the men in Court dress or in gorgeous uniforms--the huge ballroom, with its enormous crystal electroliers and its gold--and--white Renaissance decorations, had never been the scene of a more dazzling display. Archdukes and archduchesses, princes and princesses, nobles and diplomatists, ministers of the empire and high functionaries of State danced or gossiped, intrigued or talked scandal; or those whose first ball it was worried themselves over points of etiquette that are always so puzzling to one not born in the Court atmosphere. The music, the scent of the flowers, the glare and glitter, the beauty of the high-born women, the easy swagger of the bestarred and beribboned men, combined to produce a scene almost fairy-like. Laughter rang from pretty lips, and men bent to whisper into the ears of their partners as they waltzed over the perfect floor, after having paid homage to their Emperor--that lonely, broken man whose good wife, alas! had fallen beneath the assassin's knife. A sovereign's heart may be broken, but he must nevertheless keep up a brave show before his subjects. So he stood at the end of the room with the Imperial circle about him, smiling upon them and receiving their homage, although he longed to be back in his own quiet room at the farther end of the palace, where their laughter and the strains of music could not reach his ears. One pale, sweet-faced woman in that gay, irresponsible crowd glanced at him and read his heart. Her fair beauty was extremely striking, and her neat-waisted figure perfect. Indeed, she had long ago been acknowledged to be the most lovely figure at the Austrian Court--the most brilliant Court of Europe--a countenance which even her wide circle of enemies could not criticise without showing their ill nature; a perfect countenance, which, though it bore the hallmark of her imperial birth as an Archduchess, yet was sweet, dimpled, and innocent as a child's. The Princess Claire--Cecille-Marie-Alexandrine was twenty-four. Born and bred at that Court, she had three years before been married to the Crown Prince of a German house, the royal house of Marburg, and had left it for the Court at Treysa, over which her husband would, by reason of his father's great age, very soon be sovereign. At that moment she was back in Vienna on a brief visit to her father, the Archduke Charles, and had taken a turn around the room with a smart, well-set-up man in cavalry uniform--her cousin Prince George of Anhalt. She was dressed in ivory white, wearing in her fair hair a wonderful tiara; while in the edge of her low-cut bodice there showed the crosses and ribbons of the Orders of St. Elizabeth and Teresa--decorations bestowed only upon Imperial princesses. Many eyes were turned upon her, and many of the friends of her girlhood days she saluted with that charming frankness of manner which was so characteristic of her open nature. Suddenly, while walking around the room, a clean-shaven, dark-haired, quick-eyed man of thirty in Court dress bowed low before her, and in an instant, recognising him, she left her cousin's side, and crossing spoke to him. "I must see your Imperial Highness before she leaves Vienna," he whispered quickly to her in English, after she had greeted him in German and inquired after his wife. "I have something private and important to tell you." The Crown Princess looked at him quickly, and recognised that the man was in earnest. Her curiosity became aroused; but she could ask no questions, for a hundred eyes were now upon her. "Make an appointment--quickly, your Highness. I am here expressly to see you," he said, noticing that Prince George was approaching to carry her off to the upper end of the room, where the members of the Imperial family were assembled. "Very well. In the Stadtpark, against the Caroline Bridge, at eight to-morrow night. It will be dark then." "Be careful that you are not followed," he whispered; and then he bowed deeply as she left him. When her cousin came up he said,-- "You are very foolish, Claire! You know how greatly such a breach of etiquette annoys the Emperor. Why do you speak with such people?" "Because I like to," she answered defiantly. "If I have the misfortune to be born an Imperial Archduchess and am now Crown Princess, it need surely not preclude me from speaking to people who are my friends?" "Oh, he is a friend, is he? Who is the fellow?" inquired the Prince, raising his eyebrows. "Steinbach. He is in our Ministry of Foreign Affairs." "You really possess some queer friends, Claire," the young man said, smiling. "They will suspect you of being a Socialist if you go on in this way. You always shock them each time you come back to Vienna because of your extraordinary unconventionality." "Do I?" she laughed. "Well, I'm sure I don't care. When I lived here before I married they were for ever being scandalised by my conduct in speaking to people. But why shouldn't I? I learn so much them. We are all too narrow-minded; we very little of the world beyond the palace walls." "I heard yesterday that you'd been seen walking in the Kamthnerstrasse with two women who were not of the nobility. You really oughtn't to do that. It isn't fair to us, you know," he said, twisting his moustache. "We all know how wilful you are, and how you love to scandalise us; but you should draw the line at displaying such socialistic tendencies openly and publicly." "My dear old George," she laughed, turning her bright eyes to him, "you're only my cousin and not my husband. I shall do exactly what I like. If it amuses and interests me to see the life of the people, I shall do so; therefore it's no use talking. I have had lots of lectures from the Emperor long ago, and also from my stiff old father-in-law the King. But when they lecture me I only do it all the more," she declared, with a mischievous laugh upon her sweet face. "So they've given me up." "You're incorrigible, Claire--absolutely incorrigible," her cousin declared as he swung along at her side. "I only _do_ hope that your unconventionality will not be taken advantage of by your jealous enemies. Remember, you are the prettiest woman at our Court as well as at your own. Before long, too, you will be a reigning queen; therefore reflect well whether this disregard of the first rule of Court etiquette, which forbids a member of the Imperial family to converse with a commoner, is wise. For my own part, I don't think it is." "Oh, don't lecture me any more for goodness' sake," exclaimed the Crown Princess with a little musical laugh. "Have this waltz with me." And next moment the handsome pair were on their way down the great room with all eyes turned upon them. When, ten minutes later, they returned to join the Imperial circle about the Emperor, the latter motioned his niece towards him. "Come to me when this is ended," he said in a serious voice. "I wish to talk to you. You will find me in the white room at two o'clock." The Crown Princess bowed, and returned to the side of her father, the Archduke Charles, a tall, thin, grey-haired man in a brilliant uniform glittering with orders. She knew that his Majesty's quick eye had detected that she had spoken with the commoner Steinbach, and anticipated that she was to receive another lecture. Why, she wondered, was Steinbach there? Truth to tell, Court life bored her. She was tired to death of all that intrigue and struggle for place, power, and precedence, and of that unhealthy atmosphere of recklessness wherein she had been born and bred. She longed for the free open life in the country around Wartenstein, the great old castle in the Tyrol that was her home, where she could tramp for miles in the mountains and be friendly with the honest country folk. After her marriage--a marriage of convenience to unite two royal houses--she had found that she had exchanged one stiff and brilliant Court for another, more dull, more stiff, and where the etiquette was even more rigid. Those three years of married life had wrought a very great change in her. She had left Vienna a bright, athletic girl, fond of all sports, a great walker, a splendid horsewoman, sweet, natural, and quite unaffected; yet now, after those three years of a Court, smaller yet far more severe than that of Austria, she had become rebellious, with one desire--to forsake it all and live the private life of an ordinary citizen. Her own world, the little patrician but narrow world behind the throne, whispered and shrugged its shoulders. It was believed that her marriage was an unhappy one, but so clever was she that she never betrayed her bitterness of heart. Like all her Imperial family, she was a born diplomatist, and to those who sought to read her secret her face was always sphinx-like. Her own Court saw her as a merry, laughter-loving woman, witty, clever, a splendid dancer, and with a polished and charming manner that had already endeared her to the people over whom she was very shortly to reign. But at Court her enemies looked upon her with distrust. She exhibited no sign of displeasure on any occasion, however provoking. She was equally pleasant with enemies as with friends. For that reason they suspected her. Her charming ingenuousness and her entire disregard of the traditional distinction between the Imperial house and the people had aroused the anger of her husband's father, the aged King, a sovereign of the old school, who declared that she was fast breaking up all the traditions of the royal house, and that her actions were a direct incentive to Socialism and Anarchism within the kingdom. But she only laughed. She had trained herself to laugh gleefully even when her young heart was filled with blackest sorrow; even though her husband neglected and despised her; even though she was estranged for ever from her own home and her own beloved family circle at the great mountain stronghold. Next to the Emperor Francis-Joseph, her father, the Archduke Charles, was the greatest and wealthiest man in Austria. He had a Court of his own with all its appendages and functionaries, a great palace in the Parkring in Vienna, another in Buda-Pesth, the magnificent castle of Wartenstein, near Innsbruck, besides four other castles in various parts of Austria, and a beautiful villa at Tivoli, near Rome. From her birth the Princess Claire had always breathed the vitiated air of the courts of Europe; and yet ever since a girl, walking with her English governess at Wartenstein, she had longed and dreamed of freedom. Her marriage, however, was arranged for her, and she awakened from the glamour of it all to find herself the wife of a peevish prince who had not finished the sowing of his wild oats, and who, moreover, seemed to have no place for her in his heart. Too late she realised the tragedy of it all. When alone she would sit for hours in tears. Yet to no living soul, not even to her father or to the dark-haired, middle-aged Countess de Trauttenberg, her lady-in-waiting and confidante, did she utter one single syllable. She kept her secret. The world envied her her marvellous beauty, her exquisite figure, her wealth, her position, her grace and ineffable charm. Yet what would it have said had it known the ugly truth? Surely it would have pitied her; for even an Imperial archduchess, forbidden to speak with the common world, has a human heart, and is entitled to human sympathy. The Crown Prince was not present. He was, alas I seldom with the Princess. As she stood there in the Imperial circle with folded hands, laughing merrily and chatting vivaciously with the small crowd of Imperial Highnesses, no one would have guessed that she was a woman whose young heart was already broken. Ah yes! she made a brave show to conceal her bitterness and sorrow from the world, because she knew it was her duty to do so--her duty to her princely family and to the kingdom over which she was soon to be queen. The Emperor at last made his exit through the great white-and-gold doors, the Imperial chamberlains bowing low as he passed out. Then at two o'clock the Crown Princess managed to slip away from the Imperial circle, and with her rich train sweeping behind her, made her way rapidly through the long, tortuous corridors to his Majesty's private workroom, known as the White Chamber, on the other side of the great palace. She tapped upon the door with her fan, and obtained entrance at once, finding the Emperor alone, standing near the great wood fire, for it was a chilly evening, close to his big, littered writing-table. His heavy expression told her that he was both thoughtful and displeased. The chamber, in contrast to the luxury of the splendid palace, was plainly furnished, essentially the workroom of the ruler of a great empire--the room in which he gave audiences and transacted the affairs of the Austria-Hungarian nation. "Claire," he said, in a low, hard voice, "be seated; I wish to speak to you." "Ah, I know," exclaimed the brilliant woman, whose magnificent diamonds glittered beneath the electric light, "I know! I admit, sire, that I committed an unpardonable breach of etiquette in speaking with Steinbach. You are going to reprove me--I know you are," she pouted. "But do forgive me. I did not reflect. It was an indiscretion." "You never reflect, Claire; you are too irresponsible," the Emperor said in a tone of distinct displeasure. "But it is not that. I have called you here to learn why the Crown Prince is not in Vienna with you." He fixed his grey, deep-sunken eyes upon hers, and awaited her answer. "Well--" she faltered. "There are some Court dinners, and--and I believe he has some military engagements--anniversaries or something." The Emperor smiled dubiously. "You are shielding him, Claire," he said slowly; "I see you are. I know that Ferdinand is estranged from you. Of late I have learnt things concerning you--more than you imagine. You are unloved by your husband, and unhappy, and yet you are bearing your burden in silence, though you are a young and beautiful woman. Now, Claire," he said in a changed voice, placing his hand tenderly upon his niece's shoulder, "tell me the truth. I wish to hear the truth from your own lips. Do you know what they say of you? They say," he added, lowering his voice--"they say that you have a lover!" "A lover!" she gasped hoarsely, starting from her chair, her beautiful face as white as the dress she wore; "a lover! Who--who told you so?" CHAPTER TWO. HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS. Whatever passed between the Emperor and his niece, whether she confessed the truth or defied him, one fact was plain--she had been moved to bitter tears. When, half an hour later, she went back through those long corridors, her rich train sweeping over the red carpets, her white-gloved hands were clenched, her teeth set hard, her eyes red, her countenance changed. Her face was changed; it was that of a woman heart-broken and desperate. She did not return to the ballroom, but descended to the courtyard, where one of the Imperial servants called her carriage, and she returned alone to her father's splendid palace in the Parkring. Ascending straight to her room, she dismissed the Countess de Trauttenberg, her lady-in-waiting, and Henriette, her French maid; and then locking the door, she tore off her tiara and her jewels and sank upon her knees upon the old carved prie-dieu before the ivory crucifix placed opposite her bed. Her hands were clasped, her fair head bent, her sweet lips moved in fervent prayer, her eyes the while streaming with tears. Plunged in grief and unhappiness, she besought the Almighty to aid and counsel her in the difficult situation in which she now found herself. "Help me, my Father!" she sobbed aloud. "Have mercy upon me--mercy upon a humble woman who craves Thy protection and direction." And her clasped hands trembled in the fervency of her appeal. Those who had seen her an hour ago, the gay, laughing figure, blazing with jewels, the centre of the most brilliant Court of Europe, would have been astounded to see her at that moment prostrated before her Maker. In Austria, as in Germany, she was believed to be a rather giddy woman, perhaps by reason of her uncommon beauty, and perhaps because of her easy-going light-heartedness and disregard for all Court etiquette. Yet the truth was that the strong religious principles instilled into her by her mother, the deceased Archduchess Charles, had always remained, and that no day passed without one hour set apart for her devotions, in secret even from the Countess, from Henriette, and from the Crown Prince, her husband. She was a Catholic, of course, like all her Imperial house, but upon one point she disagreed--that of confession. Her husband, though he professed Catholicism, at heart scoffed at religion; and more than once when he had found her in the private chapel of the palace at Treysa had jeered at her. But she bore it all in patience. She was his wife, and she had a duty to perform towards his nation--to become its queen. For nearly an hour she remained upon her knees before the crucifix, with the tiny oil-light flickering in its cup of crimson glass, kneeling in mute appeal, strong in her faith, yet humble as the humblest commoner in the land. "My God!" she cried aloud at last. "Hear me! Answer my prayer! Give me strength and courage, and direct my footsteps in the right path. I am a weak woman, after all; a humble sinner who has repented. Help me, O God! I place all my trust in Thee! Amen." And, crossing herself, she rose slowly with a deep-drawn breath that sounded weirdly through the fine room, and walking unsteadily towards the big cheval glass, gazed at her own reflection. She saw how pale and haggard was her face, and looked at her trembling hands. The ribbons and stars at the edge of her bodice caught her eye, and with a sudden movement she tore them off and cast them heedlessly upon the table as though the sight of them annoyed her. They had been conferred upon her on her marriage. She sighed as she looked back at them. Ah, the hollow mockery of it all! She glanced out of the window, and saw in the bright moonlight the sentry pacing up and down before the palace. Across the wide boulevard were the dark trees of the park. It recalled to her the appointment she had made there for the next evening. "I wonder why Steinbach has followed me here?" she exclaimed to herself. "How did he obtain entrance to the Court ball? Probably he has some friend here. But surely his mission is urgent, or he would never have run this risk. I was, however, foolish to speak to him before them all--very foolish. Yet," she added slowly to herself, "I wonder what he has to tell me? I wonder--" And, without concluding her sentence, she stood gazing out upon the dark park, deep in thought, her mind full of grave apprehensions of the future. She was a Hapsbourg--and evil fate follows a Hapsbourg always. She had prayed to God; for God alone could save her. She, the most brilliant and the most envied woman in the Empire, was perhaps the most heart-broken, the most unhappy. Casting herself into an armchair before the log fire, she covered her drawn, white face with her hands and sobbed bitterly, until at last she sat immovable, staring straight into the embers watching the spark die out, until she fell asleep where she sat. Next day her sweet, fresh face bore no traces of her desperation of the night. She was as gay and merry as ever, and only Henriette noticed in her eyes a slight redness, but discreetly said nothing. The Countess, a rather pleasant-faced but stiff-mannered person, brought her her engagement-book, from which it appeared that she was due at a review by the Emperor at eleven o'clock; therefore, accompanied by her lady-in-waiting, she drove there, and was everywhere admired by the great crowds assembled. The Austrian people called her "our Claire," and the warm-hearted Viennese cheered when they recognised that she was back again among them. It was a brilliant scene in the bright spring sunlight, for many of the Imperial Court were present, and the troops made a brave show as they marched past his Majesty and the assembled members of the Imperial house. Then she had a luncheon engagement with the Archduchess Gisela, the wife of Prince Leopold of Bavaria, afterwards drove in the Ringstrasse and the Prater, dined early at her father's palace, after giving Henriette leave of absence for the evening, and also allowing the Countess de Trauttenberg her freedom, saying that she intended to remain at home. Then, shortly before eight o'clock, she ascended to her room, exchanged her turquoise-blue dinner-gown for a plain, stiff, tailor-made dress, put on a hat with a lace veil that concealed her features, and managed to slip across the courtyard of the domestic offices and out of the palace unseen. The night was cloudy and dark, with threatening rain, as she crossed the broad Parkring, entering the park near the Kursalon, and traversing the deserted walks towards the River Wien. The chill wind whistled in the budding trees above, sweeping up the dust in her path, and the statuesque guard whom she passed in the shadow glanced inquisitively at her, of course not recognising her. There was no one in the Stadtpark at that hour, and all was silent, gloomy, and dismal, well in keeping with her own sad thoughts. Behind her, the street lamps of the Parkring showed in a long, straight line, and before her were the lights on the Caroline Bridge, the spot appointed for the meeting. Her heart beat quickly. It was always difficult for her to escape without the knowledge of De Trauttenberg or Henriette. The former was, as a good lady-in-waiting should be, ever at her side, made her engagements for her, and saw that she kept them. That night, however, the Countess desired to visit her sister who was in Vienna with her husband, therefore it had happened opportunely; and, freed of Henriette, she had now little to fear. The dress she wore was one she used when in the country. She had thrown a short cape of Henriette's about her shoulders, and was thus sufficiently disguised to avoid recognition by people in the streets. As she came around a sudden bend in the pathway to the foot of the bridge the dark figure of a man in a black overcoat emerged from the shadow, and was next instant at her side, holding his hat in his hand and bowing before her. "I began to fear that your Imperial Highness would not come," he said breathlessly in German. "Or that you had been prevented." "Is it so very late, then?" she inquired in her sweet, musical voice, as the man walked slowly at her side. "I had difficulty in getting away in secret." "No one has followed you, Princess?" he said, glancing anxiously behind him. "Are you quite sure?" "No one. I was very careful. But why have you asked me to come here? Why were you at the ball last night? How did you manage to get a card?" "I came expressly to see you, Princess," answered the young man in a deep earnest voice. "It was difficult to get a command to the ball, but I managed it, as I could approach you by no other way. At your Highness's own Court you, as Crown Princess, are unapproachable for a commoner like myself, and I feared to write to you, as De Trauttenberg often attends to your correspondence." "But you are my friend, Steinbach," she said. "I am always to be seen by my friends." "At your own risk, your Highness," he said quickly. "I know quite well that last night when you stopped and spoke to me it was a great breach of etiquette. Only it was imperative that I should see you to-night. To you, Princess, I owe everything. I do not forget your great kindness to me; how that I was a poor clerk out of work, with my dear wife ill and starving, and how, by your letter of recommendation, I was appointed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, first as French translator, and now as a secretary. Were it not for you, Princess, I and my family would have starved. You saved me from ruin, and I hope you are confident that in me, poor and humble though I am, you at least have a friend." "I am sure of that, Steinbach," was her Highness's kindly reply. "We need not cross the bridge," she said. "It is quiet along here, by the river. We shall meet no one." For a few moments a silence fell between them, and the Princess began to wonder why he had asked her there to meet him. At last, when they were in a dark and narrower pathway, he turned suddenly to her and said,-- "Princess, I--I hardly know how to speak, for I fear that you may take what I have to say in a wrong sense. I mean," he faltered, "I mean that I fear you may think it impertinent of me to speak to you, considering the great difference in our stations." "Why?" she asked calmly, turning to him with some surprise. "Have you not just told me that you are my friend?" She noticed at that moment that he still held his hat in his hand, and motioned to him to reassume it. "Yes. I am your Highness's friend," he declared quickly. "If I were not, I would not dare to approach you, or to warn you of what at this moment is in progress." "What is in progress?" she exclaimed in surprise. "Tell me." She realised that this man had something serious to say, or surely he would never have followed her to Vienna, and obtained entrance to the Imperial Court by subterfuge. "Your Highness is in peril," he declared in a low voice, halting and standing before her. "You have enemies, fierce, bitter enemies, on every side; enemies who are doing their utmost to estrange you from your husband; relentless enemies who are conspiring might and main against you and the little Princess Ignatia. They--" "Against my child?" cried the Princess, amazed. "Do you really mean that there is actually a conspiracy against me?" "Alas! that is so, Highness," said the man, seriously and distinctly. "By mere chance I have learnt of it, and being unable to approach you at your own Court, I am here to give you timely warning of what is intended." She was silent, gazing straight into her companion's face, which was, however, hardly distinguishable in the darkness. She could scarcely believe the truth of what this commoner told her. Could this man, whom she had benefited by her all-powerful influence, have any ulterior motive in lying to her? "And what is intended?" she inquired in a strange, hard voice, still half dubious and half convinced. "There is a plot, a dastardly, widespread conspiracy to cause your Highness's downfall and part you from the Crown Prince before he comes to the throne," was his answer. "But why? For what motive?" she inquired, starting at the amazing revelation. "Cannot your Highness discern that your jealous enemies are in fear of you?" he said. "They know that one day ere long our invalid King must die, and your husband will then ascend the throne. You will be Queen, and they feel convinced that the day of your accession will be their last day at Court--frankly, that having seen through their shams and intrigues, you will dismiss them all and change the entire entourage." "Ah! I see," replied the Crown Princess Claire in a hoarse, bitter voice. "They fear me because they have realised their own shortcomings. So they are conspiring against me to part me from my husband, and drive me from Court! Yes," she sighed heavily, "I know that I have enemies on every side. I am a Hapsbourg, and that in itself is sufficient to prejudice them against me. I have never been a favourite with their Majesties the King and Queen because of my Liberal tendencies. They look upon me as a Socialist; indeed, almost as a revolutionist. Their sycophants would be glad enough to see me banished from Court. And yet the Court bow to me with all that hateful obsequiousness." "Your Highness is, unfortunately, quite right," declared the man Steinbach. "The Crown Prince is being enticed farther and farther from you, as part of the ingenious plot now afoot. The first I knew of it was by accident six months ago, when some letters from abroad fell into my hands at the Ministry. The conspiracy is one that permeates the whole Court. The daily talk of your enemies is the anticipation of your downfall." "My downfall! But how is that to be accomplished?" she demanded, her fine eyes flashing with indignation. "I surely have nothing to fear-- have I? I beg of you to be quite candid with me, Steinbach. In this affair your information may be of greatest service, and I am deeply indebted to you. It staggers me. What have I done that these people should seek my ruin?" she cried in blank dismay. "Will your Highness pardon me if I tell the truth?" asked the man at her side, speaking very seriously. "You have been too free, too frank, and too open-minded. Every well-meant action of yours is turned to account by those who seek to do you evil. Those whom you believe to be your friends are your worst antagonists. I have longed to approach you and tell you this for months, but I always feared. How could I reach you? They are aware that the secret correspondence passed through my hands, and therefore they suspect me of an intention of betraying them." "Then you are here at imminent risk to yourself, Steinbach," she remarked very slowly, looking again straight into his dark face. "I am here as your Highness's friend," replied the young man simply. "It is surely worth the risk to save my gracious benefactress from falling victim to their foul, dastardly conspiracy?" "And who, pray, are my worst antagonists?" she asked hoarsely. He gave her rapidly half a dozen names of Court officials and persons in the immediate entourage of their Majesties. "And," he added, "do not trust the Countess de Trauttenberg. She is playing you false. She acts as spy upon you and notes your every action." "The Countess--their spy!" she gasped, utterly taken aback, for if there was one person at Court in whom she had the utmost confidence it was the woman who had been in her personal service ever since her marriage. "I have documentary proof of it," the man said quietly. "I would beg of your Highness to make no sign whatever that the existence of the plot is known to you, but at the same time exercise the greatest caution, both for your own sake and that of the little Princess." "Surely they do not mean to kill me, Steinbach?" she exclaimed in alarm. "No--worse. They intend to banish your Highness from Court in disgrace, as a woman unworthy to reign over us as Queen. They fear you because you have discovered their own intrigues, corruptions, and scandals, and they intend that, at all costs, you shall never ascend the throne." "But my husband! He should surely know this!" "Princess," exclaimed the clean-shaven young man, speaking very slowly and seriously, "I regret that it is I who am compelled to reveal this to you, but the Crown Prince already believes ill of you. He suspects; and therefore whatever lies they, now invent concerning you he accepts as truth. Princess," he added in a low, hard voice, "you are in deadly peril. There, the truth is out, for I cannot keep it from you longer. I am poor, unknown, without influence. All I can do is to give you this warning in secret, because I hope that I may call myself your friend." The unhappy daughter of the Imperial house was silent. The revelation was startling and amazing. She had never realised that a plot was afoot against her in her husband's kingdom. Words entirely failed her. She and her little daughter Ignatia were marked down as victims. She now for the first time realised her peril, yet she was powerless to stem the tide of misfortune that, sooner or later, must overwhelm her and crush her. She stood there a defenceless woman. CHAPTER THREE. THE REVELATIONS OF A COMMONER. Princess and commoner walked in silence, side by side. The rough night wind blew the dust in their faces, but they bent to it heedlessly, both too full of their own thoughts for words; the man half confused in the presence of the brilliant woman who ere long would be his sovereign; the woman stupefied at the dastardly intrigue that had not only estranged her husband from her, but had for its object the expulsion from the kingdom of herself and her child. Open-hearted as she was, liberal-minded, pleasant, easy-going, and a delightful companion, she had never sufficiently realised that at that stiff, narrow-minded Court there were men and women who hated her. All of us are so very loth to believe that we have enemies, and more especially those who believe in the honesty and integrity of mankind. She reflected upon her interview with the Emperor. She remembered his Majesty's hard words. Had those conspiring against her obtained his ear? Even De Trauttenberg, the tall, patient, middle-aged woman in whom she had reposed such confidence, was their spy! Steinbach's story staggered belief. And yet--and yet was not the Emperor's anger plain proof that he knew something--that a foul plot was really in progress? Along those dark winding paths they strolled slowly, meeting no one, for the place was utterly deserted. It was an exciting escapade, and dangerous withal. The man at last broke the silence, saying,-- "I need not impress upon your Imperial Highness the necessity for discretion in this matter. To betray your knowledge of the affair would be to betray me." "Trust me," was her answer. "I know how to keep a secret, and I am not likely to forget this important service you have rendered me." "My only regret is that I was unable to approach you months ago, when I first made the discovery. Your Highness would have then been able to avoid the pitfalls constantly set for you," the man said meaningly. The Princess Claire bit her lip. She knew to what he referred. She had been foolish, ah yes; very foolish. And he dare not be more explicit. "Yes," she sighed. "I know--I know to what you refer. But surely we need not discuss it. Even though I am Crown Princess, I am a woman, after all." "I beg your Highness's pardon," he exclaimed quickly, fearing that she was annoyed. "There is nothing to pardon," was her reply. "You are my friend, and speak to me in my own interests. For that I thank you. Only--only--" she added, "all that you've just told me is such a startling revelation. My eyes are opened now. I see the dastardly ingenuity of it all. I know why my husband--" But she checked herself instantly. No. However ill-treated she had been she would preserve her secret. She would not complain to a commoner at risk of her domestic infelicity going forth to her people. It was true that within a year of marriage he had thrown her down in her room and kicked her in one of his paroxysms of temper. He had struck her blows innumerable; but she had borne all in patience, and De Trauttenberg had discovered dark marks upon her white shoulders which she had attributed to a fall upon the ice. She saw now the reason of his estrangement; how his sycophants had poisoned his mind against her because they feared her. "Steinbach," she said at last, "tell me the truth. What do the people think of me? You are a commoner and live among them. I, imprisoned at Court, unfortunately, know nothing. The opinions of the people never reach us." "The people, your Highness, love you. They call you `their Claire.' You surely know how, when you drive out, they raise their hats and shout in acclamation." "Yes," she said in a low, mechanical voice, "but is it real enthusiasm? Would they really love me if I were Queen?" "Your Highness is at this moment the most popular woman in the whole kingdom of Marburg. If it were known that this plot was in progress there would in all probability be a revolution. Stuhlmann and his friends are hated everywhere, and their overthrow would cause universal satisfaction." "And the people do not really think ill of me?" "Think ill of you, Princess?" he echoed. "Why, they literally worship you and the little Princess Ignatia." She was silent again, walking very slowly, and reflecting deeply. It was so seldom she had opportunity of speaking with one of the people unless he were a deputy or a diplomatist, who then put on all his Court manners, was unnatural, and feared to speak. From the man beside her, however, she saw she might learn the truth of a matter which was ever uppermost in her mind. And yet she hesitated to approach what was, after all, a very delicate subject. Suddenly, with her mind made up, she halted, and turning to him, said,-- "Steinbach, I want you to answer me truthfully. Do not evade the question for fear of annoying me. Speak openly, as the friend you are to me. I wish to know one thing," and she lowered her voice until it almost faltered. "Have you heard a--well, a scandal concerning myself?" He made no answer. She repeated her question; her veiled face turned to his. "Your Highness only a few moments ago expressed a desire not to discuss the matter," he replied in a low, distinct voice. "But I want to know," she urged. "I must know. Tell me the truth. If you are my friend you will at least be frank with me when I command." "If you command, Princess, then I must obey, even with reluctance," was his response. "Yes. I have heard some gossip. It is spoken openly in Court by the _dames du palais_, and is now being whispered among the people." She held her breath. Fortunately, it was dark, for she knew that her countenance had gone crimson. "Well?" she asked. "And what do they say of me?" "They, unfortunately, couple your Highness's name with that of Count Leitolf, the chief of the private cabinet of his Majesty," was his low answer. "Yes," she said in a toneless voice. "And what more?" "They say that Major Scheel, attache at the Embassy in Paris, recognised you driving with the Count in the Avenue de l'Opera, when you were supposed to be at Aix-les-Bains with the little Princess Ignatia." "Yes. Go on." "They say, too, that he follows you everywhere--and that your maid Henriette helps you to leave the palace in secret to meet him." She heard his words, and her white lips trembled. "They also declare," he went on in a low voice, "that your love of the country is only because you are able to meet him without any one knowing, that your journey here to Vienna is on account of him--that he has followed you here." She nodded, without uttering a word. "The Count has, no doubt, followed your Highness, indiscreetly if I may say so, for I recognised him last night dining alone at Breying's." "He did not see you?" she exclaimed anxiously. "No. I took good care not to be seen. I had no desire that my journey here should be known, or I should be suspected. I return to-night at midnight." "And to be frank, Steinbach, you believe that all this has reached my husband's ears?" she whispered in a hard, strained voice. "All that is detrimental to your Highness reaches the Crown Prince," was his reply to the breathless woman, "and certainly not without embellishments. That is why I implore of you to be circumspect--why I am here to tell you of the plot to disgrace you in the people's eyes." "But the people themselves are now speaking of--of the Count?" she said in a low, uncertain voice, quite changed from her previous musical tones when first they met. "A scandal--and especially a Court one--very soon spreads among the people. The royal servants gossip outside the palace, and moreover your Highness's many enemies are only too delighted to assist in spreading such reports. It gives motive for the Crown Prince's estrangement." Her head was bent, her hands were trembling. The iron had entered her soul. The people--the people whom she so dearly loved, and who had waved their hands and shouted those glad welcomes to her as she drove out--were now whispering of Leitolf. She bit her lip, and her countenance went pale as death as the truth arose before her in all its hideous ghastliness. Even the man at her side, the humble man who had stood by her as her friend, knew that Leitolf was there--in Vienna--to be near her. Even Steinbach could have no further respect for her as a woman--only respect because she was one day to be his sovereign. Her hands were clenched; she held her breath, and shivered as the chill wind cut through her. She longed to be back in her father's palace; to be alone in her room to think. "And nothing more?" she asked in that same blank voice which now caused her companion to wonder. "Only that they say evil of you that is not worth repeating," was his brief answer. She sighed again, and then when she had sufficiently recovered from the effect of his words, she whispered in a low voice,-- "I--I can only thank you, Steinbach, for giving me this warning. Forgive me if--if I am somewhat upset by it--but I am a woman--and perhaps it is only natural. Trust me to say nothing. Leave Vienna to-night and return home. If you ever wish to communicate with me write guardedly, making an appointment, and address your letter to Madame Emond at the Poste Restante in Brussels. You will recollect the name?" "Most certainly I shall, your Highness. I can only ask pardon for speaking so openly. But it was at your request." "Do not let us mention it further," she urged, her white lips again compressed. "Leave me now. It is best that I should walk down yonder to the Parkring alone." He halted, and bowing low, his hat in his hand, said,-- "I would ask your Imperial Highness to still consider me your humble servant to command in any way whatsoever, and to believe that I am ever ready to serve you and to repay the great debt of gratitude I owe to you." And, bending, he took her gloved hand and raised it to his lips in obeisance to the princess who was to be his queen. "Adieu, Steinbach," she said in a broken voice. "And for the service you have rendered me to-night I can only return you the thanks of an unhappy woman." Then she turned from him quickly, and hurried down the path to the park entrance, where shone a single gas lamp, leaving him standing alone, bowing in silence. He watched her graceful figure out of sight, then sighed, and turned away in the opposite direction. A few seconds later the tall, dark figure of a man emerged noiselessly from the deep shadow of the tree where, unobserved, he had crept up and stood concealed. The stranger glanced quickly up and down at the two receding figures, and then at a leisurely pace strode in the direction the Princess had taken. When at last she had turned and was out of sight he halted, took a cigarette from a silver case, lit it after some difficulty in the tearing wind, and muttered some words which, though inaudible, were sufficiently triumphant in tone to show that he was well pleased at his ingenious piece of espionage. CHAPTER FOUR. HIS MAJESTY CUPID. As the twilight fell on the following afternoon a fiacre drew up before the Hotel Imperial, one of the best and most select hotels in the Kartner Ring, in Vienna, and from it descended a lady attired in the deep mourning of a widow. Of the gold-laced concierge she inquired for Count Carl Leitolf, and was at once shown into the lift and conducted to a private sitting-room on the second floor, where a young, fair-moustached, good-looking man, with well-cut, regular features and dark brown eyes, rose quickly as the door opened and the waiter announced her. The moment the door had closed and they were alone he took his visitor's hand and raised it reverently to his lips, bowing low, with the exquisite grace of the born courtier. In an instant she drew it from him and threw back her veil, revealing her pale, beautiful face--the face of her Imperial Highness the Crown Princess Claire. "Highness!" the man exclaimed, glancing anxiously at the door to reassure himself that it was closed, "I had your note this morning, but--but are you not running too great a risk by coming here? I could not reply, fearing that my letter might fall into other hands; otherwise I would on no account have allowed you to come. You may have been followed. There are, as you know, spies everywhere." "I have come, Carl, because I wish to speak to you," she said, looking unflinchingly into his handsome face. "I wish to know by what right you have followed me here--to Vienna?" He drew back in surprise, for her attitude was entirely unexpected. "I came here upon my own private affairs," he answered. "That is not the truth," she declared in quick resentment. "You are here because you believed that you might meet me at the reception after the State dinner to-night. You applied for a card for it in order that you could see me--and this, after what passed between us the other day! Do you consider that you are treating me fairly? Cannot you see that your constant attentions are compromising me and causing people to talk?" "And what, pray, does your Imperial Highness care for this idle Court gossip?" asked the well-dressed, athletic-looking man, at the same time placing a chair for her and bowing her to it. "There has been enough of it already, and you have always expressed the utmost disregard of anything that might be said, or any stories that might be invented." "I know," she answered. "But this injudicious action of yours in following me here is utter madness. It places me in peril. You are known in Vienna, remember." "Then if that is your view, your Highness, I can only apologise," he said most humbly. "I will admit that I came here in order to be able to get a few minutes' conversation with you to-night. At our Court at home you know how very difficult it is for me to speak with you, for the sharp eye of the Trauttenberg is ever upon you." The Princess's arched brows contracted slightly. She recollected what Steinbach had revealed to her regarding her lady-in-waiting. "And it is surely best that you should have difficulty in approaching me," she said. "I have not forgotten your foolish journey to Paris, where I had gone incognito to see my old nurse, and how you compelled me to go out and see the sights in your company. We were recognised. Do you know that?" she exclaimed in a hard voice. "A man who knew us both sent word to Court that we were in Paris together." "Recognised!" he gasped, the colour fading instantly from his face. "Who saw us?" "Of his identity I'm not aware," she answered, for she was a clever diplomatist, and could keep a secret well. She did not reveal Scheel's name. "I only know that our meeting in Paris is no secret. They suspect me, and I have you to thank for whatever scandal may now be invented concerning us." The lithe, clean-limbed man was silent, his head bent before her. What could he reply? He knew, alas! too well, that in following her from Germany to Paris he had acted very injudiciously. She was believed to be taking the baths at Aix, but a sudden caprice had seized her to run up to Paris and see her old French nurse, to whom she was much attached. He had learnt her intention in confidence, and had met her in Paris and shown her the city. It had been an indiscretion, he admitted. Yet the recollection of those few delightful days of freedom remained like a pleasant dream. He recollected her childish delight of it all. It was out of the season, and they believed that they could go hither and thither, like the crowds of tourists do, without fear of recognition. Yet Fate, it seemed, had been against them, and their secret meeting was actually known! "Cannot you see the foolishness of it all?" she asked in a low, serious voice. "Cannot you see, Carl, that your presence here lends colour to their suspicions? I have enemies--fierce, bitter enemies--as you must know too well, and yet you imperil me like this!" she cried reproachfully. "I can make no defence, Princess," he said lamely. "I can only regret deeply having caused you any annoyance." "Annoyance!" she echoed in anger. "Your injudicious actions have placed me in the greatest peril. The people have coupled our names, and you are known to have followed me on here." Her companion was silent, his eyes downcast, as though not daring to meet her reproachful gaze. "I have been foolish--very foolish, I know," she cried. "In the old days, when we knew each other at Wartenstein, a boy-and-girl affection sprang up between us; and then, when you left the University, they sent you as attache to the Embassy in London, and we gradually forgot each other. You grew tired of diplomacy, and returned to find me the wife of the Crown Prince; and in a thoughtless moment I promised, at your request, to recommend you to a post in the private cabinet of the King. Since that day I have always regretted. I ought never to have allowed you to return. I am as much to blame as you are, for it was an entirely false step. Yet how was I to know?" "True, my Princess!" said the man in a low, choking voice. "How were you to know that I still loved you in silence, that I was aware of the secret of your domestic unhappiness, that I--" "Enough!" she cried, drawing herself up. "The word love surely need not be spoken between us. I know it all, alas! Yet I beg of you to remember that I am the wife of another, and a woman of honour." "Ah yes," he exclaimed, his trembling hand resting on the back of the chair upon which she sat. "Honour--yes. I love you, Claire--you surely know that well. But we do not speak of it; it is a subject not to be discussed by us. Day after day, unable to speak to you, I watch you in silence. I know your bitterness in that gilded prison they call the Court, and long always to help you and rescue you from that--that man to whom you are, alas! wedded. It is all so horrible, so loathsome, that I recoil when I see him smiling upon you while at heart he hates you. For weeks, since last we spoke together, how I have lived I scarcely know-- utter despair, insane hopes alternately possess me--but at last the day came, and I followed you here to speak with you, my Princess." She remained silent, somewhat embarrassed, as he took her gloved hand and again kissed it. She was nervous, but next instant determined. "Alas! I have not failed to notice your strong affection for me, Carl," she said with a heavy sigh, her beautiful face slightly flushed. "You must therefore control this passion that seems to have been rekindled within your heart. For my sake go, and forget me," she implored. "Resign your appointment, and re-enter the diplomatic service of the Emperor. I will speak to Lindenau, who will give you an appointment, say, in Rome or Paris. But you must not remain at Treysa. I--I will not allow it." "But, Princess," he cried in dismay, "I cannot go and leave you there alone among your enemies. You--" "You must; for, unintentionally, because you have my interests at heart, you are my worst enemy. You are indiscreet, just as every man is who loves a woman truly." "Then you really believe I love you still, Claire," he cried, bending towards her. "You remember those delightfully happy days at Wartenstein long ago, when--" She held up her hand to stop the flow of his words. He looked at her. For an instant her glance wavered and shrank. She was his idol, the beautiful idol with eyes like heaven. Yes, she was very beautiful--beautiful with all the beauty of woman now, not with the beauty of the girl. And she, with her sad gaze fixed upon him, remembered all the past--the great old castle in the far-off Tyrol, her laughter at his awkwardness; their chats in English when both were learning that language; the quarrel over the lilac blossom. At Arcachon--the shore and the pine forest; the boyish kiss stolen under the mistletoe; the declaration of their young love on that lonely mountain-side with the world lying at their feet; the long, sweet, silent kisses exchanged on their homeward walk; the roses she had given him as farewell pledge when he had left for London. All had gone--gone for ever. Nevertheless, though everything was past, she could not resist an impulse to recall it--oh, very briefly--in a few feeling words, as one may recall some sweet and rapturous dream. "We were very foolish," she said. He was silent. His heart was too full for words. He knew that a woman who can look back on the past--on rapture, delight, the first thrilling kiss, the first fervent vow--and say, "We were very foolish," is a woman changed beyond recall. In other days, had he heard such sacrilegious words a cry of horror would have sprung from his lips. But now, though he shuddered with anguish, he simply said,-- "I shall always remember it, Princess;" adding, with a glance at her, "and you." Her wonderful eyes shrank once more and her lips quivered, as though for one second touched again by the light wing of love--as if, indeed, she felt she had done something unworthy of her, something which might bring her regret hereafter. In the midst of his confusion, the man remained victorious. She would never be his, and yet she would be his for ever. No matter how she might strive, she would never entirely forget. She sighed, and rising, walked unsteadily to the window, where, below, the street lamps were just being lit. Daylight had faded, and in the room it was almost dark. "To-night, Carl, we meet for the last time," she said with an effort, in a hard, strained voice. "Both for you and for me it is best that we should part and forget. I did wrong to recommend you to the post at Court, and I ought to have foreseen the grave peril of the situation. Fortunately, I have realised it in time, even though our enemies already believe ill and invent lies concerning us. You must not return to Court. Remember, I forbid you. To-night, at the State dinner, I will speak to Lindenau and ask him to send you as attache to Rome or to Petersburg. It is the wisest course." "Then your Highness really intends to banish me?" he said hoarsely, in a low, broken voice of reproach. "Yes," she faltered. "I--I must--Carl--to--to save myself." "But you are cruel--very cruel--Princess," he cried, his voice trembling with emotion. "You must realise my peril," she said seriously. "Your presence at Court increases my danger hourly, because"--and she hesitated--"because, Carl, I confess to you that I do not forget--I never shall forget," she added as the tears sprang to her blue eyes. "Therefore, go! Let me bear my own burden as best I can alone, and let me remember you as what you have always been--chivalrous to an unhappy woman; a man of honour." Slowly she moved across the room towards the door, but he arrested her progress, and took her small hand quickly in his grasp. For some moments, in the falling gloom, he looked into her sweet, tearful face without speaking; then crushing down the lump that arose in his throat, he raised to his hot, passionate lips the hand of the woman he loved, and, imprinting upon it a tender, lingering kiss, murmured,-- "Adieu, Claire--my Princess--my first, my only love!" She drew her hand away as his passionate words fell upon her ear, sighed heavily, and in silence opened the door and passed out from his presence. And thus were two brave hearts torn asunder. CHAPTER FIVE. SOME SUSPICIONS. State dinners, those long, tedious affairs at which the conversation is always stilted and the bearing of everybody is stiff and unnatural, always bored the Crown Princess Claire to death. Whenever she could she escaped them; but as a Crown Princess she was compelled by Court etiquette to undergo ordeals which, to a woman not educated as an Imperial Archduchess, would have been impossible. She had trained herself to sit for hours smiling and good-humoured, although at heart she hated all that glittering formality and rich display. There were times when at her own Court at Treysa, at the military anniversary dinners that were so often held, she had been compelled to sit at table with her husband and the guests for four and five hours on end, without showing any sign of fatigue beyond taking her smelling-salts from the hand of her lady-in-waiting. Yet she never complained, though the eating, and more especially the drinking, disgusted her. It was a duty--one of the many wearisome, soul-killing duties which devolve upon a Crown Princess--of which the world at large is in utter ignorance. Therefore she accepted it in silence, yet bored always by meeting and speaking with the same circle of people day after day--a small circle which was ever intriguing, ever consumed by its own jealousies, ever striving for the favour of the aged king; the narrow-minded little world within the Palace who treated those outside as though of different flesh and blood to themselves. Whether at a marriage, at a funeral, at the opera, at a review, or at a charity _fete_--everywhere where her Court duties called her--she met the same people, she heard the same interminable chatter and the same shameful scandals, until, unhappy in her own domestic life, she had grown to loathe it all, and to long for that liberty of which she had dreamed when a girl at her father's castle at Wartenstein, or at the great old Residenz-Schloss, or palace, at Pressburg. Yet what liberty could she, heiress to a throne, obtain; what, indeed, within her husband's Court, a circle who dined at five o'clock and were iron-bound by etiquette? The State dinner at the Imperial palace that night differed but little from any other State dinner--long, dull, and extremely uninteresting. Given in honour of a Swedish Prince who was at the moment the guest of the Emperor, there were present the usual circle of Imperial Archdukes and Archduchesses, who after dinner were joined in the great reception room by the Ministers of State, the British, French, and Italian Ambassadors, the Swedish Minister and the whole staff of the Swedish Embassy in the Schwindgasse. Every one was in uniform and wore his orders, the Emperor himself standing at the end of the room, chatting with his young guest in French. The Crown Princess Claire, a striking figure in turquoise chiffon, was standing near, discussing Leoncavallo's new opera with her cousin, the Princess Marie of Bourbon, who had arrived only a few days before from Madrid. Suddenly her eye caught the figure she had all the evening been in Search of. Count de Lindenau, Privy Councillor, Chamberlain, Minister of the Imperial Household, and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Austrian Empire--a short, rather stout, bald-headed man, with heavy white moustache, with the crimson ribbon of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary across his shirt-front and the Grand Cross in brilliants upon his coat--stopped to bow low before the Crown Princess, who in an instant seized the opportunity to leave her cousin and speak with him. "It is really quite a long time since we met, Count," she exclaimed pleasantly. "I met the Countess at Cannes in January, and was delighted to see her so much better. Is she quite well again?" "I thank your Imperial Highness," responded the Minister. "The Countess has completely recovered. At present she is at Como. And you? Here for a long stay in Vienna, I hope. We always regret that you have left us, you know," he added, smiling, for she had, ever since a girl, been friendly with him, and had often visited his wife at their castle at Mauthhausen. "No; I regret that I must return to Treysa in a few days," she said as she moved along and he strolled at her side down the great gilded room where the little groups were standing gossiping. Then, when his Excellency had asked after the health of the Crown Prince and of the little Princess Ignatia, she drew him aside to a spot where they could not be overheard, and halting, said in a lower tone,-- "I have wished to meet you, Count, because I want you to do me a favour." "Your Imperial Highness knows quite well that if I can serve you in any way I am always only too delighted." And he bowed. More than once she had asked favour of Lindenau, the stern Foreign Minister and favourite of the Emperor, and he had always acted as she wished. She had known him ever since her birth. He had, indeed, been present at her baptism. "Well, it is this," she said. "I want to give my recommendation to you on behalf of Count Leitolf, who is at present chief of the King's private cabinet at Treysa, and who is strongly desirous of returning to the Austrian diplomatic service, and is anxious for a post abroad." Mention of Leitolf's name caused the wily old Minister to glance at her quickly. The rumour had reached his ears, and in an instant he recognised the situation--the Crown Princess wished to rid herself of him. But the old fellow was diplomatic, and said, as though compelled to recall the name,-- "Leitolf? Let me see. That is Count Carl, whom I sent to London a few years ago? He resigned his post to take service under your father-in-law the King. Ah yes, I quite recollect. And he now wishes to be appointed abroad again, eh? And you wish to recommend him?" "Exactly, Count," she answered. "I think that Leitolf is tired of our Court; he finds it too dull. He would prefer Rome, he tells me." "Your Imperial Highness is well aware that any recommendation of yours always has the most earnest attention," said the Minister, with a polite bow. His quick grey eyes were watching the beautiful woman sharply. He wondered what had occurred between her and Count Carl. "Then you will send him to Rome?" she asked, unable to conceal her eagerness. "If he will present himself at the Ministry, he will be at once appointed to the Embassy to the Quirinal," responded his Excellency quietly. "But he will not present himself, I am afraid." "Oh, why not?" inquired the great Austrian diplomatist, regarding her in surprise. "Because--" and she hesitated, as a slight flush crossed her features--"because he is rather ashamed to ask for a second appointment, having resigned from London." The old Minister smiled dubiously. "Ah!" he exclaimed confidentially, "I quite understand. Your Imperial Highness wishes to get rid of him from your Court, eh?" The Princess started, twisting her diamond bracelet nervously round her wrist. "Why do you think that, Count?" she asked quickly, surprised that he should have thus divined her motive. "Well, your Imperial Highness is rather unduly interested in the man--if you will permit me to say so," was his answer. "Besides, if I may speak frankly, as I know I may, I have regarded his presence in your Court as distinctly dangerous--for you. There are, you know, evil tongues ever ready to invent scandal, even against a Crown Princess." "I know," she said, in a low, changed voice. "But let us walk; otherwise they will all wonder why I am talking with you so long," and the two moved slowly along side by side. "I know," she went on--"I know that I have enemies; and, to confess the truth, I wish, in order to show them that they lie, to send him from me." "Then he shall go. To-morrow I will send him orders to rejoin the service, and to proceed to Rome immediately. And," he added in a kindly voice, "I can only congratulate your Imperial Highness upon your forethought. Leitolf is entirely without discretion. Only this evening I was actually told that he had followed you to Vienna, and--" But he stopped abruptly, without concluding his sentence. "And what else?" she asked, turning pale. Even the Minister knew; therefore Leitolf had evidently allowed himself to be seen. "Shall I tell you, Princess?" "Certainly; you need not keep anything from me." "I was also told that he is staying at the Hotel Imperial, and that you had called upon him this afternoon." She started, and looked him straight in the face. "Who told you that?" she demanded. "I learned it from the report of the secret agents of the Ministry." "Then I am spied upon here!" she exclaimed, pale with anger. "Even in my own home watch is kept upon me." "Not upon your Imperial Highness," was the great Minister's calm reply, "but upon the man we have recently been discussing. It was, I venture to think, rather indiscreet of you to go to the hotel; although, of course, the knowledge of your visit is confidential, and goes no further than myself. It is a secret of the Ministry." "Indiscreet!" she echoed with a sigh. "In this polluted atmosphere, to breathe freely is to be indiscreet. Because I am an Archduchess I am fettered as a prisoner, and watched like a criminal under surveillance. My enemies, jealous of my position and power, have invented scandalous stories that have aroused suspicion, and for that reason you all believe ill of me." "Pardon me, Princess," said the crafty old man, bowing, "I, for one, do not. Your anxiety to rid yourself of the fellow is proof to me that the scandal is a pure invention, and I am only too pleased to render you this service. Your real enemies are those around your husband, who have hinted and lied regarding you in order to estrange you from Court." "Then you are really my friend, Count?" she asked anxiously. "You do not believe what they say regarding me?" "I do not, Princess," he replied frankly; "and I trust you will still regard me, as I hope I have ever been, your Imperial Highness's friend. I know full well how Leitolf craved your favour for recommendation to your King; and you, with a woman's blindness to the grave eventualities of the future, secured him the appointment. Of late you have, I suppose, realised the fatal mistake?" "Yes," she said in a low voice; "I have now foreseen my own peril. I have been very foolish; but I have halted, and Leitolf must go." "Very wise--very wise indeed! Your Imperial Highness cannot afford to run any further risk. In a few months, or a couple of years at most, the poor King's disease must prove fatal, and you will find yourself Queen of a brilliant kingdom. Once Queen, your position will be assured, and you will make short work of all those who have conspired to secure your downfall. You will, perhaps, require assistance. If so, rely upon me to render you in secret whatever help lies in my power. With you, a Hapsbourg, as Queen, the influence of Austria must be paramount, remember. Therefore I beg of your Imperial Highness to exercise the greatest discretion not to imperil yourself. The Crown Prince must be allowed no loophole through which he can openly quarrel with you. Remain patient and forbearing until you are Queen." They were in a corner of the great hall, standing behind one of the high marble columns and unobserved. "I am always patient, Count," was her rather sad response, her chest heaving beneath her chiffon. "As you well know, my marriage has not been a happy one; but I strive to do my duty to both the Court and the people. I make no denial to you. You doubtless know the truth--that when a girl I loved Count Leitolf, and that it was an act prompted by foolish sentimentalism to have connived at his appointment at my husband's own Court. Betrayed, perhaps, by my own actions, my enemies have seized upon my embarrassing situation to lie about me. Ah," she added bitterly, "how little they know of my own dire unhappiness!" "No, no," urged the Minister, seemingly full of sympathy for her, knowing the truth as he did. "Bear up; put a brave countenance always towards the world. When Leitolf has gone your Imperial Highness will have less embarrassment, and people cannot then place any misconstructions upon your actions. You will not have the foolish young man following you wherever you go, as he now does. At noon to-morrow I will sign the decree for his immediate appointment to Rome, and he will receive but little leave of absence, I can assure you. He will be as much a prisoner in the Palazzo Chigi as is his Holiness in the Vatican," he added. "Thank you," she answered simply, glancing gratefully into his grey, deeply-lined face; and as he bowed to her she left him and swept up the room to where the Emperor was engaged in conversation with Lord Powerstock, the British Ambassador. The old Minister's face had changed the instant he left her. The mask of the courtier had fallen from the wily old countenance, and glancing after her, he muttered some words that were inaudible. If she had but seen the evil smile that played about the old diplomatist's lips, she would have detected that his intention was to play her false, and she might then have saved herself. But, alas! in her ignorance she went on light-heartedly, her long train sweeping behind her, believing in De Lindenau's well-feigned sympathy, and congratulating herself that the all-powerful personage behind the Emperor was still her friend. The Minister saw that she was satisfied; then turning on his heel, he gave vent to a short, hard laugh of triumph. CHAPTER SIX. THE HOUSE OF HER ENEMIES. Two days later the Crown Princess Claire returned to Marburg. In the twilight the express from Vienna came to a standstill in the big, echoing station at Treysa, the bright and wealthy capital, and descending from her private saloon, she walked over the red carpet laid for her, bowing pleasantly to the line of bareheaded officials waiting to receive her; then, mounting into her open landau, she drove up the fine, tree-lined Klosterstrasse to the royal palace. De Trauttenberg was with her--the woman whom she now knew to be a spy. Around her, on every side, the crowd at her side shouted a glad welcome to "their Claire," as they called her, and just before the royal carriage could move off, two or three of the less timorous ones managed to seize her hand and kiss it, though the police unceremoniously pushed them away. She smiled upon the enthusiastic crowd; but, alas! she was heavy of heart. How little, she thought, did those people who welcomed her dream of her unhappiness! She loved the people, and, looking upon them, sighed to think that she was not free like them. Behind her clattered the hoofs of her cavalry escort, and beside the carriage were two agents of police on bicycles. Wherever she moved in her husband's kingdom she was always under escort, because of anarchist threats and socialistic rumours. Marburg was one of the most beautiful and wealthiest of the kingdoms and duchies comprised in the German Empire. The fine capital of Treysa was one of the show cities of Germany, always bright, gay, and brilliant, with splendid streets, wide, tree-lined promenades, a great opera house, numerous theatres, gay restaurants, and an ever-increasing commerce. Frequented much by English and Americans, there were fine hotels, delightful public gardens, and pleasant suburbs. In no other part of the Empire were the nobility so wealthy or so exclusive, and certainly no Court in Europe was so difficult of access as that of Marburg. The kingdom, which possessed an area of nearly seven thousand square miles and a population of over fifteen millions, was rich in manufactures and in minerals, besides being a smiling country in a high state of cultivation, with beautiful mountainous and wooded districts, where in the valleys were situated many delightful summer resorts. Through its length and breadth, and far beyond the frontiers, the name of the Crown Princess Claire was synonymous of all that was good and affable, generous to the poor, and ever interested in the welfare of the people. The big electric globes were already shining white in the streets as she drove back to the beautiful royal palace that was, alas! to her a prison. Her few days of liberty in Vienna were over, and when presently, after traversing many great thoroughfares full of life and movement, the carriage swung out into a broader tree-lined avenue, at the end of which were the great gates of the royal gardens, her brave heart fell within her. Beyond was the house of her enemies, the house in which she was compelled to live friendless, yet surrounded by those who were daily whispering of her overthrow. The great gates swung open to allow the cavalcade to pass, then closed again with a clang that, reaching her ear, caused her to shudder. The Countess noticed it, and asked whether she felt cold. To this she gave a negative reply, and still remained silent, until the carriage, passing up through the beautiful park, at last drew up before the magnificent palace. Descending, she allowed the gorgeously-dressed man in the royal livery to take her cloak from her shoulders; and then, without a word, hastened along the great marble hall, up the grand staircase and along corridor after corridor--those richly-carpeted corridors of her prison that she knew so well--to her own splendid suite of apartments. The servants she met at every turn bowed to her, until she opened the door of a large, airy, well-furnished room, where a middle-aged woman, in cap and apron, sat reading by a shaded lamp. In an instant, on recognising the newcomer, she sprang to her feet. But at the same moment the Princess rushed to the dainty little cot in the corner and sank down beside the sleeping curly-haired child--her child-- the little Princess Ignatia. So passionately did she kiss the sweet chubby little face of the sleeping child that she awoke, and recognising who it was, put out her little hands around her mother's neck. "Ah, my little pet!" cried the Princess. "And how are you? It seems so long, so very long, since we parted." And her voice trembled, for tears stood in her eyes. The child was all she had in the world to love and cherish. She was her first thought always. The glare and glitter of the brilliant Court were all hateful to her, and she spent all the time she dared in the nursery with little Ignatia. The English nurse, Allen, standing at her side, said, with that formality which was bound to be observed within those walls,-- "The Princess is in most excellent health, your Imperial Highness. I have carried out your Highness's instructions, and taken her each day for a walk in the park." "That's right, Allen," responded the mother, also in English. "Where is the Crown Prince?" "I have not seen him, your Highness, since you left. He has not been in to see Ignatia." Claire sighed within herself, but made no outward sign. "Ah, I expect he has been away--to Berlin, perhaps. Is there any function to-night, have you heard?" "A State ball, your Highness. At least they said so in the servants' hall." The Princess glanced at the little silver timepiece, for she feared that her presence was imperative, even though she detested all such functions, where she knew she would meet that brilliant crowd of men and women, all of them her sworn enemies. What Steinbach had told her in confidence had lifted the scales from her eyes. There was a wide and cleverly-contrived conspiracy against her. She took her fair-haired child in her arms, while Allen, with deft fingers, took off her hat and veil. Her maids were awaiting her in her own room, but she preferred to see Ignatia before it was too late to disturb the little one's sleep. With the pretty, blue-eyed little thing clinging around her neck, she paced the room with it, speaking, in German, as every fond mother will speak to the one she adores. Though born to the purple, an Imperial Princess, Claire was very human after all. She regretted always that she was not as other women were, allowed to be her own mistress, and to see and to tend to her child's wants instead of being compelled so often to leave her in the hands of others, who, though excellent servants, were never as a mother. She sent Allen upon a message to the other end of the palace in order to be alone with the child, and when the door closed she kissed its soft little face fondly again and again, and then burst into tears. Those Court sycophants were conspiring, to drive her away--perhaps even to part her from the only one for whom she entertained a spark of affection. Many of her enemies were women. Could any of them really know all that was meant by a mother's heart? Prince Ferdinand-Leopold-Joseph-Marie, her husband, seldom, if ever, saw the child. For weeks he never mentioned its existence, and when he did it was generally with an oath, in regret that it was not a son and an heir to the throne. In his paroxysms of anger he had cursed her and his little daughter, and declared openly that he hated the sight of them both. But she was ever patient. Seldom she responded to his taunts or his sarcasm, or resented his brutal treatment. She was philosophic enough to know that she had a heavy burden to bear, and for the sake of her position as future Queen of Marburg she must bear it bravely. Allen was absent fully a quarter of an hour, during which time she spoke continually to little Ignatia, pacing up and down the room with her. The child, seeing her mother's tears, stared at her with her big, wide-open eyes. "Why does mother cry?" she asked in her childish voice, stroking her cheek. "Because mother is not happy, darling," was the Princess's sad answer. "But," she added, brightening up, "you are happy, aren't you? Allen has bought you such a beautiful doll, she tells me." "Yes, mother," the child answered. "And to-morrow, Allen promises, if I am very good, that we will go to buy a perambulator for my dolly to ride in. Won't that be nice?" "Oh, it will! But you must be very, very good--and never cry, like mother, will you?" "No," answered the little one. "I'll never cry, like mother does." And the unhappy woman, hearing the child's lisping words, swallowed the great lump that arose in her throat. It was surely pathetic, that admission of a heart-broken mother to her child. It showed that even though an Imperial Princess, she was still a womanly woman, just as any good woman of the people. A few moments later Allen returned with the reply to the message she had sent to the aged King. "His Majesty says that, though regretting your Imperial Highness is tired after her journey, yet your presence with the Crown Prince at the ball is imperative." Claire sighed with a heavy heart, saying,-- "Very well, Allen. Then we will put Ignatia to bed, for I must go at once and dress," and she passed her hand across her hot, wearied brow. Again and again she kissed the child, and then, having put her back into her cot, over which was the royal crown of Marburg in gold, she bade the infant Princess goodnight, and went along to eat a hasty dinner--for she was hungry after her eighteen-hour journey--and afterwards to put herself in the charge of her quick-handed maids, to prepare her for the brilliant function of that evening. Two hours later, when she swept into the magnificent Throne Room, a brilliant, beautiful figure in her Court gown of cream, and wearing her wonderful tiara, her face was as stern and haughty as any of those members of the royal family present. With her long train rustling behind her, and with her orders and ribbons giving the necessary touch of colour to her bodice, she took up her position beside her husband, a fair-headed, round-faced, slight-moustached man, in a dark-blue uniform, and wearing a number of orders. His face was flat and expressionless. Though they had not met for a week, no word of greeting escaped him. They stood side by side, as though they were strangers. He eyed her quickly, and his countenance turned slightly pale, as though displeased at her presence. Yet the whole assembly, even though hating her, could not but admire her neat waist, her splendid figure, and matchless beauty. In the whole of the Courts of Europe there was no prettier woman than the Crown Princess Claire; her figure was perfect, and her gait always free--the gait of a princess. Even when dressed in her maid's dresses, as she had done on occasion, her walk betrayed her. Imperial blood can seldom be disguised. The hundred women, those German princesses, duchesses, countesses, baronesses, to each of whom attached their own particular scandal--the brilliant little world that circled around the throne--looked at her standing there with her husband, her hands clasped before her, and envied her looks, figure, position--everything. She was a marked woman. The proud, haughty expression upon her face as she regarded the assembly was only assumed. It was the mask she was compelled to wear at Court at the old King's command. Her nature was the reverse of haughty, yet the artificiality of palace life made it necessary for the Crown Princess to be as unapproachable as the Queen herself. The guests were filing before the white-haired King, the hide-bound old martyr to etiquette, when the Crown Prince spoke to his wife in an undertone, saying roughly, with bitter sarcasm,-- "So you are back? Couldn't stay away from us longer, I suppose?" "I remained in Vienna as long as I said I should," was the sweet-faced woman's calm reply. "A pity you didn't stay there altogether," he muttered. "You are neither use nor ornament here." "You have told me that several times before. Much as I regret it, Ferdinand, my place is here." "Yes, at my side--to annoy me," he said, frowning. "I regret to cause you any annoyance," she answered. "It is not intentional, I assure you." A foul oath escaped him, and he turned from her to speak with Count Graesal, grand-marechal of the Court. Her face, however, betrayed nothing of his insult. At Court her countenance was always sphinx-like. Only in her private life, in that gorgeous suite of apartments on the opposite side of the palace, did she give way to her own bitter unhappiness and blank despair. CHAPTER SEVEN. A SHAMEFUL TRUTH. When at last the brilliant company moved on into the great ballroom she had an opportunity of walking among those men and women who, though they bent before her, cringing and servile, were, she knew, eagerly seeking her ruin. The Ministers, Stuhlmann, Hoepfner, and Meyer, all three creatures of the King, bowed low to her, but she knew they were her worst enemies. The Countess Hupertz, a stout, fair-haired, masculine-looking woman, also bent before her and smiled--yet this woman had invented the foulest lies concerning her, and spread them everywhere. In all that brilliant assembly she had scarcely one single person whom she could term a friend. And for a very simple reason. Friendliness with the Crown Princess meant disfavour with the King, and none of those place-seekers and sycophants could afford to risk that. Yet, knowing that they were like a pack of hungry wolves about her, seeking to tear her reputation to shreds and cast her out of the kingdom, she walked among them, speaking with them, and smiling as though she were perfectly happy. Presently, when the splendid orchestra struck up and dancing commenced, she came across Hinckeldeym, the wily old President of the Council of Ministers, who, on many occasions, had showed that, unlike the others, he regarded her as an ill-used wife. A short, rather podgy, dark-haired man, in Court dress, he bowed, welcomed her back to Treysa, and inquired after her family in Vienna. Then, as she strolled with him to the farther end of the room, lazily fanning herself with her great ostrich-feather fan, she said in a low voice,-- "Hinckeldeym, as you know, I have few friends here. I wonder whether you are one?" The flabby-faced old Minister pursed his lips, and glanced at her quickly, for he was a wily man. Then, after a moment's pause, he said,-- "I think that ever since your Imperial Highness came here as Crown Princess I have been your partisan. Indeed, I thought I had the honour of reckoning myself among your Highness's friends." "Yes, yes," she exclaimed quickly. "But I have so many enemies here," and she glanced quickly around, "that it is really difficult for me to distinguish my friends." "Enemies!" echoed the tactful Minister in surprise. "What causes your Highness to suspect such a thing?" "I do not suspect--I know," was her firm answer as she stood aside with him. "I have learnt what these people are doing. Why? Tell me, Hinckeldeym--why is this struggling crowd plotting against me?" He looked at her for a moment in silence. He was surprised that she knew the truth. "Because, your Imperial Highness--because they fear you. They know too well what will probably occur when you are Queen." "Yes," she said in a hard, determined voice. "When I am Queen I will sweep clear this Augean stable. There will be a change, depend upon it. This Court shall be an upright and honourable one, and not, as it now is, a replica of that of King Charles the Second of England. They hate me, Hinckeldeym--they hate me because I am a Hapsbourg; because I try and live uprightly and love my child, and when I am Queen I will show them that even a Court may be conducted with gaiety coupled with decorum." The Minister--who, though unknown to her, was, perhaps, her worst enemy, mainly through fear of the future--listened to all she said in discreet silence. It was a pity, he thought, that the conspiracy had been betrayed to her, for although posing as her friend he would have been the first to exult over her downfall. It would place him in a position of safety. He noted her threat. It only confirmed what the Court had anticipated-- namely, that upon the death of the infirm old monarch, all would be changed, and that brilliant aristocratic circle would be sent forth into obscurity--and by an Austrian Archduchess, too! The Princess Claire unfortunately believed the crafty Hinckeldeym to be her friend, therefore she told him all that she had learnt; of course, not betraying the informer. "From to-day," she went on in a hard voice, "my attitude is changed. I will defend myself. Against those who have lied about me, and invented their vile scandals, I will stand as an enemy, and a bitter one. Hitherto I have been complacent and patient, suffering in silence, as so many defenceless women suffer. But for the sake of this kingdom, over which I shall one day be Queen, I will stand firm; and you, Hinckeldeym, must remain my friend." "Your Imperial Highness has but to command me," replied the false old courtier, bowing low with the lie ever ready upon his lips. "I hope to continue as your friend." "From the day I first set foot in Treysa, these people have libelled me and plotted my ruin," she went on. "I know it all. I can give the names of each of my enemies, and I am kept informed of all the scandalous tales whispered into my husband's ears. Depend upon it that those liars and scandalmongers will in due time reap their reward." "I know very little of it," the Minister declared in a low voice, so that he could not be overheard. "Perhaps, however, your Highness has been indiscreet--has, I mean, allowed these people some loophole through which to cast their shafts?" "They speak of Leitolf," she said quite frankly. "And they libel me, I know." "I hear to-day that Leitolf is recalled to Vienna, and is being sent as attache to Rome," he remarked. "Perhaps it is as well in the present circumstances." She looked him straight in the face as the amazing truth suddenly dawned upon her. "Then you, too, Hinckeldeym, believe that what is said about us is true!" she exclaimed hoarsely, suspecting, for the first time, that the man with the heavy, flabby face might play her false. And she had confessed to him, of all men, her intention of changing the whole Court entourage the instant her husband ascended the throne! She saw how terribly injudicious she had been. But the cringing courtier exhibited his white palms, and with that clever exhibition of sympathy which had hitherto misled her, said,-- "Surely your Imperial Highness knows me sufficiently well to be aware that in addition to being a faithful servant to his Majesty the King, I am also a strong and staunch friend of yours. There may be a plot," he said; "a vile, dastardly plot to cast you out from Marburg. Yet if you are only firm and judicious, you must vanquish them, for they are all cowards--all of them." She believed him, little dreaming that the words she had spoken that night had sealed her fate. Heinrich Hinckeldeym was a far-seeing man, the friend of anybody who had future power in his hands--a man who was utterly unscrupulous, and who would betray his closest friend when necessity demanded. And yet, with his courtly manner, his fat yet serious face, his clever speech, and his marvellous tact, he had deceived more than one of the most eminent diplomatists in Europe, including even Bismarck himself. He looked at her with his bright, ferret-like eyes, debating within himself when the end of her should be. He and his friends had already decided that the blow was soon to be struck, for every day's delay increased their peril. The old King's malady might terminate fatally at any moment, and once Queen, then to remove her would be impossible. She had revealed to him openly her intention, therefore he was determined to use in secret her own words as a weapon against her, for he was utterly unscrupulous. The intrigues of Court had a hundred different undercurrents, but it was part of his policy to keep well versed in them all. His finger was ever upon the pulse of that circle about the throne, while he was also one of the few men in Marburg who had the ear of the aristocratic old monarch with whom etiquette was as a religion. "Your Imperial Highness is quite right in contemplating the Crown Prince's accession to the throne," he said ingeniously, in order to further humour her. "The doctors see the King daily, and the confidential reports made to us Ministers are the reverse of reassuring. In a few months at most the end must come--suddenly in all probability. Therefore the Crown Prince should prepare himself for the responsibilities of the throne, when your Highness will be able to repay your enemies for all their ill-nature." "I shall know the way, never fear," she answered in a low, firm voice. "To-day their power is paramount, but to-morrow mine shall be. I shall then live only for my husband and my child. At present I am living for a third reason--to vindicate myself." "Then your Imperial Highness contemplates changing everything?" he asked simply, but with the ingenuity of a great diplomatist. Every word of her reply he determined to use in order to secure her overthrow. "I shall change all Ministers of State, Chamberlains, every one, from the Chancellor of the Orders down to the Grand Master of the Ceremonies. They shall all go, and first of all the _dames du palais_--those women who have so cleverly plotted against me, but of whose conspiracy I am now quite well aware." And she mentioned one or two names--names that had been revealed to her by the obscure functionary Steinbach. The Minister saw that the situation was a grave, even desperate one. He was uncertain how much she knew concerning the plot, and was therefore undecided as to what line he should adopt. In order to speak in private they left the room, pacing the long, green-carpeted corridor that, enclosed in glass, ran the whole length of that wing of the palace. He tried by artful means to obtain from her further details, but she refused to satisfy him. She knew the truth, and that, she declared, was all sufficient. Old Hinckeldeym was a power in Marburg. For eighteen years he had been the confidant of the King, and now fearing his favour on the wane, had wheedled himself into the good graces of the Crown Prince, who had given him to understand, by broad hints, that he would be only too pleased to rid himself of the Crown Princess. Therefore, if he could effect this, his future was assured. And what greater weapon could he have against her than her own declaration of her intention to sweep clear the Court of its present entourage? He had assuredly played his cards wonderfully well. He was a past master in deception and double-dealing. The Princess, believing that he was at least her friend, had spoken frankly to him, never for one moment expecting a foul betrayal. Yet, if the truth were told, it was that fat-faced, black-eyed man who had first started the wicked calumny which had coupled her name with Leitolf; he who had dropped scandalous hints to the Crown Prince of his beautiful wife's _penchant_ for the good-looking _chef du cabinet_; he who had secretly stirred up the hostility against the daughter of the Austrian Archduke, and whose fertile brain had invented lies which were so ingeniously concocted that they possessed every semblance of truth. A woman of Imperial birth may be a diplomatist, versed in all the intricacies of Court etiquette and Court usages, but she can never be at the same time a woman of the world. Her education is not that of ordinary beings; therefore, as in the case of the Princess Claire, though shrewd and tactful, she was no match for the crafty old Minister who for eighteen years had directed the destiny of that most important kingdom of the German Empire. The yellow-haired Countess Hupertz, one of Hinckeldeym's puppets, watched the Princess and Minister walking in the corridor, and smiled grimly. While the orchestra played those dreamy waltzes, the tragedy of a throne was being enacted, and a woman--a sweet, good, lovable woman, upright and honest--was being condemned to her fate by those fierce, relentless enemies by which she was, alas! surrounded. As she moved, her splendid diamonds flashed and glittered with a thousand fires, for no woman in all the Court could compare with her, either for beauty or for figure. And yet her husband, his mind poisoned by those place-hunters--a man whose birth was but as a mushroom as compared with that of Claire, who possessed an ancestry dating back a thousand years--blindly believed that which they told him to be the truth. De Trauttenberg, in fear lest she might lose her own position, was in Hinckeldeym's pay, and what she revealed was always exaggerated--most of it, indeed, absolutely false. The Court of Marburg had condemned the Crown Princess Claire, and from their judgment there was no appeal. She was alone, defenceless--doomed as the victim of the jealousies and fears of others. Returning to the ballroom, she left the Minister's side; and, by reason of etiquette, returned to join that man in the dark-blue uniform who cursed her--the man who was her husband, and who ere long was to reign as sovereign. Stories of his actions, many of them the reverse of creditable, had reached her ears, but she never gave credence to any of them. When people discussed him she refused to listen. He was her husband, the father of her little Ignatia, therefore she would hear nothing to his discredit. Yes. Her disposition was quiet and sweet, and she was always loyal to him. He, however, entirely misjudged her. An hour later, when she had gone to her room, her husband burst in angrily and ordered the two maids out, telling them that they would not be wanted further that night. Then, when the door was closed, he strode up to where she sat before the great mirror, lit by its waxen candles, for Henriette had been arranging her hair for the night. "Well, woman!" he cried, standing before her, his brows knit, his eyes full of fire, "and what is your excuse to me this time?" "Excuse?" she echoed, looking at him in surprise and very calmly. "For what, Ferdinand?" "For your escapade in Vienna!" he said between his teeth. "The instant you had left, Leitolf received a telegram calling him to Wiesbaden, but instead of going there he followed you." "Not with my knowledge, I assure you," she said quickly. "Why do you think so ill of me--why do you always suspect me?" she asked in a low, trembling voice of reproach. "Why do I suspect you? You ask me that, woman, when you wrote to the man at his hotel, made an appointment, and actually visited him there? One of our agents watched you. Do you deny it?" "No," she answered boldly. "I do not deny going to the Count's hotel. I had a reason for doing so." He laughed in her face. "Of course you had--you, who pretend to be such a good and faithful wife, and such a model mother," he sneered. "I suppose you would not have returned to Treysa so soon had he not have come back." "You insult me!" she cried, rising from her chair, her Imperial blood asserting itself. "Ah!" he laughed, taunting her. "You don't like to hear the truth, do you? It seems that the scandal concerning you has been discovered in Vienna, for De Lindenau has ordered the fellow to return to the diplomatic service, and is sending him away to Rome." She was silent. She saw how every word and every action of hers was being misconstrued. "Speak, woman!" he cried, advancing towards her. "Confess to me that you love the fellow." "Why, Ferdinand, do you wish me to say what is untrue?" she asked in a low voice, quite calm again, notwithstanding his threatening attitude. "Ah, you deny it! You lie to me, even when I know the truth--when all the Court discuss your affection for the fellow whom you yourself introduced among us. You have been with him in Paris. Deny that!" "I deny nothing that is true," she answered. "I only deny your right to charge me with what is false." "Oh yes," he cried. "You and your brat are a pretty pair. You believe we are all blind; but, on the contrary, everything is known. Confess!" he muttered between his teeth. "Confess that you love that man." She was silent, standing before him, her beautiful eyes fixed upon the carpet. He repeated his question in a harder tone than before, but still she uttered no word. She was determined not to repeat the denial she had already given, and she recognised that he had some ulterior motive in wringing from her a confession which was untrue. "You refuse to speak!" he cried in a quick paroxysm of anger. "Then take that!" and he struck her with his fist a heavy blow full in the face, with such force, indeed, that she reeled, and fell backwards upon the floor. "Another time perhaps you'll speak when I order you to," he said through his set teeth, as with his foot he kicked her savagely twice, the dull blows sounding through the big, gilt-ceilinged room. Then with a hard laugh of scorn upon his evil lips the brute that was a Crown Prince, and heir to a European throne, turned and left with an oath upon his lips, as he slammed the door after him. In the big, gorgeous room, where the silence was broken by the low ticking of the ormolu clock, poor, unhappy Claire lay there where she had fallen, motionless as one dead. Her beautiful face was white as death, yet horribly disfigured by the cowardly blow, while from the corner of her mouth there slowly trickled a thin red stream. CHAPTER EIGHT. IS MAINLY ABOUT THE COUNT. Next morning, when she saw her reflection in the mirror, she sighed heavily, and hot tears sprang to her eyes. Her beautiful countenance, bruised and swollen, was an ugly sight; her mouth was cut, and one of her even, pretty teeth had been broken by the cowardly blow. Henriette, the faithful Frenchwoman, had crept back to her mistress's room an hour after the Crown Prince had gone, in order to see if her Highness wanted anything, when to her horror she discovered her lying insensible where she had been struck down. The woman was discreet. She had often overheard the Prince's torrents of angry abuse, and in an instant grasped the situation. Instead of alarming the other servants, she quickly applied restoratives, bathed her mistress's face tenderly in eau de Cologne, washing away the blood from the mouth, and after half an hour succeeded in getting her comfortably to bed. She said nothing to any one, but locked the door and spent the remainder of the night upon the sofa near her Princess. While Claire was seated in her wrap, taking her chocolate at eight o'clock next morning, the Countess de Trauttenberg, her husband's spy, who probably knew all that had transpired, entered with the engagement-book. She saw what a terrible sight the unhappy woman presented, yet affected not to notice it. "Well, Trauttenberg?" asked the Princess in a soft, weary voice, hardly looking up at her, "what are our engagements to-day?" The lady-in-waiting consulted the book, which upon its cover bore the royal crown above the cipher "C," and replied,-- "At eleven, the unveiling of the monument to Schilling the sculptor in the Albert-Platz; at one, luncheon with the Princess Alexandrine, to meet the Duchess of Brunswick-Lunebourg; at four, the drive; and to-night, `Faust,' at the Opera." Her Highness sighed. The people, the enthusiastic crowd who applauded her, little knew how wearying was that round of daily duties, how soul-killing to a woman with a broken heart. She was "their Claire," the woman who was to be their Queen, and they believed her to be happy! "Cancel all my engagements," she said. "I shall not go out to-day. Tell the Court newsman that I am indisposed--a bad cold--anything." "As your Imperial Highness commands," responded De Trauttenberg, bowing, and yet showing no sign that she observed the disfiguration of her poor face. The woman's cold formality irritated her. "You see the reason?" she asked meaningly, looking into her face. "I note that your Imperial Highness has--has met with a slight accident," she said. "I trust it is not painful." That reply aroused the fire of the Hapsbourg blood within her veins. The woman was her bitter enemy. She had lied about her, and had poisoned her husband's mind against her. And yet she was helpless. To dismiss her from her duties would only be a confirmation of what the woman had, no doubt, alleged. It was upon the tip of her tongue to charge her openly as an enemy and a liar. It was that woman, no doubt, who had spied upon her when she had called upon Count Leitolf, and who on her return to Treysa had gone straight to the Crown Prince with a story that was full of vile and scandalous inventions. "Oh, dear, no," she said, managing to control her anger by dint of great effort. "It is not at all painful, I assure you. Perhaps, Trauttenberg, you had better go at once and tell the newsman, so that my absence at the Schilling unveiling will be accounted for." Thus dismissed, the woman, with her false smiles and pretended sympathy, went forth, and the journals through Germany that day reported, with regret, that the Crown Princess Claire of Marburg was confined to her room, having caught a severe chill on her journey from Vienna, and that she would probably remain indisposed for a week. When her maids had dressed her she passed on into her gorgeous little blue-and-gold boudoir, her own sanctum, for in it were all the little nick-nacks, odds and ends which on her marriage she had brought from her own home at Wartenstein. Every object reminded her of those happy days of her youth, before she was called upon to assume the shams of royal place and power; before she entered that palace that was to her but a gilded prison. The long windows of the room looked out upon the beautiful gardens and the great lake, with its playing fountains beyond, while the spring sunlight streaming in gave it an air of cheerfulness even though she was so despondent and heavy of heart. The apartment was gorgeously furnished, as indeed was the whole of the great palace. Upon the backs of the chairs, embroidered in gold upon the damask, was the royal crown and cipher, while the rich carpet was of pale pastel blue. For a long time she stood at the window, looking out across the park. She saw her husband in his cavalry uniform riding out with an escort clattering behind him, and watched him sadly until he was out of sight. Then she turned and glanced around the cosy room which everywhere bore traces of her artistic taste and refinement. Upon the side-tables were many photographs, signed portraits of her friends, reigning sovereigns, and royal princes; upon the little centre-table a great old porcelain bowl of fresh tea-roses from the royal hot-houses. Her little buhl escritoire was littered with her private correspondence--most of it being in connection with charities in various parts of the kingdom in which she was interested, or was patroness. Of money, or of the value of it, she knew scarcely anything. She was very wealthy, of course, for her family were one of the richest in Europe, while the royal house of Marburg was noted for its great wealth; yet she had never in her life held in her possession more than a few hundred marks at a time. Her bills all went to the official of the household whose duty it was to examine and pay them, and to charities she sent drafts through that same gold-spectacled official. She often wondered what it was like to be poor, to work for a daily wage like the people she saw in the street and in the theatres. They seemed bright, contented, happy, and at least they had their freedom, and loved and married whom they chose. Only the previous night, when she had entered her carriage at the station, a working-man had held his little child up to her for her to pat its head. She had done so, and then sighed to compare the difference between the royal father and that proud father of the people. Little Ignatia, sweet and fresh, in her white frock and pale pink sash, was presently brought in by Allen to salute her mother, and the latter snatched up the child gladly in her arms and smothered its chubby face with fond kisses. But the child noticed the disfigured countenance, and drew herself back to look at it. "Mother is hurt," she said in English, in her childish speech. "Poor mother!" "Yes, I fell down, darling," she answered. "Wasn't that very unfortunate? Are you sorry?" "Very sorry poor mother is hurt," answered the child. "And, why!--one of poor mother's tooths have gone." The Princess saw that Allen was looking at her very hard, therefore she turned to her and explained,-- "It is nothing--nothing; a slight accident. I struck myself." But the child stroked its mother's face tenderly with the soft, chubby little hand, saying,-- "Poor mother must be more careful another time or I shall scold her. And Allen will scold her too." "Mother will promise to be more careful," she assured the little one, smiling. And then, seating herself, listened for half an hour to the child's amusing prattle, and her joyous anticipation of the purchase of a perambulator for her dolly. With tender hands the Crown Princess retied the broad pink ribbon of the sash, and presently produced some chocolates from the silver bon-bon box which she kept there on purpose for her little one. And Allen, the rather plain-faced Englishwoman, who was the best of nurses, stood by in silence, wondering how such an accident could have happened to her Imperial mistress, but, of course, unable to put any question to her. "You may take Ignatia to buy the perambulator, Allen," said she at last in English. "Get a good one; the best you can. And after luncheon let me see it. I shall not go out to-day, so you can bring the Princess back to me at two o'clock." "Very well, your Highness." And both she and the child withdrew, the latter receiving the maternal kiss and caramels in each hand. Again alone, Claire sat for a long time in deep thought. The recollection of those cruel, bitter accusations which her husband had uttered was still uppermost in her mind. What her humble friend Steinbach had told her was, alas! only too true. At Court it was said that she loved Leitolf, and the Crown Prince believed the scandalous libel. "Ah, if Ferdinand only knew!" she murmured to herself. "If he could only read my heart! Then he would know the truth. Perhaps, instead of hating me as he does, he would be as forbearing as I try to be. He might even try to love me. Yet, alas!" she added bitterly, "such a thing cannot be. The Court of Marburg have decided that, in the interests of their own future, I must be ruined and disgraced. It is destiny, I suppose," she sighed; "my destiny!" Then she was silent, staring straight before her at Bronzino's beautiful portrait of the Duchess Eleanor on the wall opposite. The sound of a bugle reached her, followed by the roll of the drums as the palace guard was changed. The love of truth, the conscientiousness which formed so distinct a feature in Claire's character, and mingled with its picturesque delicacy a certain firmness and dignity, she maintained consistently always. The Trauttenberg returned, but she dismissed her for the day, and when she had left the boudoir the solitary woman murmured bitterly aloud,-- "A day's leave will perhaps allow you to plot and conspire further against the woman to whom you owe everything, and upon whose charity your family exist. Go and report to my husband my appearance this morning, and laugh with your friends at my unhappiness!" She rose and paced the room, her white hands clasped before her in desperation. "Carl! Carl!" she cried in a hoarse, low voice. "I have only your indiscretion to thank for all this! And yet have I not been quite as indiscreet? Why, therefore, should I blame you? No," she said in a whisper, after a pause, "it is more my own fault than yours. I was blind, and you loved me. I foolishly permitted you to come here, because your presence recalled all the happiness of the past--of those sweet, idyllic days at Wartenstein, when we--when we loved each other, and our love was but a day-dream never to be realised. I wonder whether you still recollect those days, as I remember them--those long rambles over the mountains alone by the by-paths that I knew from my childhood days, and how we used to stand together hand in hand and watch the sinking sun flashing upon the windows of the castle far away. Nine years have gone since those days of our boy-and-girl love--nine long, dark years that have, I verily believe, transformed my very soul. One by one have all my ideals been broken and swept away, and now I can only sit and weep over the dead ashes of the past. The past--ah! what that means to me--life and love and freedom. And the future?" she sighed. "Alas! only black despair, ignominy, and shame." Again she halted at the window, and hot tears coursed down her pale cheeks. Those words, uttered almost without consciousness on her own part, contained the revelation of a life of love, and disclosed the secret burden of a heart bursting with its own unuttered grief. She was repulsed, she was forsaken, she was outraged where she had bestowed her young heart with all its hopes and wishes. She was entangled inextricably in a web of horrors which she could not even comprehend, yet the result seemed inevitable. "These people condemn me! They utter their foul calumnies, and cast me from them unjustly," she cried, pushing her wealth of fair hair from her brow in her desperation. "Is there no justice for me? Can a woman not retain within her heart the fond remembrance of the holy passion of her youth--the only time she has loved--without it being condemned as a sin? without--" The words died on her dry lips, for at that moment there was a tap at the door, and she gave permission to enter. One of the royal servants in gorgeous livery bowed and advanced, presenting to her a small packet upon a silver salver, saying,-- "The person who brought this desired that it should be given into your Imperial Highness's hands at once." She took the packet, and the man withdrew. A single glance was sufficient to show her that the gummed address label had been penned by Count Carl Leitolf's own hand. Her heart beat quickly as she cut the string and opened the packet, to find within a book--a dull, uninteresting, philosophical treatise in German. There was no note or writing of any kind. She ran through the leaves quickly, and then stood wondering. Why had he sent her that? The book was one that she certainly could never read to understand. Published some fifteen years before, it bore signs of not being new. She was much puzzled. That Leitolf had a motive in sending it to her she had no doubt. But what could it denote? Again and again she searched in it to find some words or letters underlined--some communication meant for her eye alone. Presently, utterly at a loss to understand, she took up the brown-paper wrapping, and looked again at the address. Yes, she was not mistaken. It was from Carl. For a few moments she held the paper in her hand, when suddenly she detected that the gummed address label had only been stuck on lightly by being wetted around the edge, and a thought occurred to her to take it off and keep it, together with the book. Taking up the large ivory paper-knife, she quickly slipped it beneath the label and removed it, when to her astonished eyes there were presented some written words penned across the centre, where the gum had apparently been previously removed. The words, for her eye alone, were in Carl's handwriting, lightly written, so that they should not show through the label. The message--the last message from the man who loved her so fondly, and whose heart bled for her in her gilded unhappiness--read:-- "Adieu, my Princess. I leave at noon to-day, because you have willed it so. I have heard of what occurred last night. It is common knowledge in the palace. Be brave, dear heart. May God now be your comforter. Recollect, though we shall never again meet, that I shall think ever and eternally of you, my Princess, the sweet-faced woman who was once my own, but who is now, alas! lost to me for ever. Adieu, adieu. I kiss your hand, dear heart, adieu!" It was his last message. His gentle yet manly resignation, the deep pathos of his farewell, told her how full of agony was his own heart. How bitter for her, too, that parting, for now she would stand alone and unprotected, without a soul in whom to confide, or of whom to seek advice. As she reread those faintly-traced words slowly and aloud the light died from her face. "I kiss your hand, dear heart, adieu!" she murmured, and then, her heart overburdened by grief, she burst into a flood of emotion. CHAPTER NINE. THE THREE STRANGERS. By noon all Treysa knew, through the papers, of the indisposition of the Crown Princess; and during the afternoon many smart carriages called at the gates of the royal palace to inquire after her Imperial Highness's health. The pompous, scarlet-liveried porters told every one that the Princess had, unfortunately, caught a severe chill on her journey from Vienna, and her medical advisers, although they did not consider it serious, thought, as a precaution, it was best that for a few days she should remain confined to her room. Meanwhile the Princess, in her silent, stunning, overwhelming sorrow, was wondering how she might call Steinbach. She was unapproachable to any but the Court set, therefore to call a commoner would be an unheard-of breach of etiquette. And yet she desired to see him and obtain his advice. In all that gay, scheming circle about her he was the only person whom she could trust. He was devoted to her service because of the little charitable actions she had rendered him. She knew that he would if necessary lay down his very life in order to serve her, for he was one of the very few who did not misjudge her. The long day dragged by. She wrote many letters--mostly to her family and friends in Vienna. Then taking a sheet of the royal notepaper from the rack, she again settled herself, after pacing the boudoir in thought for some time, and penned a long letter, which when finished she reread and carefully corrected, afterwards addressing it in German to "His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, Vienna," and sealing it with her own private seal. "He misjudges me," she said to herself very gravely; "therefore it is only right that I should defend myself." Then she rang, and in answer to her summons one of the royal footmen appeared. "I want a special messenger to carry a letter for me to Vienna. Go at once to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ask the Under-Secretary, Fischer, whether Steinbach may be placed at my service," she commanded. "Yes, your Imperial Highness," answered the clean-shaven, grave-faced man, who bowed and then withdrew. Allen soon afterwards brought in little Ignatia to show the doll's perambulator, with which the child was delighted, wheeling it up and down the boudoir. With the little one her mother played for upwards of an hour. The bright little chatterbox caused her to forget the tragedy of her own young life, and Allen's kindly English ways were to her so much more sympathetic than the stiff formalities of her treacherous lady-in-waiting. The little one in her pretty speeches told her mother of her adventures in the toy-shops of Treysa, where she was, of course, recognised, and where the shopkeepers often presented her little Royal Highness with dolls and games. In the capital the tiny Ignatia was a very important and popular personage everywhere; certainly more popular with the people than the parrot-faced, hard-hearted old King himself. Presently, while the Crown Princess was carrying her little one pick-a-pack up and down the room, the child crowing with delight at its mother's romping and caresses, there came a loud summons at the door, the rap that announced a visitor, and the same grave-faced manservant opened the long white doors, saying,-- "Your Imperial Highness. Will it please you to receive Herr Steinbach of the Department of Foreign Affairs?" "Bring Herr Steinbach here," she commanded, and then, kissing the child quickly, dismissed both her and her nurse. A few moments later the clean-shaven, dark-haired man in sombre black was ushered in, and bending, kissed the Crown Princess's hand with reverent formality. As soon as they were alone she turned to him, and, taking up the letter, said,-- "I wish you, Steinbach, to travel to Vienna by the express to-night, obtain audience of the Emperor, and hand this to him. Into no other hand must you deliver it, remember. In order to obtain your audience you may say that I have sent you; otherwise you will probably be refused. If there is a reply, you will bring it; if not--well, it does not matter." The quick-eyed man, bowing again, took the letter, glanced at the superscription, and placing it in the inner pocket of his coat, said,-- "I will carry out your Imperial Highness's directions." The Princess crossed to the door and opened it in order to satisfy herself that there were no eavesdroppers outside. Then returning to where the man stood, she said in a low voice,-- "I see that you are puzzled by the injury to my face when the papers are saying I have a chill. I met with a slight accident last night." Then in the next breath she asked, "What is the latest phase of this conspiracy against me, Steinbach? Tell me. You need conceal nothing for fear of hurting my feelings." The man hesitated a moment; then he replied,-- "Well, your Imperial Highness, a great deal of chatter has been circulated regarding Count Leitolf. They now say that, having grown tired of him, you have contrived to have him transferred to Rome." "Well?" "They also say that you visited Leitolf while you were in Vienna. And I regret," he added, "that your enemies are now spreading evil reports of you among the people. Certain journalists are being bribed to print articles which contain hints against your Highness's honour." "This is outrageous!" she cried. "Having ruined me in the eyes of my husband and the King, they now seek to turn the people against me! It is infamous!" "Exactly. That really seems their intention. They know that your Highness is the most popular person in the whole Kingdom, and they intend that your popularity shall wane." "And I am helpless, Steinbach, utterly helpless," she cried in desperation. "I have no friend except yourself." The man sighed, for he was full of sympathy for the beautiful but unjustly-treated woman, whose brave heart he knew was broken. He was aware of the love-story of long ago between the Count and herself, but he knew her too well to believe any of those scandalous tales concerning her. He knew well how, from the very first days of her married life, she had been compelled to endure sneers, insult, and libellous report. The King and Queen themselves had been so harsh and unbending that she had always held aloof from them. Her every action, either in private or in public, they criticised adversely. She even wore her tiaras, her jewels, and her decorations in a manner with which they found fault; and whatever dress she assumed at the various functions, the sharp-tongued old Queen, merely in order to annoy her, would declare that she looked absolutely hideous. And all this to a bride of twenty-one, and one of the most beautiful girls in Europe! All, from the King himself down to the veriest palace lackey, had apparently united to crush her, to break her spirit, and drive her to despair. "I hope, as I declared when we last met, Princess, that I shall ever remain your friend," said the humble employe of the Foreign Ministry. "I only wish that I could serve you to some good purpose--I mean, to do something that might increase your happiness. Forgive me, your Highness, for saying so." "The only way to give me happiness, Steinbach, is to give me freedom," she said sadly, as though speaking to herself. "Freedom--ah, how I long for it! How I long to escape from this accursed palace, and live as the people live! I tell you," she added in a low, half-whisper, her pale, disfigured face assuming a deadly earnest look--"I tell you that sometimes I feel--well, I feel that I can't endure it much longer, and that I'm slowly being driven insane." He started at her words, and looked her straight in the face. Should he tell her the truth of an amazing discovery he had made only on the previous day; or was it really kinder to her to hold his tongue? His very heart bled for her. To her influence he owed all--everything. No; he could not tell her of that new and dastardly plot against her--at least not yet. Surely it was not yet matured! When he returned from Vienna would be quite time enough to warn her against her increased peril. Now that Leitolf had left her, life might perhaps be a trifle more happy; therefore why should he, of all men, arouse her suspicions and cause her increased anxiety? Steinbach was a cautious man; his chief fault perhaps was his over-cautiousness. In this affair he might well have spoken frankly; yet his desire always was to avoid hurting the feelings of the woman with whom he so deeply sympathised--the Imperial Princess, to whom he acted as humble, devoted, and secret friend. "You must not allow such fears to take possession of you," he urged. "Do not heed what is said regarding you. Remember only that your own conscience is clear, even though your life is, alas, a martyrdom! Let them see that you are heedless and defiant, and ere long they will grow tired of their efforts, and you will assume a power at Court far greater than hitherto." "Ah no--never!" she sighed. "They are all against me--all. If they do not crush me by force, they will do so by subterfuge," declared the unhappy woman. "But," she added quickly with an effort, "do not let us speak of it further. I can only thank you for telling me the truth. Go to-night to Vienna, and if there is a reply, bring it to me immediately. And stay--what can I do to give you recompense? You have no decoration! I will write at once a recommendation for you for the cross of St. Michael, and whenever you wear it you will, I hope, remember the grateful woman who conferred it upon you." "I thank your Highness most truly," he said. "I have coveted the high honour for many years, and I can in turn only reassure you that any mission you may entrust to me will always be carried out in secret and faithfully." "Then adieu, Steinbach," she said, dismissing him. "_Bon voyage_, and a quick return from Vienna--my own dear Vienna, where once I was so very happy." The man in black bent low and again kissed the back of the soft white hand, then, backing out of the door, bowed again and withdrew. When Henriette came that evening to change her dress the woman said in French,-- "I ask your Imperial Highness's pardon, but the Prince, who returned half an hour ago, commanded me to say that he would dine with you this evening, and that there would be three men guests." "Guests!" she cried. "But the Prince must be mad! How can I receive guests in this state, Henriette?" "I explained that your Imperial Highness was not in a fit state to dine in public," said the maid quietly; "but the Prince replied that he commanded it." What fresh insult had her husband in store for her? Did he wish to exhibit her poor bruised face publicly before her friends? It was monstrous! Yet he had commanded; therefore she allowed Henriette to brush her fair hair and dress her in a black net dinner-gown, one that she often wore when dining in the privacy of her own apartments. Henriette cleverly contrived, by the aid of powder and a few touches of make-up, to half conceal her mistress's disfiguration; therefore at eight o'clock the Princess Claire entered the fine white-and-gold reception-room, lit by its hundreds of small electric lamps, and there found her husband in uniform, speaking earnestly with three elderly and rather distinguished-looking men in plain evening dress. Turning, he smiled at her as though nothing had occurred between them, and then introduced his friends by name; but of their names she took no notice. They were strangers, and to her quite uninteresting. Yet she bowed, smiled, and put on that air of graciousness that, on account of her Court training, she could now assume at will. The men were from somewhere in North Germany, she detected by their speech, and at the dinner-table the conversation was mostly upon the advance of science; therefore she concluded, from their spectacled appearance and the technical terms they used, that they were scientists from Berlin to whom her husband wished to be kind, and had invited them quite without formality. Their conversation did not interest her in the least; therefore she remained almost silent throughout the meal, except now and then to address a remark to one or other of her guests. She noticed that once or twice they exchanged strange glances. What could it mean? At last she rose, and after they had bowed her out they reseated themselves, and all four began conversing in a lower tone in English, lest any servant should enter unexpectedly. Then ten minutes later, at a signal from the Prince, they rose and passed into the _fumoir_, a pretty room panelled with cedar-wood, and with great palms and plashing fountains, where coffee was served and cigars were lit. There the conversation in an undertone in English was again resumed, the Prince being apparently very interested in something which his guests were explaining. Though the door was closed and they believed themselves in perfect privacy, there was a listener standing in the adjoining room, where the cedar panelling only acted as a partition. It was the Princess Claire. Her curiosity had been aroused as to who the strangers really were. She could hear them speaking in English at first with difficulty, but presently her husband spoke. The words he uttered were clear. In an instant they revealed to her an awful, unexpected truth. She held her breath, her left hand upon her bare chest above her corsage, her mouth open, her white face drawn and haggard. Scarce believing her own ears, she again listened. Could it really be true? Her husband again spoke. Ah yes! of the words he uttered there could be not the slightest doubt. She was doomed. With uneven steps she staggered from her hiding-place along the corridor to her own room, and on opening the door she fell forward senseless upon the carpet. CHAPTER TEN. THE PERIL OF THE PRINCESS. That night, six hours later, when the great palace was silent save for the tramping of the sentries, the Princess sat in the big chair at her window, looking out upon the park, white beneath the bright moonbeams. The room was in darkness, save for the tiny silver lamp burning before the picture of the Madonna. The Trauttenberg had found her lying insensible, and with Henriette's aid had restored her to consciousness and put her to bed. Then the Countess had gone along to the Crown Prince and told him that his wife had been seized with a fainting fit, and was indisposed. And the three guests, when he told them, exchanged significant glances, and were silent. In the darkness, with the moonlight falling across the room, the Princess, in her white silk dressing-gown, sat staring straight before her out upon the fairy-like scene presented below. No word escaped her pale lips, yet she shuddered, and drew her laces about her as though she were chilled. She was recalling those hard words of her husband's which she had overheard--the words that revealed to her the ghastly truth. If ever she had suffered during her married life, she suffered at that moment. It was cruel, unjust, dastardly. Was there no love or justice for her? The truth was a ghastly one. Those three strangers whom her husband had introduced to her table as guests were doctors, two from Berlin and the third from Cologne--specialists in mental disease. They had come there for the purpose of adding their testimony and certificates to that of Veltman, the crafty, thin-nosed Court physician, to declare that she was insane! What fees were promised those men, or how that plot had been matured, she could only imagine. Yet the grim fact remained that her enemies, with the old King and her husband at their head, intended to confine her in an asylum. She had heard her husband himself suggest that on the morrow they should meet Veltman, a white-bearded, bald-headed old charlatan whom she detested, and add their testimony to his that she was not responsible for her actions. Could anything be more cold-blooded, more absolutely outrageous? Those words of her husband showed her plainly that in his heart there now remained not one single spark either of affection or of sentiment. He was anxious, at all hazards and at whatever cost, by fair means or foul, to rid himself of her. Her enemies were now playing their trump card. They had no doubt bribed those three men to certify what was a direct untruth. A royal sovereign can, alas I command the services of any one; for everybody, more or less, likes to render to royalty a service in the hope of decoration or of substantial reward. Most men are at heart place-seekers. Men who are most honest and upright in their daily lives will not hesitate to perjure themselves, or "stretch a point" as they would doubtless put it, where royalty is concerned. Gazing out into the brilliant moonlight mirrored upon the smooth surface of the lake, she calmly reviewed the situation. She was in grave peril--so grave, indeed, that she was now utterly bewildered as to what her next step should be. Once certified as a lunatic and shut up in an asylum somewhere away in the heart of the country, all hope of the future would be cut off. She would be entirely at the mercy of those who so persistently and unscrupulously sought her end. Having failed in their other plot against, her, they intended to consign her to a living tomb. Yet by good fortune had her curiosity been aroused, and she had overheard sufficient to reveal to her the truth. Her face was now hard, her teeth firmly set. Whatever affection she had borne her husband was crushed within her now that she realised how ingeniously he was conspiring against her, and to what length he was actually prepared to go in order to rid himself of her. She thought of Ignatia, poor, innocent little Ignatia, the child whom its father had cursed from the very hour of its birth, the royal Princess who one day might be crowned a reigning sovereign. What would become of her? Would her own Imperial family stand by and see their daughter incarcerated in a madhouse when she was as sane as they themselves--more sane, perhaps? She sat bewildered. With the Emperor against her, however, she had but little to hope for in that quarter. His Majesty actually believed the scandal that had been circulated concerning Leitolf, and had himself declared to her face that she must be mad. Was it possible that those hot words of the Emperor's had been seized upon by her husband to obtain a declaration that she was really insane? Insane? She laughed bitterly to herself at such a thought. "Ah!" she sighed sadly, speaking hoarsely to herself. "What I have suffered and endured here in this awful place are surely sufficient to send any woman mad. Yet God has been very good to me, and has allowed me still to preserve all my faculties intact. Why don't they have some assassin to kill me?" she added desperately. "It would surely be more humane than what they now intend." Steinbach, her faithful but secret friend, was on his way to Vienna. She wondered whether, after reading the letter, the Emperor would relent towards her? Surely the whole world could not unite as her enemy. There must be human pity and sympathy in the hearts of some, as there was in the heart of the humble Steinbach. Not one of the thirty millions over whom she would shortly rule was so unhappy as she that night. Beyond the park shone the myriad lights of the splendid capital, and she wondered whether any one living away there so very far from the world ever guessed how lonely and wretched was her life amid all that gorgeous pomp and regal splendour. Those three grave, spectacled men who had dined at her table and talked their scientific jargon intended to denounce her. They had been quick to recognise that a future king is a friend not to be despised, while the bankers' drafts that certain persons had promised them in exchange for their signatures as experts would no doubt be very acceptable. Calmly she reviewed the situation, and saw that, so clearly had her enemies estranged her from every one, she was without one single friend. For her child's sake it was imperative for her to save herself. And she could only save herself by flight. But whither? The only course open to her was to leave secretly, taking little Ignatia with her, return to her father, and lay before him the dastardly plot now in progress. Each hour she remained at the palace increased her peril. Once pronounced insane by those three specialists there would be no hope for her. Her enemies would take good care that she was consigned to an asylum, and that her actions were misconstrued into those of a person insane. Her heart beat quickly as she thought out the best means of secret escape. To leave that night was quite impossible. Allen was sleeping with Ignatia; and besides, the guards at the palace gate, on seeing her make her exit at that hour, would chatter among themselves, in addition to which there were no express trains to Vienna in the night. The best train was at seven o'clock in the evening, for upon it was a _wagon-lit_ and dining-car that went through to the Austrian capital, _via_ Eger. About six o'clock in the evening would be the best time to secure the child, for Allen and Henriette would then both be at dinner, and little Ignatia would be in charge of the under-nurse, whom she could easily send away upon some pretext. Besides, at that hour she could secure some of Henriette's clothes, and with her veil down might pass the sentries, who would probably take her for the French maid herself. She calculated that her absence would not be noted by her servants till nearly eight; for there was a Court ball on the morrow, and on nights of the balls she always dressed later. And so, determined to leave the great palace which to her was a prison, she carefully thought over all the details of her flight. On the morrow she would send to the royal treasurer for a sum of money, ostensibly to make a donation to one of her charities. Presently rising, she closed the shutters, and switching on the electric light, opened the safe in the wall where her jewels were kept--mostly royal heirlooms that were worth nearly a million sterling. Case after case she drew out and opened. Her two magnificent tiaras, her emerald and diamond necklet, the great emerald pendant, once the property of Catherine di Medici, six wonderful collars of perfect pearls and some other miscellaneous jewels, all of them magnificent, she replaced in the safe, as they were heirlooms of the Kingdom. Those royal tiaras as Crown Princess she placed in their cases and put them away with a sigh, for she knew she was renouncing her crown for ever. Her own jewels, quite equal in magnificence, she took from their cases and placed together upon the bed. There was her magnificent long rope of pearls, that when worn twice twisted around her neck hung to below the knees, and was declared to be one of the finest in the world; her two diamond collars, her wonderful diamond bodice ornaments, her many pairs of earrings, antique brooches, and other jewels--she took them all from their cases until they lay together, a brilliant, scintillating heap, the magnificent gems flashing with a thousand fires. At last she drew forth a leather case about six inches square, and opening it, gazed upon it in hesitancy. Within was a large true-lover's knot in splendid diamonds, and attached to it was the black ribbon and the jewelled cross--her decoration as Dame de la Croix Etoilee of Austria, the order bestowed upon the Imperial Archduchesses. She looked at it wistfully. Sight of it brought to her mind the fact that in renouncing her position she must also renounce that mark of her Imperial birth. Yet she was determined, and with trembling fingers detached the ribbon and cross from the diamond ornament, threw the latter on to the heap upon the bed, and replaced the former with the jewels she intended to leave behind. The beautiful cross had been bestowed upon her by her uncle the Emperor upon her marriage, and would now be sent back to him. She took two large silk handkerchiefs from a drawer, and made two bundles of the precious gems. Then she hid them away until the morrow, and reclosing the safe, locked it; and taking the key off the bunch, placed it in the drawer of her little escritoire. Thus she had taken the first step towards her emancipation. Her eye caught the Madonna, with its silver lamp, and she halted before it, her head bowed, her lips moving in silent prayer as she sought help, protection, and guidance in the act of renunciation she was about to commit. Then, after ten minutes or so, she again moved slowly across the room, opening the great inlaid wardrobe where hung a few of her many dresses. She looked upon them in silence. All must be left behind, she decided. She could only take what she could carry in her hand. She would leave her personal belongings to be divided up by that crowd of human wolves who hungered to destroy her. The Trauttenberg might have them as her perquisites--in payment for her treachery. By that hour to-morrow she would have left Treysa for ever. She would begin a new life--a life of simplicity and of freedom, with her darling child. Presently she slept again, but it was a restless, fevered sleep. Constantly she wondered whether it would be possible for her to pass those palace guards with little Ignatia. If they recognised the child they might stop her, for only Allen herself was permitted to take her outside the palace. Yet she must risk it; her only means of escape was that upon which she had decided. Next day passed very slowly. The hours dragged by as she tried to occupy herself in her boudoir, first with playing with the child, and afterwards attending to her correspondence. She wrote no letter of farewell, as she deemed it wiser to take her leave without a word. Yet even in those last hours of her dignity as Crown Princess her thoughts were with the many charitable institutions of which she was patroness, and of how best she could benefit them by writing orders to the royal treasurer to give them handsome donations in her name. She saw nothing of her husband. For aught she knew, those three grave-faced doctors might have already consulted with Veltman; they might have already declared her insane. The afternoon passed, and alone she took her tea in English fashion, little Ignatia being brought to her for half an hour, as was the rule when she was without visitors. She had already been to Henriette's room in secret, and had secured a black-stuff dress and packet, a long black travelling-coat and a felt canotte, all of which she had taken to her own room and hidden in her wardrobe. When Allen took the child's hand in order to lead her out, her mother glanced anxiously at the clock, and saw that it was half-past five. "You can leave Ignatia here while you go to dinner," she said in English; "she will be company for me. Tell the servants that I am not to be disturbed, even by the Countess de Trauttenberg." "Very well, your Highness," was the Englishwoman's answer, as bowing she left the room. For another quarter of an hour she laughed and played with the child, then said,-- "Come, darling, let us go along to my room." And taking her tiny hand, led her gently along the corridor to her own chamber. Once within she locked the door, and quickly throwing off her own things, assumed those of the maid which she took from the wardrobe. Then upon Ignatia she put a cheap dark coat of grey material and a dark-blue woollen cap which at once concealed the child's golden curls. This concluded, she assumed a thick black lace veil, which well concealed her features, and around her throat she twisted a silken scarf. The collar of her coat, turned up, hid the colour of her hair, and her appearance was in a few moments well transformed. Indeed, she presented the exact prototype of her maid Henriette. The jewels were in a cheap leather hand-bag, also the maid's property. This she placed in her dressing-bag, and with it in her hand she took up little Ignatia, saying,-- "Hush, darling! don't speak a word. You'll promise mother, won't you?" The child, surprised at all this preparation, gave her promise, but still remained inquisitive. Then the Crown Princess Claire gave a final glance around the room, the scene of so much of her bitter domestic unhappiness. Sighing heavily, she crossed herself before the Madonna, uttered a few low words in prayer, and unlocking the door stole out into the long, empty corridor. Those were exciting moments--the most exciting in all her life. With her heart beating quickly she sped onward to the head of the great marble gilt staircase. Along one of the side corridors a royal valet was approaching, and the man nodded to her familiarly, believing her to be Henriette. At the head of the staircase she looked down, but saw nobody. It was the hour when all the servants were at their evening meal. Therefore, descending quickly, she passed through the great winter garden, a beautiful place where, among the palms and flowers, were cunningly placed tiny electric lamps. Across a large courtyard she went--as it was a short cut from that wing of the palace in which her apartments were situated--and at last she reached the main entrance, where stood the head concierge in his cocked hat and scarlet livery, and where idled an agent of police in plain clothes, reading the evening paper. At her approach they both glanced at her. She held her breath. What if they stopped her on account of the child? But summoning all her courage she went forward, compelled to pass them quite closely. Then as she advanced she nodded familiarly to the gold-laced janitor, who to her relief wished her good-evening, and she passed out into the park. She had successfully passed through one peril, but there was yet a second--those carefully-guarded gilded gates which gave entrance to the royal demesne. Day and night they were watched by palace servants and the agents of police entrusted with his Majesty's personal safety. She sped on down the broad gravelled drive, scarce daring to breathe, and on arrival at the gatehouse passed in it, compelled to make her exit through the small iron turnstile where sat two men, the faithful white-bearded old gatekeeper, who had been fifty years in the royal service, and a dark-faced brigadier of police. Recognition would mean her incarceration in an asylum as insane. Both men looked up as she entered. It was the supreme moment of her peril. She saw that the detective was puzzled by her veil. But she boldly passed by them, saying in French, in a voice in imitation of Henriette's,-- "_Bon soir, messieurs_!" The old gatekeeper, in his low, gruff German, wished her good-night unsuspiciously, drew the lever which released the turnstile, and next moment the Crown Princess Claire stepped out into the world beyond--a free woman. CHAPTER ELEVEN. DOOM OR DESTINY. With quickened footsteps she clasped the child to her, and hurrying on in the falling gloom, skirted the long, high walls of the royal park, where at equal distances stood the sentries. More than one, believing her to be Mademoiselle, saluted her. She was free, it is true; but she had yet to face many perils, the greatest of them all being that of recognition by the police at the station, or by any of the people, to whom her countenance was so well known. Presently she gained the broad Klosterstrasse, where the big electric lamps were already shining; and finding a fiacre at the stand, entered it and drove to a small outfitter's shop, where she purchased two travelling-rugs and a shawl for little Ignatia. Thence she went to a pastrycook's and bought some cakes, and then drove up the wide Wolbeckerstrasse to the central railway station. The streets were alive with life, for most of the shops were closed, the main thoroughfares were illuminated, and all Treysa was out at the cafes or restaurants, or promenading the streets, for the day was a national festival. The national colours were displayed everywhere, and the band of the 116th Regiment was playing a selection from "La Boheme" as she crossed the great Domplatz. Hers was indeed a strange position. Unknown and unrecognised, she drove in the open cab, with the tiny, wondering Princess at her side, through the great crowds of holiday-makers--those people who had they known of her unhappiness would in all probability have risen in a body and revolted. She remembered that she had been "their Claire," yet after that night she would be theirs no longer. It was a sad and silent leave-taking. She had renounced her crown and imperial privileges for ever. Many men and women stared at her as she passed under the bright electric street lamps, and once or twice she half feared that they might have penetrated her disguise. Yet no cheer was raised; none rushed forward to kiss her hand. She gave the cabman orders to drive up and down several of the principal thoroughfares, for there was still plenty of time for the train; and, reluctant to take leave of the people of Treysa whom she loved so well, and who were her only friends, she gazed upon them from behind her veil and sighed. At the busy, echoing station she arrived ten minutes before the express was due, and took her tickets; but when she went to the _wagon-lit_ office, the official, not recognising her, sharply replied that the places had all been taken by an American tourist party. Therefore she was compelled to enter an ordinary first-class compartment. The train was crowded, and all the corner seats were taken. Fearing to call a porter to her assistance lest she should be recognised--when the royal saloon would at once be attached to the train for her--she was compelled to elbow her way through the crowd and take an uncomfortable seat in the centre of a compartment, where all through the night she tried to sleep, but in vain. Little Ignatia soon closed her eyes and was asleep, but Claire, full of regrets at being compelled to renounce husband, crown, everything, as she had done, and in wonder of what the future had in store for her, sat silent, nursing her child through the long night hours. Her fellow-travellers, two fat Germans of Jewish cast, and three women, slept heavily, the men snoring. The grey dawn showed at last over the low green hills. Had her absence been discovered? Most certainly it had, but they had now passed the confines of the kingdom, and she was certain that the people at the palace would not telegraph news of her disappearance for fear of creating undue scandal. At last she had frustrated their dastardly plot to incarcerate her in an asylum. She sat there, a figure of sweet loveliness combined with exceeding delicacy and even fragility--one of the most refined elegance and the most exquisite modesty. At a small wayside station where they stopped about seven o'clock she bought a glass of coffee, and then they continued until the Austrian frontier at Voitersreuth was reached; and at Eger, a few miles farther on, she was compelled to descend and change carriages, for only the _wagon-lit_ went through to the capital. It was then eleven o'clock in the morning, and feeling hungry, she took little Ignatia into the buffet and had some luncheon, the child delighted at the novel experience of travelling. "We are going to see grandfather," her mother told her. "You went to see him when you were such a wee, wee thing, so you don't remember him." "No," declared the child with wide-open, wondering eyes; "I don't remember. Will Allen be there?" "No, darling, I don't think so," was the evasive reply to a question which struck deep into the heart of the woman fleeing from her persecutors. While Ignatia had her milk, her mother ate her cutlet at the long table among the other hasty travellers, gobbling up their meal and shouting orders to waiters with their mouths full. Hitherto, when she passed there in the royal saloon, the railway officials had come forward, cap in hand, to salute her as an Imperial Archduchess of Austria; but now, unknown and unrecognised, she passed as an ordinary traveller. Presently, when the Vienna express drew up to the platform, she fortunately found an empty first-class compartment, and continued her journey alone, taking off her hat and settling herself for the remaining nine hours between there and the capital. Little Ignatia was still very sleepy, therefore she made a cushion for her with her cape and laid her full length, while she herself sat in a corner watching the picturesque landscape, and thinking--thinking deeply over all the grim tragedy of the past. After travelling for three hours, the train stopped at a small station called Protovin, the junction of the line from Prague, whence a train had arrived in connection with the express. Here there seemed quite a number of people waiting upon the platform. She was looking out carelessly upon them when from among the crowd a man's eyes met hers. He stared open-mouthed, turned pale, and next instant was at the door. She drew back, but, alas! it was too late. She was without hat or veil, and he had recognised her. She gave vent to a low cry, half of surprise, half of despair. Next second the door opened, and the man stood before her, hat in hand. "Princess!" he gasped in a low, excited voice. "What does this mean? You--alone--going to Vienna?" "Carl!" she cried, "why are _you_ here? Where have you come from?" "I have been to my estate up at Rakonitz, before going to Rome," was his answer. "Is it Destiny that again brings us together like this?" And entering the carriage, he bent and kissed her hand. Was it Destiny, or was it Doom? "You with Ignatia, and no lady-in-waiting? What does this mean?" he inquired, utterly puzzled. The porter behind him placed his bag in the carriage, while he, in his travelling-ulster and cap, begged permission to remain there. What could she say? She was very lonely, and she wanted to tell him what had occurred since her return to Treysa and of the crisis of it all. So she nodded in the affirmative. Then he gave the porter his tip, and the man departed. Presently, before the train moved off, the sleeping child opened her eyes, shyly at first, in the presence of a stranger; but a moment later, recognising him, she got up, and rushing gladly towards him, cried in her pretty, childish way,-- "Leitolf! Good Leitolf to come with us! We are so very tired!" "Are you, little Highness?" exclaimed the man laughing, and taking her upon his knee. "But you will soon be at your destination." "Yes," she pouted, "but I would not mind if mother did not cry so much." The Princess pressed her lips together. She was a little annoyed that her child should reveal the secret of her grief. If she did so to Leitolf she might do so to others. After a little while, however, the motion of the train lulled the child off to sleep again, and the man laid her down as before. Then, turning to the sorrowing woman at his side, he asked,-- "You had my message--I mean you found it?" She nodded, but made no reply. She recollected each of those finely-penned words, and knew that they came from the heart of as honest and upright a man as there was in the whole empire. "And now tell me, Princess, the reason of this second journey to Vienna?" he asked, looking at her with his calm, serious face. For a moment she held her breath. There were tears welling in her eyes, and she feared lest he might detect them--feared that she might break down in explaining to him the bitter truth. "I have left Treysa for ever," she said simply. He started from his seat and stared at her. "Left Treysa!" he gasped. "Left the Court--left your husband! Is this really true?" "It is the truth, Carl," was her answer in a low, tremulous tone. "I could bear it no longer." He was silent. He recognised the extreme gravity of the step she had taken. He recognised, too, that, more serious than all, her unscrupulous enemies who had conspired to drive her from Court had now triumphed. His brows were knit as he realised all that she was suffering--this pure, beautiful woman, whom he had once loved so fondly, and whose champion he still remained. He knew that the Crown Prince was a man of brutal instinct, and utterly unsuited as husband of a sweet, refined, gentle woman such as Claire. It was, indeed, a tragedy--a dark tragedy. In a low voice he inquired what had occurred, but she made no mention of the brutal, cowardly blow which had felled her insensible, cut her lip, and broken her white teeth. She only explained very briefly the incident of the three guests at dinner, and the amazing conversation she had afterwards overheard. "It is a dastardly plot!" he cried in quick anger. "Why, you are as sane as I am, and yet the Crown Prince, in order to get rid of you, will allow these doctors to certify you as a lunatic! The conspiracy shall be exposed in the press. I will myself expose it!" he declared, clenching his fists. "No, Carl," she exclaimed quickly. "I have never done anything against my husband's interest, nor have I ever made complaint against him. I shall not do so now. Remember, what I have just told you is in strict confidence. The public must not know of it." "Then will you actually remain a victim and keep silence, allowing these people to thus misjudge you?" he asked in a tone of reproach. "To bring opprobrium upon my husband is to bring scandal upon the Court and nation," was her answer. "I am still Crown Princess, and I have still my duty to perform towards the people." "You are a woman of such high ideals, Princess," he said, accepting her reproof. "Most other wives who have been treated as you have would have sought to retaliate." "Why should I? My husband is but the weak-principled puppet of a scandalous Court. It is not his own fault. He is goaded on by those who fear that I may reign as Queen." "Few women would regard him in such a very generous light," Leitolf remarked, still stunned by the latest plot which she had revealed. If there was an ingenious conspiracy to confine her in an asylum, then surely it would be an easy matter for the very fact of her flight to be misconstrued into insanity. They would tear her child from her, and imprison her, despairing and brokenhearted. The thought of it goaded him to desperation. She told him of her intention of returning to her father, the Archduke Charles, and of living in future in her old home at Wartenstein--that magnificent castle of which they both had such pleasant recollections. "And I shall be in Rome," he sighed. "Ah, Princess, I shall often think of you, often and often." "Never write to me, I beg of you, Carl," she said apprehensively. "Your letter might fall into other hands, and certainly would be misunderstood. The world at large does not believe in platonic friendship between man and woman, remember." "True," he murmured. "That is why they say that you and I are still lovers, which is a foul and abominable lie." Their eyes met, and she saw a deep, earnest look in his face that told her that he was thinking still of those days long ago, and of that giddy intoxication of heart and sense which belongs to the novelty of passion which we feel once, and but once, in our lives. At that moment the train came to a standstill at the little station of Gratzen, and, unnoticed by them, a man passed the carriage and peered in inquisitively. He was a thick-set, grey-bearded, hard-faced German, somewhat round-shouldered, rather badly dressed, who, leaning heavily upon his stick, walked with the air of an invalid. He afterwards turned quickly upon his heel and again limped past, gazing in, so as to satisfy himself that he was not mistaken. Then entering a compartment at the rear of the train the old fellow resumed his journey, smiling to himself, and stroking his beard with his thin, bony hand, as though he had made a very valuable discovery and yet was puzzled. CHAPTER TWELVE. "AN OPEN SCANDAL!" At Klosterneuberg, six miles from Vienna, Leitolf kissed her hand in deep reverence, taking sad leave of her, for on arrival at the capital she would probably be recognised, and they both deemed it judicious that she should be alone. "Good-bye," he said earnestly, holding her hand as the train ran into the suburban station. "This meeting of ours has been a strange and unexpected one, and this is, I suppose, our last leave-taking. I have nothing to add," he sighed. "You know that I am ever your servant, ever ready to serve your Imperial Highness in whatsoever manner you may command. May God bless and comfort you. Adieu." "Good-bye, Carl," she said brokenly. It was all she could say. She restrained her tears by dint of great effort. Then, when he had gone and closed the carriage door, she burst into a fit of sobbing. By his absence it seemed to her that the light of her life had been extinguished. She was alone, in hopeless despair. Darkness had now fallen, and as the train rushed on its final run along the precipitous slopes of the Kahlenberg, little Ignatia placed her arms around her mother's neck and said,-- "Mother, don't cry, or I shall tell Allen, and she'll scold you. Poor, dear mother!" The Princess kissed the child's soft arms, and at length managed to dry her own eyes, assuming her hat and veil in preparation for arrival at the capital. And none too soon, for ere she had dressed Ignatia and assumed her own disguise the train slowed down and stopped, while the door was thrown open and a porter stood ready to take her wraps. She took Ignatia in her arms and descended in the great station, bright beneath its electric lamps, and full of bustle and movement. She saw nothing more of Leitolf, who had disappeared into the crowd. He had wished her farewell for ever. A fiacre conveyed her to her father's magnificent palace in the Parkring, where on arrival the gorgeous concierge, mistaking her for a domestic, treated her with scant courtesy. "His Imperial Highness the Archduke is not in Vienna," was his answer. "What's your business with him, pray?" The Princess, laughing, raised her veil, whereupon the gruff old fellow, a highly-trusted servant, stammered deep apologies, took off his hat, and bent to kiss the hand of the daughter of the Imperial house. "My father is away, Franz? Where is he?" "At Wartenstein, your Imperial Highness. He left yesterday," and he rang the electric bell to summon the major-domo. She resolved to remain the night, and then resume her journey to the castle. Therefore, with little Ignatia still in her arms, she ascended the grand staircase, preceded by the pompous servitor, until she reached the small green-and-gilt salon which she always used when she came there. Two maids were quickly in attendance, electric lights were switched on everywhere, and the bustle of servants commenced as soon as the news spread that the Archduchess Claire had returned. Several of the officials of the Archducal Court came to salute her, and the housekeeper came to her to receive orders, which, being simple, were quickly given. She retired to her room with little Ignatia, and after putting the child to bed, removed the dust of travel and went to one of the smaller dining-rooms, where two men in the Imperial livery served her dinner in stiff silence. Her father being absent, many of the rooms were closed, the furniture swathed in holland, and the quiet of the great, gorgeous place was to her distinctly depressing. She was anxious to know how her father would take her flight--whether he would approve of it or blame her. She sent distinct orders to Franz that no notice was to be given to the journals of her unexpected return, remarking at the same time that he need not send to the station, as she had arrived without baggage. If it were known in Vienna that she had returned, the news would quickly be telegraphed back to Treysa. Besides, when the fact of her presence in the Austrian capital was known, she would, as Crown Princess, be compelled by Court etiquette to go at once and salute her uncle the Emperor. This she had no desire to do just at present. His hard, unjust words at her last interview with him still rankled in her memory. His Majesty was not her friend. That had recently been made entirely plain. So, after dining, she chatted for a short time with De Bothmer, her father's private secretary, who came to pay his respects to her, and then retired to her own room--the room with the old ivory crucifix where the oil light burnt dimly in its red glass. She crossed herself before it, and her lips moved in silent prayer. A maid came to her and reported that little Ignatia was sleeping soundly, but that was not sufficient. She went herself along the corridor to the child's room and saw that she was comfortable, giving certain instructions with maternal anxiety. Then she returned to her room accompanied by the woman, who, inquisitive regarding her young mistress's return, began to chat to her while she brushed and plaited her hair, telling her all the latest gossip of the palace. The Archduke, her father, had, it appeared, gone to Wartenstein for a fortnight, and had arranged to go afterwards to Vichy for the cure, and thence to Paris; therefore, next morning, taking the maid with her to look after little Ignatia, she left Vienna again for the Tyrol, travelling by Linz and Salsburg to Rosenheim, and then changing on to the Innsbruck line and alighting, about six o'clock in the evening, at the little station of Rattenberg. There she took a hired carriage along the post road into the beautiful Zillerthal Alps, where, high up in a commanding position ten miles away, her old home was situated--one of the finest and best-preserved mediaeval castles in Europe. It was already dark, and rain was falling as the four horses, with their jingling bells, toiled up the steep, winding road, the driver cracking his whip, proud to have the honour of driving her Imperial Highness, who until four years ago had spent the greater part of her life there. Little Ignatia, tired out by so much travelling, slept upon her mother's knee, and the Crown Princess herself dozed for a time, waking to find that they were still toiling up through the little village of Fugen, which was her own property. Presently, three miles farther on, she looked out of the carriage window, and there, high up in the darkness, she saw the lighted windows of the great, grim stronghold which, nearly a thousand years ago, had been the fortress of the ancient Kings of Carinthia, those warlike ancestors of hers whose valiant deeds are still recorded in song and story. Half an hour later the horses clattered into the great courtyard of the castle, and the old castellan came forth in utter amazement to bow before her. Electric bells were rung, servants came forward quickly, the Archduke's chamberlain appeared in surprise, and the news spread in an instant through the servants' quarters that the Archduchess Claire--whom the whole household worshipped--had returned and had brought with her the tiny Princess Ignatia. Everywhere men and women bowed low before her as, preceded by the black-coated chamberlain, she went through those great, old vaulted halls she knew so well, and up the old stone winding stairs to the room which was still reserved for her, and which had not been disturbed since she had left it to marry. On entering she glanced around, and sighed in relief. At last she was back at home again in dear old Wartenstein. Her dream of liberty was actually realised! Little Ignatia and the nurse were given an adjoining room which she had used as a dressing-room, and as she stood there alone every object in the apartment brought back to her sweet memories of her girlhood, with all its peaceful hours of bliss, happiness, and high ideals. It was not a large room, but extremely cosy. The windows in the ponderous walls allowed deep alcoves, where she loved to sit and read on summer evenings, and upon one wall was the wonderful old fourteenth-century tapestry representing a tournament, which had been a scene always before her ever since she could remember. The bed, too, was gilded, quaint and old-fashioned, with hangings of rich crimson silk brocade of three centuries ago. Indeed, the only modern innovations there were the big toilet-table with its ancient silver bowl and ewer, and the two electric lights suspended above. Old Adelheid, her maid when she was a girl, came quickly to her, and almost shed tears of joy at her young mistress's return. Adelheid, a stout, round-faced, grey-haired woman, had nursed her as a child, and it was she who had served her until the day when she had left Vienna for Treysa after her unfortunate marriage. "My sweet Princess!" cried the old serving-woman as she entered, and, bending, kissed her hand, "only this moment I heard that you had come back to us. This is really a most delightful surprise. I heard that you were in Vienna the other day, and wondered whether you would come to see us all at old Wartenstein--or whether at your Court so far away you had forgotten us all." "Forgotten you, Adelheid!" she exclaimed quickly, pushing her fair hair from her brow, for her head ached after her fatiguing journey; "why, I am always thinking of the dear old place, and of you--who used to scold me so." "When you deserved it, my Princess," laughed the pleasant old woman. "Ah!" she added, "those were happy times, weren't they? But you were often really incorrigible, you know, especially when you used to go down into the valley and meet young Carl Leitolf in secret. You remember-- eh? And how I found you out?" Claire held her breath for a moment at mention of that name. "Yes, Adelheid," she said in a somewhat changed tone. "And you were very good. You never betrayed our secret." "No. Because I believed that you both loved each other--that boy-and-girl love which is so very sweet while it lasts, but is no more durable than the thistledown. But let us talk of the present now. I'll go and order dinner for you, and see that you have everything comfortable. I hope you will stay with us a long, long time. This is your first return since your marriage, remember." "Where is my father?" her Highness asked, taking off her hat, and rearranging her hair before the mirror. "In the green salon. He was with the secretary, Wernhardt, but I passed the latter going out as I came up the stairs. The Archduke is therefore alone." "Then I will go and see him before I dine," she said; so, summoning all her courage, she gave a final touch to her hair and went out, and down the winding stairs, afterwards making her way to the opposite side of the ponderous stronghold, where her father's study--called the green salon on account of the old green silk hangings and upholstery--was situated. She halted at the door, but for an instant only; then, pale-faced and determined, she entered the fine room with the groined roof, where, at a table at the farther end, her father, in plain evening dress, was writing beneath a shaded lamp. He raised his bald head and glanced round to see who was the intruder who entered there without knocking. Then, recognising his daughter, he turned slowly in his writing-chair, his brows knit, exclaiming coldly the single inquiry,-- "Well?" His displeasure at her appearance was apparent. He did not even welcome her, or inquire the reason of her return. The expression upon his thin, grey face showed her that he was annoyed. She rushed across to kiss him, but he put out his hand coldly, and held her at arm's length. "There is time for that later, Claire," he said in a hard voice. "I understand that you have left Treysa?" "Yes, I have. Who told you?" "The Crown Prince, your husband, has informed me by telegraph of your scandalous action." "Scandalous action!" she cried quickly, while in self-defence she began to implore the sympathy of the hard-hearted old Archduke, a man of iron will and a bigot as regarded religion. In a few quick sentences, as she stood before him in the centre of the room, she told him of all she had suffered; of her tragic life in her gilded prison at Treysa; of the insults heaped upon her by the King and Queen; of her husband's ill-treatment; and finally, of the ingenious plot to certify her as demented. "And I have come to you, father, for protection for myself and my child," she added earnestly. "If I remain longer at Treysa my enemies will drive me really insane. I have tried to do my duty, God knows, but those who seek my downfall are, alas! too strong. I am a woman, alone and helpless. Surely you, my own father, will not refuse to assist your daughter, who is the victim of a foul and dastardly plot?" she cried in tears, advancing towards him. "I have come back to live here with my child in seclusion and in peace--to obtain the freedom for which I have longed ever since I entered that scandalous and unscrupulous Court of Treysa. I implore of you, father, for my dear, dead mother's sake, to have pity upon me, to at least stand by me as my one friend in all the world--you--my own father!" He remained perfectly unmoved. His thin, bloodless face only relaxed into a dubious smile, and he responded in a hard voice,-- "You have another friend, Claire," Then he rose from his chair, his eyes suddenly aflame with anger as he asked, "Why do you come here with such lies as these upon your lips? To ask my assistance is utterly useless. I have done with you. It is too late to-night for you to leave Wartenstein, but recollect that you go from here before ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and that during my lifetime you never enter again beneath this roof!" "But, father--why?" she gasped, staring at him amazed. "Why? Why, because the whole world is scandalised by your conduct! Every one knows that the reason of your unhappiness with the Crown Prince is because you have a lover--that low-bred fellow Leitolf--a man of the people," he sneered. "Your conduct at Treysa was an open scandal, and in Vienna you actually visited him at his hotel. The Emperor called me, and told me so. He is highly indignant that you should bring such an outrageous scandal upon our house, and--" "Father, I deny that Count Leitolf is my lover!" she cried, interrupting him. "Even you, my own father, defame me," she added bitterly. "Defame you!" he sneered. "Bah! you cannot deceive me when you have actually eloped from Treysa with the fellow. See," he cried, taking a telegram from the table and holding it before her, "do you deny what is here reported--that you and he travelled together, and that he descended from the train just before reaching Vienna, in fear of recognition. No," he went on, while she stood before him utterly stunned and rendered speechless by his words, which, alas! showed the terrible misconstruction placed upon their injudicious companionship upon the journey. "No, you cannot deny it! You will leave Wartenstein tomorrow, for you have grown tired of your husband; you have invented the story of the plot to declare you insane; and you have renounced your crown and position in order to elope with Leitolf! From to-night I no longer regard you as my daughter. Go!" and he pointed imperiously to the door. "Go back to the people--the common herd of whom you are so very fond-- go back to your miserable lover if you wish. To me your future is quite immaterial, and understand perfectly that I forbid you ever to return beneath my roof. You have scandalised the whole of Europe, and you and your lover may now act just as you may think proper." "But, father!" she protested, heartbroken, bursting into bitter tears. "Leitolf is not my lover! I swear to you it is all untrue!" "Go!" he shouted, his face red with anger. "I have said all I need say. Go! Leave me. I will never see you again--never--_never_!" CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE MAN WITH THE RED CRAVAT. A secret service agent--one of the spies of the crafty old Minister Minckeldeym--had followed Claire from Treysa. Her accidental meeting with Leitolf had, he declared, been prearranged. It was now said that she, a Crown Princess of the Imperial blood, had eloped with her lover! The Court scandal was complete. Alone in her room that night she sat for hours sobbing, while the great castle was silent. She was now both homeless and friendless. All the desperate appeals she had made to her father had been entirely unavailing. He was a hard man always. She had, he declared, brought a shameful scandal upon this Imperial house, and he would have nothing further to do with her. Time after time she stoutly denied the false and abominable charge, trying to explain the dastardly plot against her, and the combination of circumstances which led to her meeting with the Count at Protovin. But he would hear no explanation. Leitolf was her lover, he declared, and all her excuses were utterly useless. He refused her his protection, and cast her out as no child of his. After long hours of tears and ceaseless sobbing, a strange thought crossed her mind. True, she was unjustly condemned as having eloped with Carl; yet, after all, was not even that preferable to the fate to which her husband had conspired to relegate her? The whole of Europe would say that she left the Court in company with a lover, and she bit her lip when she thought of the cruel libel. Yet, supposing that they had no ground for this gossip, was it not more than likely that her enemies would seek to follow her and confine her in an asylum? The strange combination of circumstances had, however, given them good ground for declaring that she had eloped, and if such report got abroad, as it apparently had done, then her husband would be compelled to sue for a divorce. She held her breath. Her fingers clenched themselves into her palms at thought of it--a divorce on account of the man who had always, from her girlhood, been her true, loyal, and platonic friend! And if it was sought to prove what was untrue? Should she defend herself, and establish her innocence? Or would she, by refusing to make defence, obtain the freedom from Court which she sought? She had been utterly dumbfounded by her father's allegations that she had eloped. Until he had denounced her she had never for one moment seen the grave peril in which his presence at Protovin had placed her. He had compromised her quite unintentionally. Her own pure nature and open mind had never suspected for one moment that those who wished her ill would declare that she had eloped. Now, as she sat there in the dead silence, she saw plainly, when too late, how injudicious she had been--how, indeed, she had played into the hands of those who sought her downfall. It was a false step to go to Leitolf at the hotel in Vienna, and a worse action still to ask that he should be recalled from her Court and sent away as attache to Rome. The very fact that she showed interest in him had, of course, lent colour to the grave scandals that were being everywhere whispered. Now the report that she, an Imperial Archduchess, had eloped with him would set the empires of Austria and Germany agog. What the future was to be she did not attempt to contemplate. She was plunged in despair, utterly hopeless, broken, and without a friend except Steinbach. Was it destiny that she should be so utterly misjudged? Even her own father had sent her forth as an outcast! Early next morning, taking little Ignatia and the bag containing her jewels, but leaving the maid behind, she drove from the castle, glancing back at it with heavy heart as the carriage descended into the green, fertile valley, gazing for the last time upon that old home she loved so well. It was her last sight of it. She would never again look upon it, she sadly told herself. She, an Imperial Archduchess of Austria, Crown Princess of a great German kingdom, a Dame of the Croix Etoilee, a woman who might any day become a reigning queen, had renounced her crown and her position, and was now an outcast! Hers was a curious position--stranger, perhaps, than that in which any woman had before found herself. Many a royalty is to-day unhappy in her domestic life, suffering in silence, yet making a brave show towards the world. She had tried to do the same. She had suffered without complaint for more than three long, dark years--until her husband had not only struck her and disfigured her, but had contemplated ridding himself of her by the foulest and most cowardly means his devilish ingenuity could devise. As she drove through those clean, prosperous villages which were on her own private property, the people came forth, cheering with enthusiasm and rushing to the carriage to kiss her hand. But she only smiled upon them sadly--not, they said, shaking their heads after she had passed, not the same smile as in the old days, before she married the German Prince and went to far-off Treysa. The stationmaster at Rattenberg came forward to make his obeisance, and as certain military manoeuvres were in progress and some troops were drawn up before the station, both officers and men drew up and saluted. An old colonel whom she had known well before her marriage came forward, and bowing, offered to see her to her compartment, expressing delight at having met her again. "Your Imperial Highness will never be forgotten here," declared the gallant, red-faced old fellow, who wore fierce white moustaches. "The poor are always wondering whether you are ever coming back. And at last your Highness is here! And going--where?" She hesitated. Truth to tell, she had never thought of her destination. "I go now to Lucerne, incognito," she replied, for want of something else to say; and they both walked on to the platform, he carrying Henriette's cheap little leather bag containing her jewels. "So this," he said, "is our little Princess Ignatia, about whom we have heard so much." And laughingly he touched the shy child's soft cheek caressingly. "And who are you?" inquired the child wonderingly, examining his bright uniform from head to foot. The Princess joined in the Colonel's laughter. Usually the child was shy, but, strangely enough, always talkative with any one who wore a uniform, even though he might be a private soldier on sentry duty at the palace. The Colonel was not alone in remarking within himself the plainness and cheapness of her Imperial Highness's costume. It had been remarked everywhere, but was supposed that she wore that very ordinary costume in order to pass incognito. The train took her to Innsbruck, and after luncheon at the buffet she continued her journey to Lucerne, arriving there late in the evening, and taking the hotel omnibus of the Schweizerhof. There she gave her name as the Baroness Deitel, and declared that her luggage had been mis-sent--a fact which, of course, aroused some suspicion within the mind of the shrewd clerk in the bureau. Visitors without luggage are never appreciated by hotel-keepers. Next day, however, she purchased a trunk and a number of necessaries, _lingerie_ for herself and for the little Princess, all of which was sent to the hotel--a fact that quickly re-established confidence. A good many people were staying in the place as usual, and very quickly, on account of her uncommon beauty and natural grace, people began to inquire who she was. But the reply was that she was Baroness Deitel of Frankfort--that was all. From her funereal black they took her for a young widow, and many of the idle young men in the hotel endeavoured to make her acquaintance. But she spoke to no one. She occupied herself with her child, and if alone in the hall she always read a book or newspaper. The fact was that she was watching the newspapers eagerly, wondering if they would give currency to the false report of her elopement. But as day after day went by and nothing appeared, she grew more assured, hoping that at least the Court at Treysa had suppressed from the press the foul lie that had spread from mouth to mouth. One paragraph she read, however, in a Vienna paper was very significant, for it stated that the Crown Prince Ferdinand of Marburg had arrived in Vienna at the invitation of the Emperor, who had driven to the station to meet him, and who had embraced him with marked cordiality. She read between the lines. The Emperor had called him to Vienna in order to hear his side of the story--in order to condemn her without giving her a chance to explain the truth. The Emperor would no doubt decide whether the fact of her leaving the Court should be announced to the public or not. Her surmise was not far wrong, for while sitting in the big hall of the hotel after luncheon four days later, she saw in the _Daily Mail_ the following telegram, headed, "A German Court Scandal: Startling Revelations." Holding her breath, and knowing that, two young Englishmen, seated together and smoking, were watching her, she read as follows:-- "Reuter's correspondent at Treysa telegraphs it has just transpired that a very grave and astounding scandal has occurred at Court. According to the rumour--which he gives under all reserve--late one night a week ago the Crown Princess Ferdinand escaped from the palace, and taking with her her child, the little Princess Ignatia, eloped to Austria with Count Charles-Leitolf, an official of the Court. A great sensation has been caused in Court circles in both Germany and Austria. The Crown Princess before her marriage was, it will be remembered, the Archduchess Claire, only daughter of the Archduke Charles of Austria, and notable at the Court of Vienna on account of her extreme beauty. It appears that for some time past at the Court of Treysa there have been rumours regarding the intimate friendship between the Crown Princess and the Count, who was for some time attache at the Austrian Embassy in London. Matters culminated a short time ago when it became known that the Count had followed the Princess to Vienna, where she had gone to visit her father. She returned to Treysa for a few days, still followed by Leitolf, and then left again under his escort, and has not since been seen. "In Treysa the sensation caused is enormous. It is the sole topic of conversation. The Crown Princess was greatly beloved by the people, but her elopement has entirely negatived her popularity, as the scandal is considered utterly unpardonable. The Crown Prince has left hurriedly for Vienna in order to confer with the Emperor, who, it is rumoured, has issued an edict withdrawing from the Princess her title, and all her rights as an Imperial Archduchess, and her decorations, as well as forbidding her to use the Imperial arms. The excitement in the city of Treysa is intense, but in the Court circle everything is, of course, denied, the King having forbidden the press to mention or comment upon the matter in any way. Reuter's correspondent, however, has, from private sources within the palace, been able to substantiate the above report, which, vague though it may be, is no doubt true, and the details of which are already known in all the Courts of Europe. It is thought probable in Treysa that the Crown Prince Ferdinand will at once seek a divorce, for certain of the palace servants, notably the lady-in-waiting, the Countess de Trauttenberg, have come forward and made some amazing statements. A Council of Ministers is convened for to-morrow, at which his Majesty will preside." "De Trauttenberg!" exclaimed the Princess bitterly between her teeth. "The spy! I wonder what lies she has invented." She saw the two Englishmen with their eyes still upon her, therefore she tried to control her feelings. What she had read was surely sufficient to rouse her blood. She returned to her room. "I am no longer popular with the people!" she thought to herself. "They too believe ill of me! My enemies have, alas! triumphed." She re-read the telegram with its bold heading--the announcement which had startled Europe two days before--and then with a low sigh replaced the paper upon the table. This crisis she had foreseen. The Court had given those facts to the press correspondent because they intended to hound her down as an infamous and worthless woman, because they had conspired to drive her out of Treysa; and victory was now theirs. But none of the tourist crowd in the Schweizerhof ever dreamed that the cheaply-dressed, demure little widow was the notorious woman whom all; the world was at that moment discussing--the royal Ionian who had boldly cast aside a crown. What she read caused her to bite her lips till they bled. She returned to her room, and sat for an hour plunged in bitter tears. All the world was against her, and she had no single person in whom to confide, or of whom to seek assistance. That night, acting upon a sudden impulse, she took little Ignatia with her, and left by the mail by way of Bale for Paris, where she might the better conceal herself and the grief that was slowly consuming her brave young heart. The journey was long and tedious. There was no _wagon-lit_, and the child, tired out, grew peevish and restless. Nevertheless, half an hour before noon next day the express ran at last into the Gare de l'Est, and an elderly, good-natured, grave-looking man in black, with a bright red tie, took her dressing-bag and gallantly assisted her to alight. She was unused to travelling with the public, for a royal saloon with bowing servants and attendants had always been at her disposal; therefore, when the courteous old fellow held out his hand for her bag, she quite mechanically gave it to him. Next instant, however, even before she had realised it, the man had disappeared into the crowd of alighting passengers. The truth flashed upon her in a second. All her magnificent jewels had been stolen! CHAPTER FOURTEEN. IN SECRET. Realising her loss, the Princess quickly informed one of the station officials, who shouted loudly to the police at the exit barrier that a theft had been committed, and next moment all was confusion. Half a dozen police agents, as well as some gardes in uniform, appeared as though by magic, and while the exit was closed, preventing the weary travellers who had just arrived from leaving, an inspector of police came up and made sharp inquiry as to her loss. In a moment a knot of inquisitive travellers gathered around her. "A man wearing a bright red cravat has taken my dressing-bag, and made off with it. All my jewels are in it!" Claire exclaimed excitedly. "Pardon, madame," exclaimed the police official, a shrewd-looking functionary with fair, pointed beard, "what was the dressing-bag like?" "A crocodile one, covered with a black waterproof cover." "And the man wore a red tie?" "Yes. He was dressed in black, and rather elderly. His red tie attracted me." For fully a quarter of an hour the iron gate was kept closed while, accompanied by the inspector and two agents, she went among the crowd trying to recognise the gallant old fellow who had assisted her to alight. But she was unable. Perhaps she was too agitated, for misfortune seemed now to follow upon misfortune. She had at the first moment of setting foot in Paris lost the whole of her splendid jewels! With the police agents she stood at the barrier when it was reopened, and watched each person pass out; but, alas! she saw neither the man with the red tie nor her dressing-bag. And yet the man actually passed her unrecognised. He was wearing a neat black tie and a soft black felt hat in place of the grey one he had worn when he had taken the bag from her hand. He had the precious dressing-case, but it was concealed within the serviceable pigskin kit-bag which he carried. She was looking for the grey hat, the red tie, and her own bag, but, of course, saw none of them. And so the thief, once outside the station, mounted into a fiacre and drove away entirely unsuspected. "Madame," exclaimed the inspector regretfully, when the platform had at last emptied, "I fear you have been the victim of some clever international thief. It is one of the tricks of jewel-thieves to wear a bright-coloured tie by which the person robbed is naturally attracted. Yet in a second, so deft are they, they can change both cravat and hat, and consequently the person robbed fails to recognise them in the excitement of the moment. This is, I fear, what has happened in your case. But if you will accompany me to the office I will take a full description of the missing property." She went with him to the police-office on the opposite side of the great station, and there gave, as far as she was able, a description of some of the stolen jewels. She, however, did not know exactly how many ornaments there were, and as for describing them all, she was utterly unable to do so. "And Madame's name?" inquired the polite functionary. She hesitated. If she gave her real name the papers would at once be full of her loss. "Deitel," she answered. "Baroness Deitel of Frankfort." "And to what hotel is Madame going?" She reflected a moment. If she went to Ritz's or the Bristol she would surely be recognised. She had heard that the Terminus, at the Gare St. Lazare, was a large and cosmopolitan place, where tourists stayed, so she would go there. "To the Terminus," was her reply. Then, promising to report to her if any information were forthcoming after the circulation of the description of the thief and of the stolen property, he assisted her in obtaining her trunk, called a fiacre for her, apologised that she should have suffered such loss, and then bowed her away. She pressed the child close to her, and staring straight before her, held her breath. Was it not a bad augury for the future? With the exception of a French bank-note for a thousand francs in her purse and a little loose change, she was penniless as well as friendless. At the hotel she engaged a single room, and remained in to rest after her long, tiring journey. With a mother's tender care her first thought was for little Ignatia, who had stood wondering at the scene at the station, and who, when her mother afterwards explained that the thief had run away with her bag, declared that he was "a nasty, bad man." On gaining her room at the hotel the Princess put her to bed, but she remained very talkative, watching her mother unpack the things she had purchased in Lucerne. "Go to sleep, darling," said her mother, bending down and kissing her soft little face. "If you are very good Allen will come and see you soon." "Will she? Then I'll be ever so good," was the child's reply; and thus satisfied, she dropped off to sleep. Having arranged the things in the wardrobe, the Princess stood at the window gazing down upon the traffic in the busy Rue Saint Lazare, and the cafes, crowded at the hour of the absinthe. Men were crying "_La Presse_" in strident voices below. Paris is Paris always--bright, gay, careless, with endless variety, a phantasmagoria of movement, the very cinematograph of human life. Yet how heavy a heart can be, and how lonely is life, amid that busy throng, only those who have found themselves in the gay city alone can justly know. Her slim figure in neat black was a tragic one. Her sweet face was blanched and drawn. She leaned her elbows upon the window-ledge, and looking straight before her, reflected deeply. "Is there any further misfortune to fall upon me, I wonder?" she asked herself. "The loss of my jewels means to me the loss of everything. On the money I could have raised upon them I could have lived in comfort in some quiet place for years, without any application to my own lawyers. Fate, indeed, seems against me," she sighed. "Because I have lived an honest, upright life, and have spoken frankly of my intention to sweep clean the scandalous Court of Treysa, I am now outcast by both my husband and by my father, homeless, and without money. Many of the people would help me, I know, but it must never be said that a Hapsbourg sought financial aid of a commoner. No, that would be breaking the family tradition; and whatever evil the future may have in store for me I will never do that." "I wonder," she continued after a pause--"I wonder if the thief who took my jewels knew of my present position, my great domestic grief and unhappiness, whether he would not regret? I believe he would. Even a thief is chivalrous to a woman in distress. He evidently thinks me a wealthy foreigner, however, and by to-night all the stones will be knocked from their settings and the gold flung into the melting-pot. With some of them I would not have parted for a hundred times their worth--the small pearl necklace which my poor mother gave me when I was a child, and my husband's first gift, and the Easter egg in diamonds. Yet I shall never see them again. They are gone for ever. Even the police agent held out but little hope. The man, he said, was no doubt an international thief, and would in an hour be on his way to the Belgian or Italian frontier." That was true. Jewel-thieves, and especially the international gangs, are the most difficult to trace. They are past masters of their art, excellent linguists, live expensively, and always pass as gentlemen whose very title and position cause the victim to be unsuspicious. The French and Italian railways are the happy hunting-ground of these wily gentry. The night expresses to the Riviera, Rome, and Florence in winter, and the "Luxe" services from Paris to Arcachon, Vichy, Lausanne, or Trouville in summer, are well watched by them, and frequent hauls are made, one of the favourite tricks being that of making feint to assist a lady to descend and take her bag from her hand. "I don't suppose," she sighed, "that I shall ever see or hear of my ornaments again. Yet I think that if the thief but knew the truth concerning me he would regret. Perhaps he is without means, just as I am. Probably he became a thief of sheer necessity, as I have heard many men have become. Criminal instinct is not always responsible for an evil life. Many persons try to live honestly, but fate is ever contrary. Indeed, is it not so with my own self?" She turned, and her eyes fell upon the sleeping child. She was all she had now to care for in the whole wide world. Recollections of her last visit to Paris haunted her--that visit when Carl had so very indiscreetly followed her there, and taken her about incognito in open cabs to see the sights. There had been no harm in it whatsoever, no more harm than if he had been her equerry, yet her enemies had, alas! hurled against her their bitter denunciations, and whispered their lies so glibly that they were believed as truth. Major Scheel, the attache at the Embassy, had recognised them, and being Leitolf's enemy, had spread the report. It had been a foolish caprice of hers to take train from Aix-les-Bains to Paris to see her old French nurse Marie, who had been almost as a mother to her. The poor old woman, a pensioned servant of the Archducal family, had, unfortunately, died a month ago, otherwise she would have had a faithful, good friend in Paris. Marie, who knew Count Leitolf well, could have refuted their allegations had she lived; but an attack of pneumonia had proved fatal, and she had been buried with a beautiful wreath bearing the simple words "From Claire" upon her coffin. As the sunset haze fell over Paris she still sat beside the sleeping child. If her enemies condemned her, then she would not defend herself. God, in whom she placed her fervent trust, should judge her. She had no fear of man's prejudices or misjudgment. She placed her faith entirely in her Maker. To His will she bowed, for in His sight the pauper and the princess are equal. That evening she had a little soup sent to her room, and when Ignatia was again sleeping soundly she went forth upon the balcony leading from the corridor, and sitting there, amused herself by looking down upon the life and movement of the great salon below. To leave the hotel was impossible because of Ignatia, and she now began to regret that she had not brought the maid with her from Wartenstein. Time after time the misfortune of the loss of her jewels recurred to her. It had destroyed her independence, and it had negatived all her plans. Money was necessary, even though she were an Imperial Archduchess. She was incognito, and therefore had no credit. The gay, after-dinner scene of the hotel was presented below--the flirtations, the heated conversations, and the lazy, studied attitudes of the bloused English girl, who lolls about in cane lounge-chairs after dining, and discusses plays and literature. From her chair on the balcony above she looked down upon that strange, changeful world--the world of tourist Paris. Born and bred at Court as she had been, it was a new sensation to her to have her freedom. The life was entirely fresh to her, and would have been pleasant if there were not behind it all that tragedy of her marriage. Several days went by, and in order to kill time she took little Ignatia daily in a cab and drove in the Bois and around the boulevards, revisiting all the "sights" which Leitolf had shown her. Each morning she went out driving till the luncheon-hour, and having once lunched with old Marie upstairs at the Brasserie Universelle in the Avenue de l'Opera, she went there daily. You probably know the place. Downstairs it is an ordinary _brasserie_ with a few chairs out upon the pavement, but above is a smart restaurant peculiarly Parisian, where the _hors d'oeuvres_ are the finest in Eurorie and the _vin gris_ a speciality. The windows whereat one sits overlook the Avenue, and from eleven o'clock till three it is crowded. She went there for two reasons--because it was small, and because the life amused her. Little Ignatia would sit at her side, and the pair generally attracted the admiration of every one on account of their remarkably good looks. The habitues began inquiring of the waiters as to who was the beautiful lady in black, but the men only elevated their shoulders and exhibited their palms. "A German," was all they could answer. "A great lady evidently." That she attracted attention everywhere she was quite well aware, yet she was not in the least annoyed. As a royalty she was used to being gazed upon. Only when men smiled at her, as they did sometimes, she met them with a haughty stare. The superiority of her Imperial blood would on such occasions assert itself, much to the confusion of would-be gallants. Thus passed those spring days with Paris at her gayest and best. The woman who had renounced a crown lived amid all that bright life, lonely, silent, and unrecognised, her one anxiety being for the future of her little one, who was ever asking when Allen would return. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE SHY ENGLISHMAN. One afternoon about four o'clock, as the Princess, leading little Ignatia, who was daintily dressed in white, was crossing the great hall of the Hotel Terminus on her way out to drive in the Bois, a rather slim, dark-haired man, a little under forty, well dressed in a blue-serge suit, by which it required no second glance to tell that he was an Englishman, rose shyly from a chair and bowed deeply before her. At that hour there were only two or three elderly persons in the great hall, all absorbed in newspapers. She glanced at the stranger quickly and drew back. At first she did not recognise him, but an instant later his features became somehow familiar, although she was puzzled to know where she had met him before. Where he had bowed to her was at a safe distance from the few other people in the hall; therefore, noticing her hesitation, the man exclaimed in English with a smile,-- "I fear that your Imperial Highness does not recollect me, and I trust that by paying my respects I am not intruding. May I be permitted to introduce myself? My name is Bourne. We met once in Treysa. Do you not recollect?" In an instant the truth recurred to her, and she stood before him open-mouthed. "Why, of course!" she exclaimed. "Am I ever likely to forget? And yet I saw so little of your face on that occasion that I failed now to recognise you! I am most delighted to meet you again, Mr. Bourne, and to thank you." "Thanks are quite unnecessary, Princess," he declared; whereupon in a low voice she explained that she was there incognito, under the title of the Baroness Deitel, and urged him not to refer to her true station lest some might overhear. "I know quite well that you are here incognito," he said. "And this is little Ignatia, is it?" and he patted the child's cheeks. Then he added, "Do you know I have had a very great difficulty in finding you. I have searched everywhere, and was only successful this morning, when I saw you driving in the Rue Rivoli and followed you here." Was this man a secret agent from Treysa, she wondered. In any case, what did he want with her? She treated him with courtesy, but was at the same time suspicious of his motive. At heart she was annoyed that she had been recognised. And yet was she not very deeply indebted to him? "Well, Mr. Bourne," said the Princess, drawing herself up, and taking the child's hand again to go out, "I am very pleased to embrace this opportunity of thanking you for the great service you rendered me. You must, however, pardon my failure to recognise you." "It was only natural," the man exclaimed quickly. "It is I who have to apologise, your Highness," he whispered. "I have sought you because I have something of urgent importance to tell you. I beg of you to grant me an interview somewhere, where we are not seen and where we cannot be overheard." She looked at him in surprise. The Englishman's request was a strange one, yet from his manner she saw that he was in earnest. Why, she wondered, did he fear being seen with her? "Cannot you speak here?" she inquired. "Not in this room, among these people. Are there not any smaller salons upstairs? they would be empty at this hour. If I recollect aright, there is a small writing-room at the top of the stairs yonder. I would beg of your Highness to allow me to speak to you there." "But what is this secret you have to tell me?" she inquired curiously. "It surely cannot be of such a nature that you may not explain it in an undertone here?" "I must not be seen with you, Princess," he exclaimed quickly. "I run great risk in speaking with you here in public. I will explain all if you will only allow me to accompany you to that room." She hesitated. So ingenious had been the plots formed against her that she had now grown suspicious of every one. Yet this man was after all a mystery, and mystery always attracted her, as it always attracts both women and men equally. So with some reluctance she turned upon her heel and ascended the stairs, he following her at a respectful distance. Their previous meeting had indeed been a strange one. Fond of horses from her girlhood, she had in Treysa made a point of driving daily in her high English dogcart, sometimes a single cob, and sometimes tandem. She was an excellent whip, one of the best in all Germany, and had even driven her husband's coach on many occasions. On the summer's afternoon in question, however, she was driving a cob in one of the main thoroughfares of Treysa, when of a sudden a motor car had darted past, and the animal, taking fright, had rushed away into the line of smart carriages approaching on the opposite side of the road. She saw her peril, but was helpless. The groom sprang out, but so hurriedly that he fell upon his head, severely injuring himself; while at that moment, when within an ace of disaster, a man in a grey flannel suit sprang out from nowhere and seized the bridle, without, however, at once stopping the horse, which reared, and turning, pinned the stranger against a tree with the end of one of the shafts. In an instant a dozen men, recognising who was driving, were upon the animal, and held it; but the next moment she saw that the man who had saved her had fallen terribly injured, the shaft having penetrated his chest, and he was lying unconscious. Descending, she gazed upon the white face, from the mouth of which blood was oozing; and having given directions for his immediate conveyance to the hospital and for report to be made to her as soon as possible, she returned to the palace in a cab, and telephoned herself to the Court surgeon, commanding him to do all in his power to aid the sufferer. Next day she asked permission of the surgeon that she might see the patient, to thank him and express her sympathy. But over the telephone came back the reply that the patient was not yet fit to see any one, and, moreover, had expressed a desire that nobody should come near him until he had quite recovered. In the fortnight that went by she inquired after him time after time, but all that she was able to gather was that his name was Guy Bourne, and that he was an English banker's clerk from London, spending his summer holiday in Treysa. She sent him beautiful flowers from the royal hothouses, and in reply received his thanks for her anxious inquiries. He told the doctor that he hoped the Princess would not visit him until he had quite recovered. And this wish of his she had of course respected. His gallant action had, without a doubt, saved her from a very serious accident, or she might even have lost her life. Gradually he recovered from his injuries, which were so severe that for several days his life was despaired of, and then when convalescent a curious thing happened. He one day got up, and without a word of thanks or farewell to doctors, staff, or to the Crown Princess herself, he went out, and from that moment all trace had been lost of him. Her Highness, when she heard of this, was amazed. It seemed to her as though for some unexplained reason he had no wish to receive her thanks; or else he was intent on concealing his real identity with some mysterious motive or other. She had given orders for inquiry to be made as to who the gallant Englishman was; but although the secret agents of the Government had made inquiry in London, their efforts had been futile. It happened over two years ago. The accident had slipped from her memory, though more than once she had wondered who might be the man who had risked his life to save hers, and had then escaped from Treysa rather than be presented to her. And now at the moment when she was in sore need of a friend he had suddenly recognised her, and come forward to reveal himself! Naturally she had not recognised in the dark, rather handsome face of the well-dressed Englishman the white, bloodless countenance of the insensible man with a brass-tipped cart-shaft through his chest. And he wanted to speak to her in secret? What had he, a perfect stranger, to tell her? The small writing-room at the top of the stairs was fortunately empty, and a moment later he followed her into it, and closed the door. Little Ignatia looked with big, wondering eyes at the stranger. The Princess seated herself in a chair, and invited the Englishman to take one. "Princess," he said in a refined voice, "I desire most humbly to apologise for making myself known to you, but it is unfortunately necessary." "Unfortunately?" she echoed. "Why unfortunately, Mr. Bourne, when you risked your life for mine? At that moment you only saw a woman in grave peril; you were not aware of my station." "That is perfectly true," he said quietly. "When they told me at the hospital who you were, and when you sent me those lovely flowers and fruit, I was filled with--well, with shame." "Why with shame?" she asked. "You surely had no need to be ashamed of your action? On the contrary, the King's intention was to decorate you on account of your brave action, and had already given orders for a letter to be sent to your own King in London, asking his Majesty to allow you as a British subject to receive and wear the insignia of the Order of the Crown and Sword." "And I escaped from Treysa just in time," he laughed. Then he added, "To tell you the truth, Princess, it is very fortunate that I left before--well, before you could see me, and before his Majesty could confer the decoration." "But why?" she asked. "I must confess that your action in escaping as you did entirely mystified me." "You were annoyed that I was ungentlemanly enough to run away without thanking your Highness for all your solicitude on my behalf, and for sending the surgeon of the royal household to attend to my injuries. But, believe me, I am most deeply and sincerely grateful. It was not ingratitude which caused me to leave Treysa in secret as I did, but my flight was necessary." "Necessary? I don't understand you." "Well, I had a motive in leaving without telling any one." "Ah, a private motive!" she said--"something concerning your own private affairs, I suppose?" He nodded in the affirmative. How could he tell her the truth? His disinclination to explain the reason puzzled her sorely. That he was a gallant man who had saved a woman without thought of praise or of reward was proved beyond doubt, yet there was something curiously mysterious about him which attracted her. Other men would have at least been proud to receive the thanks and decoration of a reigning sovereign, while he had utterly ignored them. Was he an anarchist? "Princess," he said at last, rising from his chair and flushing slightly, "the reason I have sought you to-day is not because of the past, but is on account of the present." "The present! why?" "I--I hardly know what to say, Princess," he said confusedly. "Two years ago I fled from you because you should not know the truth--because I was in fear. And now Fate brings me again in your path in a manner which condemns me." "Mr. Bourne, why don't you speak more plainly? These enigmas I really cannot understand. You saved my life, or at least saved me from a very serious accident, and yet you escaped before I could thank you personally. To-day you have met me, and you tell me that you escaped because you feared to meet me." "It is the truth, your Highness. I feared to meet you," he said, "and, believe me, I should not have sought you to-day were it not of most urgent necessity." "But why did you fear to meet me?" "I did not wish you to discover what I really am," he said, his face flushing with shame. "Are you so very timid?" she asked with a light laugh. But in an instant she grew serious. She saw that she had approached some sore subject, and regretted. The Englishman was a strange person, to say the least, she thought. "I have nothing to say in self-defence, Princess," he said very simply. "The trammels of our narrow world are so hypocritical, our laws so farcical and full of incongruities, and our civilisation so fraught with the snortings of Mother Grundy, that I can only tell you the truth and offer no defence. I know from the newspapers of your present perilous position, and of what is said against you. If you will permit me to say so, you have all my sympathy." And he paused and looked straight into her face, while little Ignatia gazed at him in wonder. "I wonder if your Highness will forgive me if I tell you the truth?" he went on, as though speaking to himself. "Forgive you? Why, of course," she laughed. "What is there to forgive?" "Very much, Princess," he said gravely. "I--I'm ashamed to stand here before you and confess; yet I beg of you to forgive me, and to accept my declaration that the fault is not entirely my own." "The fault of what?" she inquired, not understanding him. "I will speak plainly, because I know that your good nature and your self-avowed indebtedness to me--little as that indebtedness is--will not allow you to betray me," he said in a low, earnest tone. "You will recollect that on your Highness's arrival at the Gare de l'Est your dressing-bag was stolen, and within it were your jewels--your most precious possession at this critical moment of your life?" "Yes," she said in a hard voice of surprise, her brows contracting, for she was not yet satisfied as to the stranger's _bona fides_. "My bag was stolen." "Princess," he continued, "let me, in all humility, speak the truth. The reason of my escape from Treysa was because your police held a photograph of me, and I feared that I might be identified. I am a thief--one of an international gang. And--and I pray you to forgive me, and to preserve my secret," he faltered, his cheeks again colouring. "Your jewels are intact, and in my possession. You can now realise quite plainly why--why I escaped from Treysa!" She held her breath, staring at him utterly stupefied. This man who had saved her, and so nearly lost his own life in the attempt, was a thief! CHAPTER SIXTEEN. LIGHT FINGERS. Her Highness was face to face with one of those clever international criminals whose _coups_ were so constantly being reported in the Continental press. She looked straight into his countenance, a long, intense look, half of reproach, half of surprise, and then, in a firm voice, said,-- "Mr. Bourne, I owe you a very great debt. To-day I will endeavour to repay it. Your secret, and the secret of the theft, shall remain mine." "And you will give no information to the police?" he exclaimed quickly--"you promise that?" "I promise," she said. "I admire you for your frankness. But, tell me--it was not you who took my bag at the station?" "No. But it was one of us," he explained. "When the bag containing the jewels was opened I found, very fortunately, several letters addressed to you--letters which you evidently brought with you from Treysa. Then I knew that the jewels were yours, and determined, if I could find you, to restore them to you with our apologies." "Why?" she asked. "You surely do not get possession of jewels of that value every day?" "No, Princess. But the reason is, that although my companions are thieves, they are not entirely devoid of the respect due to a woman. They have read in the newspapers of your domestic unhappiness, and of your flight with the little Princess, and have decided that to rob a defenceless woman, as you are at this moment, is a cowardly act. Though we are thieves, we still have left some vestige of chivalry." "And your intention is really to restore them to me?" she remarked, much puzzled at this unexpected turn of fortune. "Yes, had I not found those letters among them, I quite admit that, by this time, the stones would have been in Amsterdam and re-cut out of all recognition," he said, rather shamefacedly. Then, taking from his pocket the three letters addressed to her--letters which she had carried away from Treysa with her as souvenirs--he handed them to her, saying,-- "I beg of you to accept these back again. They are better in your Imperial Highness's hands than my own." Her countenance went a trifle pale as she took them, and a sudden serious thought flashed through her mind. "Your companions have, I presume, read what is contained in these?" "No, Princess; they have not. I read them, and seeing to whom they were addressed, at once took possession of them. I only showed my companions the addresses." She breathed more freely. "Then, Mr. Bourne, I am still more deeply in your debt," she declared; "you realised that those letters contained a woman's secret, and you withheld it from the others. How can I sufficiently thank you?" "By forgiving me," he said. "Remember, I am a thief, and if you wished you could call the hotel manager and have me arrested." "I could hardly treat in that way a man who has acted so nobly and gallantly as you have," she remarked, with perfect frankness. "If those letters had fallen into other hands they might, have found their way back to the Court, and to the King." "I understand perfectly," he said, in a low voice. "I saw by the dates, and gathered from the tenor in which they were written that they concealed some hidden romance. To expose what was written there would have surely been a most cowardly act--meaner even than stealing a helpless, ill-judged woman's jewels. No, Princess," he went on; "I beg that although I stand before you a thief, to whom the inside of a gaol is no new experience, a man who lives by his wits and his agility and ingenuity in committing theft, you will not entirely condemn me. I still, I hope, retain a sense of honour." "You speak like a gentleman," she said. "Who were your parents?" "My father, Princess, was a landed proprietor in Norfolk. After college I went to Sandhurst, and then entered the British Army; but gambling proved my ruin, and I was dismissed in disgrace for the forgery of a bill in the name of a brother officer. As a consequence, my father left me nothing, as I was a second son; and for years I drifted about England, an actor in a small travelling company; but gradually I fell lower and lower, until one day in London I met a well-known card-sharper, who took me as his partner, and together we lived well in the elegant rooms to which we inveigled men and there cheated them. The inevitable came at last--arrest and imprisonment. I got three years, and after serving it, came abroad and joined Roddy Redmayne's gang, with whom I am at present connected." The career of the man before her was certainly a strangely adventurous one. He had not told her one tithe of the remarkable romance of his life. He had been a gentleman, and though now a jewel thief, he still adhered to the traditions of his family whenever a woman was concerned. He was acute, ingenious beyond degree, and a man of endless resource, yet he scorned to rob a woman who was poor. The Princess Claire, a quick reader of character, saw in him a man who was a criminal, not by choice, but by force of circumstance. He was now still suffering from that false step he had taken in imitating his brother officer's signature and raising money upon the bill. However she might view his actions, the truth remained that he had saved her from a terrible accident. "Yours has been an unfortunate career, Mr. Bourne," she remarked. "Can you not abandon this very perilous profession of yours? Is there no way by which you can leave your companions and lead an honest life?" When she spoke she made others feel how completely the purely natural and the purely ideal can blend into each other, yet she was a woman breathing thoughtful breath, walking in all her natural loveliness with a heart as frail-strung, as passion-touched, as ever fluttered in a female bosom. "Ah, Princess!" he cried earnestly, "I beg of you not to reproach me; willingly I would leave it all. I would welcome work and an honest life; but, alas! nowadays it is too late. Besides, who would take me in any position of trust, with my black record behind me? Nobody." And he shook his head. "In books one reads of reformed thieves, but there are none in real life. A thief, when once a thief, must remain so till the end of his days--of liberty." "But is it not a great sacrifice to your companions to give up my jewellery?" she asked in a soft, very kindly voice. "They, of course, recognise its great value?" "Yes," he smiled. "Roddy, our chief, is a good judge of stones--as good, probably, as the experts at Spink's or Streeter's. One has to be able to tell good stuff from rubbish when one deals in diamonds, as we do. Such a quantity of fake is worn now, and, as you may imagine, we don't care to risk stealing paste." "But how cleverly my bag was taken!" she said. "Who took it? He was an elderly man." "Roddy Redmayne," was Bourne's reply. "The man who, if your Highness will consent to meet him, will hand it back to you intact." "You knew, I suppose, that it contained jewels?" "We knew that it contained something of value. Roddy was advised of it by telegraph from Lucerne." "From Lucerne? Then one of your companions was there?" "Yes, at your hotel. An attempt was made to get it while you were on the platform awaiting the train for Paris, but you kept too close a watch. Therefore, Roddy received a telegram to meet you upon your arrival in Paris, and he met you." What he told her surprised her. She had been quite ignorant of any thief making an attempt to steal the bag at Lucerne, and she now saw how cleverly she had been watched and met. "And when am I to meet Mr. Redmayne?" she asked. "At any place and hour your Imperial Highness will appoint," was his reply. "But, of course, I need not add that you will first give your pledge of absolute secrecy--that you will say nothing to the police of the way your jewels have been returned to you." "I have already given my promise. Mr. Redmayne may rely upon my silence. Where shall we fix the meeting? Here?" "No, no," he laughed--"not in the hotel. There is an agent of police always about the hall. Indeed, I run great risk of being recognised, for I fear that the fact of your having reported your loss to the police at the station has set Monsieur Hamard and his friends to watch for us. You see, they unfortunately possess our photographs. No. It must be outside--say at some small, quiet cafe at ten o'clock to-night, if it will not disturb your Highness too much." "Disturb me?" she laughed. "I ought to be only too thankful to you both for restoring my jewels to me." "And we, on our part, are heartily ashamed of having stolen them from you. Well, let us say at the Cafe Vachette, a little place on the left-hand side of the Rue de Seine. You cross the Pont des Arts, and find it immediately; or better, take a cab. Remember, the Vachette, in the Rue de Seine, at ten o'clock. You will find us both sitting at one of the little tables outside, and perhaps your Highness will wear a thick veil, for a pretty woman in that quarter is so quickly noticed." She smiled at his final words, but promised to carry out his directions. Surely it was a situation unheard of--an escaped princess making a rendezvous with two expert thieves in order to receive back her own property. "Then we shall be there awaiting you," he said. "And now I fear that I've kept you far too long, Princess. Allow me to take my leave." She gave him her hand, and thanked him warmly, saying-- "Though your profession is a dishonourable one, Mr. Bourne, you have, nevertheless, proved to me that you are at heart still a gentleman." "I am gratified that your Imperial Highness should think so," he replied, and bowing, withdrew, and stepped out of the hotel by the restaurant entrance at the rear. He knew that the agent of police was idling in the hall that led out into the Rue St. Lazare, and he had no desire to run any further risk of detection, especially while that bag with its precious contents remained in the shabby upstairs room in the Rue Lafayette. Her Highness took little Ignatia and drove in a cab along the Avenue des Champs Elysees, almost unable to realise the amazing truth of what her mysterious rescuer of two years ago had revealed to her. She now saw plainly the reason he had left Treysa in secret. He was wanted by the police, and feared that they would recognise him by the photograph sent from the Prefecture in Paris. And now, on a second occasion, he was serving her against his own interests, and without any thought of reward! With little Ignatia prattling at her side, she drove along, her mind filled with that strange interview and the curious appointment that she had made for that evening. Later that day, after dining in the restaurant, she put Ignatia to bed and sat with her till nine o'clock, when, leaving her asleep, she put on a jacket, hat, and thick veil--the one she had worn when she escaped from the palace--and locking the door, went out. In the Rue St. Lazare she entered a cab and drove across the Pont des Arts, alighting at the corner of the Rue de Seine, that long, straight thoroughfare that leads up to the Arcade of the Luxembourg, and walked along on the left-hand side in search of the Cafe Vachette. At that hour the street was almost deserted, for the night was chilly, with a boisterous wind, and the small tables outside the several uninviting cafes and _brasseries_ were mostly deserted. Suddenly, however, as she approached a dingy little place where four tables stood out upon the pavement, two on either side of the doorway, a man's figure rose, and with hat in hand, came forward to meet her. She saw that it was Bourne, and with scarcely a word, allowed herself to be conducted to the table where an elderly, grey-haired man had risen to meet her. "This is Mr. Redmayne," explained Bourne, "if I may be permitted to present him to you." The Princess smiled behind her veil, and extended her hand. She recognised him in an instant as the gallant old gentleman in the bright red cravat, who, on pretence of assisting her to alight, had made off with her bag. She, an Imperial Archduchess, seated herself there between the pair of thieves. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. IN WHICH "THE MUTE" IS REVEALED. When, in order to save appearances, Bourne had ordered her a _bock_, Roddy Redmayne bent to her, and in a low whisper said,-- "I beg, Princess, that you will first accept my most humble apologies for what I did the other day. As to your Highness's secrecy, I place myself entirely in your hands." "I have already forgiven both Mr. Bourne and yourself," was her quiet answer, lifting her veil and sipping the _bock_, in order that her hidden face should not puzzle the waiter too much. "Your friend has told me that, finding certain letters in the bag, you discovered that it belonged to me." "Exactly, and we were all filled with regret," said the old thief. "We have heard from the newspapers of your flight from Treysa, owing to your domestic unhappiness, and we decided that it would be a coward's action to take a woman's jewels in such circumstances. Therefore we resolved to try and discover you and to hand them back intact." "I am very grateful," was her reply. "But is it not a considerable sacrifice on your part? Had you disposed of them you would surely have obtained a good round sum?" The man smiled. "We will not speak of sacrifice, your Highness," the old fellow said. "If you forgive us and accept back your property, it is all that we ask. I am ashamed, and yet at the same time gratified, that you, an Imperial Princess, should offer me your hand, knowing who and what I am." "Whatever you may be, Mr. Redmayne," she said, "you have shown yourself my friend." "And I am your friend; I'll stand your friend, Princess, in whatever service you may command me," declared the keen-eyed old man, who was acknowledged by the Continental police to be one of the cleverest criminals in the length and breadth of Europe. "We have discovered that you are alone here; but remember that you are not friendless. We are your friends, even though the world would call us by a very ugly name--a gang of thieves." "I can only thank you," she sighed. "You are extremely good to speak like this. It is true that misfortune has fallen upon me, and being friendless, it is reassuring to know that I have at least two persons in Paris ready to perform any service I require. Mr. Bourne once rendered me a very great service, but refused to accept any reward." And she added, laughing, "He has already explained the reason of his hurried departure from Treysa." "Our departures are often hurried ones, your Highness," he said. "Had we not discovered that the jewels were yours, we should in an hour have dispersed, one to England, one to Germany, and one to Amsterdam. But in order to discover you we remained here, and risked being recognised by the police, who know me, and are aware of my profession. To-morrow we leave Paris, for already Hamard's agents, suspecting me of the theft, are searching everywhere to discover me." "But you must not leave before I make you some reward," she said. "Where are the jewels?" "In that closed cab. Can you see it away yonder?" and he pointed to the lights of a vehicle standing some distance up the street. "Kinder, one of our friends, has it with him. Shall we get into the cab and drive away? Then I will restore the bag to you, and if I may advise your Highness, I would deposit it in the Credit Lyonnais to-morrow. It is not safe for a woman alone to carry about such articles of great value. There are certain people in Paris who would not hesitate to take your life for half the sum they represent." "Thank you for your advice, Mr. Redmayne," she said. "I will most certainly take it." "Will your Highness walk to the cab with me?" Bourne asked, after he had paid the waiter. "You are not afraid to trust yourself with us?" he added. "Not at all," she laughed. "Are you not my friends?" And she rose and walked along the street to where the cab was in waiting. Within the vehicle was a man whom he introduced to her as Mr. Kinder, and when all four were seated within, Bourne beside her and Redmayne opposite her, the elder man took the precious bag from Kinder's hand and gave it to her, saying,-- "We beg of your Highness to accept this, with our most humble apologies. You may open it and look within. You will not, I think, find anything missing," he added. She took the dressing-bag, and opening it, found within it the cheap leather bag she had brought from Treysa. A glance inside showed her that the jewels were still there, although there were so many that she, of course, did not count them. For a few moments she remained in silence; then thanking the two for their generosity, she said,-- "I cannot accept their return without giving you some reward, Mr. Redmayne. I am, unfortunately, without very much money, but I desire you to accept these--if they are really worth your acceptance," and taking from the bag a magnificent pair of diamond earrings she gave them into his hand. "You, no doubt, can turn them into money," she added. The old fellow, usually so cool and imperturbable, became at once confused. "Really, Princess," he declared, "we could not think of accepting these. You, perhaps, do not realise that they are worth at least seven hundred pounds." "No; I have no idea of their value. I only command you to accept them as a slight acknowledgment of my heartfelt gratitude." "But--" "There are no buts. Place them in your pocket, and say nothing further." A silence again fell between them, while the cab rolled along the asphalte of the boulevard. Suddenly Bourne said,-- "Princess, you cannot know what a weight of anxiety your generous gift has lifted off our minds. Roddy will not tell you, but it is right that you should know. The fact is that at this moment we are all three almost penniless--without the means of escape from Paris. The money we shall get for those diamonds will enable us to get away from here in safety." She turned and peered into his face, lit by the uncertain light of the street lamps. In his countenance she saw a deep, earnest look. "Then the truth is that without money to provide means of escape you have even sacrificed your chances of liberty, in order to return my jewels to me!" she exclaimed, for the first time realising the true position. He made no response; his silence was an affirmative. Kinder, who had spoken no word, sat looking at her, entirely absorbed by her grace and beauty. "Well," she exclaimed at last, "I wonder if you would all three do me another small favour?" "We shall be only too delighted," was Bourne's quick reply. "Only please understand, your Highness, that we accept these earrings out of pure necessity. If we were not so sorely in need of money, we should most certainly refuse." "Do not let us mention them again," she said quickly. "Listen. The fact is this. I have very little ready money, and do not wish at this moment to reveal my whereabouts by applying to my lawyers in Vienna or in Treysa. Therefore it will be best to sell some of my jewellery--say one thousand pounds' worth. Could you arrange this for me?" "Certainly," Roddy replied, "with the greatest pleasure. For that single row diamond necklet we could get from a thousand to twelve hundred pounds--if that amount is sufficient." She reopened the bag, and after searching in the fickle light shed by the street lamps she at length pulled out the necklet in question--one of the least valuable of the heap of jewels that had been restored to her in so curious and romantic a manner. The old jewel thief took it, weighed it in his hand, and examined it critically under the feeble light. He had already valued it on the day when he had secured it. It was worth in the market about four thousand pounds, but in the secret channel where he would sell it he would not obtain more than twelve hundred for it, as, whatever he said, the purchaser would still believe it to be stolen property, and would therefore have the stones recut and reset. "You might try Pere Perrin," Guy remarked. "It would be quicker to take it to him than to send it to Amsterdam or Leyden." "Or why not old Lestocard, in Brussels? He always gives decent prices, and is as safe as anybody," suggested Kinder. "Is time of great importance to your Highness?" asked the head of the association, speaking with his decidedly Cockney twang. "A week or ten days--not longer," she replied. "Then we will try Pere Perrin to-morrow, and let you know the result. Of course, I shall not tell him whose property it is. He will believe that we have obtained it in the ordinary way of our profession. Perrin is an old Jew who lives over at Batignolles, and who asks no questions. The stuff he buys goes to Russia or to Italy." "Very well. I leave it to you to do your best for me, Mr. Redmayne," was her reply. "I put my trust in you implicitly." "Your Imperial Highness is one of the few persons--beyond our own friends here--who do. To most people Roddy Redmayne is a man not to be trusted, even as far as you can see him!" and he grinned, adding, "But here we are at the Pont d'Austerlitz. Harry and I will descend, and you, Bourne, will accompany the Princess to her hotel." Then he shouted an order to the man to stop, and after again receiving her Highness's warmest thanks, the expert thief and his companion alighted, and, bowing to her, disappeared. When the cab moved on again towards the Place de la Bastille, she turned to the Englishman beside her, saying-- "I owe all this to you, Mr. Bourne, and I assure you I feel most deeply grateful. One day I hope I may be of some service to you, if," and she paused and looked at him--"well, if only to secure your withdrawal from a criminal life." "Ah, Princess," he sighed wistfully, "if I only could see my way clear to live honestly! But to do so requires money, money--and I have none. The gentlemanly dress which you see me wearing is only an imposture and a fraud--like all my life, alas! nowadays." She realised that this man, a gentleman by birth, was eager to extricate himself from the low position into which he had, by force of adverse circumstances, fallen. He was a cosmopolitan of cosmopolitans, a quiet, slow-speaking, slightly built, high-browed, genial-souled man, with his slight, dark moustache, shrewd dark eyes, and a mouth that had humour smiling at the corners; a man of middle height, his dark hair showing the first sign of changing early to grey, and a countenance bitten and scarred by all the winds and suns of the round globe; a wise and quiet man, able to keep his own counsel, able to get his own end with few words, and yet unable to shape his own destiny; a marvellous impostor, the friend of men and women of the _haut monde_, who all thought him a gentleman, and never for one instant suspected his true occupation. Such was the man who had once risked his life for hers, the man who had now returned her stolen jewels to her, and who was at that moment seated at her side escorting her to her hotel on terms of intimate friendship. She thought deeply over his bitter words of regret that he was what he was. Could she assist him, she wondered. But how? "Remain patient," she urged, in a calm, kindly tone. "I shall never forget my great indebtedness to you, and I will do my utmost in order that you may yet realise your wish to lead an honest life. At this moment I am, like yourself, an outcast, wondering what the future may have in store for me. But be patient and hope, for it shall be my most strenuous endeavour to assist you to realise your commendable desire." "Ah! really your Highness is far too kind," he answered, in a voice that seemed to her to falter in emotion. "I only hope that some way will open out to me. I would welcome any appointment, however menial, that took me out of my present shameful profession--that of a thief." "I really believe you," she said. "I can quite understand that it is against the nature of a man of honour to find himself in your position." "I assure you, Princess, that I hate myself," he declared in earnest confidence. "What greater humility can befall a man than to be compelled to admit that he is a thief--as I admitted to you this afternoon? I might have concealed the fact, it is true, and have returned the jewels anonymously; yet an explanation of the reason of my sudden flight from Treysa after all your kindness was surely due to you. And--well, I was forced to tell you the whole truth, and allow you to judge me as you will." "As I have already said, Mr. Bourne, your profession does not concern me. Many a man of note and of high position and power in the Ministries of Europe commits far greater peculations than you do, yet is regarded as a great man, and holds the favour of his sovereign until he commits the unpardonable sin of being found out. No, a man is not always what his profession is." "I thank you for regarding me in such a lenient light, your Highness, and I only look forward with hope to the day when, by some turn of Fortune's wheel, I gain the liberty to be honest," he answered. "Remember, Mr. Bourne, that I am your friend; and I hope you are still mine in return," she said, for the cab had now stopped at the corner of the Rue d'Amsterdam, as he had ordered it, for it was running unnecessary risk for him to drive with her up to the hotel. "Thank you, Princess," he said earnestly, raising his hat, his dark, serious eyes meeting hers. "Let us be mutual friends, and perhaps we can help each other. Who knows? When I lay in the hospital with my chest broken in I often used to wonder what you would say if you knew my real identity. You, an Imperial Princess, were sending flowers and fruit from the royal table to a criminal for whom half the police in Europe were in active search!" "Even an Imperial Princess is not devoid of gratitude," she said, when he was out upon the pavement and had closed the door of the cab. The vehicle moved forward to the hotel, and he was left there, bowing in silence before her, his hat in his hand. To the hall porter she gave the precious bag, with orders to send it at once to her room, and then turned to pay the cabman. But the man merely raised his white hat respectfully, saying,-- "Pardon, Madame, but I have already been paid." Therefore she gave him a couple of francs as tip. Then she ascended in the lift to her room, where a porter with the bag was awaiting her, and unlocking the door, found that little Ignatia, tired out by her afternoon drive, had not stirred. Locking the door and throwing off her things, she opened the bag and took out the magnificent ornaments one by one. She had not counted them before leaving the palace, therefore could not possibly tell if all were intact. In handfuls she took them out and laid them in a glittering heap upon the dressing-table, when of a sudden she found among them a small envelope containing something hard to the touch. This she opened eagerly, and took out a cheap, tiny little brooch, about half an inch long, representing a beetle, scarlet, with black spots--the innocent little insect which has so interested all of us back in our youthful days--a ladybird. The ornament was a very cheap one, costing one franc at the outside, but in the envelope with it was a letter. This she opened, scanned the few brief lines quickly, then re-read it very carefully, and stood staring at the little brooch in her hand, puzzled and mystified. The words written there revealed to her the existence of a secret. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THE LADYBIRD. The note enclosed with the cheap little brooch ran,-- "If your Imperial Highness will wear this always in a prominent position, so that it can be seen, she will receive the assistance of unknown friends." That was all. Yet it was surely a curious request, for her to wear that cheap little ornament. She turned it over in her hand, then placing it upon a black dress, saw how very prominently the scarlet insect showed. Then she replaced all the jewels in her bag and retired, full of reflections upon her meeting with the friendly thieves and her curious adventure. Next morning she took the bag to the Credit Lyonnais, as Roddy Redmayne had suggested, where it was sealed and a receipt for it was given her. After that she breathed more freely, for the recovery of her jewels now obviated the necessity of her applying either to her father or to Treysa. The little ladybird she wore, as old Roddy and his companions suggested, and at the bank and in the shops a number of people glanced at it curiously, without, of course, being aware that it was a secret symbol-- of what? Claire wondered. Both Roddy and Guy had told her that they feared to come to her at the Terminus, as a detective was always lurking in the hall; therefore she was not surprised to receive, about four o'clock, a note from Roddy asking her to meet him at the Vachette at nine. When Ignatia was asleep she took a cab to the dingy little place, where she found Roddy smoking alone at the same table set out upon the pavement, and joined him there. She shook hands with him, and then was compelled to sip the _bock_ he ordered. "We will go in a moment," he whispered, so that a man seated near should not overhear. "I thought it best to meet you here rather than risk your hotel. Our friend Bourne asked me to present his best compliments. He left this morning for London." "For London! Why?" "Because--well," he added, with a mysterious smile, "there were two agents of police taking an undue interest in him, you know." "Ah!" she laughed; "I understand perfectly." The old thief, who wore evening dress beneath his light black overcoat, smoked his cigar with an easy, nonchalant air. He passed with every one as an elderly Englishman of comfortable means; yet if one watched closely his quick eyes and the cunning look which sometimes showed in them, they would betray to the observer that he was a sly, ingenious old fellow--a perfect past master of his craft. Presently they rose, and after she had dismissed her cab, walked in company along the narrow street, at that hour almost deserted. "The reason I asked you here, your Highness, was to give you the proceeds of the necklet. I sold it to-day to old Perrin for twelve hundred and sixty pounds. A small price, but it was all he would give, as, of course, he believed that I could never have come by it honestly," and he grinned broadly, taking from his pocket an envelope bulky with French thousand-franc bank-notes and handing it to her. "I am really very much obliged," she answered, transferring the envelope to her pocket. "You have rendered me another very great service, Mr. Redmayne; for as a matter of fact I was almost at the end of my money, and to apply for any would have at once betrayed my whereabouts." "Ah, your Highness," replied the old thief, "you also have rendered me a service; for with what you gave us last night we shall be able to leave Paris at once. And it is highly necessary, I can tell you, if we are to retain our liberty." "Oh! then you also are leaving," she exclaimed, surprised, as they walked slowly side by side. She almost regretted, for he had acted with such friendliness towards her. "Yes; it is imperative. I go to Brussels, and Kinder to Ostend. Are you making a long stay here?" "To-morrow I too may go; but I don't know where." "Why not to London, Princess?" he suggested. "My daughter Leucha is there, and would be delighted to be of any service to you--act as your maid or nurse to the little Princess. She's a good girl, is Leucha." "Is she married?" asked her Highness. "No. I trained her, and she's as shrewd and clever a young woman as there is in all London. She's a lady's maid," he added, "and to tell you the truth--for you may as well know it at first as at last--she supplies us with much valuable information. She takes a place, for instance, in London or in the country, takes note of where her lady's jewels are kept, and if they are accessible, gives us all the details how best to secure them, and then, on ground of ill-health, or an afflicted mother, or some such excuse, she leaves. And after a week or two we just look in and see what we can pick up. So clever is she that never once has she been suspected," he added, with paternal pride. "Of course, it isn't a nice profession for a girl," he added apologetically, "and I'd like to see her doing something honest. Yet how can she? we couldn't get on without her." The Princess remained silent for a few moments. Surely her life now was a strange contrast to that at Treysa, mixing with criminals and becoming the confidante of their secrets! "I should like to meet your daughter," she remarked simply. "If your Imperial Highness would accept her services, I'm sure she might be of service to you. She's a perfect maid, all the ladies have said; and besides, she knows the world, and would protect you in your present dangerous and lonely position. You want a female companion--if your Highness will permit me to say so--and if you do not object to my Leucha on account of her profession, you are entirely welcome to her services, which to you will be faithful and honest, if nothing else." "You are very fond of her!" the Princess exclaimed. "Very, your Highness. She is my only child. My poor wife died when she was twelve, and ever since that she has been with us, living upon her wits--and living well too. To confess all this to you I am ashamed; yet now you know who and what I am, and you are our friend, it is only right that you should be made aware of everything," the old fellow said frankly. "Quite right. I admire you for telling me the truth. In a few days I shall cross to London, and shall be extremely glad of your daughter's services if you will kindly write to her." "When do you think of leaving?" "Well, probably the day after to-morrow, by the first service _via_ Calais." "Then Leucha shall meet that train on arrival at Charing Cross. She will be dressed as a maid, in black, with a black straw sailor hat and a white lace cravat. She will at once enter your service. The question of salary will not be discussed. You have assisted us, and it is our duty to help you in return, especially at this most perilous moment, when you are believed to have eloped with a lover." "I'm sure you are very, very kind, Mr. Redmayne," she declared. "Truth to tell, it is so very difficult for me to know in whom to trust; I have been betrayed so often. But I have every confidence in both you and your daughter; therefore I most gladly accept your offer, for, as you say, I am sadly in need of some one to look after the child--some one, indeed, in whom I can trust." An exalted charm seemed to invest her always. "Well, your Highness," exclaimed the pleasant-faced old fellow, "you have been kind and tolerant to us unfortunates, and I hope to prove to you that even a thief can show his gratitude." "You have already done so, Mr. Redmayne; and believe me, I am very much touched by all that you have done--your actions are those of an honest man, not those of an outlaw." "Don't let us discuss the past, your Highness," he said, somewhat confused by her kindly words; "let's think of the future--your own future, I mean. You can trust Leucha implicitly, and as the police, fortunately, have no suspicion of her, she will be perfectly free to serve you. Hitherto she has always obtained employment with an ulterior motive, but this fact, I hope, will not prejudice her in your eyes. I can only assure you that for her father's sake she will do anything, and that for his sake she will serve you both loyally and well." He halted beneath a street lamp, and tearing a leaf from a small notebook, wrote an address in Granville Gardens, Shepherd's Bush, which he gave to her, saying: "This is in case you miss her at Charing Cross. Send her a letter, and she will at once come to you." Again she thanked him, and they walked to the corner of the Boulevard Saint Germain, where they halted to part. "Remember, Princess, command me in any way," said the old man, raising his hat politely. "I am always at your service. I have not concealed anything from you. Take me as I am, your servant." "Thank you, Mr. Redmayne. I assure you I deeply appreciate and am much touched by your kindness to a defenceless woman. _Au revoir_." And giving him her hand again, she mounted into a fiacre and drove straight back to her hotel. Her friendship with this gang of adventurers was surely giving a curious turn to the current of strange events. She, a woman of imperial birth, had at last found friends, and among the class where one would hesitate to look for them--the outcasts of society! The more she reflected upon the situation, the more utterly bewildering it was to her. She was unused as a child to the ways of the world. Her life had always been spent within the narrow confines of the glittering Courts of Europe, and she had only known of "the people" vaguely. Every hour she now lived more deeply impressed her that "the people" possessed a great and loving heart for the ill-judged and the oppressed. At the hotel she counted the notes Roddy had given her, and found the sum that he had named. The calm, smiling old fellow was actually an honest thief! The following day she occupied herself in making some purchases, and in the evening a police agent called in order to inform her that up to the present nothing had been ascertained regarding her stolen jewels. They had knowledge of a gang of expert English jewel thieves being in Paris, and were endeavouring to discover them. The Princess heard what the man said, but, keeping her own counsel, thanked him for his endeavours and dismissed him. She congratulated herself that Roddy and his two associates were already out of France. On the following afternoon, about half-past four, when the Continental express drew slowly into Charing Cross Station, where a knot of eager persons as usual awaited its arrival, the Princess, leading little Ignatia and wearing the ladybird as a brooch, descended from a first-class compartment and looked about her in the bustling crowd of arrivals. A porter took her wraps and placed them in a four-wheeled cab for her, and then taking her baggage ticket said,-- "You'll meet me yonder at the Custom 'ouse, mum," leaving her standing by the cab, gazing around for the woman in black who was to be her maid. For fully ten minutes, while the baggage was being taken out of the train, she saw no one answering to Roddy's description of his daughter; but at last from out of the crowd came a tall, slim, dark-haired, rather handsome young woman, with black eyes and refined, regular features, neatly dressed in black, wearing a sailor hat, a white lace cravat, and black kid gloves. As she approached the Princess smiled at her; whereupon the girl, blushing in confusion, asked simply,-- "Is it the Crown Princess Claire? or am I mistaken?" "Yes. And you are Leucha Redmayne," answered her Highness, shaking hands with her, for from the first moment she became favourably impressed. "Oh, your Highness, I really hope I have not kept you waiting," she exclaimed concernedly. "But father's letter describing you was rather hurried and vague, and I've seen several ladies alone with little girls, though none of them seemed to be--well, not one of them seemed to be a Princess--only yourself. Besides, you are wearing the little ladybird." Her Highness smiled, explained that she was very friendly with her father, who had suggested that she should enter her service as maid, and expressed a hope that she was willing. "My father has entrusted to me a duty, Princess," was the dark-eyed girl's serious reply. "And I hope that you will not find me wanting in the fulfilment of it." And then they went together within the Customs barrier and claimed the baggage. The way in which she did this showed the Princess at once that Leucha Redmayne was a perfectly trained maid. How many ladies, she wondered, had lost their jewels after employing her? CHAPTER NINETEEN. LEUCHA MAKES CONFESSION. Leucha Redmayne was, as her father had declared, a very clever young woman. She was known as "the Ladybird" on account of her habit of flitting from place to place, constantly taking situations in likely families. Most of the ladies in whose service she had been had regretted when she left, and many of them actually offered her higher wages to remain. She was quick and neat, had taken lessons in hairdressing and dressmaking in Paris, could speak French fluently, and possessed that quiet, dignified demeanour so essential to the maid of an aristocratic woman. Her references were excellent. A well-known Duchess--whose jewels, however, had been too carefully guarded--and half a dozen other titled ladies testified to her honesty and good character, and also to their regret on account of her being compelled to leave their service; therefore, armed with such credentials, she never had difficulty in obtaining any situation that was vacant. So ingenious was she, and so cleverly did she contrive to make her excuses for leaving the service of her various mistresses, that nobody, not even the most astute officers from Scotland Yard, ever suspected her. The case of Lady Harefield's jewels, which readers of the present narrative of a royal scandal will well remember, was a typical one. Leucha, who saw in the _Morning Post_ that Lady Harefield wanted a maid to travel, applied, and at once obtained the situation. She soon discovered that her Ladyship possessed some extremely valuable diamonds; but they were in the bank at Derby, near which town the country place was situated. She accompanied her Ladyship to the Riviera for the season, and then returning to England found out that her mistress intended to go to Court upon a certain evening, and that she would have the diamonds brought up from Derby on the preceding day. His Lordship's secretary was to be sent for them. As soon as she obtained this information she was taken suddenly ill, and left Lady Harefield's service to go back to her fictitious home in the country. At once she called her father and Bourne, with the result that on the day in question, when Lord Harefield's secretary arrived at St. Pancras Station, the bag containing the jewels disappeared, and was never again seen. More than once too, she had, by pre-arrangement with her father, left her mistress's bedroom window open and the jewel-case unlocked while the family were dining, with the result that the precious ornaments had been mysteriously abstracted. Many a time, after taking a situation, and finding that her mistress's jewels were paste, she had calmly left at the end of the week, feigning to be ill-tempered and dissatisfied, and not troubling about wages. If there were no jewels she never remained. And wherever she chanced to be--in London, in the country, or up in Scotland--either one or other of her father's companions was generally lurking near to receive her secret communications. Hers had from childhood been a life full of strange adventures, of ingenious deceptions, and of clever subterfuge. So closely did she keep her own counsel that not a single friend was aware of her motive in so constantly changing her employment; indeed, the majority of them put it down to her own fickleness, and blamed her for not "settling down." Such was the woman whom the Crown Princess Claire had taken into her service. At the Savoy, where she took up a temporary abode under the title of Baroness Deitel of Frankfort, Leucha quickly exhibited her skill as lady's maid. Indeed, even Henriette was not so quick or deft as was this dark-eyed young woman who was the spy of a gang of thieves. While she dressed the Princess's hair, her Highness explained how her valuable jewels had been stolen, and how her father had so generously restored them to her. "Guy--Mr. Bourne, I mean--has already told me. He is back in London, and is lying low because of the police. They suspect him on account of a little affair up in Edinburgh about three months ago." "Where is he?" asked the Princess; "I would so like to see him." "He is living in secret over at Hammersmith. He dare not come here, I think." "But we might perhaps pay him a visit--eh?" From the manner in which the girl inadvertently referred to Bourne by his Christian name, her Highness suspected that they were fond of each other. But she said nothing, resolving to remain watchful and observe for herself. That same evening, after dinner, when Ignatia was sleeping, and they sat together in her Highness's room overlooking the dark Thames and the long lines of lights of the Embankment, "the Ladybird," at the Princess's invitation, related one or two of her adventures, confessing openly to the part she had played as her father's spy. She would certainly have said nothing had not her Highness declared that she was interested, and urged her to tell her something of her life. Though trained as an assistant to these men ever since she had left the cheap boarding-school at Weymouth, she hated herself for the despicable part she had played, and yet, as she had often told herself, it had been of sheer necessity. "Yes," she sighed, "I have had several narrow escapes of being suspected of the thefts. Once, when in Lady Milborne's service, down at Lyme Regis, I discovered that she kept the Milborne heirlooms, among which were some very fine old rubies--which are just now worth more than diamonds in the market--in a secret cupboard in the wall of her bedroom, behind an old family portrait. My father, with Guy, Kinder, and two others, were in the vicinity of the house ready to make the _coup_; and I arranged with them that on a certain evening, while her Ladyship was at dinner, I would put the best of the jewels into a wash-leather bag and lower them from the window to where Guy was to be in waiting for them in the park. He was to cut the string and disappear with the bag, while I would draw up the string and put it upon the fire. Her Ladyship seldom went to the secret cupboard, and some days might elapse before the theft was discovered. Well, on the evening in question I slipped up to the bedroom, obtained the rubies and let them out of the window. I felt the string being cut, and hauling it back again quickly burnt it, and then got away to another part of the house, hoping that her Ladyship would not go to her jewels for a day or two. In the meantime I dare not leave her service, or suspicion might fall upon me. Besides, the Honourable George, her eldest son--a fellow with a rather bad reputation for gambling and racing--was about to be married to the daughter of a wealthy landowner in the neighbourhood; a most excellent match for him, as the Milbornes had become poor owing to the depreciation in the value of land. "About two hours after I had let down the precious little bag I chanced to be looking out into the park from my own window, and saw a man in the public footway strike three matches in order to light his pipe--the signal that my friends wanted to speak to me. In surprise I slipped out, and there found Guy, who, to my utter amazement, told me that they had not received the bag; they had been forestalled by a tall man in evening dress who had emerged from the Hall, and who chanced to be walking up and down smoking when the bag dangled in front of him! Imagine my feelings! "Unfortunately I had not looked out, for fear of betraying myself; and as it was the exact hour appointed, I felt certain that my friend would be there. The presence of the man in evening dress, however, deterred them from emerging from the bushes, and they were compelled to remain concealed and watch my peril. The man looked up, and though the room was in darkness, he could see my white apron. Then in surprise he cut the string, and having opened the bag in the light, saw what it contained, placed it in his pocket, and re-entered the house. Guy described him, and I at once knew that it was the Honourable George, my mistress's son. He would no doubt denounce me as a thief. "I saw the extreme peril of the situation. I had acted clumsily in not first ascertaining that the way was clear. To fly at once was to condemn myself. I reflected for a moment, and then, resolving upon a desperate course of action, returned to the house, in spite of Bourne's counsel to get away as quickly as possible. I went straight to her Ladyship's room, but from the way she spoke to me saw that up to the present her son had told her nothing. This was fortunate for me. He was keeping the secret in order, no doubt, to call the police on the morrow and accuse me in their presence. I saw that the only way was to bluff him; therefore I went very carefully to work. "Just before midnight I slipped into his sitting-room, which adjoined his bedroom, and secreted myself behind the heavy plush curtains that were drawn; then when he was asleep I took the rubies from the drawer in which he had placed them, but in doing so the lock of the drawer clicked, and he awoke. He saw me, and sprang up, openly accusing me of theft. Whereupon I faced him boldly, declaring that if he did not keep his mouth closed I would alarm the household, who would find me alone in his room at that hour. He would then be compromised in the eyes of the woman whom in two days he was about to marry. Instantly he recognised that I held the whip-hand. He endeavoured, however, to argue; but I declared that if he did not allow me to have the rubies to replace in the cupboard and maintain silence, I would arouse the household. Then he laughed, saying, `You're a fool, Leucha. I'm very hard up, and you quite providentially lowered them down to me. I intend to raise money on them to-morrow.' `And to accuse me!' I said. `No, you don't. I shall put them back, and we will both remain silent. Both of us have much to lose--you a wife, and I my liberty. Why should either of us risk it? Is it really worth while?' This argument decided him. I replaced the jewels, and next day left Lady Milborne's service. "That was, however, one of the narrowest escapes I ever had, and it required all my courage to extricate myself, I can tell you." "So your plots were not always successful," remarked the Princess, smiling and looking at her wonderingly. She was surely a girl of great resource and ingenuity. "Not always, your Highness. One, which father had planned here a couple of months ago, and which was to be effected in Paris, has just failed in a peculiar way. The lady went to Paris, and, unknown to her husband, suddenly sold all her jewels _en masse_ in order to pay her debts at bridge." "She forestalled him!" "Exactly," laughed the girl. "But it was a curious _contretemps_, was it not?" Next day proved an eventful one to the Crown Princess, for soon after eleven o'clock, when with Leucha and Ignatia she went out of the hotel into the Strand, a man selling the _Evening News_ held a poster before her, bearing in large capitals the words:-- EVENING NEWS, FRIDAY, JUNE 26th. DEATH OF THE KING OF MARBURG. EVENING NEWS. She halted, staring at the words. Then she bought a newspaper, and opening it at once upon the pavement, amid the busy throng, learnt that the aged King had died suddenly at Treysa, on the previous evening, of senile decay. The news staggered her. Her husband had succeeded, and she was now Queen--a reigning sovereign! In the cruelly wronged woman there still remained all the fervour of youthful tenderness, all the romance of youthful fancy, all the enchantment of ideal grace--the bloom of beauty, the brightness of intellect, and the dignity of rank, taking the peculiar hue from the conjugal character which shed over all like a consecration and a holy charm. Thoughts of her husband, the man who had so cruelly ill-judged her, were in her recollections, acting on her mind with the force of a habitual feeling, heightened by enthusiastic passion, and hallowed by a sense of duty. Her duty to her husband and to her people was to return at once to Treysa. As she walked with Leucha towards Trafalgar Square she reflected deeply. How could she go back now that her enemies had so openly condemned her? No; she saw that for her own happiness it was far better that she still remain away from Court--the Court over which at last she now reigned as Queen. "My worst enemies will bow to me in adulation," she thought to herself. "They fear my retaliation, and if I went back I verily believe that I should show them no mercy. And yet, after all, it would be uncharitable. One should always repay evil with good. If I do not return, I shall not be tempted to revenge." That day she remained very silent and pensive, full of an acute sense of the injustice inflicted upon her. Her husband the King was no doubt trying to discover her whereabouts, but up to the present had been unsuccessful. The papers, which spoke of her almost daily, stated that it was believed she was still in Germany, at one or other of the quieter spas, on account of little Ignatia's health. In one journal she had read that she had been recognised in New York, and in another it was cruelly suggested that she was in hiding in Rome, so as to be near her lover Leitolf. The truth was that her enemies at Court were actually paying the more scurrilous of the Continental papers--those which will publish any libel for a hundred francs, and the present writer could name dozens of such rags on the Continent--to print all sorts of cruel, unfounded scandals concerning her. During the past few days she had scarcely taken up a single foreign paper without finding the heading, "The Great Court Scandal," and something outrageously against her; for her enemies, who had engaged as their secret agent a Jew money-lender, had started a bitter campaign against her, backed with the sum of a hundred thousand marks, placed by Hinckeldeym at the unscrupulous Hebrew's disposal with which to bribe the press. A little money can, alas! soon ruin a woman's good name, or, on the other hand, it can whitewash the blackest record. This plot against an innocent, defenceless woman was as brutal as any conceived by the ingenuity of a corrupt Court of office-seekers and sycophants, for at heart the King had loved his wife--until they had poisoned his mind against her and besmirched her good name. Of all this she was well aware, conscious of her own weakness as a woman. Yet she retained her woman's heart, for that was unalterable, and part of her being: but her looks, her language, her thoughts, even in those adverse circumstances, assumed the cast of the pure ideal; and to those who were in the secret of her humane and pitying nature, nothing could be more charming and consistent than the effect which she produced upon others. As the hot, fevered days went by, she recognised that it became hourly more necessary for her to leave London, and conceal her identity somewhere in the country. She noticed at the Savoy, whenever she dined or lunched with Leucha, people were noting her beauty and inquiring who she was. At any moment she might be recognised by some one who had visited the Court at Treysa, or by those annoying portraits that were now appearing everywhere in the illustrated journals. She decided to consult Guy Bourne, who, Leucha said, usually spent half his time in hiding. Therefore one evening, with "the Ladybird," she took a cab to a small semi-detached villa in Wolverton Gardens, off the Hammersmith Road, where she alighted and entered, in utter ignorance, unfortunately, that another hansom had followed her closely all the way from the Savoy, and that, pulling up in the Hammersmith Road, the fare, a tall, thin, middle-aged man, with a black overcoat concealing his evening dress, had alighted, walked quickly up the street, and noted the house wherein she and her maid had entered. The stranger muttered to himself some words in German, and with a smile of self-satisfaction lit a cigar and strolled back to the Hammersmith Road to wait. A fearful destiny had encompassed her. CHAPTER TWENTY. THE HERMIT OF HAMMERSMITH. Guy Bourne, in his shirt sleeves, was sitting back in a long cane lounge-chair in the little front parlour when the Princess and her companion entered. He had just finished his frugal supper. He jumped up confusedly, threw the evening paper aside, and apologised that her Highness had discovered him without a coat. "Please don't apologise, Mr. Bourne. This is rather an unusual hour for a visit, is it not? But pray forgive me," she said in English, with scarcely any trace of a German accent. "Your Highness is always welcome--at any hour," he laughed, struggling into his coat and ordering his landlady to clear away the remnants of the meal. "Leucha was here yesterday, and she told me how you were faring. I am sorry that circumstances over which I, unfortunately, have no control have not permitted my calling at the Savoy. At present I can only go out after midnight for a breath of air, and time passes rather slowly, I can assure you. As Leucha has probably told you, certain persons are making rather eager inquiries about me just now." "I understand perfectly," she laughed. "It was to obtain your advice as to the best way to efface myself that I came to see you this evening. Leucha tells me you are an expert in disappearing." "Well, Princess," he smiled, offering her a chair, "you see it's part of my profession to show myself as little as possible, though self-imprisonment is always very irksome. This house is one among many in London which afford accommodation for such as myself. The landlady is a person who knows how to keep her mouth shut, and who asks no questions. She is, as most of them are, the widow of a person who was a social outcast like myself." "And this is one of your harbours of refuge," her Highness exclaimed, looking around curiously upon the cheaply furnished but comfortable room. There was linoleum in lieu of carpet, and to the Londoner the cheap walnut overmantel and plush-covered drawing-room suite spoke mutely of the Tottenham Court Road and the "easy-payment" system. The Princess was shrewd enough to notice the looks which passed between Leucha and the man to whom she was so much indebted. She detected that a passion of love existed between them. Indeed, the girl had almost admitted as much to her, and had on several occasions begged to be allowed to visit him and ascertain whether he was in want of anything. It was an interesting and a unique study, she found, the affection between a pair of the criminal class. What would the world say had it known that she, a reigning Queen, was there upon a visit to a man wanted by the police for half a dozen of the most daring jewel robberies of the past half-century? She saw a box of cheap cigarettes upon the table, and begged one, saying,-- "I hope, Mr. Bourne, you will not be shocked, but I dearly love a cigarette. You will join me, of course?" "Most willingly, your Highness," he said, springing to his feet and holding the lighted match for her. She was so charmingly unconventional that people of lower station were always fascinated by her. "You know," she exclaimed, laughing, "I used to shock them very much at Court because I smoked. And sometimes," she added mischievously, "I smoked at certain functions in order purposely to shock the prudes. Oh, I've had the most delightful fun very often, I assure you. My husband, when we were first married, used to enter into the spirit of the thing, and once dared me to smoke a cigarette in the Throne Room in the presence of the King and Queen. I did so--and imagine the result!" "Ah!" he cried, "that reminds me. Pray pardon me for my breach of etiquette, but you have come upon me so very unexpectedly. I've seen in the _Mail_ the account of his Majesty's death, and that you are now Queen. In future I must call you `your Majesty.' You are a reigning sovereign, and I am a thief. A strange contrast, is it not?" "Better call me your friend, Mr. Bourne," she said, in a calm, changed voice. "Here is no place for titles. Recollect that I am now only an ordinary citizen, one of the people--a mere woman whose only desire is peace." Then continuing, she explained her daily fear lest she might be recognised at the Savoy, and asked his advice as to the best means of hiding herself. "Well, your Majesty," said the past master of deception, after some thought, "you see you are a foreigner, and as such will be remarked in England everywhere. You speak French like a _Parisienne_. Why not pass as French under a French name? I should suggest that you go to some small, quiet South Coast town--say to Worthing. Many French people go there as they cross from Dieppe. There are several good hotels; or you might, if you wished to be more private, obtain apartments." "Yes," she exclaimed excitedly; "apartments in an English house would be such great fun. I will go to this place Worthing. Is it nice?" "Quiet--with good sea air." "I was once at Hastings--when I was a child. Is it anything like that?" "Smaller, more select, and quieter." "Then I will go there to-morrow and call myself Madame Bernard," she said decisively. "Leucha will go with me in search of apartments." Having gained her freedom, she now wanted to see what an English middle-class house was like. She had heard much of English home life from Allen and from the English notabilities who had come to Court, and she desired to see it for herself. Hotel life is the same all the world over, and it already bored her. "Certainly. Your Majesty will be much quieter and far more comfortable in apartments, and passing as an ordinary member of the public," Leucha said. "I happen to know a very nice house where one can obtain furnished apartments. It faces the sea near the pier, and is kept by a Mrs. Blake, the widow of an Army surgeon. When I was in service with Lady Porthkerry we stayed there for a month." "Then we will most certainly go there; and perhaps you, Mr. Bourne, will find it possible to take the sea air at Worthing instead of being cooped up here. You might come down by a night train--that is, if you know a place where you would be safe." He shook his head dubiously. "I know a place in Brighton--where I've stayed several times. It is not far from Worthing, certainly. But we will see afterwards. Does your Majesty intend to leave London to-morrow?" "Yes; but please not `your Majesty,'" she said, in mild reproach, and with a sweet smile. "Remember, I am in future plain Madame Bernard, of Bordeaux, shall we say? The landlady--as I think you call her in English--must not know who I am, or there will soon be paragraphs in the papers, and those seaside snap-shotters will be busy. I should quickly find myself upon picture postcards, as I've done, to my annoyance, on several previous occasions when I've wanted to be quiet and remain incognito." And so it was arranged that she should establish herself at Mrs. Blake's, in Worthing, which she did about six o'clock on the following evening. The rooms, she found, were rather frowzy, as are those of most seaside lodgings, the furniture early Victorian, and on the marble-topped whatnot was that ornament in which our grandmothers so delighted--a case of stuffed birds beneath a glass dome. The two windows of the first-floor sitting-room opened out upon a balcony before which was the promenade and the sea beyond--one of the best positions in Worthing, without a doubt. Mrs. Blake recognised Leucha at once, terms were quickly fixed, and the maid--as is usual in such cases--received a small commission for bringing her mistress there. When they were duly installed, Leucha, in confidence, told the inquisitive landlady that her mistress was one of the old French aristocracy, while at the same moment "Madame" was sitting out upon the balcony watching the sun disappear into the grey waters of the Channel. In the promenade a few people were still passing up and down, the majority having gone in to dinner. But among them was one man, who, though unnoticed, lounged past and glanced upward--the tall, thin, grey-haired man who had on the previous night watched her enter the house in Hammersmith. He wore a light grey suit, and presented the appearance of an idler from London, like most of the other promenaders, yet the quick, crafty look he darted in her direction was distinctly an evil one. Yet in ignorance she sat there, in full view of him, enjoying the calm sundown, her eyes turned pensively away into the grey, distant haze of the coming night. Her thoughts were away there, across the sea. She wondered how her husband fared, now that he was King. Did he ever think of her save with angry recollections; or did he ever experience that remorse that sooner or later must come to every man who wrongs a faithful woman? That morning, before leaving the Savoy, she had received two letters, forwarded to her in secret from Brussels. One was from Treysa, and the other bore the postmark "Roma." The letter from Treysa had been written by Steinbach three days after the King's death. It was on plain paper, and without a signature. But she knew his handwriting well. It ran:-- "Your Majesty will have heard the news, no doubt, through the newspapers. Two days ago our King George was, after luncheon, walking on the terrace with General Scheibe, when he was suddenly seized by paralysis. He cried, `I am dying, Scheibe. Help me indoors!' and fell to the ground. He was carried into the palace, where he lingered until nine o'clock in the evening, and then, in spite of all the physicians could do, he expired. The Crown Prince was immediately proclaimed Sovereign, and at this moment I have just returned from the funeral, whereat the greatest pomp has been displayed. All the Sovereigns of Europe were represented, and your Majesty's absence from Court was much remarked and commented upon. The general opinion is that you will return--that your difference with the King will now be settled; and I am glad to tell you that those who were your Majesty's bitterest enemies a week ago are now modifying their views, possibly because they fear what may happen to them if you really do return. At this moment the Court is divided into two sets--those who hope that you will take your place as Queen, and those who are still exerting every effort to prevent it. The latter are still crying out that you left Treysa in company with Count Leitolf, and urging his Majesty to sue for a divorce--especially now that the Emperor of Austria has degraded you by withdrawing your Imperial privileges and your right to bear the Imperial arms of Austria, and by decree striking you off the roll of the Dames de la Croix Etoilee. From what I have gathered, a spy of Hinckeldeym's must have followed your Majesty to Vienna and seen you meet the Count. At present, however, although every effort is being made to find you, the secret agents have, it is said, been unsuccessful. I have heard that you are in Italy, to be near Leitolf; evidently a report spread by Hinckeldeym and his friends. "The people are clamouring loudly for you. They demand that `their Claire' shall be brought back to them as Queen. Great demonstrations have been made in the Dom Platz, and inflammatory speeches have been delivered against Hinckeldeym, who is denounced as your arch-enemy. The mob on two occasions assumed an attitude so threatening that it had to be dispelled by the police. The situation is serious for the Government, inasmuch as the Socialists have resolved to champion your cause, and declare that when the time is ripe they will expose the plots of your enemies, and cause Hinckeldeym's downfall. "I am in a position to know that this is no mere idle talk. One of the spies has betrayed his employers; hence the whole Court is trembling. What will the King do? we are all asking. On the one hand the people declare you are innocent and ill-judged, while on the other the Court still declares with dastardly motive that your friendship with Leitolf was more than platonic. And, unfortunately, his Majesty believes the latter. "My own opinion is that your Majesty's best course is still to remain in concealment. A squadron of spies have been sent to the various capitals, and photographs are being purposely published in the illustrated press in order that you may be identified. I hope, however, that just at present you will not be discovered, for if so I fear that in order to stem the Socialistic wave even your friends must appear to be against you. Your Majesty knows too well the thousand and one intrigues which form the undercurrent of life at our Court, and my suggestion is based upon what I have been able to gather in various quarters. All tends to show that the King, now that he has taken the reins of government, is keenly alive to his responsibility towards the nation. His first speech, delivered to-day, has shown it. He appears to be a changed man, and I can only hope and pray that he has become changed towards yourself. "If you are in Paris or in London, beware of secret agents, for both capitals swarm with them. Remain silent, patient and watchful; but, above all, be very careful not to allow your enemies any further food for gossip. If they start another scandal at this moment, it would be fatal to all your Majesty's interests; for I fear that even the people, faithful to your cause up to the present, would then turn against you. In conclusion, I beg to assure your Majesty of my loyalty, and that what ever there is to report in confidence I will do so instantly through this present channel. I would also humbly express a hope that both your Majesty and the Princess Ignatia are in perfect health." The second letter--the one bearing the Rome postmark--was headed, "Imperial Embassy of Austria-Hungary, Palazzo Chigi," and was signed "Carl." CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. LOVE AND "THE LADYBIRD." Re-entering the room she found herself alone, Leucha having gone downstairs into the garden to walk with Ignatia. Therefore she drew the letter from her pocket and re-read it. "Dearest Heart," he wrote,--"To-night the journals in Rome are publishing the news of the King's death, and I write to you as your Majesty--my Queen. You are my dear heart no longer, but my Sovereign. Our enemies have again libelled us. I have heard it all. They say that we left Treysa in company, and that I am your lover; foul lies, because they fear your power. The _Tribuna_ and the _Messagero_ have declared that the King contemplates a divorce; yet surely you will defend yourself. You will not allow these cringing place-seekers to triumph, when you are entirely pure and innocent? Ah, if his Majesty could only be convinced of the truth--if he could only see that our friendship is platonic; that since the clay of your marriage no word of love has ever been spoken between us! You are my friend--still my little friend of those old days at dear old Wartenstein. I am exiled here to a Court that is brilliant though torn by internal intrigue, like your own. Yet my innermost thoughts are ever of you, and I wonder where you are and how you fare. The spies of Hinckeldeym have, I hope, not discovered you. Remember, it is to that man's interest that you should remain an outcast. "Cannot you let me know, by secret means, your whereabouts? One word to the Embassy, and I shall understand. I am anxious for your sake. I want to see you back again at Treysa with the scandalous Court swept clean, and with honesty and uprightness ruling in place of bribery and base intrigue. Do not, I beg of you, forget your duty to your people and to the State. By the King's death the situation has entirely changed. You are Queen, and with a word may sweep your enemies from your path like flies. Return, assert your power, show them that you are not afraid, and show the King that your place is at his side. This is my urgent advice to you as your friend--your oldest friend. "I am sad and even thoughtful as to your future. Somehow I cannot help thinking that wherever you are you must be in grave peril of new scandals and fresh plots, because your enemies are so utterly unscrupulous. Rome is as Rome is always--full of foreigners, and the Corso bright with movement. But the end of the season has come. The Court moves to Racconigi, and we go, I believe, to Camaldoli, or some other unearthly hole in the mountains, to escape the fever. I shall, however, expect a single line at the Embassy to say that my Sovereign has received my letter. I pray ever for your happiness. Be brave still, and may God protect you, dear heart.--Carl." Tears sprang to her beautiful eyes as she read the letter of the man who was assuredly her greatest friend--the man whom the cruel world so erroneously declared to be her lover. The red afterglow from over the sea streamed into the room as she sat with her eyes fixed away on the distant horizon, beyond which lay the wealthy, picturesque kingdom over which she was queen. Leucha entered, and saw that she was _triste_ and thoughtful, but, like a well-trained maid, said nothing. Little Ignatia was already asleep after the journey, and dinner would be served in half an hour. "I hope Madame will like Worthing," the maid remarked presently, for want of something else to say. She had dropped the title of Majesty, and now addressed her mistress as plain "Madame." "Delightful--as far as I have seen," was the reply. "More rural than Hastings, it appears. To-morrow I shall walk on the pier, for I've heard that it is the correct thing to do at an English watering-place. You go in the morning and after dinner, don't you?" "Yes, Madame." "Mr. Bourne did well to suggest this place. I don't think we shall ever be discovered here." "I hope not," was Leucha's fervent reply. "Yet what would the world really say, I wonder, if it knew that you were in hiding here?" "It would say something against me, no doubt--as it always does," she answered, in a hard voice; and then she recollected Steinbach's serious warning. Dinner came at last, the usual big English joint and vegetables, laid in that same room. The housemaid, in well-starched cap, cuffs, and apron, was a typical seaside domestic, who had no great love for foreigners, because they were seldom lavish in the manner of tips. An English servant, no matter of what grade, reflects the same askance at the foreigner as her master exhibits. She regards all "forriners" as undesirables. "Madame" endeavoured to engage the girl in conversation, but found her very loath to utter a word. Her name was Richards, she informed the guest, and she was a native of Thrapston, in Northamptonshire. The bright, sunny days that followed Claire found most delightful. Leucha took little Ignatia down to the sea each morning, and in the afternoon, while the child slept, accompanied her mistress upon long walks, either along the sea-road or through the quiet Sussex lanes inland, now bright in the spring green. The so-called season at Worthing had not, of course, commenced; yet there were quite a number of people, including the "week-enders" from London, the people who came down from town "at reduced fares," as the railway company ingeniously puts it--an expression more genteel than "excursion." She hired a trap, and drove with Leucha to Steyning, Littlehampton, Shoreham, those pretty lanes about Amberley, and the quaint old town of Arundel, all of which highly interested her. She loved a country life, and was never so happy as when riding or driving, enjoying the complete freedom that now, for the first time in her life, was hers. Weeks crept by. Spring lengthened into summer, and Madame Bernard still remained in Worthing, which every day became fuller of visitors, mostly people from London, who came down for a fortnight or three weeks to spend their summer holiday. And with Leucha she became more friendly, and grew very fond of her. She had written to Leitolf the single line of acknowledgment, and sent it to the Austrian Embassy in Rome, enclosing it in the official envelope which he had sent her, in order to avoid suspicion. To Steinbach too she had written, urging him to keep her well informed regarding the undercurrent of events at Court. In reply he had sent her other reports which showed most plainly that, even though the King might be contemplating an adjustment of their differences in order that she might take her place as Queen, her enemies were still actively at work in secret to complete her ruin. Up to the present, however, the spies of Hinckeldeym had entirely failed to trace her, and their cruel story that she was in Rome had on investigation turned out to be incorrect. Her enemies were thus discomfited. In the London papers she read telegrams from Treysa--no doubt inspired by her enemies--which stated that the King had already applied to the Ministry of Justice for a divorce, and that the trial was to be heard _in camera_ in the course of a few weeks. Should she now reveal her whereabouts? Should she communicate with her husband and deny the scandalous charges before it became too late? By her husband's accession her position had been very materially altered. Her duty to the country of her adoption was to be at her husband's side, and assist him as ruler. Not that she regretted for one single instant leaving Treysa. She had not the slightest desire to re-enter that seething world of intrigue; it was only the call of duty which caused her to contemplate it. At heart, indeed, if the truth were told, she still retained a good deal of affection for the man who had treated her so brutally. When her mind wandered back to the early days of her married life and the sweetness of her former love, she recollected that he possessed many good traits of character, and felt convinced that only the bitterness of her enemies had aroused the demon jealousy within him and made him what he had now become. If she were really able to clear herself of the stigma now upon her, there might, after all, be a reconciliation--if not for her own sake, then for the sake of the little Princess Ignatia. These were the vague thoughts constantly in her mind during those warm days which passed so quietly and pleasantly before the summer sea. Ignatia was often very inquisitive. She asked her mother why they were there, and begged that Allen might come back. From Leucha she was learning to speak English, but with that Cockney twang which was amusing, for the child, of course, imitated the maid's intonation and expression. One calm evening, when Ignatia had gone to bed and they were sitting together in the twilight upon a seat before the softly-lapping waves up at the west end of the town, Leucha said,-- "To-day I heard from father. He is in Stockholm, and apparently in funds. He arrived in Sweden from Hamburg on the day of writing, and says he hopes in a few days to visit us here." Claire guessed by what means Roddy Redmayne had replenished his funds, but made no remark save to express pleasure at his forthcoming visit. From Stockholm to Worthing was a rather far cry, but with Roddy distance was no object. He had crossed the Atlantic a dozen times, and was, indeed, ever on the move up and down Europe. "Guy has also left London," "the Ladybird" said. "He is in Brighton, and would like to run over and call--if Madame will permit it." "To call on you--eh, Leucha?" her royal mistress suggested, with a kindly smile. "Now tell me quite truthfully. You love him, do you not?" The girl flushed deeply. "I--I love him!" she faltered. "Whatever made you suspect that?" "Well, you know, Leucha, when one loves one cannot conceal it, however careful one may be. There is an indescribable look which always betrays both man and woman. Therefore you may as well confess the truth to me." She was silent for a few moments. "I do confess it," she faltered at last, with downcast eyes. "We love each other very fondly; but, alas, ours is a dream that can never be realised! Marriage and happiness are not for such as we," she added, with a bitter sigh. "Because you have not the means by which to live honestly?" Claire replied, in a voice of deep, heartfelt sympathy, for she had become much attached to the girl. "That is exactly the difficulty, madame," was the lady's maid's reply. "Both Guy and myself hate this life of constant scheming and of perpetual fear of discovery and arrest. He is a thief by compulsion, and I an assistant because I--well, I suppose I was trained to it so early that espionage and investigation come to me almost as second nature." "And yet you can work--and work extremely well," remarked her royal mistress, with a woman's tenderness of heart. "I have had many maids from time to time, in Vienna and at Treysa, but I tell you quite openly that you are the handiest and neatest of them all. It is a pity--a thousand pities--that you lead the life of an adventuress, for some day, sooner or later, you must fall into the hands of the police, and after that--ruin." "I know," sighed the girl; "I know--only too well. Yet what can I do? Both Guy and I are forced to lead this life because we are without means. And again, I am very unworthy of him," she added, in a low, despondent tone. "Guy is, after all, a gentleman by birth; while I, `the Ladybird' as they call me, am merely the daughter of a thief." "And yet, Leucha, you are strangely unlike other women who are adventuresses. You love this man both honestly and well, and he is assuredly one worthy a woman's love, and would, under other circumstances, make you a most excellent husband." "If we were not outlaws of society," she said. "But as matters are it is quite hopeless. When one becomes a criminal, one must, unfortunately, remain a criminal to the end. Guy would willingly cut himself away from my father and the others if it were at all possible. Yet it is not. How can a man live and keep up appearances when utterly without means?" "Remain patient, Leucha," Claire said reassuringly. "One day you may be able to extricate yourselves--both of you. Who knows?" But the girl with the dark eyes shook her head sadly, and spoke but little on their walk back to the house. "Ah, Leucha," sighed the pale, thoughtful woman whom the world so misjudged, "we all of us have our sorrows, some more bitter than others. You are unhappy because you are an outlaw, while I am unhappy because I am a queen! Our stations are widely different; and yet, after all, our burden of sorrow is the same." "I know all that you suffer, madame, though you are silent," exclaimed the girl, with quick sympathy. "I have never referred to it, because you might think my interference impertinent. Yet I assure you that I reflect upon your position daily, hourly, and wonder what we can do to help you." "You have done all that can be done," was the calm, kind response. "Without you I should have been quite lost here in England. Rest assured that I shall never forget the kindnesses shown by all of you, even though you are what you are." She longed to see the pair man and wife, and honest; yet how could she assist them? Next evening, Guy Bourne, well-dressed in a grey flannel suit and straw hat, and presenting the appearance of a well-to-do City man on holiday, called upon her, and was shown up by the servant. The welcome he received from both mistress and maid was a warm one, and as soon as the door was closed he explained,-- "I managed to get away from London, even though I saw a detective I knew on the platform at London Bridge. Very fortunately he didn't recognise me. I've found a safe hiding-place in Brighton, in a small public-house at the top of North Street, where lodgers of our peculiar class are taken in. Roddy is due to arrive at Hull to-day. With Harry and two others, he appears to have made a fine haul in Hamburg, and we are all in funds again, for which we should be truly thankful." "To whom did the stuff belong?" Leucha inquired. "To that German Baroness in whose service you were about eight months ago--Ackermann, wasn't the name? You recollect, you went over to Hamburg with her and took observation." "Yes, I remember," answered "the Ladybird" mechanically; and her head dropped in shame. Little Ignatia came forward, and in her sweet, childish way made friends with the visitor, and later, leaving Leucha to put the child to bed, "Madame Bernard" invited Guy to stroll with her along the promenade. She wished to speak with him alone. The night was bright, balmy, and starlit, the coloured lights on the pier giving a pretty effect to the picture, and there were a good many promenaders. At first she spoke to him about Roddy and about his own dull, cheerless life now that he was in such close hiding. Then, presently, when they gained the seat where she had sat with "the Ladybird" on the previous evening, she suddenly turned to him, saying,-- "Mr. Bourne, Leucha has told me the truth--that you love each other. Now I fully recognise the tragedy of it all, and the more so because I know it is the earnest desire of both of you to lead an honest, upright life. The world misjudges most of us. You are an outlaw and yet still a gentleman, while she, though born of criminal parents, yet has a heart of gold." "Yes, that she has," he asserted quickly. "I love her very deeply. To you I do not deny it--indeed, why should I? I know that we both possess your Majesty's sympathy." And he looked into her splendid eyes in deep earnestness. "You do. And more. I urge you not to be despondent, either of you. Endeavour always to cheer her up. One day a means will surely be opened for you both to break these hateful trammels that bind you to this unsafe life of fraud and deception, and unite in happiness as man and wife. Remember, I owe you both a deep debt of gratitude; and one day, I hope, I may be in a position to repay it, so that at least two loving hearts may be united." Though crushed herself, her great, generous heart caused her to seek to assist others. "Ah, your Majesty!" he cried, his voice trembling with emotion as, springing up, he took her hand, raising it reverently to his lips. "How can I thank you sufficiently for those kind, generous words--for that promise?" "Ah!" she sighed, "I myself, though my position may be different to your own, nevertheless know what it is to love, and, alas! know the acute bitterness of the want of love." Then a silence fell between them. He had reseated himself, his manly heart too full for words. He knew well that this woman, whose unhappiness was even tenfold greater than his own, was his firm and noble friend. The world spoke ill of her, and yet she was so upright, so sweet, so true. And while they sat there--he, a thief, still holding the soft white hand that he had kissed with such reverence--a pair of shrewdly evil eyes were watching them out of the darkness and observing everything. At midnight, when he returned to Brighton, the secret watcher, a hard-faced, thin-nosed woman, slight, narrow-waisted, rather elegantly dressed in deep mourning, travelled by the same train, and watched him to his hiding-place; and having done so, she strolled leisurely down to the King's Road, where, upon the deserted promenade, she met a bent, wizened-faced, little old man, who was awaiting her. With him she walked up and down until nearly one o'clock in the morning, engaged in earnest conversation, sometimes accompanied by quick gesticulation. And they both laughed quietly together, the old man now and then shrugging his shoulders. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. SHOWS HINCKELDEYM'S TACTICS. Five weeks later. A hot summer's night in Treysa. It was past midnight, yet before the gay, garish cafes people still lingered at the little tables, enjoying to the full the cool breeze after the heat and burden of the day, or strolled beneath the lime avenues in the Klosterstrasse, gossiping or smoking, all loth to retire. In the great palace beyond the trees at the end of the vista the State dinner had ended, and the lonely King, glad to escape to the privacy of his own workroom in the farther wing of the palace, had cast himself into a long lounge-chair and selected a cigar. He was still in his military uniform, rendered the more striking by the many glittering orders across his breast--the Golden Fleece, the Black Eagle, the Saint Hubert, the Saint Andrew, and the rest. As he lit his cigar very slowly his face assumed a heavy, thoughtful look, entirely different from the mask of careless good-humour which he had worn at the brilliant function he had just left. The reception had not ended; it would continue for a couple of hours longer. But he was tired and bored to death of it all, and the responsibility as ruler already weighed very heavily upon him. Though he made no mention of it to a single soul, he thought of his absent wife often--very often. Now and then a pang of remorse would cause him to knit his brows. Perhaps, after all, he had not treated her quite justly. And yet, he would reassure himself, she was surely not as innocent as she pretended. No, no; she was worthless. They were therefore better apart--far better. Since his accession he had, on several occasions, been conscience-stricken. Once, in the empty nursery, he had noticed little Ignatia's toys, her dolls and perambulator, lying where the child had left them, and tears had sprung to his eyes. Allen, the kindly Englishwoman, too, had been to him and resigned her appointment, as she had no further duties to perform. The Crown Princess's disappearance had at first been a nine-days' wonder in Treysa, but now her continued absence was regarded with but little surprise. The greatest scandal in the world dies down like grass in autumn. Those who had conspired against her congratulated themselves that they had triumphed, and were now busy starting fresh intrigues against the young Queen's partisans. Since the hour that his sweet-faced wife had left the palace in secret, the King had received no word from her. He had learned from Vienna that she had been to Wartenstein, and that her father had cast her out; but after that she had disappeared--to Rome he had been told. As Crown Prince he had had his liberty, but now as King he lived apart, and was unapproachable. His was a lonely life. The duties of kingship had sobered him, and now he saw full well the lack of a clever consort as his wife was--a queen who could rule the Court. Those about him believed him to be blind to their defects and their intrigues, because he was silent concerning them. Yet, if the truth were told, he was extremely wideawake, and saw with regret how, without the Queen's aid, he must fall beneath the influence of those who were seeking place and power, to the distinct detriment of the nation. Serious thoughts such as these were consuming him as he sat watching the smoke rings ascend to the dark-panelled ceiling. "Where is she, I wonder?" he asked himself aloud, his voice sighing through the room. "She has never reproached me--never. I wonder if all they have told me concerning her is really true." As he uttered these words of suspicion his jaws became firmly set, and a hardness showed at the corners of his mouth. "Ah, yes!" he added. "It is, alas! only too true--too true. Hinckeldeym would never dare to lie to me!" And he sat with his serious eyes cast upon the floor, reflecting gloomily upon the past, as he now so very often reflected. The room was luxurious in its appointments, for since his father's death he had had it redecorated and refurnished. The stern old monarch had liked a plain, severe, business-like room in which to attend to the details of State, but his son held modern ideas, and loved to surround himself with artistic things, hence the white-and-gold decorations, the electric-light fittings, the furniture and the pale green upholstery were all in the style of the _art nouveau_, and had the effect of exquisite taste. A tiny clock ticked softly upon the big, littered writing-table, and from without, in the marble corridor, the slow, even tread of the sentry reached his ear. Suddenly, while he was smoking and thinking, a low rap was heard; and giving permission to enter, he looked round, and saw Hinckeldeym, who, in Court dress, bowed and advanced, with his cocked hat tucked beneath his arm, saying,-- "I regret, sire, to crave audience at this hour, but it is upon a matter both imperative and confidential." "Then shut the inner door," his Majesty said in a hard voice, and the flabby-faced old fellow closed the second door that was placed there as precaution against eavesdroppers. "Well?" asked the King, turning to him in some surprise that he should be disturbed at that hour. "After your Majesty left the Throne Room I was called out to receive an urgent dispatch that had just arrived by Imperial courier from Vienna. This dispatch," and he drew it from his pocket, "shows most plainly that his Majesty the Emperor is seriously annoyed at your Majesty's laxness and hesitation to apply for a divorce. Yesterday he called our Ambassador and remarked that although he had degraded the Princess, taken from her all her titles, her decorations, and her privileges, yet you, her husband, had done absolutely nothing. I crave your Majesty's pardon for being compelled to speak so plainly," added the wily old fellow, watching the disturbing effect his words had upon his Sovereign. "That is all very well," he answered, in a mechanical voice. "The Emperor's surprise and annoyance are quite natural. I have been awaiting your reports, Hinckeldeym. Before my wife's disappearance you seemed to be particularly well-informed--through De Trauttenberg, I suppose--of all her movements and her intentions. Yet since she left you have been content to remain in utter ignorance." "Not in entire ignorance, sire. Did I not report to you that she went to Vienna in the man's company?" "And where is the man at the present moment?" "At Camaldoli, a health resort in central Italy. The Ambassador and several of the staff are spending the summer up there." "Well, what else do you know?" the King asked, fixing his eyes upon the crafty old scoundrel who was the greatest power in the Kingdom. "Can you tell me where my wife is--that's the question? I don't think much of your secret service which costs the country so much, if you cannot tell me that," he said frankly. "Yes, your Majesty, I can tell you that, and very much more," the old fellow answered, quite unperturbed. "The truth is that I have known where she has been for a long time past, and a great deal has been discovered. Yet, for your Majesty's peace of mind, I have not mentioned so painful a subject. Had I not exerted every effort to follow the Princess I should surely have been wanting in my duties as Minister." "Then where is she?" he asked quickly, rising from his chair. "In England--at a small watering-place on the South Coast, called Worthing." "Well--and what else?" Heinrich Hinckeldeym made no reply for a few moments, as though hesitating to tell his royal master all that he knew. Then at last he said, with that wily insinuation by which he had already ruined the poor Princess's reputation and good name,-- "The rest will, I think, best be furnished to the counsel who appears on your Majesty's behalf to apply for a divorce." "Ah!" he sighed sadly. "Is it so grave as that? Well, Hinckeldeym, you may tell me everything, only recollect I must have proof--proof. You understand?" he added hoarsely. "Hitherto I have always endeavoured to give your Majesty proof, and on certain occasions you have complimented me upon my success in discovering the secrets of the pair," he answered. "I know I have, but I must have more proof now. There must be no surmises--but hard, solid facts, you understand! In those days I was only Crown Prince. To-day I am King, and my wife is Queen--whatever may be her faults." The old Minister was considerably taken aback by this sudden refusal on his royal master's part to accept every word of his as truth. Yet outwardly he exhibited no sign of annoyance or of disappointment. He was a perfect diplomatist. "If your Majesty will deign to give them audience, I will, within half an hour, bring here the two secret service agents who have been to England, and they shall tell you with their own lips what they have discovered." "Yes, do so," the King exclaimed anxiously. "Let them tell me the whole truth. They will be discreet, of course, and not divulge to the people that I have given them audience--eh?" "They are two of the best agents your Majesty possesses. If I may be permitted, I will go at once and send for them." And walking backwards, he bowed, and left the room. Three-quarters of an hour later he returned, bringing with him a middle-aged, thin-faced woman, rather tall and thin, dressed plainly in black, and a tall, grey-haired, and rather gentlemanly looking man, whom he introduced to their Sovereign, who was standing with his back to the writing-table. The woman's name was Rose Reinherz and the man's Otto Stieger. The King surveyed both of them critically. He had never seen any member of his secret service in the flesh before, and was interested in them and in their doings. "The Minister Hinckeldeym tells me," he said, addressing Stieger, "that you are both members of our secret service, and that you have returned from England. I wish to hear your report from your own lips. Tell me exactly what you have discovered without any fear of giving me personal offence. I want to hear the whole truth, remember, however disagreeable it may be." "Yes," added the evil-eyed old Minister. "Tell his Majesty all that you have discovered regarding the lady, who for the present purposes may remain nameless." The spy hesitated for a moment, confused at finding himself called so suddenly into the presence of his Sovereign, and without an opportunity of putting on another suit of clothes. Besides, he was at a loss how to begin. "Did you go to Vienna?" asked the King. "I was sent to Vienna the instant it became known that the Crown Princess--I mean the lady--had left the palace. I discovered that she had driven to her father's palace, but finding him absent had gone to Wartenstein. I followed her there, but she had left again before I arrived, and I entirely lost track of her. Probably she went to Paris, but of that I am not sure. I went to Rome, and for a fortnight kept observation upon the Count, but he wrote no letters to her, which made me suspect that she was hiding somewhere in Rome." "You reported that she was actually in Rome. Hinckeldeym told me that." The Minister's grey brows were knit, but only for a second. "I did not report that she was actually there, sire. I only reported my suspicion." "A suspicion which was turned into an actual fact before it reached my ears--eh?" he said in a hard voice. "Go on." Hinckeldeym now regretted that he had so readily brought his spies face to face with the King. "After losing touch with the lady for several weeks, it was discovered that she was staying under an assumed name at the Savoy Hotel, in London. I travelled from Rome to London post haste, and took a room at the hotel, finding that she had engaged a young Englishwoman named Redmayne as maid, and that she was in the habit of meeting in secret a certain Englishman named Bourne, who seemed to be leading a curiously secluded life. I reported this to the Minister Hinckeldeym, who at once sent me as assistant Rose Reinherz, now before your Majesty. Together we have left no stone unturned to fully investigate the situation, and-- well, we have discovered many things." "And what are they? Explain." "We have ascertained that Count Leitolf still writes to the lady, sending her letters to the same address in Brussels as previously. A copy of one letter, which we intercepted, I placed in the Minister's hands. It is couched in terms that leave no doubt that this man loves her, and that she reciprocates his affection." "You are quite certain that it is not a mere platonic friendship?" asked the King, fixing his eyes upon the spy very earnestly. "As a man of the world, your Majesty, I do not think there is such a thing as platonic friendship between man and woman." "That is left to poets and dreamers," remarked the wily Hinckeldeym, with a sneer. "Besides," the spy continued, "we have carefully watched this man Bourne, and find that when she went to live at Worthing he followed her there. They meet every evening, and go long walks together." "I have watched them many times, your Majesty," declared Rose Reinherz. "I have seen him kiss her hand." "Then, to be frank, you insinuate that this man is her latest lover?" remarked the King with a dark look upon his face. "Unfortunately, that is so," the woman replied. "He is with her almost always; and furthermore, after much inquiry and difficulty, we have at last succeeded in establishing who he really is." "And who is he?" "A thief in hiding from the police--one of a clever gang who have committed many robberies of jewels in various cities. This is his photograph--one supplied from London to our own Prefecture of Police in Treysa." And he handed the King an oblong card with two portraits of Guy Bourne, full face and profile, side by side. His Majesty held it in his hand, and beneath the light gazed upon it for a long time, as though to photograph the features in his memory. Hinckeldeym watched him covertly, and glanced at the spy approvingly. "And you say that this man is at Worthing, and in hiding from the police? You allege that he is an intimate friend of my wife's?" "Stieger says that he is her latest lover," remarked Hinckeldeym. "You have written a full and detailed report. Is not that so?" he asked. The spy nodded in the affirmative, saying,-- "The fellow is in hiding, together with the leader of the association of thieves, a certain Redmayne, known as `the Mute,' who is wanted by the Hamburg police for the theft of the Baroness Ackermann's jewels. The papers of late have been full of the daring theft." "Oh! then the police are searching for both men?" exclaimed the King. "Is there any charge in Germany against this person--Bourne, you called him?" "One for theft in Cologne, eighteen months ago, and another for jewel robbery at Eugendorf," was the spy's reply. "Then, Hinckeldeym, make immediate application to the British Government for their arrest and extradition. Stieger will return at once to Worthing and point them out to the English police. It will be the quickest way of crushing out the--well, the infatuation, we will call it," he added grimly. "And your Majesty will not apply for a divorce?" asked the Minister in that low, insinuating voice. "I will reflect, Hinckeldeym," was the King's reply. "But in the meantime see that both these agents are rewarded for their astuteness and loyalty." And, turning, he dismissed the trio impatiently, without further ceremony. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. SECRET INSTRUCTIONS. "You did exceedingly well, Stieger. I am much pleased!" declared his Excellency the Minister, when, outside the palace, he caused them both to enter his carriage and was driving them to his own fine house on the opposite side of the capital. "His Majesty is taking a severe revenge," he laughed. "This Englishman Bourne will certainly regret having met the Queen. Besides, the fact of her having chosen a low-born criminal lover condemns her a thousandfold in the King's eyes. I, who know him well, know that nothing could cause him such anger as for her to cast her royalty into the mud, as she has done by her friendship with this gaolbird." "I am pleased to have earned your Excellency's approbation," replied the man. "And I trust that his Majesty's pleasure will mean advancement for me--at your Excellency's discretion, of course." "To-morrow I shall sign this decree, raising you to the post of functionary of the first class, with increased emoluments. And to you," he added, turning to the thin-nosed woman, "I shall grant a gratification of five thousand marks. Over an affair of this kind we cannot afford publicity. Therefore say nothing, either of you. Recollect that in this matter you are not only serving the King, but the whole Ministry and Court. The King must obtain a divorce, and we shall all be grateful to you for the collection of the necessary evidence. The latter, as I told you some time ago, need not be based on too firm a foundation, for even if she defends the action the mere fact of her alliance with this good-looking criminal will be sufficient to condemn her in the eyes of a jury of Treysa. Therefore return to England and collect the evidence carefully--facts that have foundation--you understand?" The spy nodded. He understood his Excellency's scandalous suggestion. He was to manufacture evidence to be used against the Queen. "You must show that she has lightly transferred her love from Leitolf to this rascal Bourne. The report you have already made is good, but it is not quite complete enough. It must contain such direct charges that her counsel will be unable to bring evidence to deny," declared the fat-faced man--the man who really ruled the Kingdom. The old monarch had been a hard, level-headed if rather eccentric man, who had never allowed Hinckeldeym to fully reach the height of his ambition; yet now, on the accession of his son, inexperienced in government and of a somewhat weak and vacillating disposition, the crafty President of the Council had quickly risen to be a power as great, if not greater than, the King himself. He was utterly unscrupulous, as shown by his conversation with Stieger. He was Claire's bitterest enemy, yet so tactful was he that she had once believed him to be her friend, and had actually consulted him as to her impossible position at Court. Like many other men, he had commenced life as a small advocate in an obscure provincial town, but by dint of ingenious scheming and dishonest double-dealing he had wormed himself into the confidence of the old King, who regarded him as a necessity for the government of the country. His policy was self-advancement at any cost. He betrayed both enemies and friends with equal nonchalance, if they were unfortunate enough to stand in his way. Heinrich Hinckeldeym had never married, as he considered a wife an unnecessary burden, both socially and financially, and as far as was known, he was without a single relative. At his own splendid mansion, in a severely furnished room, he sat with his two spies, giving them further instructions as to how they were to act in England. "You will return to-morrow by way of Cologne and Ostend," he said, "and I will at once have the formal requisition for their arrest and extradition made to the British Foreign Office. If this man Bourne is convicted, the prejudice against the Queen will be greater, and she will lose her partisans among the people, who certainly will not uphold her when this latest development becomes known." And his Excellency's fat, evil face relaxed into a grim smile. Presently he dismissed them, urging them to carry out the mission entrusted to them without scruple, and in the most secret manner possible. Then, when they were gone, he crossed the room to the telephone and asked the Ministers Stuhlmann, Meyer, and Hoepfner--who all lived close by--whether they could come at once, as he desired to consult them. All three responded to the President's call, and in a quarter of an hour they assembled. Hinckeldeym, having locked the door and drawn the heavy _portiere_, at once gave his friends a resume of what had taken place that evening, and of the manner in which he had rearoused the King's anger and jealousy. "Excellent!" declared Stuhlmann, who held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. "Then I shall at once give Crispendorf orders to receive Stieger and to apply to the British Foreign Office for the arrest of the pair. What are their names? I did not quite catch them." Hinckeldeym crossed to his writing-table and scribbled a memorandum of the names Bourne and Redmayne, and the offences for which they were wanted. "They will be tried in Berlin, I suppose?" Stuhlmann remarked. "My dear friend, it does not matter where they are tried, so long as they are convicted. All we desire to establish is the one fact which will strike the public as outrageous--the Queen has a lover who is a criminal. Having done that, we need no longer fear her return here to Treysa." "But is not the Leitolf affair quite sufficient?" asked Meyer, a somewhat younger man than the others, who, by favour of Hinckeldeym, now held the office of Minister of Justice. "The King suspects it is a mere platonic friendship." "And it really may be after all," remarked Meyer. "In my opinion-- expressed privately to you here--the Queen has not acted as a guilty woman would act. If the scandal were true she would have been more impatient. Besides, the English nurse, Allen, came to me before she left Treysa, and vowed to me that the reports were utterly without foundation. They were lovers, as children--that is all." Hinckeldeym turned upon him furiously. "We have nothing to do with your private misgivings. Your duty as Minister is to act with us," he said in a hard, angry voice. "What does it matter if the English nurse is paid by the Queen to whitewash her mistress? You, my dear Meyer, must be the very last person to express disbelief in facts already known. Think of what would happen if this woman returned to Treysa! You and I--and all of us--would be swept out of office and into obscurity. Can we afford to risk that? If you can, I tell you most plainly that I can't. I intend that the King shall obtain a divorce, and that the woman shall never be permitted to cross our frontier again. The day she does, recollect, will mark our downfall." Meyer, thus reproved by the man to whom he owed his present office, pursed his lips and gave his shoulders a slight shrug. He saw that Hinckeldeym had made up his mind, even though he himself had all along doubted whether the Queen was not an innocent victim of her enemies. Allen had sought audience of him, and had fearlessly denounced, in no measured terms, the foul lies circulated by the Countess de Trauttenberg. The Englishwoman had declared that her mistress was the victim of a plot, and that although she was well aware of her friendliness with Count Leitolf, yet it was nothing more than friendship. She had admitted watching them very closely in order to ascertain whether what was whispered was really true. But it was not. The Queen was an ill-treated and misjudged woman, she declared, concluding with a vow that the just judgment of God would, sooner or later, fall upon her enemies. What the Englishwoman had told him had impressed him. And now Hinckeldeym's demeanour made it plain that what Allen had said had very good foundation. He, Ludwig Meyer, was Minister of Justice, yet he was compelled to conspire with the others to do to a woman the worst injustice that man's ambition could possibly conceive. His companion Hoepfner, Minister of Finance, was also one of Hinckeldeym's creatures, and dared not dissent from his decision. "You forget, my dear Meyer," said the old President, turning back to him. "You forget all that the Countess Hupertz discovered, and all that she told us." "I recollect everything most distinctly. But I also recollect that she gave us no proof." "Ah! You, too, believe in platonic friendship!" sneered the old man. "Only fools believe in that." "No," interposed Stuhlmann quickly. "Do not let us quarrel over this. Our policy is a straightforward and decisive one. The King is to apply for a divorce, and our friend Meyer will see that it is granted. The thing is quite simple." "But if she is innocent?" asked the Minister of Justice. "There is no question of her innocence," snapped Hinckeldeym. "It is her guilt that concerns you--you understand!" Then, after some further consultation, during which time Meyer remained silent, the three men rose and, shaking hands with the President, departed. When they had gone Hinckeldeym paced angrily up and down the room. He was furious that Meyer should express the slightest doubt or compunction. His hands were clenched, his round, prominent eyes wore a fierce, determined expression, and his gross features were drawn and ashen grey. "We shall see, woman, who will win--you or I!" he muttered to himself. "You told me that when you were Queen you would sweep clean the Augean stable--you would change all the Ministers of State, Chamberlains--every one, from the Chancellor of the Orders down to the Grand Master of the Ceremonies. You said that they should all go--and first of all the _dames du palais_. Well, we shall see!" he laughed to himself. "If your husband is such a fool as to relent and regard your friendship with Leitolf with leniency, then we must bring forward this newest lover of yours--this man who is to be arrested in your company and condemned as a criminal. The people, after that, will no longer call you `their Claire' and clamour for your return, and in addition, your fool of a husband will be bound to accept the divorce which Meyer will give him. And then, woman," he growled to himself, "you will perhaps regret having threatened Heinrich Hinckeldeym!" CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. ROMANCE AND REALITY. Roddy Redmayne, having returned safely from abroad, was living in quiet seclusion with Guy in apartments in a small, pleasantly situated cottage beyond West Worthing, on the dusty road to Goring. Immediately on his arrival from Hull he had gone to Brighton, but after a few days had taken apartments in the ancient little place, with its old-world garden filled with roses. Both he and Guy, under assumed names, of course, represented themselves as clerks down from London, spending their summer holidays, and certainly their flannel suits, white shoes, and Panama hats gave them that appearance. Kinder was in hiding in a house up in Newcastle-on-Tyne, having crossed to that port from Antwerp. The Baroness's jewels, which were a particularly fine lot, had been disposed of to certain agents in Leyden, and therefore Roddy and his friends were in funds, though they gave no sign of wealth to their landlady, the thrifty wife of a cab proprietor. It was a very pleasant little cottage, standing quite alone, and as the two men were the only lodgers they were quite free to do as they liked. The greater part of the day they smoked and read under the trees in the big, old-fashioned garden, and at evening would walk together into Worthing, and generally met Claire upon the pier. "Madame," as they called her, went with Leucha several times and lunched with them at the little place, while once or twice they had had the honour of dining at her table, when they had found her a most charming hostess. Both men tried to do all they could to render her what little services lay in their power, and each day they sent her from the florist's large bunches of tea-roses, her favourite flowers. Little Ignatia was not forgotten, for they sent her dolls and toys. Claire's life was now at last calm and peaceful, with her three strange friends. Leucha was most attentive to Ignatia, and took her each morning for a run with bare feet upon the sands, while the two men who seldom, if ever, went out before dusk, generally met her and walked with her after dinner beside the sea. Often, when alone, she wondered how her husband fared at Treysa, and how Carl was enduring the broiling heat of the long, thirsty Italian summer. Where was that traitress, the Trauttenberg, and what, she wondered, had become of those two faithful servants, Allen and Henriette? Her past unhappiness at Treysa sometimes arose before her like some hideous but half-remembered dream. In those days she lived among enemies, but now she was with friends, even though they might be outlawed from society. With all her timid flexibility and soft acquiescence Claire was not weak; for the negative alone is weak, and the mere presence of goodness and affection implies in itself a species of power, power with repose-- that soul of grace. Many a pleasant stroll after sundown she took with the courtly old adventurer, who looked quite a gay old dog in his flannels and rakish Panama pulled down over his eyes; or with Guy, who dressed a trifle more quietly. The last-named, however, preferred, of course, the society of Leucha, and frequently walked behind with her. Claire treated Roddy's daughter more as an equal than as a dependant--indeed, treated her as her lady-in-waiting, to fetch and carry for her, to tie her veil, to button her gloves, and to perform the thousand and one little services which the trained lady-in-waiting does so deftly and without ceremony. Though at first very strange to the world, Claire was now beginning to realise its ways, and to enjoy and appreciate more and more the freedom which she had at last gained. She delighted in those evening walks beneath the stars, when they would rest upon a seat, listening to the soft music of the sea, and watching the flashing light of the Owers and the bright beacon on Selsea Bill. Yes, life in the obscurity of Worthing was indeed far preferable to the glare and glitter of the Court at Treysa. The people in the town-- shopkeepers and others--soon began to know Madame Bernard by sight, and so many were her kindly actions that the common people on the promenade--cabmen, baggage-porters, bath-chair men, and the like-- touched their hats to her in respect, little dreaming that the beautiful, sweet-faced foreigner with the pretty child was actually queen of a German kingdom. As the summer days went by, and the two men met her each evening at the entrance to the pier, she could not close her eyes to the fact that the affection between Guy and Leucha had increased until it now amounted to a veritable passion. They loved each other both truly and well, yet what could be done? There was, alas! the ghastly barrier of want between them--a barrier which, in this cruel, hard world of ours, divides so many true and loving hearts. And as those peaceful summer days went by, the two strangers, a man and a woman, who lived at separate hotels, and only met on rare occasions, were ever watchful, noting and reporting the Queen's every action, and keeping close observation upon the two men who were living at that rose-embowered cottage in calm ignorance of the dastardly betrayal that was being so ingeniously planned. One evening, just before she sat down to dinner, the maidservant handed her a letter with a Belgian stamp, and opening it, she saw that enclosed was a communication from the faithful Steinbach. She tore open the envelope with breathless eagerness, and read as follows:-- "Your Majesty.--In greatest haste I send you warning to acquaint you with another fresh conspiracy, the exact nature of which I am at present unaware. Confidential papers have, however, to-day passed through my hands in the Ministry--a report for transmission to Crispendorf, in London. This report alleges that you are unduly friendly with a certain Englishman named Guy Bourne, said to be living in the town of Worthing, in the county of Sussex. This is all I can at present discover, but it will, I trust, be sufficient to apprise you that your enemies have discovered your whereabouts, and are still seeking to crush you. The instant I can gather more I will report further. Your Majesty's most humble and obedient servant.--S." She bit her lip. Then they had discovered her, and, moreover, were trying now to couple her name with Bourne's! It was cruel, unjust, inhuman. In such a mind as hers the sense of a cruel injury, inflicted by one she had loved and trusted, without awakening any violent anger or any desire of vengeance, sank deep--almost incurably and lastingly deep. Leucha, who entered the room at that moment, noticed her grave expression as she held the letter in her hand, but was silent. The tender and virtuous woman reread those fateful lines, and reflected deeply. Steinbach was faithful to her, and had given her timely warning. Yes, she had on many occasions walked alone with Guy along the promenade, and he had, unseen by any one, kissed her hand in homage of her royal station. She fully recognised that, unscrupulous liars as her enemies were, they might start another scandal against her as cruel as that concerning Carl Leitolf. She had little appetite for dinner but afterwards, when she went out with Leucha into the warm summer's night, and, as usual, they met the two men idling near the pier, she took Guy aside and walked with him at some distance behind Roddy and his daughter. At first their conversation was as usual, upon the doings of the day. She gave him permission to smoke, and he lit his cigar, the light of the match illuminating his face. It was a delightful August night, almost windless, and with a crescent moon and calm sea, while from the pier there came across the waters the strains of one of the latest waltzes. She was dressed all in white, and Guy, glancing at her now and then, thought he had never seen her looking more graceful and beautiful. Nevertheless her Imperial blood betrayed itself always in her bearing, even on those occasions when she had disguised herself in her maid's gowns. Presently, when father and daughter were some distance ahead, she turned to him and, looking into his countenance, said very seriously,-- "Much as I regret it, Mr. Bourne, our very pleasant evenings here must end. This is our last walk together." "What! Madame!" he exclaimed. "Are you leaving?" and he halted in surprise. "I hardly know yet," she replied, just a trifle confused, for she hesitated to tell the cruel truth to this man who had once risked his life for hers. "It is not, however, because I am leaving, but our parting is imperative, because--well--for the sake of both of us." "I don't quite follow your Majesty," he said, looking inquiringly at her. They were quite alone, at a spot where there were no promenaders. "No," she sighed. "I expect not. I must be more plain, although it pains me to be so. The fact is that my enemies at Court have learnt that we are friends, and are now endeavouring to couple our names--you and I. Is it not scandalous--when you love Leucha?" "What!" he cried, starting back amazed. "They are actually endeavouring to again besmirch your good name! Ah! I see! They say that I am your latest lover--eh? Tell me the truth," he urged fiercely. "These liars say that you are in love with me! They don't know who I am," he laughed bitterly. "I, a thief--and you, a sovereign!" "They are enemies, and will utter any lies to create scandal concerning me," she said, with quiet resignation. "For that reason we must not be seen together. To you, Mr. Bourne, I owe my life--a debt that I fear I shall never be able to sufficiently repay. Mr. Redmayne and yourself have been very kind and generous to me, a friendless woman, and yet I am forced by circumstances to withdraw my friendship because of this latest plot conceived by the people who have so ingeniously plotted my ruin. As you know, they declared that Count Leitolf was my lover, but I swear before God that he was only my friend--my dear, devoted friend, just as I believe that you yourself are. And yet," she sighed, "it is so very easy to cast scandal against a woman, be she a seamstress or of the blood royal." "I am certainly your devoted friend," the man declared in a clear, earnest tone. "You are misjudged and ill-treated, therefore it is my duty as a man, who, I hope, still retains some of the chivalry of a gentleman, to stand your champion." "In this, you, alas! cannot--you would only compromise me," she declared, shaking her head sadly. "We must part. You and Mr. Redmayne are safe here. Therefore I shall to-morrow leave Worthing." "But this is dastardly!" he cried in fierce resentment. "Are you to live always in this glass house, for your enemies to hound you from place to place, because a man dares to admire your beauty? What is your future to be?" She fixed her calm gaze upon him in the pale moonlight. "Who can tell?" she sighed sadly. "For the present we must think only of the present. My enemies have discovered me, therefore it is imperative that we should part. Yet before doing so I want to thank you very much for all the services you and Mr. Redmayne have rendered me. Rest assured that they will never be forgotten--never." Roddy and Leucha had seated themselves upon a seat facing the beach, and they were now slowly approaching them. "I hardly know how to take leave of you," Guy said, speaking slowly and very earnestly. "You, on your part, have been so good and generous to Leucha and myself. If these scandalmongers only knew that she loved me and that I reciprocated her affection, they surely would not seek to propagate this shameful report concerning us." "It would make no difference to them," she declared in a low, hoarse voice of grief. "For their purposes--in order that I shall be condemned as worthless, and prevented from returning to Treysa--they must continue to invent their vile fictions against my honour as a woman." "The fiends!" he cried fiercely. "But you shall be even with them yet! They fear you--and they shall, one day, have just cause for their fears. We will assist you--Roddy and I. We will together prove your honesty and innocence before the whole world." They gained the seat whereon Leucha and her father were sitting, and Claire sat down to rest before the softly sighing sea, while her companion stood, she having forgotten to give him permission to be seated. She was so unconventional that she often overlooked such points, and, to her intimate friends, would suddenly laugh and apologise for her forgetfulness. While all four were chatting and laughing together--for Roddy had related a droll incident he had witnessed that day out at Goring--there came along the sea-path two figures of men, visitors like themselves, judging from their white linen trousers and straw hats. Their approach was quite unnoticed until of a sudden they both halted before the group, and one of them, a brown-bearded man, stepping up to the younger man, said, in a stern, determined voice,-- "I identify you as Guy Bourne. I am Inspector Sinclair of the Criminal Investigation Department, and I hold a warrant for your arrest for jewel robbery!" Claire gave vent to a low cry of despair, while Leucha sprang up and clung to the man she loved. But at that same instant three other men appeared out of the deep shadows, while one of them, addressing Roddy, who in an instant had jumped to his feet, said,-- "I'm Detective-sergeant Plummer. I identify you as Roddy Redmayne, _alias_ Scott-Martin, _alias_ Ward. I arrest you on a charge of jewel robbery committed within the German Empire. Whatever statement you may make will be used in evidence against you on your trial." Both men were so utterly staggered that neither spoke a word. Their arrest had been so quickly and quietly effected that they had no opportunity to offer resistance, and even if they had they would have been outnumbered. Roddy uttered a fierce imprecation beneath his breath, but Guy, turning sadly to Claire, merely shrugged his shoulders, and remarked bitterly,-- "It is Fate, I suppose!" And the two men were compelled to walk back with a detective on either side of them, while Leucha, in a passion of tears, crushed and heart-broken, followed with her grave-faced mistress--a sad, mournful procession. Claire spoke to them both--kind, encouraging words, urging them to take courage--whereupon one of the detectives said,-- "I really think it would be better if you left us, madam." But she refused, and walked on behind them, watched from a distance by the German agent Stieger and Rose Reinherz, and, alas! in ignorance of the vile, despicable plot of Hinckeldeym--the plot that was to ruin her for ever in the eyes of her people. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. SOME UGLY TRUTHS. Poor Leucha was beside herself with grief, for she, alas! knew too well the many serious charges upon which her father and her lover were wanted. Both would receive long terms of penal servitude. Against them stood a very ugly list of previous convictions, and for jewel robbery, judges were never lenient. Claire was in deadly fear that Roddy's daughter might also be arrested for the part she had played in the various affairs, but it appeared that the information received by the police did not extend to "the Ladybird." The blow was complete. It had fallen and crushed them all. That night Leucha lay awake, reflecting upon all that might be brought against the pair--the Forbes affair, when the fine pearls of Mrs. Stockton-Forbes, the wife of the American railroad king, were stolen from the house in Park Lane; the matter of the Countess of Henham's diamonds; the theft of Lady Maitland's emeralds, and a dozen other clever jewel robberies that had from time to time startled readers of the newspapers. Claire, on her part, also lay wondering--wondering how best to act in order to extricate the man who had so gallantly risked his life to save hers, and the easygoing old thief who had showed her such great kindness and consideration. Could she extricate them? No; she saw it was quite impossible. The English police and judges could not be bribed, as she had heard they could be in some countries. The outlook was hopeless-- utterly and absolutely hopeless. Somebody had betrayed them. Both men had declared so, after their arrest. They had either been recognised and watched, or else some enemy had pointed them out to the police. In either case it was the same. A long term of imprisonment awaited both of them. Though they were thieves, and as such culpable, yet she felt that she had now lost her only friends. Next morning, rising early, she sent Leucha to the police station to inquire when they would be brought before the magistrate. To her surprise, however, "the Ladybird" brought back the reply that they had been taken up to London by the six o'clock train that morning, in order to be charged in the Extradition Court at Bow Street--the Court reserved for prisoners whose extradition was demanded by foreign Governments. Post-haste, leaving little Ignatia in charge of the landlady and the parlour-maid, Madame Bernard and Leucha took the express to London, and were present in the grim, sombre police court when the chief magistrate, a pleasant-faced, white-headed old gentleman, took his seat, and the two prisoners were placed in the dock. Guy's dark eyes met Claire's, and he started, turning his face away with shame at his position. She was a royal sovereign, and he, after all, only a thief. He had been unworthy her regard. Roddy saw her also, but made no sign. He feared lest his daughter might be recognised as the ingenious woman who had so cleverly acted as their spy and accomplice, and was annoyed that she should have risked coming there. The men were formally charged--Redmayne with being concerned with two other men, not in custody, in stealing a quantity of jewellery, the property of the Baroness Ackermann, at Uhlenhorst, outside Hamburg. The charge against Guy Bourne was "that he did, on June 16th, 1903, steal certain jewellery belonging to one Joseph Hirsch of Eugendorf." In dry, hard tones Mr. Gore-Palmer, barrister, who appeared on behalf of the German Embassy, opened the case. "Your Worship," counsel said, "I do not propose to go into great length with the present case to-day. I appear on behalf of the German Imperial Embassy in London to apply for the extradition of these men, Redmayne and Bourne, for extensive thefts of jewels within the German Empire. The police will furnish evidence to you that they are members of a well-known, daring, and highly ingenious international gang, who operate mainly at the large railway stations on the Continent, and have, it is believed, various accomplices, who take places as domestic servants in the houses of persons known to be in possession of valuable jewellery. For the last two years active search has been made for them; but they have always succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the police until last night, when they were apprehended at Worthing, and brought to this Court. The first case, that against Redmayne, is that one of the gang, a woman unknown, entered the service of the Baroness Ackermann in London, and after a few weeks accompanied her to Hamburg, where, on discovering where this lady kept her jewels, she made an excuse that her mother was dying, and returned to England. Eight months afterwards, however, the prisoner Redmayne, _alias_ Ward, _alias_ Scott-Martin, made a daring entry into the house while the family were at dinner, opened the safe, and escaped with the whole of its precious contents, some of which were afterwards disposed of in Leyden and in Amsterdam. The charge against Bourne is that, on the date named, he was at the Cologne railway station, awaiting the express from Berlin, and on its arrival snatched the dressing-case from the Countess de Wallwitz's footman and made off with it. The servant saw the man, and at the police office afterwards identified a photograph which had been supplied to the German police from Scotland Yard as that of a dangerous criminal. Against both men are a number of charges for robbery in various parts of France and Germany, one against Bourne being the daring theft, three years ago, of a very valuable ruby pendant from the shop of a jeweller named Hirsch, in the town of Eugendorf, in the Kingdom of Marburg. This latter offence, as your Worship will see, has been added to the charge against Bourne, and the Imperial German Government rely upon your Worship granting the extradition sought for under the Acts of 1870 and 1873, and the Treaty of 1876." Mention of the town of Eugendorf caused Claire to start quickly. He had actually been guilty of theft in her own Kingdom! For that reason, then, he had escaped from Treysa the instant he was well enough to leave the hospital. "I have here," continued counsel, "a quantity of evidence taken on commission before British Consuls in Germany, which I will put in, and I propose also to call a servant of the Baroness Ackermann and the jeweller Hirsch, both of whom are now in the precincts of the Court. I may add that the Imperial German Government have, through their Ambassador, made diplomatic representations to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, as they attach the greatest importance to this case. The men, if my instructions are correct, will be found to be the leaders of a very dangerous and daring gang, who operate mostly in Germany, and seek refuge here, in their own country. I therefore hope that your Worship, after reading the depositions and hearing the evidence, will make the order for them to be handed over to the German authorities to be dealt with." "I must have direct evidence," remarked the magistrate. "Evidence on commission is not sufficient. They are both British subjects, remember." "I have direct evidence of identification against each prisoner," counsel replied. "I take it that your Worship will be obliged to adjourn the case for seven days, as usual; and if further evidence is required from Germany, it will be forthcoming." "Very well," said the magistrate, taking the mass of documents handed to him, and proceeding to hear the formal evidence of arrest, as given by the inspector and sergeant from New Scotland Yard. Afterwards the interpreter of the Court was sworn, and following him a tall, clean-shaven, yellow-haired German entered the witness-box, and gave his name as Max Wolff, in the employ of the Baroness Ackermann, of Uhlenhorst, near Hamburg. The instant "the Ladybird" saw him she made an excuse to Claire, and rising, escaped from the Court. They had been in service together, and he might recognise her! The man's evidence, being translated into English, showed that suspicion fell upon an English maid the Baroness had engaged in London, and who, a few days after arriving in Hamburg, suddenly returned. Indeed, she had one day been seen examining the lock of the safe; and it was believed that she had taken an impression of the key, for when the robbery was committed, some months later, the safe was evidently opened by means of a duplicate key. "And do you identify either of the prisoners?" inquired the magistrate. "I identify the elder one. I came face to face with him coming down the principal staircase with a bag in his hand. I was about to give the alarm; but he drew a revolver, and threatened to blow out my brains if I uttered a word." The accused man's face relaxed into a sickly smile. "And you were silent?" "For the moment, yes. Next second he was out into the road, and took to the open country. I am quite certain he is the man; I would know him among ten thousand." "And you have heard nothing of this English lady's maid since?" asked the magistrate. "No; she disappeared after, as we suppose, taking the impression of the key." The next witness was a short, stout, dark-faced man with a shiny bald head, evidently a Jew. He was Joseph Hirsch, jeweller, of the Sternstrasse, Eugendorf, and he described how, on a certain evening, the prisoner Bourne--whom he identified--had entered his shop. He took him to be a wealthy Englishman travelling for pleasure, and showed him some of his best goods, including a ruby pendant worth about fifty thousand marks. The prisoner examined it well, but saying that the light was not good, and that he preferred to return next morning and examine it in the daylight, he put it down and went out. A quarter of an hour later, however, he had discovered, to his utter dismay, that the pendant had been cleverly palmed, and in its place in the case was left a cheap ornament, almost a replica, but of brass and pieces of red glass. He at once took train to Treysa and informed the chief of police, who showed him a photograph of the prisoner--a copy of one circulated by Scotland Yard. "And do you see in Court the man who stole the pendant?" asked the magistrate. "Yes; he is there," the Jew replied in German--"the younger of the two." "You have not recovered your property?" "No, sir." The court was not crowded. The London public take little or no interest in the Extradition Court. The magistrate glanced across at the well-dressed lady in dark grey who sat alone upon one of the benches, and wondered who she might be. Afterwards one of the detectives informed him privately that she had been with the men at Worthing when they were arrested. "I do not know, your Worship, if you require any further evidence," exclaimed Mr. Gore-Palmer, again rising. "Perhaps you will glance at the evidence taken on commission before the British Consul-General at Treysa, the British Consul in Hamburg, and the British Vice-Consul at Cologne. I venture to think that in face of the evidence of identification you have just heard, you will be convinced that the German Government have a just right to apply for the extradition of these two persons." He then resumed his seat, while the white-headed old gentleman on the bench carefully went through folio after folio of the signed and stamped documents, each with its certified English translation and green Consular stamps. Presently, when about half-way through the documents, he removed his gold pince-nez, and looking across at counsel, asked,-- "Mr. Gore-Palmer, I am not quite clear upon one point. For whom do you appear to prosecute--for the Imperial German Government, or for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Marburg?" "I appear for both, your Worship, but I am instructed by the latter." "By the Minister Stuhlmann himself, on behalf of the Government--not by Herr Hirsch?" "Yes, your Worship, by the Minister himself, who is determined to crush out the continually increasing crimes committed by foreign criminals who enter the Kingdom in the guise of tourists, as in the case of the present prisoners." Claire, when counsel's explanation fell upon her ears, sat upright, pale and rigid. She recollected Steinbach's warning, and in an instant the vile, dastardly plot of Hinckeldeym and his creatures became revealed to her. They would condemn this man to whom she owed her life as a low-bred thief, and at the same time declare that he was her latest lover! For her it was the end of all things--the very end! CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. PLACE AND POWER. The grey-faced London magistrate had remanded the prisoners in custody for seven days, and the papers that evening gave a brief account of the proceedings under the heading: "Smart Capture of Alleged Jewel Thieves." During the return journey to Worthing Claire remained almost silent at Leucha's side. The girl, whose gallant lover had thus been snatched from her so cruelly, was beside herself in utter dejection and brokenness of heart. Surely they were a downcast pair, seated in the corners of an empty first-class carriage on the way back to the seaside town which possessed no further charm for them. To Claire the plot was now revealed as clear as day. She had, however, never dreamed that Hinckeldeym and Stuhlmann would descend to such depths of villainy as this. Their spies had been at work, without a doubt. She had been watched, and the watchers, whoever they were, had evidently established the identity of the two men to whom she owed so very much. And then Hinckeldeym, with that brutal unscrupulousness that distinguished him, had conceived the hellish plot to create a fresh scandal regarding the jewel thief Guy Bourne and herself. The man who had risked his life for hers had now lost his liberty solely on her account. It was cruel, unjust, inhuman! Night and day she had prayed to her Maker for peace and for protection from the thousand pitfalls that beset her path in that great complex world of which she was almost as ignorant as little Ignatia herself. Yet it seemed as though, on the contrary, she was slowly drifting on and on to a ruin that was irreparable and complete. She felt herself doubting, but instantly her strong faith reasserted itself. Yes, God would hear her; she was sure He would. She was a miserable sinner, like all other women, even though she were queen of an earthly kingdom. He would forgive her; He would also forgive those two men who stood charged with the crime of theft. God was just, and in Him she still placed her implicit trust. In silence, as the train rushed southward, she again appealed to Him for His comfort and His guidance. Her bounden duty was to try and save the men who had been her friends, even at risk to herself. Their friendliness with her had been their own betrayal. Had they disappeared from Paris with her jewels they would still have been at liberty. Yet what could she do? how could she act? Twenty years' penal servitude was the sentence which Leucha declared would be given her father if tried in England, while upon Bourne the sentence would not be less than fifteen years, having in view his list of previous convictions. In Germany, with the present-day prejudice against the English, they would probably be given even heavier sentences, for, according to Mr. Gore-Palmer, an attempt was to be made to make an example of them. Ah! if the world only knew how kind, how generous those two criminals had been to her, a friendless, unhappy woman, who knew no more of the world than a child in her teens, would it really judge them harshly, she wondered. Or would they receive from the public that deep-felt compassion which she herself had shown them? Many good qualities are, alas! nowadays dead in the human heart; but happily chivalry towards a lonely woman is still, even in this twentieth century, one of the traits of the Englishman's character, be he gentleman or costermonger. Alone in her room that night, she knelt beside the bed where little Ignatia was sleeping so peacefully, and besought the Almighty to protect her and her child from this last and foulest plot of her enemies, and to comfort those who had been her friends. Long and earnestly she remained in prayer, her hands clasped, her face uplifted, her white lips moving in humble, fervent appeal to God. Then when she rose up she pushed back the mass of fair hair from her brow, and paced the room for a long time, pondering deeply, but discerning no way out of the difficulties and perils that now beset her. The two accused men would be condemned, while upon her would be heaped the greatest shame that could be cast upon a woman. Suddenly she halted at the window, and leaning forward, looked out upon the flashing light far away across the dark, lonely sea. Beyond that far-off horizon, mysterious in the obscurity of night, lay the Continent, with her own Kingdom within. Though freedom was so delightful, without Court etiquette and without Court shams, yet her duty to her people was, she recollected, to be beside her husband; her duty to her child was to live that life to which she, as an Imperial Archduchess, had been born, no matter how irksome it might be to her. Should she risk all and return to Treysa? The very suggestion caused her to hold her breath. Her face was pale and pensive in her silent, lofty, uncomplaining despair. Would her husband receive her? Or would he, at the instigation of old Hinckeldeym and his creatures, hound her out of the Kingdom as what the liars at Court had falsely declared her to be? Again she implored the direction of the Almighty, sinking humbly upon her knees before the crucifix she had placed at the head of her bed, remaining there for fully a quarter of an hour. Then when she rose again there was a calm, determined look on her pale, hard-set face. Yes; her patience and womanhood could endure no longer. She would take Leucha and go fearlessly to Treysa, to face her false friends and ruthless enemies. They would start to-morrow. Not a moment was to be lost. And instead of retiring to bed, she spent the greater part of the night in packing her trunks in readiness for the journey which was to decide her fate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The summer's evening was breathless and stifling in Treysa. Attired in Henriette's coat and skirt, and wearing her thick lace veil, Claire alighted from the dusty _wagon-lit_ that had brought her from Cologne, and stood upon the great, well-remembered platform unrecognised. The _douaniers_ at the frontier had overhauled her baggage; the railway officials had clipped her tickets; the _wagon-lit_ conductor had treated her with the same quiet courtesy that he had shown to her fellow-passengers, and she had passed right into the splendid capital without a single person recognising that the Queen--"their Claire"--had returned among them. Leucha descended with Ignatia, who at once became excited at hearing her native tongue again; and as they stood awaiting their hand-baggage an agent of police passed them, but even he did not recognise in the neat-waisted figure the brilliant and beautiful soft-eyed woman who was his sovereign. At first she held her breath, trembling lest she might be recognised, and premature information of her return be conveyed to Hinckeldeym or to the Prefect of Police, who, no doubt, had his orders to refuse her admittance. Yet finding her disguise so absolutely complete, she took courage, and passed out of the station to hail a closed cab. They were all three utterly tired out after thirty-six hours of rail, crossing by way of Dover and Ostend. When Leucha and Ignatia had entered the cab she said to the man sharply, in German,-- "Drive to the royal palace." The man, who took her for one of the servants, settled himself upon his box and drove up the straight tree-lined avenue to the great entrance gates of the royal park, which were, as usual, closed. As they approached them, however, her Majesty raised her veil, and waited; while Leucha, with little Ignatia upon her knee, sat wondering. She, "the Ladybird," the accomplice of the cleverest gang of thieves in Europe, was actually entering a royal palace as intimate friend of its Queen! The cab halted, the sentries drew up at attention, and the gorgeous porter came forward and put in his head inquisitively. Next instant he recognised who it was, and started back; then, raising his cocked hat and bowing low, gave orders to the cabman to drive on. Afterwards, utterly amazed, he went to the telephone to apprise the porter up at the palace that her Majesty the Queen had actually returned. When they drew up at the great marble steps before the palace entrance, the gaudily-dressed porter stood bare-headed with three other men-servants and the two agents of police who were always on duty there. All bowed low, saluting their Queen in respectful silence as she descended, and Leucha followed her with the little Princess toddling at her side. It was a ceremonious arrival, but not a single word was uttered until Claire passed into the hall, and was about to ascend the grand staircase on her way to the royal private apartments; for she supposed, and quite rightly, that her husband had, on his accession, moved across to the fine suite occupied by his late father. Bowing slightly to acknowledge the obeisance of the servants, she was about to ascend the broad stairs, when the porter came forward, and said apologetically,-- "Will your Majesty pardon me? I have orders from the Minister Hinckeldeym to say that he is waiting in the blue anteroom, and wishes to see you instantly upon your arrival." "Then he knows of my return?" she exclaimed surprised. "Your Majesty was expected by him since yesterday." She saw that his spies had telegraphed news of her departure from London. "And the King is in the palace?" "Yes, your Majesty; he is in his private cabinet," responded the man, bowing. "Then I will go to him. I will see Hinckeldeym afterwards." "But, your Majesty, I have strict orders not to allow your Majesty to pass until you have seen his Excellency. See, here he comes!" And as she turned she saw approaching up the long marble hall a fat man, her arch-enemy, attired in funereal, black. "Your Majesty!" he said, bowing, while an evil smile played upon his lips. "So you have returned to us at Treysa! Before seeing the King I wish to speak to you in private." Deadly and inexorable malice was in his countenance. She turned upon him with a quick fire in her eyes, answering with that hauteur that is inherent in the Hapsbourg blood,-- "Whatever you have to say can surely be said here. You can have nothing concerning me to conceal!" she added meaningly. "I have something to say that cannot be said before the palace servants," he exclaimed quickly. "I forbid you to go to the King before I have had an opportunity of explaining certain matters." "Oh! you forbid--_you_?" she cried, turning upon him in resentment at his laconic insolence. "And pray, who are you?--a mere paid puppet of the State, a political adventurer who discerns further advancement by being my enemy! And you _forbid_?" "Your Majesty--I--" "Yes; when addressing me do not forget that I am your Queen," she said firmly, "and that I know very well how to deal with those who have endeavoured to encompass my ruin. Now go to your fellow-adventurers, Stuhlmann, Hoepfner, and the rest, and give them my message." Every word of hers seemed to blister where it fell. Then turning to Leucha, she said in English,-- "Remain here with Ignatia. I will return to you presently." And while the fat-faced officer of State who had so ingeniously plotted her downfall stood abashed in silence, and confused at her defiance, she swept past him, mounted the stairs haughtily, and turning into the corridor, made her way to the royal apartments. Outside the door of the King's private cabinet--that room wherein Hinckeldeym had introduced his spies--she held her breath. She was helpless at once, and desperate. Her hand trembled upon the door knob, and the sentry, recognising her, started, and stood at attention. With sudden resolve she turned the handle, and next second stood erect in the presence of her husband. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. A WOMAN'S WORDS. The King sprang up from his writing-table as though electrified. "You!" he gasped, turning pale and glaring at her--"you, Claire! Why are you here?" he demanded angrily. "To speak with you, Ferdinand. That scheming reptile Hinckeldeym forbade me to see you; but I have defied him--and have come to you." "Forbade you! why?" he asked, in a deep voice, facing her, and at once noticing that she was disguised as Henriette. "Because he fears that I may expose his ingenious intrigue to you. I have discovered everything, and I have come to you, my husband, to face you, and to answer any charges that this man may bring against me. I only ask for justice," she added, in a low, earnest voice. "I appeal to you for that, for the sake of our little Ignatia; for the sake of my own good name, not as Queen, but as a woman!" "Then Hinckeldeym was aware that you were returning?" "His spies, no doubt, telegraphed information that I had left London. He was awaiting me in the blue anteroom when I arrived, ten minutes ago." "He told me nothing," her husband remarked gruffly, knitting his brows in marked displeasure. "Because he fears the revelation of his dastardly plot to separate us, and to hurl me down to the lowest depths of infamy and shame." Her husband was silent; his eyes were fixed upon hers. Only yesterday he had called Meyer, the Minister of Justice, and given orders for an application to the Court for a divorce. Hinckeldeym, by continually pointing out the Imperial displeasure in Vienna, had forced him to take this step. He had refrained as long as he could, but at last had been forced to yield. As far as government was concerned, Hinckeldeym was, he considered, an excellent Minister; yet since that night when the man had introduced his spies, he had had his shrewd suspicions aroused that all he had told him concerning Claire was not the exact truth. Perhaps, after all, he had harshly misjudged her. Such, indeed, was the serious thought that had a thousand times of late been uppermost in his mind--ever since, indeed, he had given audience to the Minister Meyer on the previous morning. Claire went on, shining forth all her sweet, womanly self. Her intellectual powers, her elevated sense of religion, her high honourable principles, her best feelings as a woman, all were displayed. She maintained at first a calm self-command, as one sure of carrying her point in the end; and yet there was, nevertheless, a painful, heart-thrilling uncertainty. In her appeal, however, was an irresistible and solemn pathos, which, falling upon her husband's heart, caused him to wonder, and to stand open-mouthed before her. "You allege, then, that all this outrageous scandal that has been the talk of Europe has been merely invented by Hinckeldeym and his friends?" asked the King, folding his arms firmly and fixing his eyes upon his wife very seriously. "I only ask you, Ferdinand, to hear the truth, and as Sovereign to render justice where justice is due," was her calm response, her pale face turned to his. "I was too proud in my own honesty as your wife to appeal to you: indeed, I saw that it was hopeless, so utterly had you fallen beneath the influence of my enemies. So I preferred to leave the Court, and to live incognito as an ordinary person." "But you left Treysa with Leitolf, the man who was your lover! You can't deny that, eh?" he snapped. "I deny it, totally and emphatically," was her response, facing him unflinchingly. "Carl Leitolf loved me when I was a child, but years before my marriage with you I had ceased to entertain any affection for him. He, however, remained my friend--and he is still my friend." "Then you don't deny that to-day he is really your friend?" he said, with veiled sarcasm. "Why should I? Surely there is nothing disgraceful that a man should show friendliness and sympathy towards a woman who yearns for her husband's love, and is lonely and unhappy, as I have been? Again, I did not leave Treysa with him. He joined my train quite by accident, and we travelled to Vienna together. He left me at the station, and I have not seen him since." "When you were in Vienna, a few days before, you actually visited him at his hotel?" "Certainly; I went to see him just as I should call upon any other friend. I recognised the plot against us, and arranged with him that he should leave the Court and go to Rome." "I don't approve of such friends," he snapped again quickly. "A husband should always choose his wife's male friends. I am entirely in your hands, Ferdinand." "But surely you know that a thousand and one scandalous stories have been whispered about you--not only in the palace, but actually among the people. The papers, even, have hinted at your disgraceful and outrageous behaviour." "And I have nothing whatever to be ashamed of. You, my husband, I face boldly to-night, and declare to you that I have never, for one single moment, forgotten my duty either to you or to our child," she said, in a very low, firm voice, hot tears at that moment welling in her beautiful eyes. "I am here to declare my innocence--to demand of you justice, Ferdinand!" His lips were pressed together. He was watching her intently, noticing how very earnestly and how very boldly she refuted those statements which, in his entire ignorance of the conspiracy, he had believed to be scandalous truths. Was it really possible that she, his wife, whom all Europe had admired for her grace, her sweetness, and her extraordinary beauty, was actually a victim of a deeply-laid plot of Hinckeldeym's? To him it seemed utterly impossible. She was endeavouring, perhaps, to shield herself by making these counter allegations. A man, he reflected, seldom gets even with a woman's ingenuity. "Hinckeldeym has recently revealed to me something else, Claire," he said, speaking very slowly, his eyes still fixed upon hers--"the existence of another lover, an interesting person who, it appears, is a criminal!" "Listen, Ferdinand, and I will tell you the truth--the whole truth," she said very earnestly. "You will remember the narrow escape I had that day when my cob shied at a motor car and ran away, and a stranger--an Englishman--stopped the animal, and was so terribly injured that he had to be conveyed to the hospital, and remained there some weeks in a very precarious state. And he afterwards disappeared, without waiting for me to thank him personally?" "Yes; I remember hearing something about him." "It is that man--the criminal," she declared; and then, in quick, breathless sentences, she explained how her jewels had been stolen in Paris, and how, when the thieves knew of her identity, the bag had been restored to her intact. He listened to every word in silence, wondering. The series of romantic incidents held him surprised. They were really gallant and gentlemanly thieves, if--if nothing else, he declared. "To this Mr. Bourne I owe my life," she said; "and to him I also owe the return of my jewels. Is it, therefore, any wonder when these two men, Bourne and Redmayne, have showed me such consideration, that, lonely as I am, I should regard them as friends? I have Redmayne's daughter with me here, as maid. She is below, with Ignatia. It is this Mr. Bourne, who is engaged to be married to Leucha Redmayne, that Hinckeldeym seeks to denounce as my lover!" "He says that both men are guilty of theft within the Empire; indeed, Bourne is, it is said, guilty of jewel robbery in Eugendorf." "They have both been arrested at Hinckeldeym's instigation, and are now in London, remanded before being extradited here." "Oh! he has not lost very much time, it seems." "No. His intention is that Mr. Bourne shall stand his trial here, in Treysa, and at the same time the prisoner is to be denounced by inspired articles in the press as my lover--that I, Queen of Marburg, have allied myself with a common criminal! Cannot you see his dastardly intention? He means that this, his last blow, his master stroke, shall crush me, and break my power for ever," she cried desperately. "You, Ferdinand, will give me justice--I know you will! I am still your wife!" she implored. "You will not allow their foul lies and insinuations to influence you further; will you?" she asked. "In order to debase me in your eyes and in the eyes of all Europe, Hinckeldeym has caused the arrest of this man to whom I owe my life--the man who saved me, not because I was Crown Princess, but because I was merely a woman in peril. Think what betrayal and arrest means to these men. It means long terms of imprisonment to both. And why? Merely in order to attack me-- because I am their friend. They may be guilty of theft--indeed they admit they are; nevertheless I ask you to give them your clemency, and to save them. You can have them brought here for trial; and there are ways, technicalities of the law, or something, by which their release can be secured. A King may act as he chooses in his own Kingdom." Every word she spoke was so worthy of herself, so full of sentiment and beauty, poetry and passion. Too naturally frank for disguise, too modest to confess her depth of love while the issue remained in suspense, it was a conflict between love and fear and dignity. "I think you ask me rather too much, Claire," he said, in a somewhat quieter tone. "You ask me to believe all that you tell me, without giving me any proof whatsoever." "And how can I give you proof when Mr. Bourne and his friend are in custody in London? Let them be extradited to Treysa, and then you may have them brought before you privately and questioned." For some moments he did not speak. What she had just alleged had placed upon the matter an entirely different aspect. Indeed, within himself he was compelled to admit that the suspicions he had lately entertained regarding Hinckeldeym had now been considerably increased by her surprising statements. Was she speaking the truth? Whenever he allowed his mind to wander back he recollected that it had been the crafty old President who had first aroused those fierce jealous thoughts within his heart. It was he who had made those allegations against Leitolf; he who, from the very first weeks of his marriage, had treated Claire with marked antipathy, although to her face he had shown such cordiality and deep obeisance that she had actually believed him to be her friend. Yes, he now recognised that this old man, in whom his father had reposed such perfect confidence, had been the fount of all those reports that had scandalised Europe. If his calm, sweet-faced wife had, after all, been a really good and faithful woman, then he had acted as an outrageous brute to her. His own cruelty pricked his conscience. It was for her to forgive, not for her to seek forgiveness. She saw his hesitation, and believed it due to a reluctance to accept her allegations as the real truth. "If you doubt me, Ferdinand, call Hinckeldeym at this instant. Let me face this man before you, and let me categorically deny all the false charges which he and his sycophants have from time to time laid against me. Here, at Court, I am feared, because they know that I am aware of all my secret enemies. Make a clearance of them all and commence afresh," she urged, a sweet light in her wonderful eyes. "You have clever men about you who would make honest and excellent Ministers; but while you are surrounded by such conspirators as these, neither you nor the throne itself is safe. I know," she went on breathlessly, "that you have been seized by a terrible jealousy--a cruel, consuming jealousy, purposely aroused against me in order to bring about the result which was but the natural outcome--my exile from Treysa and our estrangement. It is true that you did not treat me kindly--that you struck me--that you insulted me--that you have disfigured me by your blows; but recollect, I beg, that I have never once complained. I never once revealed the secret of my dire unhappiness; only to one man, the man who has been my friend ever since my childhood--Carl Leitolf. And if you had been in my place, Ferdinand, I ask whether you would not have sought comfort in relating your unhappiness to a friend. I ask you that question," she added, in a low, intense, trembling voice. "For all your unkindness and neglect I have long ago really forgiven you. I have prayed earnestly to God that He would open your eyes and show me in my true light--a faithful wife. I leave it to Him to be my judge, and to deal out to my enemies the justice they deserve." "Claire!" he cried, suddenly taking her slim white hand in his and looking fiercely into her beautiful eyes, "is this the real truth that you have just told me?" "It is!" she answered firmly; "before God, I swear that it is! I am a poor sinner in His sight, but as your wife I have nothing with which to reproach myself--nothing. If you doubt me, then call Leitolf from Rome; call Bourne. Both men, instead of being my lovers, are your friends-- and mine. I can look both you and them in the face without flinching, and am ready to do so whenever it is your will." All was consummated in that one final touch of truth and nature. The consciousness of her own worth and integrity which had sustained her through all her trials of heart, and that pride of station for which she had contended through long years--which had become more dear by opposition and by the perseverance with which she had asserted it-- remained the last strong feeling upon her mind even at that moment, the most fateful crisis of her existence. Her earnest, fearless frankness impressed him. Was it really possible that his wife--this calm-faced woman who had been condemned by him everywhere, and against whom he had already commenced proceedings for a divorce--was really, after all, quite innocent? He remembered Hinckeldeym's foul allegations, the damning evidence of his spies, the copies of certain letters. Was all this a tissue of fraud, falsehood, and forgery? In a few rapid words she went on to relate how, in that moment of resentment at such scandalous gossip being propagated concerning her, she had threatened that when she became Queen she would change the whole entourage, and in a brief, pointed argument she showed him the strong motive with which the evil-eyed President of the Council had formed the dastardly conspiracy against her. "Claire," he asked, still holding her soft hand with the wedding ring upon it, "after all that has passed--after all my harsh, inhuman cruelty to you--can you really love me still? Do you really entertain one single spark of love for me?" "Love you!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms in a passion of tears; "love you, Ferdinand!" she sobbed. "Why, you are my husband; whom else have I to love, besides our child?" "Then I will break up this damnable conspiracy against you," he said determinedly. "I--the King--will seek out and punish all who have plotted against my happiness and yours. They shall be shown no mercy; they shall all be swept into obscurity and ruin. They thought," he added, in a hard, hoarse voice, "to retain their positions at Court by keeping us apart, because they knew that you had discovered their despicable duplicity. Leave them to me; Ferdinand of Marburg knows well how to redress a wrong, especially one which concerns his wife's honour," and he ran his hand over his wife's soft hair as he bent and kissed her lips. So overcome with emotion was she that at the moment she could not speak. God had at last answered those fervent appeals that she had made ever since the first year of their marriage. "I have wronged you, Claire--deeply, very deeply wronged you," he went on, in a husky, apologetic voice, his arm tenderly about her waist, as he again pressed his lips to hers in reconciliation. "But it was the fault of others. They lied to me; they exaggerated facts and manufactured evidence, and I foolishly believed them. Yet now that you have lifted the scales from my eyes, the whole of their devilishly clever intrigue stands plainly revealed. It utterly staggers me. I can only ask you to forgive. Let us from to-night commence a new life--that sweet, calm life of trust and love which when we married we both believed was to be ours for ever, but which, alas! by the interference and malignity of our enemies, was turned from affection into hatred and unhappiness." "I am ready, Ferdinand," she answered, a sweet smile lighting up her beautiful features. "We will bury the past; for you are King and I am Queen, and surely none shall now come between us. My happiness tonight, knowing that you are, after all, good and generous, and that you really love me truly, no mere words of mine can reveal. Yet even now I have still a serious thought, a sharp pang of conscience for those who are doomed to suffer because they acted as my friends when I was outcast and friendless." "You mean the men Bourne and Redmayne," the King said. "Yes, they are in a very perilous position. We must press for their extradition here, and then their release will be easy. To-morrow you must find some means by which to reassure them." "And Hinckeldeym?" "Hinckeldeym shall this very night answer to his Sovereign for the foul lies he has spoken," replied the King, in a hard, meaning tone. "But, dearest, think no more of that liar. He will never cross your path again; I shall take good care of that. And now," he said, imprinting a long, lingering caress upon her white, open brow--"and now let us call up our little Ignatia and see how the child has grown. An hour ago I was the saddest man in all the kingdom, Claire; now," he laughed, as he kissed her again, "I admit to you I am the very happiest!" Their lips met again in a passionate, fervent caress. On her part she gazed up into his kind, loving eyes with a rapturous look which was more expressive than words--a look which told him plainly how deeply she still loved him, notwithstanding all the bitterness and injustice of the black, broken past. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. CONCLUSION. The greatest flutter of excitement was caused throughout Germany--and throughout the whole of Europe, for the matter of that--when it became known through the press that the Queen of Marburg had returned. Reuter's correspondent at Treysa was the first to give the astounding news to the world, and the world at first shrugged its shoulders and grinned. When, however, a few days later, it became known that the Minister Heinrich Hinckeldeym had been summarily dismissed from office, his decorations withdrawn, and he was under arrest for serious peculation from the Royal Treasury, people began to wonder. Their doubts were, however, quickly set at rest when the Ministers Stuhlmann and Hoepfner were also dismissed and disgraced, and a semi-official statement was published in the Government _Gazette_ to the effect that the King had discovered that the charges against his wife were, from beginning to end, a tissue of false calumnies "invented by certain persons who sought to profit by her Majesty's absence from Court." And so, by degrees, the reconciliation between the King and Queen gradually leaked out to the English public through the columns of their newspapers. But little did they guess that the extradition case pressed so very hard at Bow Street last August against the two jewel thieves, Redmayne, _alias_ Ward, and Guy Bourne, had any connection with the great scandal at the Court of Marburg. The men were extradited, Redmayne to be tried in Berlin and Bourne at Treysa; but of their sentences history, as recorded in the daily newspapers, is silent. The truth is that neither of them was sentenced, but by the private request of his Majesty, a legal technicality was discovered, which placed them at liberty. Both men afterwards had private audience of the King, and personally received the royal thanks for the kindness they had shown towards the Queen and to little Ignatia. In order to mark his appreciation, his Majesty caused a lucrative appointment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where a knowledge of English was necessary, to be given to Roddy Redmayne, while Guy Bourne, through the King's recommendation, was appointed to the staff of an important German bank in New York; and it has been arranged that next month Leucha--who leaves her Majesty and Ignatia with much regret--goes to America to marry him. To her place, as Ignatia's nurse, the faithful Allen has now returned, while the false de Trauttenberg, who, instantly upon Hinckeldeym's downfall, went to live in Paris, has been succeeded by the Countess de Langendorf, one of Claire's intimate friends of her days at the Vienna Court, prior to her marriage. What actually transpired between Hinckeldeym and his Sovereign on that fateful night will probably never be known. The people of Treysa are aware, however, that a few hours after "their Claire's" return the President of the Council was commanded to the royal presence, and left it ruined and disgraced. On the following day he was arrested in his own mansion by three gendarmes and taken to the common police office, where he afterwards attempted suicide, but was prevented. The serious charges of peculation against him were, in due course, proved up to the hilt, and at the present moment he is undergoing a well-merited sentence of five years' imprisonment in the common gaol at Eugendorf. Count Carl Leitolf was recalled from Rome to Treysa a few days later, and had audience in the King's private cabinet. The outcome was, however, entirely different, for the King, upon the diplomat's return to Rome, signed a decree bestowing upon him _di moto proprio_ the Order of Saint Stephen, one of the highest of the Marburg Orders, as a signal mark of esteem. Thus was the public opinion of Europe turned in favour of the poor, misjudged woman who, although a reigning sovereign, had, by force of adverse circumstances, actually resigned her crown, and, accepting favours of the criminal class as her friends, had found them faithful and devoted. Of the Ministers of the Kingdom of Marburg only Meyer retains his portfolio at the present moment, while Steinbach has been promoted to a very responsible and lucrative appointment. The others are all in obscurity. Ministers, chamberlains, _dames du palais_ and _dames de la cour_, all have been swept away by a single stroke of the pen, and others, less prone to intrigue, appointed. Henriette--the faithful Henriette--part of whose wardrobe Claire had appropriated on escaping from Treysa, is back again as her Majesty's head maid; and though the popular idea is that little real, genuine love exists between royalties, yet the King and Queen are probably the very happiest pair among the millions over whom they rule to-day. Her Majesty, the womanly woman whose sweet, even temperament and constant solicitude for the poor and distressed is so well known throughout the Continent, is loudly acclaimed by all classes each time she leaves the palace and smiles upon them from her carriage. The people, who have universally denounced Hinckeldeym and his unscrupulous methods, still worship her and call her "their Claire." But, by mutual consent, mention is no longer made of that dark, dastardly conspiracy which came so very near wrecking the lives of both King and Queen--that dastardly affair which the journalists termed "The Great Court Scandal." The End. 52194 ---- BOB BURTON; OR, THE YOUNG RANCHMAN OF THE MISSOURI BY HORATIO ALGER, JR., AUTHOR OF "RAGGED DICK SERIES," "LUCK AND PLUCK SERIES," "ATLANTIC SERIES," ETC. [Illustration: Logo] PHILADELPHIA: PORTER & COATES. COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY PORTER & COATES. TO J. HENRY PLUMMER, NOW OF TALLAPOOSA, GA. FROM WHOM I HAVE RECEIVED VALUABLE ASSISTANCE IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME, IT IS DEDICATED WITH FRIENDLY REGARD. [Illustration: AARON WOLVERTON STEALS THE RECEIPT.] CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. MR. BURTON'S RANCH, 5 II. AARON WOLVERTON, 15 III. A LITTLE RETROSPECT, 23 IV. THE SUDDEN SUMMONS, 33 V. WOLVERTON'S FIRST MOVE, 42 VI. THE LOST RECEIPT, 51 VII. WOLVERTON'S ADVENTURE WITH CLIP, 60 VIII. WOLVERTON'S DISMAY, 69 IX. SAM'S GIFT, 77 X. SAM IN A TIGHT PLACE, 85 XI. AN ANGRY CONFERENCE, 94 XII. WOLVERTON'S WATERLOO, 104 XIII. WHAT BOB FOUND IN THE CREEK, 111 XIV. THE BOAT AND ITS OWNER, 120 XV. BOB BUYS THE FERRY-BOAT, 128 XVI. WOLVERTON'S BAFFLED SCHEME, 137 XVII. WOLVERTON'S POOR TENANT, 146 XVIII. WOLVERTON'S WICKED PLAN, 154 XIX. MR. WOLVERTON MEETS TWO CONGENIAL SPIRITS, 163 XX. AN UNEXPECTED PASSENGER, 172 XXI. HOW WOLVERTON WAS FOOLED, 180 XXII. THE FIRST DAY, 189 XXIII. A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER, 198 XXIV. CLIP MAKES A LITTLE MONEY FOR HIMSELF, 207 XXV. CLIP'S SECRET MISSION, 215 XXVI. WAS IT THE CAT? 224 XXVII. THE PASSENGER DISCOVERED, 233 XXVIII. SAM FINDS A RELATION, 243 XXIX. ROCKY CREEK LANDING, 251 XXX. AN UNLUCKY EVENING, 261 XXXI. HOW CLIP WAS CAPTURED, 269 XXXII. THE BOYS IMPRISONED, 277 XXXIII. A LUCKY ESCAPE, 289 XXXIV. MR. WOLVERTON'S LETTER, 297 XXXV. BOB'S ARRIVAL IN ST. LOUIS, 303 XXXVI. A THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD, 308 XXXVII. BROWN AND MINTON WALK INTO A TRAP, 312 XXXVIII. WHAT BOB BROUGHT HOME, 318 XXXIX. CONCLUSION, 324 BOB BURTON; OR, THE YOUNG RANCHMAN OF THE MISSOURI. CHAPTER I. MR. BURTON'S RANCH. "Harness up the colt, Clip; I'm going to the village." "All right, massa!" "What makes you call me massa? One would think I were a slave-owner." "Can't help it, massa. There I done forgot it agin," said Clip, showing his white teeth--preturnaturally white they showed in contrast with his coal-black skin. "You see I used to say that to my old massa, down in Arkansaw." "What's my name, Clip?" "Mister Burton." "Then call me Mr. Burton. Now go, and don't waste any time." "All right, massa." "That boy's incorrigible," said Richard Burton to himself. "He hasn't got cut of his early ways yet; careless and shiftless as he is, I believe he is devoted to me and my family." Clip, as may be inferred, was a negro boy, now turned of fourteen, who for four years had been attached to the service of Richard Burton, a ranchman, whose farm lay on a small stream tributary to the Missouri, in the fertile State of Iowa. He had fled from his master in the northern part of Arkansas, and, traveling by night, and secreting himself by day, had finally reached Iowa; where he found a safe refuge in the family of Mr. Burton. Indeed he had been picked up by Bob Burton, a boy a year older than himself, who had brought him home and insisted on his father taking charge of the young fugitive. On a large ranch there was always something to do, and Clip was soon made useful in taking care of the horses, in doing errands and in many odd ways. While waiting for the wagon, Mr. Burton went into the house, and sought his wife. "Mamy," he said, "I am going to the village to pay Wolverton his interest." "I wish he didn't hold the mortgage, Richard," said Mrs. Burton, looking up from her work. "So do I, but why is it any the worse for him to hold it than for any one else?" "Richard, you may think me foolish and fanciful, but I distrust that man. It is impressed upon my mind that he will some day do us harm." "That is foolish and fanciful in good truth, Mamy. Now Wolverton seems to me a--well, not exactly an attractive man, but good natured and friendly. When I needed three thousand dollars last spring, on account of a poor crop and some extra expenses, he seemed not only willing, but really glad to lend it to me." "He took a mortgage on the ranch," said Mary Burton dryly. "Why, of course. He is a man of business, you know. You wouldn't expect him to lend the money without security, would you?" "And you pay him a large interest?" "Ten per cent." "There isn't much friendship in lending money on good security at ten per cent., Richard." "Oh, you put things in a wrong way, Mary. Money is worth ten per cent. out here, and of course I didn't want Wolverton to lose money by me. He could get that interest elsewhere." "You are very unsuspecting, Richard. You credit everybody with your own true, unselfish nature." "Why, that's a compliment, Mary," laughed the husband, "and deserves a kiss." He bent over and touched his wife's cheek with his lips. Mary Burton had reached the age of thirty-six, and was no longer in her first youth, but her face seemed even more lovelier than when he married her, so Richard Burton thought. He too was a man of fine presence, with a frank, open face, that invariably won the favor of those who met him for the first time. He was in the full vigor of manhood, and when he and his wife attended the Methodist church on Sundays, many eyes were attracted by the handsome couple. They had one son, Bob, who will soon receive attention. "I have a great mind, Richard, to tell you why I distrust and fear Aaron Wolverton," said his wife after a slight pause. "I wish you would, Mary. Perhaps, when I know, I can talk you out of your apprehension." "Did you ever know that Aaron Wolverton was once a suitor for my hand?" Richard Burton burst into an explosive laugh. "What! That dried-up old mummy had the presumption to offer you his hand!" "He actually did, Richard," said Mrs. Burton, smiling. "I wonder you did not laugh in his face. Why, the man is fifteen years older than I am, twenty years older than you." "That difference is not unprecedented. I did not reject him because he was older than myself. If you had been as old as he when you offered yourself, I think I would have accepted you." "Poor old fellow! Did he take it hard?" asked Burton, half jocosely. "If you mean did he show any traces of a broken heart, I answer no. But when, after pressing his suit persistently, he found my resolution to be inflexible, his face became distorted with passion. He swore that he would be revenged upon me some day, and that if I dared to marry any one else he would never rest till he had brought harm to the husband of my choice." "I wish I had been there. I would have made him take back those words, or I would have horsewhipped him." "Don't take any notice of them, Richard," said Mary Burton, hastily. "It will be much better." "I agree with you," said her husband, his quick anger melting. "After all, the old fellow's disappointment was so great that I can excuse a little impetuosity, and even rudeness. You see, Mary, Wolverton isn't a gentleman." "No; and never will be." "He acted as his nature prompted. But it was all over years ago. Why, Mary, he is always friendly with me, even if I am your husband." "That is on the outside, Richard; but I fear he is crafty. He is like an Indian; his thirst for vengeance keeps alive." "Admitting all that, though I don't, what harm can he do, Mary, while I am here to protect you?" and the husband expanded his breast in conscious strength, and looked down proudly on his fair wife. "Why, I could wring his neck with only one hand." "Well, perhaps I am foolish, Richard," the wife admitted. "Of course you are, Mary." Just then Clip put his head inside the door. "De hoss is ready, massa!" he said. "All right, Clip! I'll come right out." Richard Burton kissed his wife hastily, and went out. As he closed the door, a bright, handsome boy, strongly made, and bearing a resemblance to both father and mother, entered. "Hallo, mother! Are you all right?" he asked. "I hope so, Robert." "You look serious, as if you were worrying over something." "I was thinking of Mr. Wolverton. Your father has gone to pay him interest on the mortgage." "Wolverton is a mean old hunks. He's got a nephew living with him, a boy about my age. He works him nearly to death, and I am sure the poor boy doesn't get half enough to eat." "I was wishing your father didn't owe money to such a man." "Oh, well, mother, there's no use in worrying. It's only three thousand dollars, and if we have a good crop next year, father will be able to pay off at least half of it. You can see we've got a splendid ranch, mother. There isn't another within twenty miles where the land is as rich." "I shall be glad to see the day when the mortgage is wholly paid off, and we are out of debt." "So shall I, mother." "Does Mr. Wolverton ever take any notice of you, Robert?" "He took some notice of me this morning," laughed Bob. "That reminds me. I just left three prairie chickens with Rachel in the kitchen." "Did you shoot them this morning, Robert?" "Yes, mother; you see I have my hunting dress on. But I shot two more. I was bringing them home across a field of Wolverton's, when the old fellow suddenly made his appearance, and, charging me with shooting them on his land, laid claim to them. I denied the charge and told him I proposed to keep them. With that he seized me by the collar, and we had a rough-and-tumble fight for five minutes." "Oh, Robert, how imprudent!" "Well, mother, it was more than flesh and blood could stand. The upshot of it was that I left him lying on his back trembling with rage. I threw down two of the chickens to appease him. I hope he'll have them for dinner, and Sam'll get a share of them. The poor fellow is half starved. I don't believe he gets a square meal once a week." "I am afraid you have made an enemy of Mr. Wolverton, Robert." "I can't help it, mother. Would you have me bow down to him, and meekly yield up my rights?" "But, Robert, to get into a fight with a man so much older?" "I don't want to get into any difficulty, mother. It was forced upon me. Besides, I left him two of the chickens." "Was Clip with you?" "I reckon I was, missis," said Clip, displaying his ivories. "I laughed like to split when Massa Bob laid de old man down on his back. Wasn't he jest ravin'? Wouldn't have lost dat sight, missis, for de biggest watermillion I ever seed." Mrs. Burton smiled, but her smile was a faint one. She knew Aaron Wolverton, and she feared that some time or other he would try to be revenged on Bob. CHAPTER II. AARON WOLVERTON. Richard Burton drove rapidly to the village. I may state here that the name of the township was Carver. Like most Western villages, it consisted principally of one long, central street, containing buildings of all sizes and descriptions, from a three-story hotel to a one-story office. But there seemed to be a good deal going on all the time--much more than in an Eastern town of the size. Western people are active, progressive, never content to stand still. In the drowsy atmosphere that pervades many an Eastern country town they would stagnate, but there perpetual motion is the rule. Everybody in Carver knew Richard Burton. Everybody liked him also; he was easy and social with all. I have said everybody, but I must make one exception, and that was the man on whom he now proposed to call. About midway on the main street was a small one-story building, about twelve feet square. Above the door was a sign: AARON WOLVERTON, REAL ESTATE AGENT. Mr. Wolverton had considerable capital, which he was in the habit of lending on mortgage, always for a large interest, and on substantial security. He was supposed to be rich, but did not live like a rich man. His dwelling lay a little way back from the street; it was small, cramped, and uncomfortable, and his style of living was of the most economical character. He was a bachelor, and the only other members of his family were his sister, Sally Wolverton, who resembled her brother in person and character, and a nephew, Sam, the son of a brother, who came in for a liberal share of ill-treatment from the uncle, on whom he was dependent. Richard Burton reined up in front of Wolverton's office, and, leaping from his carriage, unceremoniously opened the outer door. "Good morning, Wolverton," he said, cheerily. Aaron Wolverton, a meagre and wrinkled man of fifty-five, looked up from his desk, and scanned his visitor's face attentively. He was not sure but Richard Burton, who was a high-spirited man, had come to take him to task for his attack upon Bob a short time before. Whenever he thought of it, he fairly trembled with rage and humiliation, for the boy had conquered him, and he knew it. Burton's words reassured him. "I have come to pay interest on the mortgage, Wolverton. I suppose you haven't forgotten that?" "No." "Catch you forgetting a thing of that kind. That wouldn't be like you." "I suppose you don't want to lift the mortgage?" "No; it is all I can do to pay the interest. The first six months have passed remarkably quick." "Not to me." "No, for you are to receive money, I to pay it. It makes all the difference in the world. I suppose you are not in need of the money?" "No, not at present," answered Wolverton, slowly; "but if I had it I could get higher interest." "Higher interest! Isn't ten per cent. enough for you?" "Nothing is enough, as long as I can get more." "Come, Wolverton, don't be such a money-grabber. You must be rolling in money." The old man shrugged his shoulders in deprecation. "Times are dull, and--I lose money sometimes," he said. "Not much, if you know it," said Burton, jocosely. "Well, just write a receipt for six months' interest, one hundred and fifty dollars." Aaron Wolverton took the proffered bills, eyeing them with eager cupidity, and put them in his desk. Then he made out a receipt, and handed it to his visitor. "You will be paying the mortgage next year?" he said inquiringly. "I don't know, Wolverton. If the crops are good, I may pay a part. But I am afraid I am not a very good manager. I can't save money like you, and that brings me round to the question: For whom are you piling up all this wealth? Is it for Sam?" "Sam is a young loafer," said Wolverton, with a frown. "I give him a home and his living, and he is almost too lazy to breathe." "You were not that way at his age?" "No. I worked early and late. I was a poor boy. All that I have, I made by hard work." "Take my advice, Wolverton, and get the worth of it while you live. But perhaps you are saving with a view to matrimony. Ha, ha!" And Richard burst into a ringing laugh. Wolverton puckered up his face, and snarled: "Why shouldn't I marry if I choose? What is there to laugh at?" "No reason at all. I advise you to marry. You ought to, for I have found happiness in marrying one of the sweetest women in the world." Then without any apparent reason, remembering that the man before him had aspired to the hand of his wife, he burst into another laugh, which he kept up till the tears ran from his eyes. He didn't notice the evil expression which it called up in the face of the moneylender. "I'd like to kill him where he stands," thought Aaron Wolverton. "She must have told him about me. Curse him! he stole her from me, and now he dares to laugh in my face!" But Wolverton was not a man to indulge even his evil temper when it was impolitic to do so. He forced himself to look indifferent, and merely said: "Let them laugh that win, Mr. Burton. Perhaps my time may come some day." "Perhaps it may, Wolverton. I heartily hope that you may find some one to make your life happy. I am happy myself, and I like to see others happy." There was a little more conversation, and then Richard Burton went out. "Good-bye, Wolverton. Come to my ranch some time. I'll give you a seat at supper, and we will smoke a cigar afterwards." The colt--for it was scarcely more than that--was getting restless. It was pawing the ground and evidently anxious to get away. "Your horse has a bad temper, Mr. Burton," said Wolverton. "Yes, he needs taming. He's not well trained yet." "There's something more than that," Wolverton said to himself, thoughtfully. "Horses are like men--they often have nasty tempers. I wouldn't ride behind that brute for--for the money Burton has just paid me. Some day he'll get upset, or thrown. And if he does," he continued, after a pause, "why should I lament? He has taken from me the only woman I ever loved. She might have made a different man of me--perhaps." Just then a boy came up the street. He stopped and eyed Aaron Wolverton with a little misgiving. "Sam," said Wolverton, sharply, "what kept you so long? Do you want the strap again?" "Indeed, uncle, I hurried as fast as I could. Mr. Jenks kept me waiting." "That is probably a lie," growled Wolverton. "However, since you are here, go into your dinner. It is cold by this time, most likely." It was cold and uninviting, but Sam could not afford to be dainty, and ate what was set before him by his aunt. CHAPTER III. A LITTLE RETROSPECT. Richard Burton, three years previous to the opening of this story, was a dry-goods merchant in St. Louis. Becoming tired of the dull routine of his daily life, and with a wistful remembrance of the country, where he had passed his boyhood, he sold out his business for a few thousand dollars, and with the sum realized bought a large ranch located on a small river or creek running into the Missouri. In taking this course he was influenced in no small degree by a city acquaintance, Aaron Wolverton, who six months before had located himself in the same township, and who, indeed, had made the purchase of the ranch on his behalf. Wolverton made a large commission on the transaction--larger than Richard Burton was aware; but it must be admitted he had bought him an excellent property. Burton was entirely unacquainted with the fact that Wolverton had at an earlier period been an unsuccessful suitor for his wife's hand, nor did he know it till the morning on which our story opens. It is always rather a hazardous experiment when a man, engaged till middle life in other business, becomes a tiller of the soil without special training for his new occupation. Few persons make farming profitable, however well qualified, and the St. Louis merchant was hardly likely to do more than make a living. In fact, he did not make both ends meet, but fell behind every year till he felt compelled to borrow three thousand dollars on mortgage of Aaron Wolverton. His wife expressed uneasiness, but he laughed away her remonstrances, and assured her he should be able to pay it back in a couple of years, if fortune favored him with good crops. "You know, Mary," he said cheerfully, "there are a good many extra expenses just at first, but it will be different in future. Wolverton assures me that the ranch is a fine one, and that I can pay him back sooner than he desires, for he is glad to lend on such excellent security." Mrs. Burton was silent, but she was not convinced. Robert Burton, popularly called Bob, was the only son of the ex-merchant. He thoroughly enjoyed the removal to the country, having a taste for manly sports. He usually spent a part of the day in study, reciting to a clergyman in the village, and the rest of his time he employed in hunting, fishing, and farm work. Clip, the young refugee, was his chosen companion, and was sincerely attached to Massa Bob, as he generally called him. The negro lad was full of fun and innocent mischief, but had no malice about him. Bob tried to teach him to read, but Clip was no scholar. He complained that study made his head ache. "But you ought to know something, Clip," expostulated Bob. "You don't want to grow up an ignoramus." "What's dat?" asked Clip, bewildered. "Never heard such a long word. Is it anything very bad?" "It means a know-nothing, Clip." "I guess you're right, Massa Bob. Dat's what I am." "But don't it trouble you, Clip?" "No, Massa Bob; I guess I was never cut out for a scholar." Still Bob persevered in his effort to teach Clip. One day, after an unsuccessful attempt to get him to understand the difference between capital B and R, he said: "Clip, I don't believe you have got any sense." "Spec's I haven't, Massa Bob," answered Clip, philosophically. "How many have you got?" Bob laughed. "I don't know exactly," he replied; "but I hope I have as many as the average." "I reckon you've got a lot. You learn awful easy." "I am afraid I shall have to learn for both of us, Clip." "Dat's so!" said Clip, in a tone of satisfaction. "Dat'll do just as well." So Bob was finally obliged to give up teaching Clip in despair. He was led to accept the conclusion of his young _protégé_ that he was never meant for a scholar. In one respect Bob and Clip shared the prejudices of Mrs. Burton. Neither liked Aaron Wolverton. They felt friendly, however, to Sam Wolverton, the nephew; and more than once Sam, with his appetite unsatisfied at home, came over to Burton's ranch and enjoyed a hearty lunch, thanks to the good offices of Bob Burton. One day he came over crying, and showed the marks of a severe whipping he had received from his uncle. "What did you do, Sam?" asked Bob. Sam mentioned the offense, which was a trifling one, and unintentional besides. "Your uncle is a brute!" said Bob indignantly. "Dat's so, Sam," echoed Clip. "It would do me good to lay the whip over his shoulders." Sam trembled, and shook his head. He was a timid boy, and such an act seemed to him to border on the foolhardy. "How old are you, Sam?" "Fourteen." "In seven years you will be a man, and he can't tyrannize over you any longer." "I don't believe I shall live so long," said Sam, despondently. "Yes, you will. Even in four years, when you are eighteen, your uncle won't dare to beat you." "Why don't you run away, like I did?" asked Clip, with a bright idea. But Sam was not of the heroic type. He shrank from throwing himself on the world. "I should starve," he said. "Would you run away, Clip, if you were in my place?" "Wouldn't I just!" "And you, Bob?" "He wouldn't strike me but once," said Bob, proudly. "It's all well enough for you, but I think I'm a coward. When my uncle comes at me my heart sinks into my boots, and I want to run away." "You'll never make a hero, Sam." "No, I won't. I'm an awful coward, and I know it." "How is your aunt? Is she any better than your uncle?" "She's about the same. She don't whip me, but she's got an awful rough tongue. She will scold till she's out of breath." "How long have you lived with your uncle?" "About four years. When my father died, he told me to go to Uncle Aaron." "Didn't he leave any property?" "Uncle Aaron says he didn't leave a cent, and I suppose it's so; but father told me in his last sickness there'd be some property for me." "I've no doubt there was, and he cheated you out of it," said Bob indignantly. "That's just my opinion of your uncle." "Even if it is so, I can't do anything. It'll do no good. But I'd like to know how it is, for Uncle Aaron is all the time twitting me with living on him." "As if you don't do enough to earn your own living. Why, you work harder than Clip, here, though that isn't saying much," added Bob, with a smile. Clip showed his white teeth, and seemed to enjoy the joke. "Spec's I was born lazy," he said, promptly. "Dat ain't my fault, ef I was born so." "That wouldn't be any excuse with Uncle Aaron," remarked Sam. "He thinks I'm lazy, and says he means to lick the laziness out of me." "I think we had better hire out Clip to him. He needs a little discipline like that sort." "Oh golly, massa Bob! I couldn't stand it nohow," said Clip, with a comical expression of alarm. "Massa Wolverton's the meanest white man I ever seed. Wish an earthquake would come and swallow him up." "Your father was round to see my uncle this morning," said Sam. "Yes, I know; he went to pay him some interest money." "Your father is a nice gentleman. I wish I was his nephew," said poor Sam, enviously. "Yes, Sam; he's always kind. He's a father to be proud of." "By the way, Sam, I've got some good news for you." "What is it, Bob?" "Your uncle carried home a pair of prairie chickens this morning. You'll have one good dinner, at least." "Where did he get them?" "I shot them." "And you gave them to him?" asked Sam, surprised. "Well, yes, after a little squabble," and Bob related the adventure of the morning. "How brave you are, Bob!" said Sam admiringly. "You actually had a quarrel with Uncle Aaron?" "Yes," answered Bob, with a smile. "When I got through, your uncle was lying on his back resting. I threw down two of the chickens, as much for your sake as any other reason. I hope you'll get your share." "I saw the chickens in the kitchen before I came away, and wondered where they came from. I knew Uncle Aaron wouldn't buy them." "Has your uncle got a gun?" "No; I think he's afraid of a gun." "And you are afraid of him?" "I can't help it, Bob. He flogs me sometimes with a horsewhip." "I'd like to see him try it on me," said Bob, with emphasis. "But as I said before, you'll be a man some time, Sam, and then he won't dare touch you." CHAPTER IV. THE SUDDEN SUMMONS. When Richard Burton left the office of Aaron Wolverton, he did not return home immediately. He had a business call to make in the next township, and drove over there. Finding that he was likely to be detained, he went to the hotel to dine, and, the day being warm, sat on the piazza and smoked a cigar afterwards. It was not until four o'clock that he turned his horse's head in the direction of Carver. The horse he drove was young and untrained. It would have been dangerous for an unskillful driver to undertake to manage him. Robert Burton, however, thoroughly understood horses, and was not afraid of any, however fractious. But he had been persuaded to drink a couple of glasses of whisky by acquaintances at the hotel, and he was easily affected by drink of any kind. So his hand was not as strong or steady as usual when he started on his homeward journey. The horse seemed instinctively to know that there was something the matter with his driver, and, as he turned back his head knowingly, he prepared to take advantage of it. So he made himself more troublesome than usual, and Burton became at first annoyed and then angry. "What ails you, you vicious brute?" he exclaimed, frowning. "You need a lesson, it seems." He gave a violent twitch to the reins, more violent than he intended, and the animal swerved aside suddenly, bringing one wheel of the wagon into forcible collision with a tree by the roadside. This, coming unexpectedly, threw Richard Burton violently from his seat, and he was pitched out of the carriage, his head being thrown with force against the tree which had been the occasion of the shock. There was a dull, sickening thud, and the poor man lay insensible, his eyes closed and his breast heaving. The horse detached himself from the wagon and ran home--they were within half a mile of the village now--leaving his driver without sense or motion beside the wrecked wagon. He had lain there not over twenty minutes, when a pedestrian appeared upon the scene. It was Aaron Wolverton, who was on his way to the house of a tenant to collect rent. He had been walking with his eyes fixed upon the ground, thinking intently, when all at once, raising his eyes, he started in amazement at the sight of the wrecked carriage and the prostrate man. "Who can it be?" he asked himself in excitement. His eyes were failing, and he could not distinguish, till close at hand, the person of the stricken man. "Robert Burton!" he exclaimed in excitement, when at last he had discovered who it was. "How on earth did this accident happen?" He bent over the prostrate man and placed his hand upon his heart. Alas! it had already ceased to beat. The features wore a startled and troubled look, the reflection of the feelings excited by the collision. "Well, well!" ejaculated Wolverton, awed in spite of himself by the sight, "who would have dreamed of this? and only this morning he called on me to pay his interest." There was a sudden suggestion, begotten of his greed, that entered that instant into Wolverton's mind. "He can't have gone home since," he bethought himself. "He must have the receipt with him." Even if he had, what did it concern Wolverton? The money had been paid, but there was no evidence of it except the receipt which he had given him. With trembling fingers, Wolverton, bending over, searched the clothes of the dead man, half turning his eyes away, as if he feared to meet Robert Burton's look. At last he found it. Burton had thrust it carelessly into his vest pocket. With a furtive look, to see if he were observed, Aaron Wolverton put the receipt into his own pocket. Then he rose to his feet, and turned to go away. He had no desire to remain any longer by the side of the dead. Meanwhile the horse had dashed into the village at wild speed. Now it happened that Clip, sent on an errand to the store by Mrs. Burton, was in the village. His eyes opened wide when he saw the horse dash by him. "What's dat mean?" Clip asked himself, staring with all his eyes at the runaway horse. "What's come of Massa Burton? Must have been an accident. Wagon must have upset, and--golly! I hope Massa Burton isn't killed nor noting." Clip was all alive with excitement. He had the sense not to attempt to follow the horse, but ran as fast as he could in the direction from which the horse had come. There, he argued, must be the wagon and its rider. It was a straight road, and he was not long in reaching the scene of the casualty. He came in sight of it at the moment when Aaron Wolverton was bending over the prostrate man, and searching his pockets. Here was another surprise for Clip. "What is Massa Wolverton doing," he asked himself. He was sure he was not up to any good, for, as we have already seen, he had no love for the real estate agent, and thought him a very bad man. Clip had no small share of curiosity, and, intent on finding out what Wolverton was doing, he slid behind a tree about a foot in diameter, which happened to be conveniently situated. Grief struggled with curiosity, for Clip had already seen the wrecked team and the prostrate figure of the kind master, to whom he felt warmly attached. "Poor Massa Burton! I hope he isn't dead," thought Clip. "Jes' as soon as old Wolverton goes away I'll go up and look. Won't Mrs. Burton feel bad?" All the while Clip was watching the movements of the real estate agent. "What's he searchin' Massa Burton's pockets for?" he asked himself. "Spec's he's going to rob him. Didn't think the old man was so mean before. I'd jes' like to jump out and scare him." Meanwhile Wolverton finished his discreditable business, happily unconscious that any one was witness of his mean act. Then, as already stated, he got up and walked swiftly away, not venturing to look back. Had he done so he would have seen Clip stealing from behind the tree which had served to screen him from observation, and running towards the wreck. Clip had never before seen death, but there was something in the mute look of Richard Burton that awed the soul of the colored boy. Clip had an affectionate heart. He felt that Richard Burton must be dead, and the thought overpowered him. "Poor Massa Burton!" he cried, bursting into tears. "He's done dead, sure 'nough. Oh, what will we do?" A minute later Clip bounded off like a deer, to carry the sad news to the village. He met the village doctor driving along in his top buggy, and he quickly called out to him: "Go quick, Massa Doctor, for de love of God. Poor Massa Burton's upset himself, and I 'spec's he's dead." "Whereabouts, Clip?" demanded the doctor, startled. "Up the road a piece." "Jump in with me and show me." So Clip, seated beside the doctor, guided him to the fatal spot. The doctor lost no time in jumping out of his buggy and approaching the fallen man. He didn't need to feel his pulse, or place his hand over his heart. To his practiced eye there were other indications that disclosed the terrible truth. "Is he dead?" asked Clip, in an awed voice. "Yes, Clip; your poor master is dead," answered the doctor, sadly. He had known Richard Burton well, and, like all the rest of his neighbors, had a warm esteem for him. "How did this happen, Clip?" he asked. "I don't know, Massa Doctor; 'deed I don't," answered Clip. "I was walkin' along, when I saw the colt runnin' like mad, wid his harness on, and I 'spected something had happened. So I came up, and dat's what I saw." "We can't do anything, Clip, except to see that he is carried home. I dread to break the news to his poor wife." Meanwhile Aaron Wolverton had locked himself in his office. He drew the receipt from his pocket, read it through carefully, and chuckled: "I'll get the money out of the widder. She can't prove that the interest has been paid! But I don't care so much for that as I do to get even with that impudent rascal Bob. He'll rue this day, as sure as my name is Aaron Wolverton." CHAPTER V. WOLVERTON'S FIRST MOVE. Why did not Aaron Wolverton burn the receipt, and get rid once for all of the only proof that the interest had been paid? It would have been the most politic thing to do, inasmuch as he had made up his mind to be dishonest. But, though unprincipled, he was not a bold man. The thought did certainly occur to him, and he even went so far as to light a match. But more timid counsel prevailed, and he concealed it in his desk, carefully locking the desk afterwards. It is unnecessary to describe the grief of the little family at Burton's Ranch when the body of the master was brought home. No one had dreamed of speedy death for Richard Burton. He seemed so strong and vigorous that it would have seemed safe to predict for him a long life--long beyond the average; yet here, in middle life, in the fullness of health and vigor, the summons had come. To Mrs. Burton, who was a most devoted wife, it was a crushing blow. It seemed at first as if it would be happiness to lie down beside her dead husband, and leave the world for him. "What have I to live for now?" she asked, mournfully. "You have me, mother," answered Bob, gently. "I have lost my father. What would become of me if I should lose my mother also?" "You are right, Robert," said Mrs. Burton. "I was wrong to give way; but it is a very hard trial." "Indeed it is, mother," said Robert, kissing her affectionately. "But we must try to bear up." Mrs. Burton felt that this was her plain duty, and henceforth strove to control her emotions. She ceased to sob, but her face showed the grief she suffered. The funeral took place, and the little family held a council to decide what was to be done. "Can we carry on the ranch now that your father is gone?" asked Mrs. Burton, anxiously. "Would it not be better to sell it?" "No, mother; the sacrifice would be too great." "But I do not feel capable of managing it, Robert." "You may think me presumptuous, mother, but my proposal is to assist you, relieving you of the greater part of the care. Between us we can carry it on, I am confident." "You are only a boy of sixteen, Robert," objected his mother. "That is true; but I have watched carefully the manner in which the ranch has been carried on. Of course you must help, and you will try to get a man with whom I can advise. I am sure we can make a good deal more out of the farm than we could realize from investing the money it would bring." "And are you willing to undertake this, Robert? It will be a hard task." "I'll help him, missis," said Clip, eagerly. "I shall have Clip to advise me, mother," said Robert. "No doubt Clip is willing," said Mrs. Burton, smiling faintly; "but after all, it will be only two boys." "Try us a single year, mother," said Bob, confidently. Mrs. Burton gave her consent, and Bob at once took his father's place, rising early and going to the field to superintend the farming operations. He seemed to have developed at once into a mature man, though in appearance he was still the same. Clip was his loyal assistant, though, being a harum-scarum boy, fond of fun and mischief, he was of very little service as adviser. He had mentioned to Bob seeing Aaron Wolverton bending over the body of his father, and exploring his pockets. This puzzled Bob, but he was not prepared to suspect him of anything else than curiosity, until his mother received a call from the real estate agent a month after her husband's decease. Aaron Wolverton had been anxious to call before, but something withheld him. It might have been the consciousness of the dishonorable course he had taken. Be that as it may, he finally screwed up his courage to the sticking-point, and walked out to Burton's Ranch early one afternoon. Mrs. Burton was at home, as usual, for she seldom went out now. She had no intimate friends in the neighborhood. All that she cared for was under her own roof. She looked up in some surprise when Mr. Wolverton was ushered into the sitting-room. "I hope I see you well, Mrs. Burton," said the real estate agent, slipping to a seat, and placing his high hat on his knees. "I am well in health, Mr. Wolverton," answered the widow, gravely. "Yes, yes, of course; I understand," he hastily answered. "Terribly sudden, Mr. Barton's death was, to be sure, but dust we are, and to dust we must return, as the Scripture says." Mrs. Burton did not think it necessary to make any reply. "I came over to offer my--my condolences," continued Mr. Wolverton. "Thank you." "And I thought perhaps you might stand in need of some advice from a practical man." "Any advice will be considered, Mr. Wolverton." "I've been thinkin' the thing over, and I've about made up my mind that the best thing you can do is to sell the ranch," and the real estate agent squinted at Mrs. Burton from under his red eyebrows. "That was my first thought; but I consulted with Robert, and he was anxious to have me carry on the ranch with his help." Aaron Wolverton shook his head. "A foolish plan!" he remarked. "Excuse me for saying so. Of course you, being a woman, are not competent to carry it on--" "I have my son Robert to help me," said the widow. Aaron Wolverton sniffed contemptuously. "A mere boy!" he ejaculated. "No; not a mere boy. His father's death and his affection for me have made a man of him at sixteen. He rises early every morning, goes to the fields, and superintends the farming operations. Peter, my head man, says that he is a remarkably smart boy, and understands the business about as well as a man." "Still I predict that he'll bring you deeper in debt every year." "I don't think so; but, at any rate, I have promised to try the experiment for one year. I can then tell better whether it will be wise to keep on or sell." "Now, Mrs. Burton, I have a better plan to suggest." "What is it, Mr. Wolverton?" "In fact, I have two plans. One is that you should sell me the ranch. You know I hold a mortgage on it for three thousand dollars?" "I know it, Mr. Wolverton!" answered the widow, gravely. "I'll give you three thousand dollars over and above, and then you will be rid of all care." "Will you explain to me how Robert and I are going to live on the interest of three thousand dollars, Mr. Wolverton?" "You'll get something, and if the boy runs the ranch you'll get nothing. He can earn his living, and I don't think you will suffer, even if you have only three thousand dollars." "It is quite out of the question. Mr. Burton considered the ranch worth ten thousand dollars." "A very ridiculous over-valuation--pardon me for saying so." "At any rate, I don't propose to sell." "There's another little circumstance I ought to mention," added Wolverton, nervously. "There is half a year's interest due on the mortgage. It was due on the very day of your husband's death." Mrs. Burton looked up in amazement. "What do you mean, Mr. Wolverton?" she said. "My husband started for your office on the fatal morning of his death, carrying the money--one hundred and fifty dollars--to meet the interest. Do you mean to tell me that he did not pay it?" "That is strange, very strange," stammered Aaron Wolverton, wiping his forehead with a bandana handkerchief. "What became of the money?" "Do you mean to say that it was not paid to you?" asked the widow, sharply. "No, it was not," answered Wolverton, with audacious falsehood. CHAPTER VI. THE LOST RECEIPT. "I can't understand this," said Mrs. Burton, beginning to be troubled. "My poor husband had made all arrangements for paying his interest on the day of his death. When he left the house, he spoke of it. Do you mean to say he did not call at your office?" If Aaron Wolverton had dared, he would have denied this, but Mr. Burton had been seen to enter the office, and so that he would not do him any good. "He did call upon me, Mrs. Burton." "And said nothing about the interest?" "He said this, that he would pay me the coming week." "He said that, when he had the money in his pocket?" said Mrs. Burton, incredulously. "Of course I didn't know that he had the money with him. He probably thought of another way in which he wanted to use a part or all of it." "I don't believe it. He never mentioned any other use for it, and he was not owing any one except you. Mr. Wolverton, I don't like to say it, but I think he paid you the interest." "Do you doubt my word?" demanded Wolverton, with assumed indignation. "Suppose I say that you have forgotten it." "I would not forget anything of that kind. You are very unjust, Mrs. Burton, but I will attribute that to your disappointment. Let me suggest one thing, however. If your husband had paid me, he would have been sure to take a receipt. If you have his wallet here--I happen to know that he was in the habit of carrying a wallet--and you doubt my word, examine the wallet and see if you can find the receipt." Mrs. Burton thought this a good suggestion, and went up-stairs for the wallet. She opened it, but, as Wolverton had good reason to know would be the case, failed to find the important paper. "I can't find it," she said, as she re-entered the room. "Did I not tell you so?" returned Wolverton, triumphantly. "Doesn't that settle it? Wasn't your husband a good enough business man to require a receipt for money paid?" "Yes, yes," murmured the widow. "Mr. Wolverton, if you are right it arouses in my mind a terrible suspicion. Could my husband have been waylaid, murdered, and robbed?" "No, I don't think so. His death was evidently the result of accident--the upset of his team." "What then became of the money--the hundred and fifty dollars which he carried with him?" "There, my dear lady, you ask me a question which I cannot answer. I am as much in the dark as you are." "If this story is true, then we are one hundred and fifty dollars poorer than we supposed. It will be bad news for Robert." "It need not be bad news for you, Mrs. Burton," said Wolverton, in an insinuating tone, shoving his chair a little nearer that occupied by the widow. Mrs. Burton looked up in surprise. "How can it fail to be bad news for me?" she asked. "A loss like that I cannot help feeling." "Do you think I would be hard on _you_, Mrs. Burton?" asked Wolverton, in the same soft voice. "If you are disposed to wait for the money, or relinquish a part under the circumstances, Robert and I will feel very grateful to you, Mr. Wolverton." "I might, upon conditions," said the agent, furtively shoving his chair a little nearer. "What conditions?" asked Mrs. Burton, suspiciously. "I will tell you, if you won't be offended. Mrs. Burton--Mary--you can't have forgotten the early days in which I declared my love for you. I--I love you still. If you will only promise to marry me--after a while--all shall be easy with you. I am a rich man--richer than people think, and can surround you with luxuries. I will be a father to that boy of yours, and try to like him for your sake. Only tell me that you will be mine!" Mrs. Burton had been so filled with indignation that she let him run on, quite unable to command her voice sufficiently to stem the torrent of his words. As he concluded, she rose to her feet, her eyes flashing, and her voice tremulous with anger, and said: "Mr. Wolverton, are you aware that my poor husband has been dead but a month?" "I am perfectly aware of it, Mary." "Don't address me so familiarly, sir." "Mrs. Burton, then, I am perfectly acquainted with that fact, and would not have spoken now, but I saw you were anxious about the future, and I wished to reassure you. Of course I wouldn't hurry you; I only meant to get some kind of an answer that I might depend upon." "And you thought that, after loving such a man as Richard Burton, I would be satisfied to take such a man as you?" said the widow, with stinging sarcasm. "Richard Burton was not an angel," said Wolverton, harshly, for his pride was touched by the contempt which she made no effort to conceal. "Don't dare to say anything against him!" said the widow, her eyes flashing ominously. "Well, then, he was an angel," said Wolverton, sulkily; "but he's dead, and you will need to look to another protector." "My son will protect me," said Mrs. Burton, proudly. "That boy?" said Wolverton, contemptuously. "But I make allowance for a mother's feelings. Once more, Mary, I make you the offer. Remember that I am a rich man, and can surround you with luxuries." "I would rather live in a log house on a crust, than to marry you, Mr. Wolverton," she said, impetuously. "If you were the only man in the world, I would go unmarried to my grave rather than wed you!" Wolverton rose, white with wrath. "You are tolerably explicit, madam," he said. "I can't charge you with beating round the bush. But let me tell you, ma'am, that you have done the unwisest act of your life in making me your enemy." "I did not mean to make you an enemy," said Mrs. Burton, softening. "I suppose I ought to acknowledge the compliment you have paid me, but I must decline, once for all, and request you never again to mention the subject." Aaron Wolverton was not so easily appeased. "I do not care to stay any longer," he said. "You had better mention to your son about the interest." Mrs. Burton had an opportunity to do this almost immediately, for Bob and Clip entered the house just as Wolverton was leaving it. "What have you done to Mr. Wolverton, mother?" asked Bob. "He looked savage enough to bite my head off, and wouldn't even speak to me." "Robert, I have some bad news to tell you. Mr. Wolverton tells me that your father didn't pay him the interest on the day of his death." "I believe he tells a falsehood," said Bob, quickly. "But he says, with some show of reason, if the interest was paid, why didn't your father take a receipt?" "Can no receipt be found?" "No; I searched your father's wallet in vain." "What is a receipt, missis?" asked Clip. "It's a piece of paper with writing on it, Clip," said the widow, adjusting her explanations to Clip's intelligence. "Golly! I saw de old man take a piece of paper from Massa Burton's pocket after he was dead--when he was a-lyin' on the ground." "Say that again, Clip," said Bob, eagerly. Clip repeated it, and answered several questions put to him by Mrs. Burton and Bob. "It's all clear, mother," said Bob. "That old rascal has got up a scheme to rob you. He thinks there isn't any proof of the payment. If he suspected that Clip had been a witness of his robbery he would have been more careful." "What shall I do, Bob?" "Wait a while. Let him show his hand, and then confront him with Clip's testimony. I wonder if he destroyed the receipt?" "Probably he did so." "If he didn't, I may get it through Sam. Don't be worried, mother. It'll all come out right." One thing the widow did not venture to tell Bob--about Mr. Wolverton's matrimonial offer. It would have made him so angry that she feared he would act imprudently. CHAPTER VII. WOLVERTON'S ADVENTURE WITH CLIP. Bob and his mother deliberated as to whether they should charge Mr. Wolverton openly with the theft of the receipt. On the whole, they decided to wait a while, and be guided by circumstances. If he took any measures to collect the money a second time, there would be sufficient reason to take the aggressive. Bob had another reason for delay. He intended to acquaint Sam Wolverton with the matter, and request him to keep on the lookout for the receipt. Should he find it, he knew that Sam would gladly restore it to the rightful owner. He cautioned Clip not to say anything about what he saw on the day of his father's death, as it would put Wolverton on his guard, and lead him to destroy the receipt if still in his possession. I must now relate a little incident in which Clip and Aaron Wolverton were the actors. The creek on which Burton's Ranch was located was a quarter of a mile distant from the house. It was about a quarter of a mile wide. Over on the other side of the creek was the town of Martin, which was quite as large as Carver. In some respects it was a more enterprising place than Carver, and the stores were better stocked. For this reason there was considerable travel across the creek; but as there was no bridge, the passage must be made by boat. Bob owned a good boat, which he and Clip used considerably. Both were good rowers, and during Mr. Burton's life they spent considerable time in rowing for pleasure. Now Bob's time was so occupied that the boat was employed only when there was an errand in the opposite village. "Clip," said Bob, one morning, "I want you to go down to Martin." "Yes, Massa Bob," said Clip, with alacrity, for he much preferred such a jaunt to working in the fields. The errand was to obtain a hammer and a supply of nails at the variety store in Martin. Clip was rather given to blunder, but still there was no reason why he should not execute the errand satisfactorily. Clip went down to the creek, and unfastened the boat. He jumped in, and began to paddle away, when he heard a voice calling him. "Here, you Clip!" Looking round, Clip recognized in the man hailing him Aaron Wolverton. Mr. Wolverton did not own any boat himself, and when he had occasion to go across the river he generally managed to secure a free passage with some one who was going over. If absolutely necessary, he would pay a nickel; but he begrudged even this small sum, so mean was he. Clip stopped paddling, and answered the call. "Hi, Massa Wolverton; what's the matter?" "Come back here." "What fo'?" "I want you to take me over to Martin." Now Clip was naturally obliging, but he disliked Wolverton as much as one of his easy good nature could do. So he felt disposed to tantalize him. "Can't do it, Massa Wolverton. I'm in a terrible hurry." "It won't take you a minute to come back." "Massa Bob will scold." "You needn't mind that, boy. Come back, I say!" "I dassn't." "Don't be a fool, you little nigger. I'll pay you." "What'll you give?" asked Clip, cautiously. "I'll give you--a cent." "Couldn't do it, nohow. What good's a cent to me?" "A cent's a good deal of money. You can buy a stick of candy." "'Tain't enough, Massa Wolverton. I ain't goin' to resk gettin' licked for a cent." Cunning Clip knew that there was no danger of this, but he thought it would serve as an argument. "I'll give you two cents," said Wolverton, impatiently. "Couldn't do it," said Clip. "Ef it was five, now, I might 'sider it." Finally Wolverton was obliged to accede to Clip's terms, and the colored boy pushed the boat to shore, and took in his passenger. "Can you row good, Clip?" asked Wolverton, nervously, for he was very much afraid of the water, and he had never had Clip for a boatman before. "You jes' bet I can, Massa Wolverton. I can row mos' as good as Massa Bob." "Well, show it then; I am in a hurry to get over the creek." Clip rowed to the middle of the creek, and then stopped paddling. "I reckon you'd better pay me the money now, Massa Wolverton," he said. "Why, you young rascal, are you afraid to trust me?" "I dunno 'bout dat; but I wants my money." "You haven't earned it yet. What are you afraid of?" "You might forget to pay me, Massa Wolverton." "No, I sha'n't. Push on." "I'm goin' to sleep," said Clip, lying back in a lazy attitude. "You young rascal! I've a good mind to fetch you a slap on the side of the head." "Better not, Massa Wolverton," drawled Clip. "Might upset the boat." "Give me the oars," said Wolverton, impatiently. He took them; but he had never rowed in his life, and he almost immediately turned the boat around. "Hi, yah!" laughed Clip, delighted. "Where was you raised, Massa Wolverton, not to understand rowin' no better dan dat?" "Take the oars, you black scoundrel, and row me across, or I'll pitch you out of the boat!" "Ef you do, what'll 'come of you, Massa Wolverton?" said Clip, not at all alarmed. This was indeed an important consideration for a man so timid on the water as the real estate agent. "You put me out of all patience," said Wolverton, furiously. "Are you going to row or are you not?" "I want my money," said Clip. Wolverton was compelled to hand over a nickel, but registered a vow that if ever he caught Clip on land, he would make him pay for his impudence. Clip took the oars, and made very good progress till he was about fifty feet from the other side of the creek. Then he began to make the boat rock, stopping his rowing. "What are you about?" shouted Wolverton, turning pale. "It's good fun, ain't it, Massa Wolverton?" said Clip; laughing insolently. "Stop, you little rascal! You'll upset the boat." "Golly! ain't dis fun?" said Clip, continuing his rocking. "I'll choke you, if you don't stop," screamed Wolverton. He rose to catch hold of Clip. The boy jumped up, and ducked his head. The result of the combined motion was that the boat, which was flat-bottomed, capsized, and the two were thrown into the water. There was no danger, for the water at this point was only four feet deep; and Clip could swim, while Aaron Wolverton was too tall to be drowned in that depth of water. Wolverton was almost scared out of his wits. He cut such a ludicrous figure as he floundered in the water, that Clip screamed with delight. The black boy swam to the boat, and, managing to right her, got in again; but Wolverton waded to the shore, almost beside himself with rage. "Is you wet, Massa Wolverton?" asked Clip, innocently, showing his white teeth. "Come ashore, and I'll lick you!" shouted Wolverton, who had by this time landed, his clothes dripping wet. "I reckon I'm too busy," answered Clip, with a grin. "I'm sorry you's wet, Massa Wolverton. Hi yah!" "I'll wring your neck, you young tike!" said Wolverton, savagely. "Dat old man's a hog," mused Clip. "Ain't much like my poor old gran'ther. _He_ was always kin' an' good. I mind him sittin' in front of de ole cabin door down in Arkansaw. I 'spec' de old chap's done dead afore this," concluded Clip, with a sigh. Clip kept at a safe distance from shore, and the agent was compelled to defer his vengeance, and go to the house of an acquaintance to borrow some dry clothes. When he returned, it is needless to say that it was not in Clip's boat. He opened his desk, to enter a business transaction in his account-book, when he made a startling discovery. _The receipt had disappeared!_ CHAPTER VIII. WOLVERTON'S DISMAY. Wolverton uttered a cry of dismay when he found that the receipt had disappeared. With trembling fingers he turned over a pile of papers in the hope of finding the important paper. "Where on earth can it be?" he asked himself, with a troubled face. He set himself to consider when he had seen it last and where he had placed it. "It must be in the desk somewhere," he decided, and resumed his search. Those of my readers who have mislaid any article can picture to themselves his increasing perplexity as the missing paper failed to turn up. He was finally obliged to conclude that it was not in the desk. But, if so, where could it be? If not found, or if found by any one else, his situation would be an embarrassing one. He had assured Mrs. Burton that the interest money had not been paid. Now suppose the receipt were found, what would be the inference? He could not help acknowledging that it would look bad for him. Until he learned something of its whereabouts he would not dare to press Mrs. Burton for a second payment of the interest money. "It is as bad as losing a hundred and fifty dollars," he groaned. "It is a pile of money to lose." Aaron Wolverton did not appear to consider that it was losing what was not his property, and was only preventing him from pushing a fraudulent claim. He actually felt wronged by this inopportune loss. He felt somehow that he was the victim of misfortune. But what could have become of the receipt? That was what troubled him. Was there anybody who was responsible for its disappearance? Naturally it would be important for Mrs. Burton to get hold of it; but then, they did not know of its existence. They had no evidence that the receipt had even been delivered to Richard Burton. Still it was possible that Bob Burton had visited the house, and searched the desk. He would inquire of his sister. He opened the door leading to the kitchen, where Miss Sally Wolverton was engaged in some domestic employment. "Sally, has the Burton boy been here this morning?" "No; why should he come? He isn't one of your visitors, is he?" "Was he here yesterday?" "No; what makes you ask?" "There was a little business, connected with the farm, which he might have come about." "I am glad he didn't come," said Sally. "He's too high-strung for me." "I don't like him myself; but sometimes we have to do business with those we don't like." "That's so. How's the widder left?" "She's got the ranch, but I hold a mortgage of three thousand dollars on it," replied her brother, his features expanding into a wintry smile. A man who can laugh heartily possesses redeeming traits, even if in some respects he is bad; but Aaron Wolverton had never been known to indulge in a hearty laugh. "Can she pay?" "Not at present." "Is the mortgage for a term of years?" "No; it can be called in at the end of any year." "I never liked that woman," said Miss Sally Wolverton, grimly. Sally Wolverton did not like any woman who was younger and prettier than herself, and there were few who were not prettier. She had never known of her brother's infatuation for the lady she was criticising, otherwise she would have been tempted to express herself even more strongly. She was strongly opposed to his marriage, as this would have removed her from her place in his household, or, even if she remained, would have deprived her of her power. Aaron did not care at present to take her into his confidence. Still he could not forbear coming, in a faint way, to the defense of the woman he admired. "Mrs. Burton is a fine-looking woman," he said. "Fine looking!" repeated Sally with a contemptuous sniff. "I don't admire your taste." "She isn't in your style, Sally," said Aaron, with a sly twinkle in his eye. Sally Wolverton was taller than her brother, with harsh features, a gaunt, angular figure, and an acid expression. "I hope not," she answered. "I hope I don't look like an insipid doll." "You certainly don't, Sally; you have expression enough, I am sure." "Do you think Mrs. Burton pretty?" asked Sally, suspiciously. "Oh, so so!" answered Aaron, guardedly; for he did not care to reveal the secret to his sister at present. She was useful to him as a housekeeper, and moreover (an important point) she was very economical; more so than any person whom he could hire. He did indeed pay his sister, but only a dollar a week, and out of this she saved nearly one half, having the gift of economy in quite as large a measure as himself. This assurance, and her brother's indifferent tone, relieved Sally from her momentary suspicion. Yet, had she been able to read her brother's secret thoughts, she would have been a prey to anxiety. He had made up his mind, if ever he did marry Mrs. Burton, to give Sally her walking-ticket. "I can't afford to support two women," he reflected, "and my wife ought to be able to do all the work in so small a household." "Why are you so anxious to know whether any of the Burtons have been here?" "I thought they might come," answered her brother, evasively. "You haven't seen anything of that black imp, Clip, have you?" "No; has he any business with you?" "I have some business with him," snarled Wolverton. "He played a trick on me this morning." "What sort of a trick?" "I got him to carry me across the creek in his boat, and he managed to upset me." "Did he do it a-purpose?" "Yes; he laughed like a hyena when he saw me floundering in the water." "If he comes round here, I'll give him a lesson. I can't abide a nigger any way. They're as lazy as sin, and they ain't got no more sense than a monkey. It's my opinion they are a kind of monkey, any way." Fortunately for the colored race all are not so prejudiced against them as Sally Wolverton--otherwise they would be in a bad case. "By the way, Sally, have you seen a stray paper about the floor in my room?" asked Wolverton, with assumed carelessness. "What sort of a paper was it?" "It was a--a receipt," answered her brother, hesitating. "What kind of a receipt--from whom?" asked Sally, who possessed her share of general curiosity. "That isn't to the point. If you have seen such a paper, or picked it up, I shall feel relieved. I might have to pay the money over again if I don't find it." This was misrepresenting the matter, but Wolverton did not think it expedient to give his sister a clew to so delicate a secret. "No; I have seen no paper," she said shortly, not relishing his evasive reply. "Have you searched your desk?" "Yes." "And didn't find it?" "No." "Suppose I look. Four eyes are better than two." "No, thank you, Sally," answered her brother, hastily. "I am particular about not having my papers disturbed." Aaron Wolverton would have gained some valuable information touching the missing paper if he could have transferred himself at that moment to Burton's Ranch. Bob and Clip were out in the yard when Sam Wolverton made his appearance, breathless and excited. "What's the matter, Sam?" asked Bob, wondering. "Let me catch my breath," gasped Sam. "I--I've got some good news." "Then you are welcome. Has your uncle got married?" "No; nor aunt Sally either," replied Sam. "What do you say to that?" and he drew from his vest pocket a long strip of paper. "What's that?" asked Bob, eagerly. "_It's the receipt_", answered Sam. CHAPTER IX. SAM'S GIFT. "What!" exclaimed Bob, in great excitement. "Not the receipt for the money?" "That's just what it is," answered Sam, nodding emphatically. "Let me see it." Sam put the paper in Bob's hand. There it was in regular form, a receipt for one hundred and fifty dollars, being the semi-annual interest on a mortgage on Burton's Ranch, dated on the day of Richard Burton's death, and signed by Aaron Wolverton. "Hurrah!" shouted Bob, waving it aloft. "Then father did pay it, after all, and that mean scoundrel--excuse my speaking of your uncle in such terms, Sam--" "I don't mind," said Sam, philosophically. "That mean scoundrel wanted us to pay the money a second time. I'm ever so much obliged to you, Sam. But where on earth did you find it?" "I'll tell you, Bob," answered Sam, perching himself on the fence. "This forenoon Uncle Aaron started out on business--I don't know where he went." "I know," said Clip, giving way to a burst of merriment. "How do you know?" "I rowed him across de creek. I was out in de boat when old Massa Wolverton come along and axed me to take him across. I made him pay me a nickel, and he got into de boat," and Clip began to laugh once more. "I don't see anything to laugh at, Clip." "You would, massa Bob, ef you'd been dar. We was almost across when de old boat upset, yah! yah! and old Massa Wolverton--it makes me laugh like to split--tumbled into de water, and got wet as a drownded rat." "Clip, you bad boy, you did it on purpose," said Bob, trying to look stern. "Wish I may die!" asseverated Clip, stoutly, for he was not an imitator of George Washington. "Didn't de old man look mad, dough? He jest shook his fist at me, and called me a black imp, 'deed he did." "I am afraid he was right, Clip," said Bob, shaking his head. "But you haven't told me about the receipt, Sam." "He sent me into his room to get his hat, when right down on the floor by his desk, I saw a piece of paper. I remembered what you told me, Bob, about the receipt, so I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket. I had to be quick about it, for Uncle Aaron is always in a hurry. Well, I took out the hat, and I didn't dare to take out the paper and look at it till he was out of sight." "And then--" "Well, then I saw it was the paper you wanted." "Mr. Wolverton took it from the pocket of my poor father when he lay dead on the spot where he was thrown out," said Bob, gravely. "It would be hard to think of a meaner piece of rascality." "Well, I'm glad you've got it, Bob. I don't know as I was right in taking it, but I'll take the risk." "If you never do anything worse than that, Sam, you won't have much to answer for. I wish you'd let me give you something." "No, Bob, you are my friend, and it would be a pity if I couldn't do you a favor without getting paid for it." "But this is a great favor. It is worth a hundred and fifty dollars. Without it we might, and probable would, have to pay the interest money over again. Now, when your uncle calls for it, we shall only have to show him the receipt." "He'll wonder where it came from." "I hope it won't get you into trouble, Sam." "He won't suspect me. He'll know I couldn't break into his desk, and he won't know anything about having dropped it on the floor. I don't see how he came to be so careless." "Depend upon it, Sam, it was the work of Providence. Mother says that God often overrules the designs of the wicked, and I think this is an instance. Henceforth, Sam, though you are old Wolverton's nephew, I shall consider you a friend of our family. Why can't you stay to supper to-night?" "It would never do, Bob, unless I asked permission." "Then ask permission." "I am afraid it wouldn't be granted." "If your uncle is as mean as I think he is, he would be glad for you to get a meal at the expense of somebody else." "He wouldn't like to have me enjoy myself," said Sam. "Is he so mean as that?" "Whenever he hears me singing, he looks mad, and wants to know why I am making a fool of myself." "He's an uncle to be proud of," said Bob, ironically. "I just wish I could live at your house, Bob." "Perhaps I can make an exchange, and give Clip to your uncle instead of you." "Oh, Massa Bob, don't you do it!" exclaimed Clip, looking scared. "Old Massa Wolverton would kill me, I know he would. He hates niggers, I heard him say so." Bob and Sam laughed, being amused by the evident terror of the young colored boy. "I won't do it, Clip, unless you are very bad," said Bob, gravely, "though I think Sam would be willing to change." "Indeed I would," said Sam with a sigh. "There's no such good luck for me." When Bob carried in the receipt and showed it to his mother, her face lighted up with joy. "This is indeed a stroke of good fortune," she said; "or rather it seems like a direct interposition of Providence--that Providence that cares for the widow and the fatherless. You must make Sam a present." "So I will, mother; but if he understands it is for this he won't take anything." "Sam is evidently very different from his uncle. He is a sound scion springing from a corrupt trunk. Leave it to me to manage. Won't he stay to supper?" "Not to-night. I invited him, but he was afraid to accept the invitation, for fear of being punished." "Is his uncle so severe, then?" "I suspect he beats Sam, though Sam doesn't like to own it." "And this man, this cruel tyrant, wants to marry me," thought Mrs. Burton, shuddering. Two days later Sam chanced to be in the house with the two boys, when Mrs. Burton passed through the room, and greeted him pleasantly. "When is your birthday?" she asked. "Last week--Thursday--ma'am." "How old are you?" "Fifteen." "Did you receive a birthday present?" Sam shook his head. "There's no one to give me presents," he said. "You have an uncle and aunt, Sam." "They never give presents. They tell me I ought to be thankful that they take care of me, and save me from going to the poor-house." "There would be no danger of that, Sam," said Bob. "If your uncle ever turns you out to shift for yourself, come and live with us." "I wish he would turn me out to-morrow, then," said Sam; and it was evident the boy meant it. "Sam, you will permit me to make up for your uncle's neglect," said Mrs. Burton, kindly. "Here is a neck-tie. I bought it for Robert, but I can get another for him. And here is something else which may prove acceptable." She drew from her pocket a silver dollar, and put it into Sam's hand. "Is this really for me?" asked Sam, joyfully. "Yes; it is only a small gift, but--" "I never had so much money before in my life," said Sam. "It makes me feel rich." Mrs. Burton looked significantly at Bob. Her woman's wit had devised a way of rewarding Sam for the service he had done the family without his being aware of it. The gift was well meant, but it was destined to get poor Sam into trouble. CHAPTER X. SAM IN A TIGHT PLACE. Many a man who had come unexpectedly into a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars would not have felt so rich as Sam with his silver dollar. It must be remembered that he had never before had so much money at one time in his life. The prospect of spending it opened up dazzling possibilities. There were so many things that he wanted, that it was hard to decide which to select. Among other things, Sam wanted a fishing-pole. There was a supply at a variety store in the village. He had never inquired the price, because he had no money. Now that he was wealthy he determined to inquire. So he went into the store and, pointing to the coveted article, asked the price. "Seventy-five cents," answered the old man, Gordon Locke, who kept the store. "Seventy-five cents!" repeated Sam, thoughtfully. This would only leave him twenty-five cents, and there were so many other things he wanted. "Was you calc'latin' to buy, Sam?" asked Mr. Locke, pushing up his iron-bound spectacles. "I don't know," said Sam, slowly; "I didn't think I'd have to pay so much." "It's cheap, for the quality," said the store keeper. "This ain't no common fishing-pole. It comes all the way from York." "Yes, it seems a nice one," Sam admitted. "Hev you got the money about you?" asked the old man. "Yes," answered Sam, unguardedly. "Then you'd better take the pole. You won't find no better within fifty mile." "I'll think about it," said Sam. He could not make up his mind to part with his precious dollar so soon. As long as he had it, he felt like a man of property. When it was once changed, he would once more be a poor boy. In spite of the storekeeper's persuasions, he walked out with his money intact, leaving the coveted fishing-pole behind. Now it so happened that his uncle, who never allowed anything to pass unnoticed, saw from the window Sam come out of the store, which was nearly opposite. "What business has he there, I wonder?" he said to himself. Five minutes later he made an errand to visit the store himself. "Good-day, Mr. Wolverton," said Gordon Locke, deferentially. "Good-day, Locke! Didn't I see my nephew, Sam, come out of here just now?" "Like as not you did. He was here." "What business had he here?" "He was looking at them fishin'-rods." "He was, hey?" said Wolverton, pricking up his ears. "Yes; he reckoned he'd buy one soon." "What's the price?" "Seventy-five cents." "He reckoned he'd pay seventy-five cents for a fishin'-rod," said Wolverton, slowly. "Did he show you the money?" "No; but he said he had it." "Oho, he had the money," repeated Aaron Wolverton, shaking his head ominously. "Where'd he get it? That's what I'd like to know." "I reckon you gave it to him; he's your nephew." "I don't pamper him in any such way as that. So he's got money. I'll have to look into that." Wolverton, who was of a suspicious disposition, was led to think that Sam had stolen the money from him. He could think of no other way in which the boy could get possession of it. He went home, and sought his sister Sally. "Sally, where is Sam?" "I don't know." Then, noticing the frown upon her brother's brow, she inquired, "Is anything the matter?" "I think there is. Sam has money." "What do you mean? Where'd he get it, Aaron?" "That's what I want to find out," and he told her of Sam's visit to the store. "Have you missed any money, Aaron?" "Not that I know of. You haven't left any round?" "No." "It stands to reason the boy has taken money from one of us. Even if he hasn't, whatever he has belongs to me by right, as I am takin' care of him." "Half of it ought to go to me," said Sally, who was quite as fond of money as her brother. "I don't know about that. But where's the boy?" "I don't know. He may have gone over to see the Burtons. He's there most of the time." "I'll foller him." Aaron Wolverton went into the shed, and came out with a horse-whip. He did not keep a horse, but still he kept a whip. For what purpose Sam could have told if he had been asked. "If the boy's become a thief, I want to know it," said Wolverton to himself. Sam had really started on the way to the Burtons. His uncle struck his trail, so to speak, and followed him. He caught up with his nephew about half a mile away. Sam had thrown himself down on the ground under a cotton-wood tree, and gave himself up to pleasant dreams of the independence which manhood would bring. In his reverie he unconsciously spoke aloud. "When I'm a man, Uncle Aaron won't dare to boss me around as he does now." The old man, creeping stealthily near, overheard the words, and a malicious smile lighted up his wrinkled face. "Oho, that's what he's thinkin' of already," he muttered. "What more?" "I wish I could live with the Burtons," proceeded the unconscious Sam. "They would treat a boy decently." "So I don't treat him decently," repeated Wolverton, his small eyes snapping. He had by this time crawled behind the trunk of the tree under which Sam was reclining. "I sometimes think I'd like to run away and never come back," continued Sam. "You do, hey?" snarled Wolverton, as he stepped out from behind the tree. Sam jumped to his feet in dire dismay, and gazed at his uncle panic-stricken. "Did you just come?" he stammered. "I didn't hear you." "No, I reckon not," laughed his uncle, with a queer smile. "So you want to get quit of your aunt and me, do you?" "I don't reckon to live with you always," faltered Sam. "No; but you ain't a-goin' to leave us just yet. There's a little matter I've got to inquire into." Sam looked up inquiringly. "What is it?" "What did you go into Locke's store for?" demanded his uncle, searchingly. "I just went in to look round," answered Sam, evasively. "You went to look at a fishing-pole," said Aaron Wolverton, sternly. "What if I did?" asked Sam, plucking up a little courage. "Did you have the money to buy it?" "Ye--es," answered Sam, panic stricken. "How much money have you got?" "A dollar." "Which you stole from me!" asserted Wolverton, with the air of a judge about to sentence a criminal to execution. "No, I didn't. It didn't come from your house." "Where did it come from?" "Mrs. Burton gave it to me--for my birthday." "I don't believe it. It's one of your lies. Give it to me this instant." Poor Sam became desperate. What! was he to lose the only money of any account which he ever possessed? He was not brave, but he made a stand here. "You have no right to it," he said, passionately. "It's mine. Mrs. Burton gave it to me." "I tell you it's a lie. Even if she had done so I should have the right, as your uncle, to take it from you. Give it to me!" "I won't!" said Sam, desperately. "Won't, hey?" repeated Wolverton, grimly. "Well, we'll see about that." He raised the horse-whip, and in an instant Sam's legs--he was standing now--felt the cruel lash. "Won't, hey?" repeated his uncle. "We'll see." "Help!" screamed Sam. "Will no one help me?" "I reckon not," answered his uncle, mockingly, and he raised his whip once more. But before the lash could descend, it was snatched from him, and, turning angrily, he confronted Bob Burton, fierce and indignant, and saw Clip standing just behind him. CHAPTER XI. AN ANGRY CONFERENCE. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you brute!" exclaimed Bob. "Do you want me to thrash you, too?" snarled Wolverton, angrily. "You can try, if you want to," returned Bob, contemptuously. "Sam, what was he going to whip you for?" asked Bob, turning to his unfortunate friend. "I'll answer that question," said Wolverton, "though it's no concern of yours. The boy has been robbing me." "What have you to say, Sam?" "It's not true." "What do you charge him with taking, Mr. Wolverton?" "A dollar." "It's the one your mother gave me, Bob." "To be sure! I saw her give it to you myself." "He lies, and you swear to it," said Wolverton, with a sneer. "Mr. Wolverton, you have brought a false charge against your nephew, and you know it. If you don't care to take his word or mine, you can come over to our house and ask my mother whether Sam's story is true." "It doesn't matter whether it's true or false," said Wolverton, doggedly. "Sam is under my charge, and I have a right to any money he comes by." "I always knew you were mean," said Bob, contemptuously, "but this is ahead of anything I ever imagined. Do you still accuse Sam of robbing you?" "I don't know whether he did or not." "You can easily satisfy yourself by calling on my mother." "I mean to call on your mother, but it won't be on this business," said Wolverton, opening his mouth and showing the yellow fangs which served for teeth. "You are at liberty to call on any business errand," said Bob. "Indeed, you are very kind, remarkably kind, considering that the ranch is as much mine as your mother's." "How do you make that out?" "I have a mortgage on it for half its value." "I deny it. The ranch is worth much more than six thousand dollars. Besides, the time has not yet come when you have the right to foreclose." "There you are wrong, young man! As the interest has not been promptly paid, I can foreclose at any time." "You will have to see my mother about that," said Bob, carefully concealing the fact that the receipt had been recovered. "I thought you would change your tune," said Wolverton, judging from Bob's calmer tone that he was getting alarmed. Bob smiled, for he felt that he had the advantage, and foresaw Wolverton's discomfiture when the receipt was shown him. "I am not quite so excited as I was," he admitted. "When I saw you with the whip uplifted I was ready for anything." "Give me back the whip!" said Wolverton, menacingly. "Will you promise not to use it on Sam?" "I'll promise nothing, you young whipper-snapper! What business have you to interfere between me and my nephew?" "The right of ordinary humanity." "Give me the whip." "Then make me the promise?" "I won't." "Then I propose to keep it." "I will have you arrested for theft." "Do so. I will explain matters to Judge Turner." Judge Turner, the magistrate before whom such cases came, heartily despised and hated Aaron Wolverton, as the latter knew full well. He would certainly dismiss any charge brought against Bob by such a man. This consideration naturally influenced him. "Very well," he said, though with an ill grace, "if your mother gave Sam the money, I retract the charge of theft. Nevertheless, as his guardian, I demand that the dollar be given to me." "Give it to me to keep for you, Sam," said Bob. Sam gladly took it from his pocket, and threw it towards Bob, who dexterously caught it. "Now, Mr. Wolverton," said Bob, quietly; "you will have to demand the money from me; Sam hasn't got it." "You'll have to pay for your impudence, Robert Burton!" said Wolverton, wrathfully. "You forget that you are all in my power." "You may find yourself mistaken, Mr. Wolverton," said Bob. "At any rate, I don't think I shall lose any sleep on that score." "You can tell your mother I shall call this evening," continued Wolverton. "I expect her to be ready with the interest, which is long overdue." "I will give her your message, Mr. Wolverton. Now, Clip, let us go on. Mr. Wolverton will excuse us, I know, when I tell him that we have an errand in the village." "Yah, yah!" laughed Clip, gleefully; not that there was anything particular to laugh at, but because it took very little to excite Clip's risibilities. Mr. Wolverton turned upon Clip with a frown. He had not forgotten the trick Clip played upon him when he was upset in the river, and he would have liked nothing better than to flog him till he roared for mercy. "What is that black ape grinning about?" he demanded. Clip ought to have felt insulted, but he was only amused. "Yah, yah!" he laughed again. Aaron Wolverton made a dash at him with his recovered whip, but Clip nimbly jumped to one side and laughed again. "Didn't do it dat time, Massa Wolverton," said Clip, showing his teeth. "I'll get even with you yet, you black monkey!" If Clip had been alone, Wolverton would have proceeded then and there to carry out his threat. But he had a wholesome respect for Bob, whose physical strength and prowess he well knew. It made him angry whenever he thought of this boy, who seemed born to be a thorn in his side. He was stronger than Wolverton, though the land agent was a man grown, and it was humiliating to Wolverton to be obliged to admit this fact. But he had one consolation in the mortgage he held upon the Burton ranch. Here the law was on his side, and he saw his way clear to annoy and injure Bob and his family, without running any risk himself. As for the chance of the mortgage ever being paid off, that he thought extremely small. If Richard Burton were still alive, he would have been right, but Bob, young as he was, bade fair to be a better manager than his father. He was not so sanguine, or, if the truth must be told, so reckless in his expenditures. Besides, he knew, though his father was ignorant of it, that Wolverton, for some reason which he could not penetrate, was a bitter enemy of the family, and that his forbearance could not be depended upon. When Bob and Clip had left the scene Aaron Wolverton turned to Sam, and scowled at his unfortunate nephew, in a way which was by no means pleasant or reassuring. "I've a good mind to flog you for all the trouble you've brought upon me," he said. "I don't see what I've done, uncle." "You don't, hey? Haven't you sided with that upstart, the Burton boy?" Sam was judiciously silent, for he saw his uncle was very much irritated. "Why did you give that dollar to him?" "He told me to." "Suppose he did; is he your guardian or am I?" "You are, Uncle Aaron." "I'm glad you are willing to admit it. Then why did you give him the dollar?" "Because his mother gave it to me. If you had given it to me, I wouldn't have done it." "You'll have to wait a good while before I give you a dollar." Sam was of the same opinion himself, but did not think it wise to say so. "You deserve to be punished for what you have done," said his uncle, severely. "I wish I were as strong and brave as Bob," thought Sam. "I don't see how he dares to stand up before Uncle Aaron and defy him. He makes me tremble." The truth was, Sam was not made of heroic mold. He was a timid boy and was easily overawed. He lacked entirely the qualities that made Bob so bold and resolute. He could admire his friend, but he could not imitate him. "Now, come home," said Wolverton, shortly. Sam followed his uncle meekly. When they reached home Sam was set to work. At twelve o'clock the bell rang for dinner. Sam dropped his axe (he had been splitting wood) and entered the kitchen, where the frugal meal was spread. His uncle was already sitting in his place, and Sam prepared to sit down in his usual chair. "Samuel," said his uncle, "you have disobeyed me. You do not deserve any dinner." Sam's countenance fell, for he was very hungry. "I am very hungry," he faltered. "You should have thought of that when you disobeyed me and gave your money to the Burton boy. This is intended as a salutary lesson, Samuel, to cure you of your stubbornness and disobedience." "You are quite right, Aaron," said Miss Sally in her deep voice. "Samuel needs chastening." Poor Sam slunk out of the door in a state of depression. Not being ordered to return to his work, he went out into the street, where he met Bob and Clip, and to them he told his tale of woe. "Your uncle is as mean as they make 'em," said Bob. "Here, go into the baker's and buy some doughnuts and pie." He handed Sam a quarter, and the hungry boy followed his advice, faring quite as well as he would have done at his uncle's table. Rather to Mr. Wolverton's surprise, he worked all the afternoon without showing signs of hunger, and that gentleman began to consider whether, after all, two meals a day were not sufficient for him. CHAPTER XII. WOLVERTON'S WATERLOO. Though the receipt was lost, Wolverton could not give up his plan of extorting the interest from Mrs. Burton a second time. It might have been supposed that he would have some qualms of conscience about robbing the widow and the fatherless, but Mr. Wolverton's conscience, if he had any, gave him very little trouble. He would have thought himself a fool to give up one hundred and fifty dollars if there was the slightest chance of securing them. Towards evening of the day on which Bob had interfered with him, he took his hat and cane, and set out for Burton's Ranch. It so happened that Bob answered the bell. He had been sitting with his mother, chatting about their future plans. "Good-evening, Mr. Wolverton," said Bob, who felt it incumbent upon him to be polite to a guest, even though he disliked him. "Evening," returned Wolverton, curtly. "Is your mother at home?" "Yes, sir. Will you come in?" Wolverton had not the good manners to acknowledge the invitation with thanks, but strode into the sitting-room, following Bob. The widow anticipated his visit, having been informed by Bob that he had announced his intention of coming. "Good-evening, Mr. Wolverton. Take a seat," she said, pointing to a chair a few feet from her own. "Robert, take Mr. Wolverton's hat." Wolverton looked at the widow with a hungry gaze, for she was the only woman, he had ever loved. "If she would only marry me, all her troubles would be over," he said to himself. "She's a fool to refuse." We, who have some idea of Mr. Wolverton's character and disposition, are more likely to conclude that marriage with such a man would be only the beginning of trouble. "I've come on business, Mrs. Burton," said the visitor, in an aggressive tone. "State it, if you please, Mr. Wolverton," the widow answered, calmly. "Hadn't you better send your son out of the room? We'd better discuss this matter alone." "I have no secrets from Robert," said the widow. "Oh, well, just as you please; I don't care to have him interfere in what doesn't concern him." "Any business with my mother does concern me," said Bob; "but I will try not to give you any trouble." "The business is about that interest," Wolverton began, abruptly. "What interest?" "You must know what I mean--the interest on the mortgage." "My husband paid it on the day of his death." "It's easy enough to say that," sneered Wolverton, "but saying it isn't proving it, as you must have the good sense to know." "When my husband left me on that fatal morning, he told me that he was going to your office to pay the interest. I know he had the money and with him, for he had laid down the wallet, and I saw the roll of bills." "Why didn't he pay it, then? That's what I'd like to know." "Didn't he pay it to you, Mr. Wolverton?" asked Mrs. Burton, with a searching glance. "Carry back your memory to that day, and answer me that question." Mr. Wolverton showed himself a little restive under this interrogatory, but he assumed an air of indignation. "What do you mean, widder?" he demanded, bringing down his cane with emphasis upon the floor. "Do you doubt my word?" "I think you may be mistaken, Mr. Wolverton," said Mrs. Burton, composedly. "Who has been putting this into your head, widder? Is it that boy of yours?" Bob answered for himself: "I don't mind saying that I did tell mother that I thought the money had been paid." "Humph! you think yourself mighty smart, Bob Burton," snarled Wolverton. "Nat'rally you'd like to get rid of paying the interest, if you could; but you've got a business man to deal with, not a fool." "You are no fool where money is concerned, there's no doubt about that. But I want to ask you one thing, if my father didn't pay you the money which mother can testify to his carrying with him on the morning of his death, what became of it?" "How should I know? Did you search his wallet when he was brought home?" "Yes." "And you didn't find the money?" "No." "So you conclude that he paid it to me. Let me tell you, young man, that doesn't follow. He may have been robbed when he was lying on the ground insensible." "I think very likely he was," returned Bob, quietly. "What do you mean by that?" demanded Wolverton, uneasily. "Who could have robbed him?" "Possibly some one that we wouldn't be likely to suspect." "What does he mean? Can he possibly suspect me?" thought Wolverton, fixing his eyes on Bob's face. "But no! I certainly didn't take any money from him." "You may be right," he said aloud; "but that hasn't anything to do with my claim for interest. Whether your father was robbed of the money, or spent it, is all one to me. It wasn't paid to me, I can certify." "Would you be willing to swear that the money was not paid to you that day, Mr. Wolverton?" "Do you mean to insult me? Haven't I told you it was not paid?" "Do you expect me to pay it to you, then?" asked Mrs. Burton. "Widder, I am surprised you should ask such a foolish question. It lies in a nutshell. I'm entitled to interest on the money I let your husband have on mortgage. You admit that?" "Yes." "I'm glad you admit that. As your husband didn't pay, I look to you for it. I can say no more." Mrs. Burton took a pocket-book from a pocket in her dress, and handed it to Robert. Bob opened it, and drew therefrom a folded paper. "Mr. Wolverton," he said, quietly, "I hold in my hand a receipt signed by yourself for the interest--one hundred and fifty dollars--dated the very day that my poor father died. What have you to say to it?" Mr. Wolverton sprang to his feet, pale and panic-stricken. "Where did you get that paper?" he stammered, hoarsely. [Illustration: BOB PRODUCES THE MISSING RECEIPT.] CHAPTER XIII. WHAT BOB FOUND IN THE CREEK. "When my poor husband left your office this receipt was in his possession," answered Mrs. Burton. "I deny it," exclaimed Aaron Wolverton, in a tone of excitement. "Where else should it be?" inquired the widow, eying him fixedly. "I don't know. How should I?" "So you deny that the signature is yours, Mr. Wolverton?" "Let me see it." "I would rather not," said Bob, drawing back the receipt from Wolverton's extended hand. "That's enough!" said Wolverton quickly. "You are afraid to show it. I denounce it as a base forgery." "That will do no good," said the boy, un-terrified. "I have shown the receipt to Mr. Dornton, and he pronounces the signature genuine." "What made you show it to him?" asked Wolverton, discomfited. "Because I thought it likely, after your demanding the interest the second time, that you would deny it." "Probably I know my own signature better than Mr. Dornton can." "I have no doubt you will recognize it," and Bob, unfolding the paper, held it in such a manner that Wolverton could read it. "It may be my signature; it looks like it," said Wolverton, quickly deciding upon a new evasion, "but it was never delivered to your father." "How then do you account for its being written?" asked Mrs. Burton, in natural surprise. "I made it out on the day your husband died," Wolverton answered glibly, "anticipating that he would pay the money. He did not do it, and so the receipt remained in my desk." Bob and his mother regarded each other in surprise. They were not prepared for such a barefaced falsehood. "Perhaps you will account for its not being in your desk now," said Bob. "I can do so, readily," returned Wolverton, maliciously. "Somebody must have stolen it from my desk." "I think you will find it hard to prove this, Mr. Wolverton." "It is true, and I don't propose to lose my money on account of a stolen receipt. You will find that you can't so easily circumvent Aaron Wolverton." "You are quite welcome to adopt this line of defense, Mr. Wolverton, if you think best. You ought to know whether the public will believe such an improbable tale." "If you had the receipt why didn't you show it to me before?" Wolverton asked in a triumphant tone. "I came here soon after your father's death, and asked for my interest. Your mother admitted, then, that she had no receipt." "We had not found it then." "Where, and when, did you find it?" "I do not propose to tell." Wolverton shook his head, satirically. "And a very good reason you have, I make no doubt." "Suppose I tell you my theory, Mr. Wolverton." "I wish you would," and Wolverton leaned back in his chair and gazed defiantly at the boy he so much hated. "My father paid you the interest, and took a receipt. He had it on his person when he met with his death. When he was lying outstretched in death"--here Bob's eyes moistened--"some one came up, and, bending over him, took the receipt from his pocket." Mr. Wolverton's face grew pale as Bob proceeded. "A very pretty romance!" he sneered, recovering himself after an instant. "It is something more than romance," Bob proceeded slowly and gravely. "It is true; the man who was guilty of this mean theft from a man made helpless by death is known. He was seen at this contemptible work." "It is a lie," cried Wolverton, hoarsely, his face the color of chalk. "It is a solemn truth." "Who saw him?" "I don't propose to tell--yet, if necessary, it will be told in a court of justice." Wolverton saw that he was found out, but he could not afford to acknowledge. His best way of getting off was to fly into a rage, and this was easy for him. "I denounce this as a base conspiracy," he said, rising as he spoke. "That receipt was stolen from my desk." "Then we do not need to inquire who took it from the vest-pocket of my poor father." "Robert Barton, I will get even with you for this insult," said Wolverton, shaking his fist at the manly boy. "You and your mother." "Leave out my mother's name," said Bob, sternly. "I will; I don't think she would be capable of such meanness. You, then, are engaged in a plot to rob me of a hundred and fifty dollars. To further this wicked scheme, you or your agent have stolen this receipt from my desk. I can have you arrested for burglary. It is no more nor less than that." "You can do so if you like, Mr. Wolverton. In that case the public shall know that you stole the receipt from my poor father after his death. I can produce an eye-witness." Wolverton saw that he was in a trap. Such a disclosure would injure him infinitely in the opinion of his neighbors, for it would be believed. There was no help for it. He must lose the hundred and fifty dollars upon which, though he had no claim to it, he had so confidently reckoned. "You will hear from me!" he said, savagely, as he jammed his hat down upon his head, and hastily left the apartment. "Aaron Wolverton is not the man to give in to fraud." Neither Bob nor his mother answered him, but Mrs. Burton asked anxiously, after his departure: "Do you think he will do anything, Bob?" "No, mother; he sees that he is in a trap, and will think it wisest to let the matter drop." This, in fact, turned out to be the case. Mortifying as it was to give in, Wolverton did not dare to act otherwise. He would have given something handsome, mean though he was, if he could have found out, first, who saw him rob the dead man, and next, who extracted the stolen receipt from his desk. He was inclined to guess that it was Bob in both cases. It never occurred to him that Clip was the eye-witness whose testimony could brand him with this contemptible crime. Nor did he think of Sam in connection with his own loss of the receipt. He knew Sam's timidity, and did not believe the boy would have dared to do such a thing. All the next day, in consequence of his disappointment, Mr. Wolverton was unusually cross and irritable. He even snapped at his sister, who replied, with spirit: "Look here, Aaron, you needn't snap at me, for I won't stand it." "How will you help it?" he sneered. "By leaving your house, and letting you get another housekeeper. I can earn my own living, without working any harder than I do here, and a better living, too. While I stay here, you've got to treat me decently." Wolverton began to see that he had made a mistake. Any other housekeeper would cost him more, and he could find none that would be so economical. "I don't mean anything, Sally," he said; "but I'm worried." "What worries you?" "A heavy loss." "How much?" "A hundred and fifty dollars." "How is that?" "I have lost a receipt, but I can't explain how. A hundred and fifty dollars is a great deal of money, Sally." "I should say it was. Why can't you tell me about it?" "Perhaps I will some time." About two months later, while Bob was superintending the harvesting of the wheat--the staple crop of the Burton ranch--Clip came running up to him in visible excitement. "Oh, Massa Bob," he exclaimed, "there is a ferry-boat coming down the creek with nobody on it, and it's done got stuck ag'inst a snag. Come quick, and we can take it for our own. Findings is keepings." Bob lost no time in following Clip's suggestion. He hurried to the creek, and there, a few rods from shore, he discovered the boat stranded in the mud, for it was low tide. CHAPTER XIV. THE BOAT AND ITS OWNER. The boat was shaped somewhat like the popular representations of Noah's ark. It was probably ninety feet in length by thirty-eight feet in width, and was roofed. Bob recognized it at once as a ferry-boat of the style used at different points on the river, to convey passengers and teams across the river. It was a double-ender, like the much larger ferry-boats that are used on the East River, between New York and Brooklyn. The creek on which the Burton ranch was located was really large enough for a river, and Bob concluded that this boat had been used at a point higher up. "I wish I owned that boat, Clip," said Bob. "What would you do with it, Massa Bob?" "I'll tell you what I'd do, Clip; I'd go down to St. Louis on it." "Will you take me with you, Massa Bob?" asked Clip, eagerly. "I will, if I go, Clip." "Golly, won't that be fine!" said the delighted Clip. "How long will you stay, Massa Bob?" Clip supposed Bob intended a pleasure trip, for in his eyes pleasure was the chief end of living. But Bob was more practical and business-like. He had an idea which seemed to him a good one, though as yet he had mentioned it to no one. "Get out the boat, Clip," he said, "and we'll go aboard. I want to see if the boat will be large enough for my purpose." Clip laughed in amusement. "You must think you'self mighty big, Massa Bob," he said, "if you think there isn't room on that boat for you an' me." "It would certainly be large enough for two passengers like ourselves, Clip," answered Bob, smiling; "for that matter our rowboat is large enough for two boys, but if I go I shall carry a load with me." Clip was still in the dark, but he was busying himself in unloosing the rowboat, according to Bob's bidding. The two boys jumped in, and a few strokes of the oars carried them to the ferry-boat. Fastening the flat-bottomed boat, the two boys clambered on deck. Bob found the boat in good condition. It had occurred to him that it had been deserted as old and past service, and allowed to drift down the creek, but an examination showed that in this conjecture he was mistaken. It was sufficiently good to serve for years yet. This discovery was gratifying in one way, but in another it was a disappointment. As a boat of little value, Bob could have taken possession of it, fairly confident that no one would interfere with his claim, but in its present condition it was hardly likely to be without an owner, who would appear sooner or later and put in his claim to it. "It seems to be a pretty good boat," said Bob. "Dat's so, Massa Bob." "It must have slipped its moorings and drifted down the creek during the night. I wish I knew who owned it." "You an' me own it, Massa Bob. Finding is keeping." "I am afraid it won't be so in the present case. Probably the owner will appear before long." "Can't we get off down de river afore he comes, Massa Bob?" "That wouldn't be honest, Clip." Clip scratched his head in perplexity. He was not troubled with conscientious scruples, and was not as clear about the rights of property as his young patron. He was accustomed, however, to accept whatever Bob said as correct and final. In fact, he was content to let Bob do his thinking for him. "What was you goin' to take down de ribber, Massa Bob?" he asked. "I'll tell you what I was thinking of, Clip. You know we are gathering our crop of grain, and of course it must be sold. Now, traders ask a large commission for taking the wheat to market, and this would be a heavy tax. If I could load it on board this boat, and take it down myself, I should save all that, and I could sell it myself in St. Louis." "Can I go, too?" asked Clip, anxiously. "You shall go if I do," answered Bob. "When will you know?" asked Clip, eagerly. "When I find out whether I can use this boat. I had thought of building a raft, but that wouldn't do. No raft that I could build would carry our crop to St. Louis. This boat will be just the thing. I think it must have been used for that purpose before. See those large bins on each side. Each would contain from fifty to a hundred bushels of wheat. I only wish I knew the owner. Even if I couldn't buy the boat, I might make a bargain to hire it." Bob had hardly finished his sentence when he heard a voice hailing him from the bank. Going to the end of the boat, he looked towards the shore, and saw a tall angular figure, who seemed from his dress and appearance to be a Western Yankee. His figure was tall and angular, his face of the kind usually described as hatchet face, with a long thin nose, and his head was surmounted by a flapping sombrero, soft, broad-brimmed, and shapeless. "Boat ahoy!" called the stranger. "Did you wish to speak to us?" asked Bob, politely. "I reckon I do," answered the stranger. "I want you to take me aboard that boat." "Is the boat yours?" asked Bob. "It doesn't belong to anybody else," was the reply. "Untie the boat, Clip. We'll go back!" ordered Bob. The two boys dropped into the rowboat, and soon touched the bank. "If you will get in we'll row you over," said Bob. "When did you lose the boat?" "It drifted down last night," answered the new acquaintance. "I've been usin' it as a ferry-boat about twenty miles up the creek. Last night I thought it was tied securely, but this morning it was gone." "I don't see how it could have broken away." "Like as not some mischievous boy cut the cable," was the answer. "Any way, here it is, and here am I, Ichabod Slocum, the owner." "Then the boat and its owner are once more united." "Yes, but that don't take the boat back to where it belongs. It's drifted down here, easy enough; mebbe one of you boys will tell me how it's goin' to drift back." "There may be some difficulty about that," answered Bob with a smile. "How long have you owned the boat?" "About two years. I've been usin' her as a ferry-boat between Transfer City and Romeo, and I've made a pretty fair livin' at it." Bob was familiar with the names of these towns, though he had never been so far up the creek. "I'm afraid you'll have trouble in getting the boat back," he said. "It will make quite an interruption in your business." "I don't know as I keer so much about that," said Ichabod Slocum, thoughtfully. "I've been thinkin' for some time about packin' up and goin' farther west. I've got a cousin in Oregon, and I reckon I might like to go out there for a year or two." "Then, perhaps you might like to dispose of the boat, Mr. Slocum," said Bob, eagerly. "Well, I might," said Ichabod Slocum, cautiously. "Do you know of anybody around here that wants a boat?" "I might like it myself," was Bob's reply. "What on airth does a boy like you want of a ferry-boat?" asked Slocum, in surprise. "I have a plan in my head," said Bob; "and think it would be useful to me." "There ain't no call for a ferry-boat here," said Ichabod. "No; you are right there. I may as well tell you what I am thinking of. Our crop of grain is ready to harvest, and I should like to load it on this boat and carry it down to St. Louis and sell it there myself." CHAPTER XV. BOB BUYS THE FERRY-BOAT. "Good!" said Mr. Slocum. "I like your pluck. Well, there's the boat. You can have it if you want it--for a fair price, of course." "What do you call a fair price?" asked Bob. "I don't mind sayin' that I bought it second-hand myself, and I've got good value out of it. I might sell it for--a hundred and twenty-five dollars." Bob shook his head. "That may be cheap," he answered; "but I can't afford to pay so much money." "You can sell it at St. Louis when you're through usin' it." "I should have to take my risk of it." "You seem to be pretty good on a trade, for a boy. I reckon you'll sell it." "Do you want all the money down. Mr. Slocum?" "Well, I might wait for half of it, ef I think it's safe. What's your security?" "We--that is, mother and I--own the ranch bordering on the other side of the creek. The wheat crop we are harvesting will probably amount to fourteen hundred bushels. I understand it is selling for two dollars a bushel or thereabouts." (This was soon after the war, when high prices prevailed for nearly all articles, including farm products.) "I reckon you're safe, then," said Mr. Slocum. "Now we'll see if we can agree upon a price." I will not follow Bob and Mr. Slocum in the bargaining that succeeded. The latter was the sharper of the two, but Bob felt obliged to reduce the price as much as possible, in view of the heavy mortgage upon the ranch. "I shall never breathe easy till that mortgage is paid, mother," he said. "Mr. Wolverton is about the last man I like to owe. His attempt to collect the interest twice shows that he is unscrupulous. Besides, he has a grudge against me, and it would give him pleasure, I feel sure, to injure me." "I am afraid you are right, Robert," answered his mother. "We must do our best, and Heaven will help us." Finally Mr. Slocum agreed to accept seventy-five dollars cash down, or eighty dollars, half in cash, and the remainder payable after Bob's river trip was over and the crop disposed of. "I wouldn't make such terms to any one else," said the boat-owner, "but I've been a boy myself, and I had a hard row to hoe, you bet. You seem like a smart lad, and I'm favorin' you all I can." "Thank you, Mr. Slocum. I consider your price very fair, and you may depend upon my carrying out my agreement. Now, if you will come up to the house, I will offer you some dinner, and pay you the money." [Illustration: BOB BUYS THE FERRY-BOAT.] Ichabod Slocum readily accepted the invitation, and the three went up to the house together. When Bob told his mother of the bargain he had made, she was somewhat startled. She felt that he did not realize how great an enterprise he had embarked in. "You forget, Robert, that you are only a boy," she said. "No, mother, I don't forget it. But I have to take a man's part, now that father is dead." "St. Louis is a long distance away, and you have no experience in business." "On the other hand, mother, if we sell here, we must make a great sacrifice--twenty-five cents a bushel at least, and that on fourteen hundred bushels would amount to three hundred and fifty dollars. Now Clip and I can navigate the boat to St. Louis and return for less than quarter of that sum." "The boy speaks sense, ma'am," said Ichabod Slocum. "He's only a kid, but he's a smart one. He's good at a bargain, too. He made me take fifty dollars less for the boat than I meant to. You can trust him better than a good many men." "I am glad you have so favorable an opinion of Robert, Mr. Slocum," said Mrs. Burton. "I suppose I must yield to his desire." "Then I may go, mother?" "Yes, Robert; you have my consent." "Then the next thing is to pay Mr. Slocum for his boat." This matter was speedily arranged. "I wish, Mr. Slocum," said Bob, "that you were going to St. Louis. I would be very glad to give you free passage." "Thank you, lad, but I must turn my steps in a different direction." "Shall I have any difficulty in managing the boat on our course down the river?" "No, you will drift with the current. It is easy enough to go down stream. The trouble is to get back. But for that, I wouldn't have sold you the boat. At night you tie up anywhere it is convenient, and start again the next morning." "That seems easy enough. Do you know how far it is to St. Louis, Mr. Slocum?" "There you have me, lad. I ain't much on reckonin' distances." "I have heard your father say, Robert, that it is about three hundred miles from here to the city. I don't like to have you go so far from me." "I've got Clip to take care of me, mother," said Bob, humorously. "I'll take care of Massa Bob, missis," said Clip, earnestly. "I suppose I ought to feel satisfied with that assurance," said Mrs. Burton, smiling, "but I have never been accustomed to think of Clip as a guardian." "I'll guardian, him, missis," promised Clip, amid general laughter. After dinner, in company with Mr. Slocum, Bob and Clip went on board the ferry-boat, and made a thorough examination of the craft, with special reference to the use for which it was intended. "You expect to harvest fourteen hundred bushels?" inquired Mr. Slocum. "Yes; somewhere about that amount." "Then you may need to make two or three extra bins." "That will be a simple matter," said Bob. "The roof over the boat will keep the wheat dry and in good condition. When you get to the city you can sell it all to one party, and superintend the removal yourself. You can hire all the help you need there." Bob was more and more pleased with his purchase. "It is just what I wanted," he said, enthusiastically. "The expenses will be almost nothing. We can take a supply of provisions with us, enough to keep us during the trip, and when the business is concluded we can return on some river steamer. We'll have a fine time, Clip." "Golly! Massa Bob, dat's so." "You will need to tie the boat," continued Ichabod Slocum, "or it may float off during the night, and that would upset all your plans. Have you a stout rope on the place?" "I think not. I shall have to buy one at the store, or else cross the river." "Then you had better attend to that at once. The boat may become dislodged at any moment." After Mr. Slocum's departure, Bob lost no time in attending to this important matter. He procured a heavy rope, of sufficient strength, and proceeded to secure the boat to a tree on the bank. "How soon will we start, Massa Bob?" asked Clip, who was anxious for the excursion to commence. He looked upon it somewhat in the light of an extended picnic, and it may be added that Bob also, apart from any consideration of business, anticipated considerable enjoyment from the trip down the river. "Don't tell anybody what we are going to do with the boat, Clip," said Bob. "It will be a fortnight before we start, and I don't care to have much said about the matter beforehand." Clip promised implicit obedience, but it was not altogether certain that he would be able to keep strictly to his word, for keeping a secret was not an easy thing for him to do. Of course it leaked out that Bob had bought a ferry-boat. Among others Mr. Wolverton heard it, but he did not dream of the use to which Bob intended to put it. He spoke of it as a boy's folly, and instanced it as an illustration of the boy's unfitness for the charge of the ranch. It was generally supposed that Bob had bought it on speculation, hoping to make a good profit on the sale, and Bob suffered this idea to remain uncontradicted. Meanwhile he pushed forward as rapidly as possible the harvest of the wheat, being anxious to get it to market. When this work was nearly finished Mr. Wolverton thought it time to make a proposal to Mrs. Burton, which, if accepted, would bring him a handsome profit. CHAPTER XVI. WOLVERTON'S BAFFLED SCHEME. Mrs. Burton was somewhat surprised, one evening, when told that Mr. Wolverton was at the door, and desired to speak with her. Since the time his demand for a second payment of the interest had been met by a production of the receipt, he had kept away from the ranch. It might have been the mortification arising from baffled villainy, or, again, from the knowledge that no advantage could be gained from another interview. At all events, he remained away till the wheat was nearly harvested. Then he called, because he had a purpose to serve. "Tell Mrs. Burton that I wish to see her on business," he said to the servant who answered his knock. "You can show Mr. Wolverton in," said the widow. Directly the guest was ushered into her presence. "I needn't ask if I see you well, Mrs. Burton," he said, suavely. "Your appearance is a sufficient answer." "Thank you," answered Mrs. Burton, coldly. Aaron Wolverton noticed the coldness, but did not abate any of his suavity. He only said to himself: "The time will come when you will feel forced to give me a better reception, my lady!" "I have called on a little business," he resumed. "Is it about the interest?" asked the widow. "No; for the present I waive that. I have been made the victim of a base theft, and it may cost me a hundred and fifty dollars: but I will not speak of that now." "What other business can you have with me?" "I have come to make you an offer." "What!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton, indignantly. Aaron Wolverton chuckled, thereby showing a row of defective and discolored teeth. "You misunderstand me," he said. "I come to make you an offer for your wheat crop, which I suppose is nearly all gathered in." "Yes," answered the widow relieved. "Robert tells me that it will be all harvested within three days." "Just so. Now, I am willing to save you a great deal of trouble by buying the entire crop at a fair valuation." "In that case, Mr. Wolverton, you will allow me to send for Robert. He attends to the business of the ranch, and understands much more about it than I do." "Wait a minute, Mrs. Burton. Robert is no doubt a smart boy, but you give him too much credit." "I don't think I do. He has shown, since his father's death, a judgment not often found in a boy of his age." "She is infatuated about that boy!" thought Wolverton. "However, as I have a point to carry, I won't dispute with her." "You may be right," he said, "but in this matter I venture to think that you and I can make a bargain without any outside help." "You can, at any rate, state your proposition, Mr. Wolverton." "Have you any idea as to the amount of your wheat crop?" "Robert tells me there will be not far from fourteen hundred bushels." Wolverton's eyes showed his pleasure. If he made the bargain proposed, this would bring him an excellent profit. "Very good!" he said. "It will be a great help to you." "Yes; I feel that we are fortunate, especially when I consider that the ranch has been carried on by a boy of sixteen." "Well, Mrs. Burton, I am a man of few words. I will give you a dollar and a half a bushel for your wheat, and this will give you, on the basis of fourteen hundred bushels, twenty-one hundred dollars. You are a very fortunate woman." "But, Mr. Wolverton, Robert tells me he expects to get at least two dollars a bushel." It must be remembered that grain was then selling at "war prices." "I don't know what the boy can be thinking of," said Wolverton, contemptuously. "Two dollars a bushel! Why don't he say five dollars at once?" "He gained his information from a St. Louis paper." "My dear madam, the price here and the price in St. Louis are two entirely different matters. You must be aware that it will cost a good deal to transport the wheat to St. Louis." "Surely it cannot cost fifty cents a bushel?" "No; but it is a great mistake to suppose that you can get two dollars a bushel in St. Louis." "I must leave the matter to Robert to decide." "Excuse my saying that this is very foolish. The boy has not a man's judgment." "Nevertheless, I must consult him before deciding." Mrs. Barton spoke so plainly that Wolverton said, sullenly: "Do as you please, Mrs. Burton, but I would like to settle the matter to-night." Robert was sent for, and, being near the house, entered without delay. Mr. Wolverton's proposition was made known to him. "Mr. Wolverton," said Bob, regarding that gentleman with a dislike he did not attempt to conceal, "You would make a very good bargain if we accepted your proposal." "Not much," answered Wolverton, hastily. "Of course I should make a little something, but I am chiefly influenced in making the offer, by a desire to save your mother trouble." "You would make seven hundred dollars at least, out of which you would only have to pay for transportation to St. Louis." "That is a very ridiculous statement!" said Wolverton, sharply. "Why so? The wheat will fetch two dollars a bushel in the market." "Some one has been deceiving you." "Shall I show you the paper in which I saw the quotations?" "No; it is erroneous. Besides, the expense of carrying the grain to market will be very large." "It won't be fifty cents a bushel." "Young man, you are advising your mother against her best interests. Young people are apt to be headstrong. I should not expect to make much money out of the operation." "Why, then, do you make the offer?" "I have already told you that I wished to save your mother trouble." "We are much obliged to you, but we decline your proposal." "Then," said Wolverton, spitefully, "I shall have to hold you to the terms of the mortgage. I had intended to favor you, but after the tone you have taken with me, I shall not do so." "To what terms do you refer, Mr. Wolverton?" asked the widow. "I will tell you. I have the right at the end of six months to call for a payment of half the mortgage--fifteen hundred dollars. That will make, in addition to the interest then due, sixteen hundred and fifty dollars." "Can this be true?" asked Mrs. Burton, in dismay, turning to Robert. "It is so specified in the mortgage," answered Wolverton, triumphantly. "You can examine it for yourself. I have only to say, that, had you accepted my offer, I would have been content with, say, one quarter of the sum, knowing that it would be inconvenient for you to pay half." Bob, as well as his mother, was taken by surprise, but in no way disposed to yield. "We should be no better off," he said. "We should lose at least five hundred dollars by accepting your offer, and that we cannot afford to do." "You refuse, then," said Wolverton, angrily. "Yes." "Then all I have to say is that you will rue this day," and the agent got up hastily, but upon second thought sat down again. "How do you expect to get your grain to market?" he asked. "I shall take it myself." "What do you mean?" "I shall store it on a boat I have purchased, and Clip and I will take it to St. Louis." "You must be crack-brained!" ejaculated Wolverton. "I never heard of a more insane project." "I hope to disappoint you, Mr. Wolverton. At any rate, my mind is made up." Wolverton shuffled out of the room, in impotent rage. "We have made him our enemy, Robert," said his mother, apprehensively. "He was our enemy before, mother. He evidently wants to ruin us." As Wolverton went home, one thought was uppermost in his mind. "How could he prevent Bob from making the trip to St. Louis?" CHAPTER XVII. WOLVERTON'S POOR TENANT. Bob hired a couple of extra hands, and made haste to finish harvesting his wheat, for he was anxious to start on the trip down the river as soon as possible. His anticipations as to the size of the crop were justified. It footed up fourteen hundred and seventy-five bushels, and this, at two dollars per bushel, would fetch in market nearly three thousand dollars. "That's a pretty good crop for a boy to raise, mother," said Bob, with pardonable exultation. "You haven't lost anything by allowing me to run the ranch." "Quite true, Robert. You have accomplished wonders. I don't know what I could have done without you. I know very little of farming myself." "I helped him, missis," said Clip, coveting a share of approval for himself. "Yes," said Bob, smiling. "Clip has been my right-hand man. I can't say he has worked very hard himself, but he has superintended the others." "Yes, missis; dat's what I done!" said Clip, proudly. He did not venture to pronounce the word, for it was too much for him, but he was vaguely conscious that it was something important and complimentary. "Then I must buy Clip a new suit," said Mrs. Burton, smiling. "I'll buy it in St. Louis, mother." When the grain was all gathered in Bob began to load it on the ferry-boat. Wolverton sent Sam round every day to report progress, but did not excite his nephew's suspicions by appearing to take unusual interest in the matter. To prepare the reader for a circumstance which happened about this time, I find it necessary to introduce another character, who was able to do Bob an important service. In a small house, about three-quarters of a mile beyond the Burton ranch, lived Dan Woods, a poor man, with, a large family. He hired the house which he occupied and a few acres of land from Aaron Wolverton, who had obtained possession of it by foreclosing a mortgage which he held. He permitted Woods, the former owner, to remain as a tenant in the house which once belonged to him, charging him rather more than an average rent. The poor man raised vegetables and a small crop of wheat, enough of each for his own family, and hired out to neighbors for the balance of his time. He obtained more employment on the Burton ranch than anywhere else, and Mrs. Burton had also sympathized with him in his difficult struggle to maintain his family. But, in spite of friends and his own untiring industry, Dan Woods fell behind. There were five children to support, and they required not only food but clothing, and Dan found it uphill work. His monthly rent was ten dollars; a small sum in itself, but large for this much-burdened man to pay. But, however poorly he might fare in other respects, Dan knew that it was important to have this sum ready on the first day of every month. Wolverton was a hard landlord, and admitted of no excuse. More than once after the rent had been paid there was not a dollar left in his purse, or a pinch of food in his house. A week before this time Dan was looking for his landlord's call with unusual anxiety. He had been sick nearly a week during the previous month, and this had so curtailed his earnings that he had but six dollars ready in place of ten. Would his sickness be accepted as an excuse? He feared not. Wolverton's call was made on time. He had some expectation that the rent would not be ready, for he knew Dan had been sick; but he was resolved to show him no consideration. "His sickness is nothing to me," he reflected. "It would be a pretty state of affairs if landlords allowed themselves to be cheated out of their rent for such a cause." Dan Woods was at work in the yard when Wolverton approached. He was splitting some wood for use in the kitchen stove. His heart sank within him when he saw the keen, sharp features of his landlord. "Good morning, Dan," said Wolverton, with suavity. His expression was amiable, as it generally was when he was collecting money, but it suffered a remarkable change if the money was not forthcoming. "Good-morning, sir," answered Woods, with a troubled look. "You've got a nice, snug place here, Dan; it's a fine home for your family." "I don't complain of it, sir. As I once owned it myself, probably I set more store by it than a stranger would." "Just so, Dan. You get it at a very low rent, too. If it were any one but yourself I should really feel that I ought to raise the rent to twenty dollars." "I hope you won't do that, sir," said Woods, in alarm. "It's all I can do to raise ten dollars a month, with all my other expenses." "Oh, well, I'll let it remain at the present figure _as long as you pay me promptly_," emphasizing the last words. "Of course I have a right to expect that." Dan's heart sank within him. It was clear he could not expect any consideration from such a man. But the truth must be told. "No doubt you are right, Mr. Wolverton, and you've found me pretty prompt so far." "So I have, Dan. I know you wouldn't be dishonest enough to make me wait." Dan's heart sank still lower. It was becoming harder every minute to own that he was deficient. "Still, Mr. Wolverton, bad luck will come----" "What!" exclaimed Wolverton, with a forbidding scowl. "As I was saying, sir, a man is sometimes unlucky. Now, I have been sick nearly a week out of the last month, as you may have heard, and it's put me back." "What are you driving at, Dan Woods?" demanded Wolverton, severely. "I hope you're not going to say that you are not ready to pay your rent?" "I haven't got the whole of it, sir; and that's a fact." "You haven't got the whole of it? How much have you got?" "I can pay you six dollars, Mr. Wolverton." "Six dollars out of ten! Why, this is positively shameful! I wonder you are not ashamed to tell me." "There is no shame about it that I can see," answered Dan, plucking up his spirit. "I didn't fall sick on purpose; and when I was sick I couldn't work." "You ought to have one month's rent laid by, so that whatever happens you could pay it on time." "That's easy to say, Mr. Wolverton, but it takes every cent of my earnings to pay my monthly expenses. There's little chance to save." "Any one can save who chooses," retorted Wolverton, sharply. "Shall I get you the six dollars, sir?" "Yes, give it to me." "And you will wait for the other four?" "Till to-morrow night." "But how can I get it by to-morrow night?" asked Dan in dismay. "That's your lookout, not mine. All I have to say is, unless it is paid to me to-morrow night you must move the next day." With these words Wolverton went off. Dan Woods, in his trouble, went to Bob Burton the next day, and Bob readily lent him the money he needed. "Thank you!" said Dan, gratefully; "I won't forget this favor." "Don't make too much of it, Dan; it's a trifle." "It's no trifle to me. But for you my family would be turned out of house and home to-morrow. The time may come when I can do you a service." "Thank you, Dan." The time came sooner than either anticipated. CHAPTER XVIII. WOLVERTON'S WICKED PLAN. Wolverton was somewhat puzzled when on his next call Dan Woods paid the balance due on his rent. "So you raised the money after all?" he said. "I thought you could if you made an effort." "I borrowed the money, sir." "Of whom?" "It isn't any secret, Mr. Wolverton. I borrowed it of a neighbor who has always been kind to me--Bob Burton." Wolverton shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't know he had money to lend," he said. "He always has money for a poor man who needs it." "All right! I shall know where to go when I need money," responded Wolverton, with a grin. "It suits me well enough to have the boy throw away his money," Wolverton said to himself. "It will only draw nearer the time when he will have to sue me for a favor." That day Wolverton read in a St. Louis paper that wheat was steadily rising, and had already reached two dollars and six cents per bushel. "I could make a fine thing of it if I had only received the Barton wheat at a dollar and a half a bushel," he reflected, regretfully. "If I had only the widow to deal with, I might have succeeded, for she knows nothing of business. But that confounded boy is always putting a spoke in my wheel. If he carries out his plan, and markets the wheat, it will set him on his feet for the year to come." This reflection made Wolverton feel gloomy. There are some men who are cheered by the prosperity of their neighbors, but he was not one of them. He began to speculate as to whether there was any way of interfering with Bob's schemes. Generally when a man is seeking a way of injuring his neighbor he succeeds in finding one. This was the plan that suggested itself to Wolverton: If he could set the ferry-boat adrift when the grain was all stored it would float down stream, and the chances were against its being recovered. It would be mean, and even criminal, to be sure. For the first, Wolverton did not care; for the second, he would take care that no one caught him at it. He did not think of employing any one else in the matter, for he knew of no one he could trust; and he felt that he could do it more effectually than any agent, however trustworthy. Wolverton was so full of the plan, which commended itself to him as both simple and effective, that he took a walk late in the evening from his house to the point on the creek where the boat was tethered. Now, it so happened that Dan Woods, who had been employed all day, had occasion to go to the village in the evening to procure a few groceries from the village store. He delayed for a time, having met an old acquaintance, and it was half-past nine when he set out on his return homeward. His way led him not only by the Burton homestead, but by the river bend where Bob kept his rowboat--the same point also where the ferry-boat was tied. As he approached, he caught sight of a man's figure standing on the bank. Who it was he could not immediately distinguish on account of the darkness. "It may be some one bent on mischief," he thought to himself. "I will watch him and find out, if I can, who it is." He kept on his way stealthily till he was within a dozen feet, when he slipped behind a tree. Then it dawned upon him who it was. "It's Aaron Wolverton, as I'm a living man," he ejaculated, inwardly. "What can he be doing here?" It was Wolverton, as we know. The old man stood in silence on the bank, peering through the darkness at the shadowy form of the ferry-boat, which already contained half the wheat crop of Burton's Ranch--the loading having commenced that morning. He had one habit which is unfortunate with a conspirator--the habit of thinking aloud--so he let out his secret to the watchful listener. "Sam tells me they expected to get half the crop on board to-day," he soliloquized. "I sent him over to get that very information, though he don't know it. It is too early to do anything yet. To-morrow night the whole cargo will be stored, and then it will be time to cut the rope and let it drift. I should be glad to see the boy's face," he chuckled, "when he comes down to the creek the next morning and finds the boat gone. That will put him at my mercy, and the widow, too," he added, after a pause. "He will repent too late that he thwarted me. I will work in secret, but I get there all the same!" Wolverton clasped his hands behind his back and, turning, walked thoughtfully away. He did not see his tenant, who was crouching behind a tree not over three feet from the path. Dan Woods had no very favorable opinion of Wolverton, but what he had heard surprised and shocked him. "I didn't think the old man was as wicked as that!" he said to himself. "He is scheming to ruin Bob and his mother. Why should he have such a spite against them?" This is a question which we can answer, but Woods became more puzzled the more he thought about it. One thing was clear, however; he must apprise Bob of the peril in which he stood. Even if he had not received the last favor from our hero, he would have felt in duty bound to do his best to defeat Wolverton's wicked plan. The next morning, therefore, he made an early call at Burton's Ranch, and asked for a private interview with Bob. He quickly revealed to him the secret of which he had become possessed. "Thank you, Dan," said Bob, warmly. "You have done me a favor of the greatest importance. I knew Wolverton was my enemy, and the enemy of our family, but I did not think he would be guilty of such a mean and wicked action. If he had succeeded, I am afraid we should have lost the farm." "You won't let him succeed?" said Dan Woods, anxiously. "No; forewarned is forearmed. I shall be ready for Mr. Wolverton!" And Bob closed his lips resolutely. He deliberated whether he should let his mother know of the threatened danger, but finally decided not to do so. It would only worry her, and do no good, as whatever measures of precaution were to be taken, he must take. He did not even tell Clip; for though the young colored boy was devoted to him, he was lacking in discretion, and might let out the secret. Bob did not want to prevent the attempt being made. He wished to catch Wolverton in the act. He did, however, take into his confidence a faithful man who had worked for his father ever since the ranch was taken, thinking it prudent to have assistance near if needed. That day the rest of the wheat was stored on the ferry-boat. All would be ready for a start the next morning, and this Bob had decided to make. He sent Clip to bed early, on the pretext that he must have a good night's sleep, as he would be called early. If Clip had had the least idea of what was in the wind he would have insisted on sitting up to see the fun, but he was absolutely ignorant of it. Wolverton had learned from Sam, who was surprised that his uncle should let him spend almost all his time with his friends, Bob and Clip, that the cargo had been stored. "When do they start?" he asked, carelessly. "To-morrow morning, uncle," Sam answered. "If I had thought of it," said Wolverton, "I would have asked young Burton to take my wheat along, too." "I don't think he would have room for it, Uncle Aaron. The boat is about full now." "Oh, well; I shall find some other way of sending it," said Wolverton, carelessly. About nine o'clock Wolverton stole out in the darkness, and made his way stealthily to the bend in the creek. He had with him a sharp razor--he had no knife sharp enough--which he judged would sever the thick rope. Arrived at the place of his destination, he bent over and drew out the razor, which he opened and commenced operations. But there was an unlooked-for interference. A light, boyish figure sprang from behind a tree, and Bob Barton, laying his hand on Wolverton's shoulder, demanded, indignantly: "What are you doing here, Mr. Wolverton?" Wolverton started, dropped the razor in the river, and, with an expression of alarm, looked up into Bob's face. CHAPTER XIX. MR. WOLVERTON MEETS TWO CONGENIAL SPIRITS. "What are you doing here, Mr. Wolverton?" repeated Bob, sternly. "Oh, it's you, Bob, is it?" said Wolverton, with assumed lightness. "Really, you quite startled me, coming upon me so suddenly in the dark." "I noticed that you were startled," responded Bob, coolly. "But that isn't answering my question." By this time Wolverton was on his feet, and had recovered his self-possession. "What right have you to put questions to me, you young whelp?" he demanded, angrily. "Because I suspect you of designs on my property." "What do you mean?" snarled Wolverton. "I will tell you; I think you meant to cut the rope, and send my boat adrift." "How dare you insult me by such a charge?" demanded the agent, working himself into a rage. "I have reason to think that you meant to do what I have said." "Why should I do it?" "In order to injure me by the loss of my wheat." "You are a fool, young man! I am inclined to think, also, that you are out of your head." "If you had any other purpose, what is it?" Wolverton bethought himself that in order to avert suspicion, he must assign some reason for his presence. To do this taxed his ingenuity considerably. "I thought I saw something in the water," he said. "There it is; a twig; I see now." "And what were you going to do with the razor?" "None of your business!" said Wolverton, suddenly, finding it impossible, on the spur of the moment, to think of any reason. "That is easy to understand," said Bob, significantly. "Now, Mr. Wolverton, I have a warning to give you. If anything befalls my boat, I shall hold you responsible." "Do you know who I am?" blustered Wolverton. "How do you, a boy, dare to talk in this impudent way to a man who has you in his power?" "It strikes me, Mr. Wolverton, that I hold you in my power." "Who would believe your unsupported assertion? sneered the agent." "It is not unsupported. I brought with me Edward Jones, my faithful assistant, who has seen your attempt to injure me." At this, Edward, a stalwart young man of twenty-four, stepped into view. "I saw it all," he said, briefly. "You are ready to lie, and he to swear to it," said Wolverton, but his voice was not firm, for he saw that the testimony against him was too strong to be easily shaken. "I don't wonder you deny it, Mr. Wolverton," said Bob. "I won't remain here any longer to be insulted," said Wolverton, who was anxious to get away, now that his plan had failed. Bob did not reply, and the agent slunk away, feeling far from comfortable. "What cursed luck sent the boy to the creek to-night?" he said to himself. "I was on the point of succeeding, and then I would have had him in my power. Could he have heard anything?" Wolverton decided, however, that this was not likely. He attributed Bob's presence to chance, though his words seemed to indicate that he suspected something. He was obliged to acknowledge his defeat. Yet it would be possible for him to return in an hour or two, and carry out his evil plan. But it would be too hazardous. The crime would inevitably be traced to him, and he would be liable to arrest. No, hard though it was to bring his mind to it, he must forego his scheme, and devise something else. When the agent had left the scene, Bob Burton said: "Edward, you may go home. I mean to stay here on guard." "But you will not be in condition to start to-morrow morning. You will be tired out." "I can't take any risks this last evening, Edward." "Then let me take your place. I will stay here." "But it will be hard on you." "I will lie later to-morrow morning. You can relieve me, if you like, at four o'clock." "Let it be so, then! Too much is at stake for us to leave anything to chance. I don't think, however, that Wolverton would dare to renew his attempt." Meanwhile Wolverton retraced his steps to his own house. There was one lonely place on the way, but the agent was too much absorbed in his own reflections to have room for fear. His occupation of mind was rudely disturbed, when from a clump of bushes two men sprang out, and one, seizing him by the shoulder, said, roughly: "Your money or your life!" Wolverton was not a brave man, and it must be confessed that he was startled by this sudden summons. But he wasn't in the habit of carrying money with him in the evening, and an old silver watch, which would have been dear at four dollars, was not an article whose loss would have seriously disturbed him. So it was with a tolerable degree of composure that he answered: "You have stopped the wrong man." "We know who you are. You are Aaron Wolverton, and you are a rich man." "That may and may not be, but I don't carry my money with me." "Empty your pockets!" Wolverton complied, but neither purse nor pocket book was forthcoming. "Didn't I tell you so?" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "We won't take your word for it." The first highwayman plunged his hand into the agent's pockets, but his search only corroborated Wolverton's statement. "You, a rich man, go without money!" he exclaimed with rough contempt. "Perhaps I might have expected such a meeting," Wolverton replied, with cunning triumph. "You must have a watch, at any rate!" "I have one that I will sell you for four dollars." As he spoke, he voluntarily produced the timeworn watch, which had served him for twenty years. The thieves uttered an exclamation of contempt. Their disappointment made them angry. They hurriedly conferred as to the policy of keeping Wolverton in their power till he should pay a heavy ransom, but there were obvious difficulties in the way of carrying out this plan. Aaron Wolverton listened quietly to the discussion which concerned him so nearly. He smiled at times, and did not appear particularly alarmed till one, more bloodthirsty than the other, suggested stringing him up to the nearest tree. "My friends," he said, for the first time betraying a slight nervousness. "I can't see what advantage it would be for you to hang me." "You deserve it for fooling us!" replied the second highwayman, with an oath. "In what way?" "By not carrying any money, or article of value." "I grieve for your disappointment," said Wolverton, with much sympathy. "If you mock us, you shall swing, any way." "Don't mistake me! I have no doubt you are very worthy fellows, only a little unfortunate. What sum would have paid you for your disappointment?" "Fifty dollars would have been better than nothing." "That is considerable money, but I may be able to throw it in your way." "Now you're talking! If you are on the square, you'll find us gentlemen. We are ready to hear what you have to say." "Good! But I expect you to earn the money." "How?" inquired the first gentleman, suspiciously. The word earn might mean work, and that was not in his line. "I'll tell you." There was an amiable conference for twenty minutes, but this is not the place to reveal what was said. Enough that it nearly concerned Bob Burton, and involved a new plot against the success of his enterprise. CHAPTER XX. AN UNEXPECTED PASSENGER. The next morning the boys were up bright and early. It was a glorious morning, and Bob accepted it as auspicious of a pleasant and prosperous trip. Clip was in wild spirits. He was naturally vivacious and fond of change, and the prospect of the river trip made him very happy. Bob, as a practical joke, put on a grave face and said: "Clip, I don't know but I shall have to leave you at home." "What fo', Massa Bob?" inquired Clip, his face assuming a look of dismay. "I am afraid my mother won't be able to get along without you. There are so many things to attend to on the ranch." "I can't do no good on the ranch," said Clip, eagerly. "I'm only a lazy, good-for-nothing nigger." "Then I don't see how you can help me, Clip," returned Bob, his eyes twinkling as he listened to this candid confession. "Dat's different, Massa Bob. I ain't no good on the ranch, but I'm powerful help on the river. Please take me along, Massa Bob," pleaded Clip. "Just as likely as not you'll get lost, Clip. Besides, you might meet your old master from Arkansas." "He won't catch dis nigger," said Clip, shaking his head, resolutely. "Please let me go, Massa Bob." "Your arguments are so cogent, Clip, that I suppose I shall have to give in." Instantly Clip's face was radiant. He didn't know what cogent arguments were, but as long as they had accomplished his desire he was content to remain in ignorance. "But if you give me any trouble, Clip," Bob added, seriously, "I may have to put you ashore, and let you walk home." Clip gave the most emphatic assurance of good conduct, and was informed that he could go. There was much to do, even on the last morning, and though the boys were early risers, it was fully ten o'clock before they were ready to start. Half an hour before this Bob had a surprise. Sam Wolverton was seen approaching on a run, breathless and without a hat. He arrived at the landing, just as Bob was putting off in the flat-bottomed boat, with a load of provisions for the voyage. "What on earth is the matter, Sam?" asked Bob, in surprise. "Let me get on the boat and I will tell you." The boat was put back and Sam jumped on. "Now what has happened, Sam?" "Do you see this," said Sam, pointing to his right cheek, which was stained with blood. "What has happened to you? Did you fall and hurt yourself?" "My uncle knocked me over and I fell against a block of wood." "What made him attack you?" inquired Bob, indignantly. "I don't know; he got mad with me for nothing at all. He's been in an awful temper all the morning. Something must have happened to vex him." Bob smiled. He could understand what had happened. Wolverton's disappointment at the failure of his villainous plan had no doubt soured him, and, like a born bully, he had vented his spite upon the poor boy who was dependent upon him. "I wish you'd more spunk, Sam," Bob said. "He wouldn't dare to attack me in that way." "You're stronger and braver than I am, Bob. I can't be like you. I wish I could." "Your uncle is no more nor less than a bully. He imposes upon you because he thinks it is safe to do so. He wouldn't dare tackle me, because he knows it wouldn't be safe." "Bob," said Sam, solemnly, "I've borne it as long as I'm going to. I am not going back to my uncle's house." "Do you mean this, Sam?" "Yes, I do. It's the only home I have, but I would rather go without a home than to be beaten and ill-treated by Uncle Aaron." "I commend your pluck, Sam. I can't say I think you are doing wrong." "I have a favor to ask of you, Bob. You are my only friend." "What is it, Sam?" "Let me go with you to St. Louis. It would make me happy to be with you, and I should be out of my uncle's way." Bob paused for consideration, the proposal being unexpected. "But suppose, Sam, I am charged with abducting you?" "I'll take all the blame. Let me hide on the ferry-boat, and I won't show myself until you've got miles away." "That might do," said Bob, smiling. "Perhaps it isn't exactly square, but with such a man as your uncle we must make use of his own methods." "You will take me, then?" asked Sam, eagerly. By this time they had reached the boat. "Clip," said Bob, "go with Sam and hide him somewhere on the boat, but don't tell me where he is concealed. Then, if old Wolverton comes after him I can say truly that I don't know where he is." "All right, Massa Bob," said Clip, showing his teeth. When the contents of the boat had been transferred to the larger craft, Bob rowed back, leaving Clip and Sam together. The boat was roofed over, as already stated. Besides the bins there was a corner in which some bedding had been placed for the accommodation of the young voyagers. But it seemed difficult to find a suitable hiding-place for Sam. "Where can you put me?" asked the young runaway, with a troubled look. Clip looked about him, rolling his eyes in perplexity. At length his face brightened, for an idea had come to him. In one corner was an empty barrel. Some stores had been brought aboard in it, and it had been suffered to remain, with the idea that it might possibly prove of use. The particular use to which it was to be put certainly never occurred to Bob or Clip. "Get in there, Sam!" said Clip. "Old Mass' Wolverton won't look for you in there." "But I shall be seen." "You wait and I'll show you how we'll manage; only get in!" Thus adjured, Sam got into the barrel, and with some difficulty crouched so that his head was lower than the top of the barrel. "Now I'll show you," said Clip. He took a white cloth--it was apiece of sail-cloth--and spread over the top of the barrel. "Now old Mass' Wolverton will have sharp eyes to see you," said Clip, triumphantly. "That may do," said Sam. "But it isn't necessary to put it on now. It will be time if my uncle makes his appearance. I'll keep out of sight in the center of the boat." Meanwhile Bob had gone to the house to bid good-bye to his mother. "I feel anxious about your going off on such a long trip, Robert," said Mrs. Burton. "You forget that I am almost a man, mother. It is time for me to assume some responsibility." "But you are only a boy, after all, Robert. Think, if anything should happen to you, what would become of me?" "My dear mother, you may depend on my taking excellent care of myself. I don't see what risk or danger there can be in going to St. Louis. It isn't a long trip. I shall be back in less than a fortnight if all goes well." "It will seem a very long fortnight to me, Robert." "I have no doubt you will miss me, mother, but you forget I have Clip to look after me." "Clip is only a poor colored boy, but I am sure he will prove faithful to you," said Mrs. Burton, seriously. "Even the humble are sometimes of great service. I am glad he is going with you." Bob did not mention that Sam Wolverton would also be his companion, as he foresaw that the agent would not unlikely question his mother on that point. Bob returned to the boat, and was just about to cast off, when Wolverton was seen on the bank, waving his hat and shouting frantically. "I guess, Massa Sam, you'd better get into the barrel," said Clip with a grin. CHAPTER XXI. HOW WOLVERTON WAS FOOLED. "What do you want, Mr. Wolverton?" asked Bob, coolly, as he stood at one end of the boat and surveyed the excited agent. "Come ashore, or I'll have you arrested," shouted the irate Wolverton. "You are very kind, Mr. Wolverton; but I am in considerable of a hurry, and have not time to comply with your request." "You'd better come ashore, if you know what's best for yourself." "Please state your business! If it is anything to my advantage, I may come; but I am just ready to start for St. Louis." "Is my nephew Sam on your boat?" "I don't see him. Why should he be on board?" "I suspect him of running away, the ungrateful young rascal? I thought he might be scheming to go down the river with you." "Clip," said Bob, gravely, "has Sam Wolverton engaged passage with us?" "Not as I knows on, Massa Bob." "If he should, charge him fifteen dollars." "Yes, Massa Bob," answered Clip, with a grin. "If you wish your nephew to go to St. Louis on my boat, Mr. Wolverton," said Bob, with ceremonious politeness, "I will take him, being a friend, for fifteen dollars, excursion ticket. You can't complain of that." "But I don't want him to go," roared Wolverton. "I tell you he has run away." "That's very strange, considering how kindly and liberally you have always treated him." Wolverton eyed Bob suspiciously, for he knew well enough that the remark was ironical. "None of your gammon, young man!" he said, crabbedly. "Send Sam ashore." "Really, Mr. Wolverton, you must be joking. What have I got to do with Sam?" "I don't believe a word you say. I mean to search your boat." "You had better do it at once, then, for it is time for me to start." "But how am I to get aboard," asked the agent, perplexed. "You might swim," suggested Bob, "or wade. The water is shallow--not higher than your neck, anywhere." "That is nonsense. Steer your boat to shore, that I may board her." "It can't be done, Mr. Wolverton. We can only drift down with the current." "Then how am I to get aboard?" "That is your lookout." Just then Mr. Wolverton espied the flat-bottomed boat which Bob proposed to take with him. He had attached it by a line to the stern of the ferry-boat. "Row over and take me across." "I can't spare the time." Wolverton was about to give vent to his wrath at this refusal, when he observed a boat approaching, rowed by a German boy named Otto Brandes. "Come here, boy, and row me out to yonder boat," he said. Otto paused in his rowing, and, understanding the man with whom he was dealing, he asked, quietly: "How much will you pay me, Mr. Wolverton?" "Five cents to take me over and back," answered the agent, with some hesitation. Otto laughed. "I don't work for any such wages," he said. "I'll give you ten; but be quick about it." "Give me a quarter and I'll do it." "Do you think I am made of money?" said Wolverton, in anger. "That is an outrageous extortion." "All right! Then hire somebody else," said Otto, coolly. After a fruitless effort to beat down the price, Wolverton sulkily agreed to the terms, and Otto rowed to the bank. "Now, row with all your might," said the agent, as he seated himself in one end of the boat. "Your fare, please," said Otto. "I'll pay you when the trip is over," said Wolverton. "It's a poor paymaster that pays in advance." "Then you'd better get out of the boat. Railroad and boat tickets are always paid in advance." "I'll give you ten cents now, and the balance when I land." "It won't do, Mr. Wolverton. I don't care much about the job anyway; I'm in a hurry to get home." Otto lived about half a mile further down the creek. Much against his will, the agent was obliged to deposit the passage-money in the boy's hand before he would consent to take up the oars and commence rowing. "That rascal Sam is putting me to all this expense," he said to himself. "I'll take my pay out of his skin once I get hold of him." Clip went up to the barrel in which Sam was concealed. "Ol' Wolverton is comin', Massa Sam," he said. "Don't you make no noise, and we'll fool de ol' man." In spite of this assurance, poor Sam trembled in his narrow place of concealment. He knew that he would fare badly if his uncle got hold of him. "How's he coming?" he asked in a stifled voice. "Otto Brandes is rowin' him. He's in Otto's boat." "It's mean of Otto!" "No; he don't know what de ol' man is after." It took scarcely two minutes for Wolverton to reach the ferry-boat. He mounted it with fire in his eye. "Now, where is Sam?" he demanded in a peremptory tone. "You can search for him, Mr. Wolverton," said Bob, coolly. "You seem to know more about where he is than I do." Wolverton began to peer here and there, looking into bins of wheat and all sorts of improbable places. Clip took a broom and began to sweep energetically. Bob could not explain this sudden fit of industry till he saw Clip slyly slip the broom between Wolverton's legs as he was hurrying along, thereby upsetting the unfortunate agent, who tumbled sprawling on the deck. "Why, you black imp!" he exclaimed, furiously, as he picked himself up, "what made you do that?" "Couldn't help it, Massa Wolverton! I 'clare to gracious I couldn't!" said Clip, rolling his eyes in a most wonderful manner. "Are you hurt, Massa Wolverton?" "I most broke my knee!" growled Wolverton, as he rose and limped towards the other end of the boat. "I may be laid up for a week." "It was de ol' broom did it," said Clip, innocently. "Never see such a broom!" Bob had hard work to keep a straight face, as he heard Clip's odd accusation against the unoffending broom. This accident seemed to dampen Wolverton's enthusiasm, and the pain in his knee increasing made him desirous of getting home as soon as possible. Besides, he began to suspect that he was on a wrong scent, as he had thus far found no traces of his runaway nephew. He never once noticed the barrel, over which the piece of sail-cloth had been thrown so carelessly. "Well, did you find Sam?" asked Bob, composedly. "No!" snapped Wolverton. "I seed him jest before you came, Massa Wolverton," said Clip. "Where?" asked the agent, eagerly. "Runnin' along the bank." "In what direction?" Clip pointed up the creek. "Why didn't you tell me that before?" "You didn't ask me, Massa Wolverton." "Take me ashore quick!" said Wolverton to Otto. "Hurry up, Massa Wolverton, and mebbe you'll catch him!" Wolverton was already in the boat, and Otto was rowing him to the shore. Clip went to the barrel and released the prisoner. "De ol' man's gone, Sam!" he said. "I'm glad of it, Clip. I'm almost suffocated." "Golly, didn't we fool him!" and Clip lay down on his back on deck, and gave way to an explosion of mirth. A minute later the rope was drawn in, and the ferry-boat started on its adventurous career down the creek. CHAPTER XXII. THE FIRST DAY. Bob was accustomed to rowing, but navigation with the ferry-boat presented a new and interesting problem which he was eager to solve. A steering apparatus had been rigged up at the stern, which was found strong enough for the purpose required. Bob took his place at the helm in starting, and managed for the first hour to regulate the direction of his craft. By that time they came to a place where the creek widened considerably, and the boat showed a disposition to whirl round in an eddy. This difficulty, however, was overcome by practice, and Bob began to acquire confidence in himself as a navigator. But it was evident that he could not remain at the helm all day. "Come here, Clip," he said; "I want you to rest me in steering." Clip took his place, but his first attempts proved discouraging. He was inclined to steer in just the reverse direction, and twice came near running the boat ashore. "What are you about, Clip?" demanded Bob, in excitement. "Don't you see you are running the boat ashore?" "I done just like you, Massa Bob," protested Clip. "De boat acts contrary; never see such an ol' boat." "It is you that are contrary, Clip. You don't do as I tell you." "I 'clar to gracious I did, Massa Bob. I can't never learn to steer." In fact, Clip, who was naturally lazy, found it very irksome to stand at the helm, and much preferred going here and there on the boat and surveying the scenery on either bank. He hoped that his incompetence would save him from the task. But his dream was rudely disturbed. "If you can't take your turn in steering, Clip," said Bob, "you won't be of any use to me. I shall have to send you home, and get along with Sam's assistance." "Oh, don't send me home, Massa Bob!" exclaimed Clip, in alarm. "I'll try--'deed I will." "I'll try you a little longer, Clip," said Bob; "but you must not blame me for sending you back, if it is necessary." No better argument could have been used to insure satisfactory work from Clip, who was naturally careless, and inclined to shirk work. Nevertheless, Bob felt glad that he had another assistant in Sam Wolverton, who proved to possess all the qualities which Clip lacked. When it was one o'clock, Clip began to show signs of distress. "I'm pow'ful hungry, Massa Bob," he said, in a pleading tone. "So am I, Clip," returned Bob, with a smile. "I will see if I can't do something to relieve you." He had brought from home a basket of sandwiches and a gallon of milk. To these the boys did ample justice, displaying even more appetite than usual. This was not surprising, for they had worked hard, and this in the open air. "Sam," said Bob, "I can't hope to supply you with all the delicacies you would get at home, but I hope you'll make it do with our humble fare." Sam smiled. "All the delicacies on Uncle Aaron's table wouldn't spoil anybody's digestion. I like my dinner to-day better than any I've eaten for a long time. I don't know what uncle and aunt would say if they could see me here." "De ol' man would be wild," said Clip, with a guffaw. "I expect he would, Clip. He isn't fond of me, but he doesn't want to lose me. He will have to do his own chores now, for I don't believe he can get a boy to work for him." About six o'clock in the afternoon, having arrived opposite a town which I will call Rushford, Bob decided to tie up for the night. He and Clip went on shore, leaving Sam in charge of the boat. He did not dare to leave it unguarded, for the cargo, according to his estimate, was worth not far from three thousand dollars. He took the opportunity to enter a restaurant, where he bought Clip and himself cups of coffee, and ordered a fresh supply of sandwiches made up, which he arranged to have delivered at the boat early the next morning. "I don't mean that we shall starve, Clip," he said. Clip showed his teeth. "Dat coffee's awful good, Massa Bob," he said. "Yes, but we can't make it on board the boat. I shall have to depend on getting it at the villages on the way." "How far are we from home, Massa Bob?" "Well thought of, Clip. I will inquire." He asked the keeper of the restaurant the distance to Carver. "I don't know, but I think my waiter comes from that neighborhood. Sam, how far away is Carver?" "Forty miles," answered Sam promptly. "I thought it had been more. We have been eight hours coming on the river." That is because the river (they had left the creek fifteen miles up) was winding in its course. On the whole, however, Bob decided that it was very fair progress for the first day, and that only about two-thirds of the time. Rushford was a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, and presented as busy an appearance as a town three times the size in the East. Clip, who was fond of variety, was reluctant to return to the boat, but Bob said: "We must relieve Sam, and give him a chance to come ashore and get some coffee. You come with him, and show him the restaurant." This arrangement suited Clip, who liked as much variety and excitement as possible. On returning to the boat Bob was somewhat surprised to find his young lieutenant in conversation with an old lady dressed in antediluvian costume. She had a sharp face, with an eager, birdlike look, and seemed to be preferring a request. "Here's the captain; you can ask him," said Sam, who seemed much relieved by the return of Bob. "Is _he_ the captain?" asked the old lady. "Why, he's nothin' but a boy!" "He's all the captain we have," answered Sam. "Be you in charge of this boat?" asked the old lady. "Yes, ma'am. What can I do for you?" "I want to go down to St. Louis," said the old lady, "and I thought maybe you might find room for me." "But, ma'am, why don't you take passage on a river steamer?" "They charge too much," said the old lady. "I hain't got much money, and I s'pose you wouldn't charge me much. Are you any acquainted in St. Louis?" "No, ma'am." "I thought maybe you might know my darter's husband. He keeps a grocery store down near the river. His name is Jeremiah Pratt, and my darter's name is Melinda Ann. I want to give 'em a surprise." "I never met the gentleman." "When do you start?" "To-morrow morning about half-past seven o'clock." "Can't you put it off till eight? I've got to pack my trunk over night, and I've got to eat a bit of breakfast to stay my stummik. How much do you charge? I'd be willing to pay you seventy-five cents." "How much do the steamboats charge?" asked Bob. "I think it's six dollars, or it may be seven. That's too much for a poor woman like me." "I think you will have to pay it, madam, for we have no accommodation for passengers on our boat." "Oh, I ain't a mite particular. You can put me anywhere." "I suppose you wouldn't be willing to get into a grain bin?" "Oh, now you're jokin'. Where do you sleep yourself?" "On a mattress on the floor; that wouldn't be suitable for a lady like you. Besides, we have no separate rooms." "Then you can't take me, no way?" asked the old lady, disappointed. "I am afraid not, madam." "You're real disobligin'. I don't see how I am to get to St. Louis." "I am sorry I can't help you." The old woman hobbled off in evident anger. Bob heard afterwards that she was a woman of ample means, fully able to afford steamboat fare, but so miserly that she grudged paying it. "Now, Sam," said Bob, "Clip will show you the way to a restaurant where you can get a hot cup of coffee and a plate of meat, if you desire it." While the boys were gone, Bob received a visitor. CHAPTER XXIII. A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER. Fifteen minutes after Sam and Clip had left him Bob's attention was drawn to a man of somewhat flashy appearance, who, while leaning against a tree on the bank, seemed to be eying him and the boat with attention. He wore a Prince Albert coat which was no longer fit to appear in good society, a damaged hat, and a loud neck-tie. His eyes were roving from one point to another, as if he felt a great deal of interest in Bob or the boat. Our hero was not favorably impressed with this man's appearance. "I wonder what he sees that interests him so much?" he thought. "I say, young man, is this here boat yours?" he asked. "Yes," answered Bob, coldly. "What have you got on board?" Bob felt under no obligation to answer, but reflecting that there was no good excuse for refusing, he said, briefly: "Wheat." "Humph! How much have you got?" This clearly was none of the questioner's business, and Bob replied by another question: "Do you want to buy?" "I don't know," said the stranger. "What do you ask?" "I can't say till I get to St. Louis." "How much do you calc'late to get?" "Two dollars and a quarter," answered Bob, naming a price beyond his expectations. "Ain't that a high figger?" "Perhaps so." "Come, young feller, you don't seem social. Can't you invite me aboard?" "I don't think you would be paid for coming," said Bob, more and more unfavorably impressed. "Oh, I don't mind. My time ain't valuable. I guess I'll come." The stranger stepped across the gang-plank, which Bob had laid from the boat to the shore, and entered without an invitation. Bob was tempted to order him off, but the intruder appeared much stronger than himself; and while he was alone it seemed politic to submit to the disagreeable necessity of entertaining his unwelcome visitor. The latter walked from end to end of the boat, examining for himself without asking permission, or appearing to feel the need of any. He opened the bins and counted them, while Bob looked on uneasily. "I say, young feller, you've got a smart lot of wheat here." "Yes," said Bob, briefly. "Got a thousand bushels, I reckon?" "Perhaps so." "And you expect to get two dollars and a quarter a bushel?" "Perhaps I shall have to take less." "At any rate, you must have two thousand dollars' worth on board." "You can judge for yourself." "I say, that's a pile of money--for a boy." "The wheat doesn't belong to me." "Who owns it, then." "My mother." "What's your mother's name?" "I have answered all the questions I am going to," said Bob, indignantly. "Don't get riled, youngster. It ain't no secret, is it?" "I don't care about answering all the questions a stranger chooses to put to me." "I say, young chap, you're gettin' on your high horse." "What is your object in putting all these questions?" "What is my object?" "That is what I asked." "The fact is, youngster, I've got a ranch round here myself, and I've got about five hundred bushels of wheat I want to market. Naturally I'm interested. See?" Bob did not believe a word of this. "Where is your ranch?" he asked. "About two miles back of the town," answered the stranger, glibly. That lie was an easy one. "I'm thinkin' some of runnin' down to the city to see if I can't sell my wheat in a lump to some merchant. Mebbe I could strike a bargain with you to carry me down." Bob had even more objection to the new passenger than to the old lady, and he answered stiffly: "I have no accommodations for passengers." "Oh, I can bunk anywhere--can lie on deck, on one of the bins. I'm used to roughin' it." "You'd better take passage by the next steamer. This is a freight boat." "There ain't anybody but you aboard, is there?" "Yes; I have two companions." The stranger seemed surprised and incredulous. "Where are they?" he asked. "Gone into the village." The visitor seemed thoughtful. He supposed the two companions were full-grown men, and this would not tally with his plans. This illusion, however, was soon dissipated, for Sam and Clip at this point crossed the gang-plank and came aboard. "Are them your two companions?" asked the stranger, appearing relieved. "Yes." Sam and Clip eyed him curiously, expecting Bob to explain who he was, but our hero was only anxious to get rid of him. "Then you can't accommodate me?" asked the man. "No, sir; but if you'll give me your name and address, I can perhaps sell your crop for you, and leave you to deliver it." "Never mind, young feller! I reckon I'll go to the city myself next week." "Just as you like, sir." He re-crossed the plank, and when he reached the shore took up his post again beside the tree, and resumed his scrutiny of the boat. "What does that man want?" asked Sam. "I don't know. He asked me to give him passage to St. Louis." "You might make money by carrying passengers," suggested Sam. "I wouldn't carry a man like him at any price," said Bob. "I haven't any faith in his honesty or respectability, though he tells me that he owns a ranch two miles back of the town. He came on the boat to spy out what he could steal, in my opinion." "How many days do you think we shall need for the trip, Bob?" asked Sam. "It may take us a week; but it depends on the current, and whether we meet with any obstructions. Are you in a hurry to get back to your uncle?" "No," said Sam, his face wearing a troubled look. "The fact is, Bob, I don't mean to go back at all." "You mean dat, Massa Sam?" asked Clip, his eyes expanding in his excitement. "Yes, I mean it. If I go back I shall have to return to my uncle, and you know what kind of a reception I shall get. He will treat me worse than ever." "I am sure, Sam, my mother will be willing to let you live with us." "I should like nothing better, but my uncle would come and take me away." "Would he have the right?" "I think he would. He has always told me that my poor father left me to his charge." "Do you think he left any property?" "Yes; I feel sure he did; for on his deathbed he called me to him, and said: 'I leave you something, Sam; I wish it were more; but, at any rate, you are not a pauper.'" "Did you ever mention this to your uncle, Sam?" "Yes." "What did he say?" "It seemed to make him very angry. He said that my father was delirious or he would never have said such absurd things. But I know he was in his right mind. He was never more calm and sensible than when he told me about the property." "I am afraid Sam, your uncle has swindled you out of your inheritance." "I think so, too, but I can't prove anything, and it won't do to say anything, for it makes him furious." "What does your aunt say?" "Oh, she sides with Uncle Aaron; she always does that." "Then I can't say I advise you to return to Carver, although Clip and I are sure to miss you." "'Deed I shall, Massa Sam," said Clip. "I think I can pick up a living somehow in St. Louis. I would rather black boots than go back to Uncle Aaron." "I am sure you can. Perhaps some gentleman will feel an interest in you, and take you into his service." "I want to tell you, Bob, that Uncle Aaron hates you, and will try to injure you. You will need to be careful." "That's no news, Sam. He has shown his dislike for me in many ways; but I am not afraid of him," the boy added, proudly. At nine o'clock the boys went to bed. They were all tired, and all slept well. It was not till seven o'clock that Bob awoke. His two companions were asleep. He roused them, and they prepared for the second day's trip. CHAPTER XXIV. CLIP MAKES A LITTLE MONEY FOR HIMSELF. About noon the next day, while Clip was at the helm, there was a sudden jolt that jarred the boat from stem to stern, if I may so speak of a double-ender ferry-boat. Bob and Sam, who had been occupied with re-arranging some of the cargo, rushed up to the colored pilot. "What on earth is the matter, Clip asked Bob. "'Clare to gracious, I dunno, Massa Bob," asseverated Clip. Bob didn't need to repeat the question. Clip had steered in shore, and the boat had run against a tree of large size which had fallen over into the river, extending a distance of a hundred feet into the stream. Of course the boat came to a standstill. "What made you do this, Clip?" said Bob, sternly. "Didn't do it, Massa Bob. Ol' boat run into the tree himself." "That won't do, Clip. If you had steered right, there would have been no trouble." "I steered just as you told me to, Massa Bob." "No, you didn't. You should have kept the boat at least a hundred and fifty feet from the shore." "Didn't I, Massa Bob?" asked Clip, innocently. "No. Don't you see we are not more than fifty feet away now?" "I didn't get out and measure, Massa Bob," said Clip, with a grin. "Now, own up, Clip, were you not looking at something on the bank, so that you didn't notice where you were steering?" "Who told you, Massa Bob?" asked Clip, wondering. "I know it must be so. Do you know you have got us into trouble? How am I going to get the boat back into the stream?" Clip scratched his head hopelessly. The problem was too intricate for him to solve. "I think, Clip, I shall have to leave you over at the next place we come to. You are more bother than you are worth." "Oh, don't, Massa Bob. I won't do so again. 'Deed I won't." Bob didn't relent for some time. He felt that it was necessary to impress Clip with the heinousness of his conduct. At length he agreed to give him one more chance. He had to secure the services of two stout backwoodsmen to remove the tree, and this occasioned a delay of at least two hours. Finally the boat got started again, and for the remainder of the day there was no trouble. Towards the close of the afternoon they reached a place which we will call Riverton. It was a smart Western village of about two thousand inhabitants. Bob and Sam went on shore to get some supper, leaving Clip in charge. "Now, Clip, you must keep your eyes open, and take good care of everything while we are gone," said Bob. "All right, Massa Bob." About ten minutes after the boys went away Clip was sitting on a barrel whistling a plantation melody, when a slender, florid-complexioned young man stepped aboard. "Good-evening, sir," he said, removing his hat. "Evenin'," answered Clip, with a grin. He was flattered by being addressed as "sir." "Are you in charge of this boat?" "Yes; while Massa Bob and Sam are gone ashore." "Are they boys like yourself?" "Yes, sir." "Are you three all that are on board--I mean all that man the boat?" "Yes, massa." "Where are you bound?" "To St. Louis." "Do you think they would take me as passenger?" Clip shook his head. "They won't take no passengers," he answered. "An ol' woman wanted to go as passenger, and another man" (Clip was unconscious of the bull), "but Massa Bob he said no." "Suppose I make a bargain with you," said the man, insinuatingly. "What you mean, massa?" asked Clip, rolling his eyes in wonderment. "Can't you hide me somewhere without their knowing I am on board?" "What for I do dat?" asked Clip. "I'll make it worth your while." "What's dat?" "I'll give you five dollars." "For my own self?" "Yes; for yourself." "And I won't have to give it to Massa Bob?" "No; you can spend it for yourself." "But Massa Bob would find out to-morrer." "If he finds out to-morrow I shan't mind." "And you won't take back the money?" "No; you can keep the money at any rate." "Where's the money?" asked Clip, cautiously. The stranger took out a five-dollar gold piece, and showed it to Clip. Clip had seen gold coins before, and he understood the value of what was offered him. "Where can I put you?" he said. "We'll go round the boat together, and see if we can find a place." The round was taken, and the stranger selected a dark corner behind a bin of wheat. "Will Massa Bob, as you call him; be likely to look here?" "No; I reckon not." "Have you got anything to eat on board which you can bring me by and by?" "I'm goin' on shore soon as Massa Bob gets back. I'll buy something." "That will do." The stranger ensconced himself in his hiding-place, and soon after Bob and Sam returned. "Has anybody been here, Clip?" asked Bob. "No, Massa Bob," answered Clip, solemnly. Poor Clip's moral convictions were rather obtuse, and a lie did not impress him as seriously wrong. "What have you been doing while we were away?" "Nothin', Massa Bob." "That's what you like best to do, Clip, isn't it?" "Dat's where you're right, Massa Bob. Yah, yah!" "Well, you can go to your supper, Clip. Here's some money." "All right, Massa Bob." Clip did not seem in any great hurry to go. He was rather afraid that Bob and Sam would explore the boat while he was away. Finally he walked away with slow steps, looking back from time to time. "What's got into Clip?" said Bob, wonderingly. "I guess he isn't hungry," answered Sam, with a laugh. Ten minutes later Bob's attention was drawn to a crowd of men and boys who were approaching the boat. He naturally wondered what was the object of the assemblage. The leader called out to Bob, when he had approached sufficiently near: "I say, boy, have you seen anything of a man with dark hair, florid complexion, wearing a light suit, running along the bank?" "No, sir. Why?" "A man of that description has stolen a sum of money from a dry-goods store in the town. He was seen running in this direction. We thought you might have seen him." "No, sir; I have seen nothing of such a man." Bob little dreamed that the thief in question was concealed at that moment within twenty-five feet of where he was sitting. CHAPTER XXV. CLIP'S SECRET MISSION. The man who had addressed Bob eyed him sharply on receiving his negative answer. "It is a pretty serious thing to connive at the escape of a criminal," he said. "That remark does not affect me, sir. I know nothing of any criminal. If I had seen him I would tell you." Bob talked so frankly and honestly that it seemed impossible to doubt his word. The leader of the pursuing party turned to consult with a friend. "The boy seems straightforward," he said. "What do you think?" "I agree with you. Still, the man was seen to run in this direction." The first questioner was the one most concerned in the capture of the guilty party, for it was his store that had been robbed. "Have you been here all the time?" he asked, turning once more to Bob. "No, sir; my friend and I have been to the village to get supper." "Did you leave no one on board?" "Yes, sir; a colored boy in my service--a boy named Clip." "Did he mention having seen any suspicious party, or any man who seemed to be running away?" "No, sir." "Where is he? I would like to speak with him." "He has gone to the village to get his supper." If Clip had been present he would no doubt have been questioned, but as he was absent the party of investigation did not think it worth while to wait. "That's rather curious, Sam," said Bob, when they were again alone. "We were suspected of screening a criminal." "I wouldn't give much for the fellow's chance of escape. They are evidently determined to catch him." These words were all distinctly heard by the man in hiding. "I was lucky to fall in with the little nigger," he reflected. "Them boys would have refused to help me. They would give me up now if they knew I was on board. I must be careful." Clip came back at the end of half an hour. If Bob had taken notice of him, he would have noticed that the boy's pockets bulged out as if crowded with articles. But he had no especial reason for suspecting Clip of any underhand proceeding, and sat with Sam talking about home matters, leaving his young colored servant to his own devices. Clip was faithful to his trust. He had agreed to take care of his concealed passenger, and he was determined to do so. As soon as he could do so without observation, he went to the man's hiding-place and poured out the contents of his pockets. There were some buns and small rolls and a few round cakes. "Will they do you, mister?" he asked, in a low voice. "Yes; but I'm terribly thirsty. Have you got any whisky aboard?" Clip shook his head. "We ain't got no 'toxicating liquors," he answered. "Can you bring me a glass of water?" "I'll try. If you'd let me tell Massa Bob you were on board, I guess he'd give you some milk." "Milk be--hanged! No, I'll make it do with water. Don't you tell this Bob, on any account, that I am here!" "All right, massa!" answered Clip; but he was getting more and more puzzled. "Are you goin' to stay in dat place all night?" "Yes." "You'll find it mighty uncomfor'ble. If Massa Bob knew you was here--" "He is not to know, do you hear?" said the other, impatiently. "All right, massa! You know best." "Of course I know best." By this time Clip was missed. "Where are you, Clip?" asked Bob. "I'm jist loafin' around, Massa Bob," said Clip, a little startled. "There's something strange about you to-night, Clip; I don't understand it." "I'm thinkin' of old times down in Arkansaw, Massa Bob." "Would you like to be there now, Clip?" "No, Massa Bob, I'd rather live with you and your mudder. My ol' massa use to give me plenty of lickin's. I don't want to go back, never no more." Clip still continued to be restless and uneasy. He knew he had no authority for taking a passenger on board, and feared that Bob would take away the five dollars if he learned that Clip had accepted so large a sum. To do Clip justice, he had no idea that the man whom he had hidden was an offender against the laws, and that the police were in search of him. Even if he had known this, however, it is not certain that Clip would have been prejudiced against the offender. In truth, his prejudices were against the agents of the law rather than against those who had offended. Bob and Sam usually retired early; but to-night, to Clip's discontent, they remained up later than usual, talking about matters at home. "Isn't you ever goin' to bed, Massa Bob?" asked Clip, at last. "What is your hurry, Clip? Are you sleepy?" "Awful sleepy, Massa Bob," answered Clip; "can't hardly keep my eyes open." "Then you can go to bed any time. Sam and I will soon follow." This was not altogether satisfactory, for Clip meant to get up as soon as Bob and Sam were asleep and visit his passenger, who had expressed a wish to have him do so. However, there was nothing to be said, and Clip withdrew to his bunk and lay down; but, as may readily be guessed, his mind was too active for sleep. There was some one else who was anxious to have Bob and Sam retire. This was the hidden passenger, who found his quarters contracted and uncomfortable. "What's the matter with those confounded boys?" he growled to himself. "They seem determined to sit up on purpose to vex me. When they are once asleep I can get up and stretch my limbs." In about twenty minutes the boys, judging from their deep and regular breathing, had fallen asleep. Clip, who had been waiting anxiously, raised himself on his elbow and eyed them closely. Feeling that it was now safe for him to do so, he slipped out of bed cautiously and began to feel his way toward the hiding-place of his new acquaintance. "They're asleep," he whispered. "Now, what you want, massa?" "It's high time they were," growled the man. "I thought they were going to sit up all night." "So did I," returned Clip. "Are you sure there is no whisky on board?" "No, massa." "I suppose you could get some for me on shore. There's a saloon only three minutes' walk from this place." Clip was reluctant to go on shore on such an errand; but finally the offer of fifty cents for himself induced him to do so. He took a tin cup which Bob had brought with him from home, and started on his errand. At the saloon he was asked, "Do you want this for yourself? We don't sell to boys." "No, massa; it's for a sick man." "Where's the sick man?" "On board a boat." Upon this representation the whisky was obtained, and Clip started on his return. His curiosity led him to take a swallow of the whisky he was carrying, but it did not commend itself to Clip's palate. "It's nasty stuff!" he said with a grimace; "I don't see what fo' people drink it." He carried the drink safely to the passenger, who drank it and smacked his lips over it. "It goes to the right spot," he said. "Do those boys sleep sound?" he asked. "Yes, massa." "Then I'll get out of this beastly hole and take a turn on deck." "Be keerful, massa!" said Clip anxiously. "Oh, yes; I won't make any noise." Clip crept back to bed and succeeded in resuming his place without disturbing or arousing Bob or Sam. CHAPTER XXVI. WAS IT THE CAT? Usually Bob Burton slept all night; but to-night, unfortunately for Clip, he awakened about two o'clock in the morning. By an equally perverse chance, just as he awoke, the concealed passenger, now enjoying the freedom of the deck, broke out into a stentorian sneeze. Bob heard it, and so did Clip, whose uneasiness made him sleep more lightly than usual, and both were startled. "I hope Massa Bob won't hear dat," thought Clip. But Bob did hear it. "What's that?" he asked, half rising in bed. "It's me!" answered Clip, preferring to admit the sneeze rather than have Bob suspect that there was any one else on the boat. "Do you mean to say you sneezed, Clip?" asked Bob, in amazement. "Yes, Massa Bob." "You must be dreaming. The sneeze came from another part of the boat." "Are you sure?" asked Clip. "Yes. What made you tell me that it was you who sneezed?" "I t'ought I did, Massa Bob." "When did you wake up?" "Just now." "The sneeze must have waked you up." "I dunno," answered Clip, dubiously. "There must be some one on board, unless we both dreamed about the sneeze." "Mebbe it's a cat!" remarked Clip, ingenuously. Bob laughed. "It must be a very remarkable cat that would sneeze like that," he said. "Jus' so, Massa Bob," assented Clip, meekly, hoping that Bob would drop the subject. "I think, Clip, I shall get up and search for that cat." "Don't you do it, Massa Bob. He--he might bite you." "I hope I am not such a coward as to be afraid of a cat." Bob rose and lighted a candle which he had with him. Then, followed by Clip, he advanced to the other end of the deck. But the passenger had warning, having heard the conversation which had taken place between Bob and Clip, and had hurriedly retreated to his former hiding-place. It did not occur to Bob to look there, and he returned from his fruitless search more mystified than ever. But, Clip being close beside him, he caught the aroma of the single swallow of whisky which Clip had taken, and he immediately began to suspect poor Clip of having indulged in much deeper potations than he was guilty of. "Clip," he said, suddenly, "I smell whisky." "Does you, Massa Bob?" asked Clip, feeling that he was getting into a scrape. "Yes, I do, Clip; and where do you think it comes from?" "Don't know, Massa Bob; 'deed I don't." "It comes from your mouth, Clip. You've been drinking!" Drops of perspiration stood on Clip's forehead. He could not excuse himself, or explain matters, without betraying his secret. Not thinking of anything to say, he said nothing. "Tell me the truth, Clip; have you been drinking?" "I jes' took a little swaller." "Where did you take it?" "On sho'." "What made you do such a thing? I didn't dream that you were getting intemperate, Clip." "You see, Massa Bob, a gen'leman asked me to bring him a drink of whisky, and I t'ought I'd jest see how it tasted." "Who asked you to bring him some whisky?" asked Bob, who believed this to be a pure fiction on the part of his young companion. "A gen'leman." "What gentleman?" "He didn't tell me his name." "I think you are telling me a lie, Clip." "No I ain't, Massa Bob; it's as true as de Bible." "I don't think you know much about the Bible, Clip." "It's all true what I told you, Massa Bob. If I find de gen'leman, I'll bring him here to tell you." The witness referred to smiled to himself grimly when he heard this statement. "That little nigger's a brick!" he said to himself. "As to that other boy, I'd like to throw him overboard. He's too fond of meddling with other people's business." It may occur to the reader that this was hardly a fair way of stating the case. As the boat belonged to Bob, and he was the commander, it might safely be assumed that he had a right to inquire into anything that excited his suspicion. "Are you goin' back to bed, Massa Bob?" asked Clip, uneasily. "Wait a minute, Clip; I want to get a drink of water." Again poor Clip was in bad luck. The tin dipper had been used to procure the whisky, and of course it still smelled strongly of that liquor. "Clip," said Bob, as soon as he had raised it to his lips, "you got some whisky in this cup." "Ye'es," admitted Clip. "And you drank it yourself instead of giving it to any gentleman." "No, I didn't, Massa Bob," stoutly, and as we know truly, asserted Clip. "I'm ashamed of you, Clip. If you are going to act in this way, I shall have to send you home. You have been acting very queerly this evening. Sam and I both noticed it, but I didn't think you had formed a taste for whisky." "I don't love it, Massa Bob. I hate it. It's awful nasty stuff." "And you didn't drink this dipper full, then?" "No, I didn't." "What did you do with it?" "Throwed it away, Massa Bob. I only took one swaller. I couldn't drink it if you gave me half a dollar; 'deed I couldn't." "I hope this is true, Clip. I shouldn't like to tell my mother that you had become intemperate." "What's the matter?" was heard from Sam's bed at this juncture. "Where are you, Bob?" "Here I am, Sam." "What made you get up?" "I thought I heard a noise on deck; so Clip and I got up." "What was it like?" "A sneeze. Clip thought it might be a cat." Bob and Sam laughed at the ludicrous idea, and Clip joined in, glad that Bob's embarrassing cross-examination was over. "You'd better come to bed, both of you. Very likely you dreamed it." At that moment, and before Bob had put out the candle, there was a most unlooked-for corroboration of Clip's singular theory. An immense tom-cat ran swiftly between Bob's legs, from some place of concealment. Both he and Clip saw it, and the latter was quick to take advantage of the opportune appearance of the animal. "Dare's de cat, Massa Bob," he shouted, triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you it was a cat?" Bob was temporarily nonplussed. Clip seemed to have the best of the argument. "All I can say is, it is a remarkable cat," he said. "I wish it would sneeze again." The rest of the night passed without anything remarkable happening. All three boys slept soundly. Indeed, it was later than usual, probably on account of their sleep being interrupted during the night, that they awoke. According to custom, the boys took turns in going out to breakfast. "Clip, you and Sam can go out together," said Bob. "I will take my turn afterwards." "I ain't in no hurry, Massa Bob," said Clip. "You an' Sam go first, and I'll go afterwards." Bob thought this a little strange, but did not object. When Clip was left alone he went at once to see his charge. "Hope you pass de night good," said Clip, politely. "I'm awfully cramped up," groaned the other. "But you're a trump, Clip. You stood by me like a Trojan." "Thank you, massa. I'm afraid Massa Bob'll find you out. How long you goin' to stay?" "Till I get a few miles from this town. Then he may find me and welcome." Clip felt that it would be a great relief to him when there was no further need of concealment. CHAPTER XXVII. THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER IS DISCOVERED. Bob Burton started on his trip down the river quite unaware that he carried a passenger; Clip's peculiar nervousness attracted his attention, and he wondered at it, but finally was led to attribute it to the whisky, of which he credited Clip with having drunk a considerable amount. We know that he was mistaken in this, but those who practice deception are apt to be misjudged, and have no right to complain. One more discovery puzzled Bob. Clip happened to have a hole in the pocket in which he carried the money given him by the mysterious passenger. At first it was not large enough to imperil the safety of the coin; but Clip thrust his hand so often into his pocket, to see if the money was safe, that he had unconsciously enlarged the opening. As a result of this, as he was walking the deck, a two-dollar-and-a-half gold piece, obtained in change, slipped out, and fell upon the deck. Bob happened to be close at hand, and instantly espied the coin. Clip walked on without noticing his loss. Bob stooped and picked up the coin. "A gold piece!" he thought, in amazement. "Where can Clip possibly have got it?" He had not missed any of his own money. Indeed, he knew that none of it was in gold. Certainly the case looked very mysterious. "Clip," he said. "What, Massa Bob?" returned Clip, innocently. "Is this gold piece yours?" Clip started, and, if he had been white, would have turned pale. "I reckon it is, Massa Bob," he answered, with hesitation. "Where did it come from?" "From my pocket," he answered. "But how did it come into your pocket, Clip?" "I put it there." "Look here, Clip," said Bob, sternly. "You are evading the question." "What's dat, Massa Bob?" "You are trying to get rid of telling me the truth. Did you steal this money?" "No, I didn't," answered Clip, indignantly. "I nebber steal." "I am glad to hear it. Then, if you didn't steal it, how did you get it?" Clip scratched his kinky hair. He was puzzled. "I done found it," he answered, at length. "Where did you find it?" "In de--de street." "When and where?" "Dis mornin', when I was comin' from breakfast." "If you found it, there would be no objection to your keeping it," he said, "provided you could not find the original owner." "Can't find him now, nohow," said Clip, briskly. "Come here a minute." Clip approached, not understanding Bob's reason for calling him. Bob suddenly thrust his hand into Clip's pocket, and drew out two silver dollars, and a quarter, the remains of the five-dollar gold piece, Clip having spent a quarter. "What's all this?" he asked, in amazement. "Did you find this money, too?" "Yes, Massa Bob," he answered, faintly. "Clip, I am convinced you are lying." "No, I'm not." "Do you mean to tell me you found all these coins on the sidewalk?" "Yes, Massa Bob." "That is not very likely. Clip, I don't want to suspect you of dishonesty, but it looks very much as if you had been stealing." "No, I haven't, Massa Bob," asserted Clip, stoutly. "Do you still tell me that you found all this money?" Clip began to find himself involved in the intricacies of his lie, and his courage gave out. "No, Massa Bob. Don't you get mad with me, and I'll tell you the trufe." "Tell it, then." "A gemman gave it to me." "A gentleman gave you this money. What did he give it to you for?" "He--he wanted to go down de ribber," stammered Clip. "Wanted to go down the river? Suppose he did," said Bob, not yet understanding; "why should he give you money?" "He wanted me to let him go as a passenger on de boat." "Ha!" said Bob, a sudden light breaking in upon him. "And you agreed to take him?" "Ye-es, Massa Bob." "Where is he now?" It was not Clip that answered this question. There was heard a noise from the corner as of some one moving about, and from his sheltered place of refuge, the mysterious passenger stepped forth. He coolly took out his silk handkerchief and dusted his coat and vest. "Really," he said, "I can't say much for your accommodations for passengers. Have you got such a thing as a clothes-brush on board this craft?" Bob stared at him in amazement, and could not find a word to say for the space of a minute. "Who are you, sir?" he asked, at length. "Who am I? Well, you may call me John Smith, for want of a better name." "When did you come on board?" "At the last landing. I made a bargain with that dark-complexioned young man"--with a grin at Clip--"who for the sum of five dollars agreed to convey me to St. Louis. It wasn't a very high price, if I had decent accommodations." "Why didn't you tell me this, Clip?" demanded Bob. "I--de gemman didn't want me to," stammered Clip. "Quite right," corroborated the stranger. "I told Clip he needn't mention our little arrangement, as he thought you might object to it. I don't blame him for telling you at last, for you forced him to do so. I suppose you are the captain." "I am all the captain there is," answered Bob. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance, really. I assure you I am glad to get out of that dusty hole, and presume you will now allow me the freedom of the deck." The stranger was so cool and self-possessed--cheeky, perhaps it might be called--that Bob eyed him in wonder. "Why did you select my boat in preference to a regular passenger steamer?" he asked. "A little whim of mine!" answered the other, airily. "The truth is, I am a newspaper reporter, and I thought such a trip as I am making would furnish the materials for a taking article. I mean to call it 'In the Steerage; or, a Boat Ride on the Missouri.' Good idea, isn't it?" "Why, yes, it might be," said Bob, dryly; "but I think the owner of the boat ought to have been consulted." "Accept my apologies, Captain Bob," said the passenger, with a smile. "If there was a saloon near, I would invite you to take a drink with me, but--" "Never mind. I don't drink. Here, Clip!" "Well, Massa Bob." "You did wrong to take this man's money, and you must return it." At these last words Clip's countenance fell. Bob counted the money and handed it to the stranger. "There are twenty-five cents missing," he said. "I will make that up from my own pocket." "Let the boy keep the money. I don't want it back." "I cannot allow him to keep it." Clip's face, which had brightened at the stranger's words, fell again. "What is your objection?" asked the passenger. "I may as well be frank with you. I understand your reason for embarking on my boat in preference to waiting for a river steamer. You were in a hurry to leave the town." "That's what I said." "Shall I mention the reason?" "If you like." "Because you had been implicated in robbing a store--perhaps several. This is stolen money." "I deny it. I may have been suspected. In fact, I don't mind admitting that I was, and that I thought it my best policy to get away. The good people were likely to give me a great deal of trouble. Thanks to you--" "Not to me." "To Clip, then, I managed to elude their vigilance. It makes me laugh to think of their disappointment." Bob did not appear to look upon it as a joke, however. "Of course I shall not allow you to remain on the boat," he said. "I'll give you twenty-five--thirty dollars," said the stranger, earnestly. "I decline. It would be making me your accomplice. I would be receiving stolen money." "What do you propose, then?" "I will steer the boat as near the shore as I can, and request you to land." The stranger shrugged his shoulders. "Very well," he said. "We must be eight or ten miles away from my accusers. I think I can manage for myself now." In ten minutes the stranger stepped jauntily ashore, and, lifting his hat, bade Bob a cheerful good-bye. CHAPTER XXVIII. SAM FINDS A RELATION. As my readers may feel interested in the subsequent adventures of the mysterious passenger, I may state that his extraordinary coolness did not save him. A description of his appearance had been sent to the neighboring towns, and only a few hours after he had left the ferry-boat he was arrested, and taken back to the scene of his theft. A trial was held immediately, and before the end of the week he found himself an inmate of the county jail. On the day succeeding his departure, Bob brought the boat to anchor at a place we will call Sheldon. There was no restaurant, and Bob and Sam took supper at the Sheldon Hotel. Clip had been sent on shore first, and the boys felt in no hurry to return. They accordingly sat down on a settee upon the veranda which ran along the front of the hotel. As they sat there, unknown to themselves they attracted the attention of a middle-aged man with sandy hair and complexion, whose glances, however, seemed to be especially directed towards Sam. Finally, he approached the boys and commenced a conversation. "Young gentlemen," he said, "you are strangers here, I imagine?" "Yes, sir," replied Bob. "Are you traveling through the country?" "We have a boat on the river, sir; but we generally tie up at night, and start fresh in the morning." "How far do you intend going?" "To St. Louis." "Pardon my curiosity, but it is not common for two boys of your age to undertake such an enterprise alone. Are you in charge of the boat?" "He is," said Sam, indicating Bob. "And you, I suppose, are a relative of his?" "No, sir; I help him." "Have you come from a distance?" "Decidedly," thought Bob, "this gentleman is very curious." Still there seemed to be no reason for concealment, and accordingly he mentioned the name of the village in which Sam and himself made their home. Their new acquaintance appeared to take extraordinary interest in this intelligence. "Is there a man named Wolverton who lives in your town?" he asked. "Yes," answered Bob, in surprise; "Aaron Wolverton." "Exactly. This young man," indicating Sam, "has the Wolverton look." Now it was Sam's turn to be surprised. "I am Sam Wolverton," he said. "Do you know my uncle?" "I not only know him, but I knew your father, if you are the son of John Wolverton." "That was my father's name." "Then I am a relative. My name is Robert Granger, and I am a cousin of your mother." "My mother's maiden name was Granger," said Sam, becoming very much, interested. "Do you live here, sir?" "Yes; I have lived in Sheldon for the last ten years. I came from Ohio originally. It was there that your father met my cousin Fanny, and married her. Do you live with your Uncle Aaron?" "I have been living with him," answered Sam, hesitating. "Does that mean that you have left him?" asked Mr. Granger, quickly. Sam looked inquiringly at Bob. He hardly knew whether it would be advisable for him to take this stranger, relation though he were, into his confidence. Bob answered his unspoken inquiry. "Tell him all, Sam," he said. "I have left my Uncle Aaron," said Sam, "without his consent. I hid on board Bob's boat, and got away." "You have run away, then?" "Yes, sir; you may blame me for doing so, but you would not if you knew how meanly Uncle Aaron has treated me!" "I know Aaron Wolverton, and I am far from admiring him," said Robert Granger. "But in what way has he ill-treated you?" "He made me work very hard, and would not always give me enough to eat. He keeps a very plain table." "But why should he make you work hard?" "He said I ought to earn my living." "Did he say that?" "Yes, whenever I complained. He asked me what would have become of me if he had not given me a home." "The old hypocrite! And what has he done with your property?" "My property!" repeated Sam, hardly believing his ears. "Yes. Of course you know that you have property, and that your Uncle Aaron is your guardian?" "I never knew that I had a cent of money, sir. Uncle always said that my father died very poor." "Your father, to my knowledge, left property to the amount of five thousand dollars." "That is all news to me, Mr. Granger." "And to me," added Bob. "I heard Mr. Wolverton tell my father the same story, that John Wolverton died without a cent, and that he had taken in Sam out of charity." "He seems to have taken him in, emphatically." "In what did the property consist?" asked Bob. "In a house, situated in St. Louis--a small house in the outskirts of the city--and some shares of bank stock." "He thought Sam would never find out anything of it." "I should not, if I had not met you, Mr. Granger." "Old Aaron Wolverton is a long-headed man; but even long-headed men sometimes over-reach themselves, and I think he has done so in this instance." "But what can I do, sir? I am only a boy, and if I should say anything about the matter to Uncle Aaron he would deny it, and perhaps treat me the worse." "There is one thing Aaron Wolverton is afraid of, and that is the law. He doesn't care for the honesty or dishonesty of a transaction, but he doesn't mean to let the law trip him up. That is the hold we shall have upon him." "I believe you there," said Bob. "He has already tried to swindle my mother, and he is scheming now to get possession of our ranch. It is partly on that account that I started on this trip down the river." "Do you carry freight, then?" "Yes, sir; I carry a thousand bushels of wheat--rather more, in fact--intending to sell them in St. Louis." "Couldn't you have sent them?" "Yes, sir; but by taking the wheat to market myself I shall save the heavy expense of freight, and commission for selling." "You seem to be a smart boy," said Robert Granger, eying Bob with interest. "I hope you are right," Bob answered, with a laugh. "My young cousin accompanies you to help, I suppose?" "He came on board at the last moment, having determined to run away from Aaron Wolverton." "I wish you could spare him; I should like to take him home to talk over family matters with myself and my lawyer, and we would concert some way of forcing Aaron Wolverton to give up his property. I have some children of my own, who would be glad to make his acquaintance." "Would you like to accept Mr. Granger's invitation, Sam?" asked Bob. "But I am afraid you will need me, Bob." "No; I have Clip. I think it will be well for you to stay. I will call on my way back." So it was arranged that Sam should leave the boat and stay over. Bob returned to the boat alone. The next day proved to be an eventful one. CHAPTER XXIX. ROCKY CREEK LANDING. Twenty miles further down the river, at a point called Rocky Creek, two men of questionable appearance were walking slowly along the bank. One of them has been already introduced as visiting the boat, and displaying a great deal of curiosity about the cargo. The other, also, had the look of one who preferred to live in any other way than by honest industry. "Suppose the boy doesn't touch here?" said one. "Our plan would in that case be put out," said his companion; "but I don't think there is any doubt on that point. Last night he was at Sheldon, and this would naturally be the next stopping-place." "He is drawing near the end of his cruise. It won't do to delay much longer." "You are right, there." "I wasn't in favor of delaying so long. We have risked failure." "Don't worry, Minton. I'm managing this affair. I've got just as much at stake as you." "If all comes out right, I shall be satisfied; but I need the money I am to get for it from old Wolverton." "That's a trifle. I am playing for a larger stake than that." "What, then?" "The paltry fifty dollars divided between two would not have tempted me. Do you know, Minton, how large and valuable a cargo there is on that old ferry-boat?" "No; do you?" "Not exactly; but I know this much, that there are at least a thousand bushels of wheat, which will easily fetch, in St. Louis, two thousand dollars." "How will that benefit us?" "You seem to be very dull, Minton. When we have once shut up young Burton in the place arranged, you and I will take his place, drift down the river, and dispose of the cargo, if necessary, at a point below the market price, and retire with a cool thousand apiece." "You've got a head, Brown!" said Minton, admiringly. "Have you just found that out?" returned Brown, complacently. "Do you really think there is a chance of our succeeding?" "Yes; of course we must be expeditious. Two or three days, now, ought to carry us to St. Louis. Then, by selling below the market price, we can command an immediate sale. Then, of course, we will clear out; go to California, or Europe, or Canada." "But we must get Wolverton's money." "If we can without risk. It won't be worth that." "I don't like the idea of the old man escaping scot-free." "He won't; you may be sure of that," said Brown, significantly. "He has placed himself in our power, and we will get a good deal more than fifty dollars out of him before we get through, or my name isn't Brown." "What a head you've got!" repeated Minton, with cordial admiration of the sharper rascal. "Then there's the other affair, too!" said Brown. "We are safe to make a good round sum out of that." "Yes; but how can we look after the other? It won't be safe for us to remain anywhere in this locality if we sell the cargo." "Leave that to me, Minton. I will get Joe Springer to negotiate for us." By this time the reader will have guessed that these two men were those already referred to as having stopped Wolverton on the night preceding Bob's departure. The arrangement then made, Brown had improved upon. He had engaged to remove the boys from the boat, and set it adrift. But it had occurred to him, after ascertaining the value of the cargo, to sell it for the joint benefit of his confederate and himself. It was the most promising job he had undertaken for a long time, and he was sanguine of ultimate success. He had followed the boat down the river, and had finally selected Rocky Creek as the point most favorable to the carrying out of his design. Meanwhile Bob and Clip were on their way down the river. Sam, as already described, had left them at Sheldon, and was enjoying himself as the guest of Captain Granger, as he found his kinsman was called. Bob missed him, not finding Clip, though improved, as reliable as Sam. But he was drawing near the end of his voyage and was willing to make the sacrifice, since it seemed to be so favorable to Sam's prospects. The information which had been communicated to them touching Aaron Wolverton's breach of trust did not, on the whole, surprise him, except by its audacity; for Wolverton had thus far been careful not to place himself within reach of the law and its penalties. He was delighted to think Sam had found a new friend and protector, who would compel the unfaithful guardian to account for his dishonesty. Clip heartily sympathized with Bob in his feeling upon the subject. He liked Sam, but disliked Wolverton as much as one of his easy, careless disposition was capable of doing. "It seems lonely without Sam," said Bob, while standing at the helm, with Clip sitting on deck whistling just beside him. "Dat's so, Massa Bob." "But I am glad he has found a relation who will help him to get his money." "I'd like to see ol' man Wolverton when Sam come back with Massa Granger." "Probably you will have a chance to see him. If he hadn't driven Sam away by his bad treatment he would never have found out how he had been cheated." "Dat's so, Massa Bob. I'd like to be in Sam's shoes." "You'd have to make your feet smaller, then, Clip!" "Yah! yah!" laughed Clip, who enjoyed a joke at his own expense. Bob found his work harder now that Sam was not on board to relieve him of a part of his duty. But they were making good speed, and there seemed a chance of reaching St. Louis within three days. All was going well, yet an indefinable anxiety troubled Bob. Why, he could not explain. "Clip," he said, "I don't know how it is, but I feel as if something were going to happen." "What can happen, Massa Bob? De boat is all right." "True, Clip. I suppose I am foolish, but I can't get rid of the feeling. Clip, I want you to be very careful to-night. Don't let any mysterious passenger come on board." "No, Massa Bob. I won't do dat agin." "We shall soon be in St. Louis, and then our care and anxiety will be over." "Where will we stop to-night?" "At Rocky Creek." It was a quarter to five when Bob reached the place where he had decided to tie up. There was a village of about five hundred inhabitants situated a little distance from the river-side. A small knot of loungers was gathered at the landing, and with languid interest surveyed the river craft and the young crew. Among them Bob recognized the man who had visited them two or three stations back. He knew him by his dress; the Prince Albert coat, the damaged hat, and the loud neck-tie. But apart from these he remembered the face, dark and unshaven, and the shifty black eyes, which naturally inspired distrust. The man made no movement towards the boat, but leaned indolently against a tree. "Clip," said Bob, quietly, "look at that man leaning against a tree." "I see him, Massa Bob." "Have you ever seen him before?" "Yes, Massa Bob; he came aboard de boat one day." "I thought I couldn't be mistaken. I wonder how he comes to be here. Can he be following us?" It was too hard a problem for Clip, who only shrugged his shoulders. Just then another man from the assembled group lounged on board. It was Minton. "Boat ahoy!" said he, jauntily. "Are you the captain?" "I'm all the captain there is," answered Bob. "Have you any wheat to sell? I am a grain merchant." He looked more like a penniless adventurer, Bob thought. "I have no wheat to sell here," said Bob, coldly. "I am on my way to St. Louis." "Perhaps I can do as well by you as the grain merchants in St. Louis." "I don't care to sell here," said Bob, shortly. "No offense, young man! I suppose a man can make an offer?" "Certainly, sir." But the stranger did not leave the boat. He walked about, scrutinizing the arrangements carefully. "You've got a pretty big cargo, boy," he said. "Yes, sir." "How many bushels now, about?" "Why do you wish to know?" asked Bob, eying the stranger keenly. "I thought I might like to load a boat like this some time, and it might be of use to know how much it would carry." "Do you live in Rocky Creek?" asked Bob, suddenly. "Ye-as." "May I ask your name?" "Smith--James Smith," answered the other, with hesitation. "Very well; when I have sold my cargo I will write you the number of bushels the boat contains." "Thank you." "Decidedly, the boy is sharp!" said Minton to himself. "He's no milk-and-water boy!" He left the boat, and presently joined his friend Brown. CHAPTER XXX. AN UNLUCKY EVENING. Bob was still in the habit of getting his supper, and breakfast the next morning, at the different points where he landed. He left Clip on board, in charge of the boat, while he sought a good place to obtain a meal. He found that Rocky Creek possessed but one hotel, and that of a very modest character, bearing the rather imposing name of the Metropolitan Hotel. He registered his name, and intimated his desire for supper. "Supper is on the table," said the clerk. Bob entered the dining-room, a forlorn-looking room of small dimensions, containing a long table, at which sat two persons, a drummer from St. Louis, and an old man with a gray beard, who kept the principal dry-goods store in Rocky Creek. Bob was assigned a place between the two. "Good-evening," said the drummer, sociably. "Good-evening," responded Bob. "Are you a regular boarder?" "Oh, no; I never was in the place before." "How did you come?" "By river." "Indeed!" said the drummer, puzzled. "Has any steamer touched here to-day?" "No; I came on my own boat." "Bound down the river?" "Yes." "Business, I suppose?" "Yes; I have a load of wheat which I propose to sell in the city." "What house shall you deal with?" "I don't know; I'm not acquainted in St. Louis. I shall inquire when I get there." "Then let me recommend you to go to Pearson & Edge. They will treat you liberally." "Thank you. I will call on them and see what I can do." "Present my card, if you please, and say I sent you there." The drummer produced his card and handed it to Bob. From this our hero learned that his companion was Benjamin Baker, traveling for Dunham & Co., wholesale grocers. "Shall you stay at the hotel this evening?" asked Baker. "No; I shall pass the night on my boat." "How many have you on board?" "Only myself and a colored boy from home--Clip." "Isn't that rather a small crew?" "Perhaps so; but we haven't much to do, except to let the boat drift, keeping her straight meanwhile." "By the way, speaking of Pearson, senior member of the firm I have recommended, he is in great trouble just now." "How is that?" "He had a very pretty little girl of about six years old--little Maud. Two or three days since, as I hear from a friend in the city, the little girl mysteriously disappeared." "Disappeared?" "Just so. Her parents think she must have been kidnapped, as a suspicious-looking person had been noticed by the nurse hovering near when they were out walking together." "They must be in great trouble and anxiety," said Bob, in a tone of sympathy, "if they believe this." "They would be glad to believe it, for in that case the little girl is alive, while otherwise she may have strayed to the river and been drowned. Mr. Pearson, who is wealthy, has offered a reward of one thousand dollars to any one who will restore his little girl to him." As they sat at table, Bob noticed through the window the man Minton, who had called upon him on the arrival of the boat. "Do you know that man, Mr. Baker?" he asked, suddenly. The drummer shook his head. "I am a stranger, too," he said. "But perhaps this gentleman, who is in business at Rocky Creek, may be able to give you some information." Thus appealed to, the old gentleman looked from the window. "It isn't any one I know," he replied. "Why do you ask?" "Because he called upon me on my arrival, representing himself as a grain merchant, and proposed to buy my cargo." The old man shrugged his shoulders. "He looks more like a tramp than a grain merchant," he said. "I agree with you," assented Bob, with a laugh. "Did he mention his name?" "He called himself James Smith; but as he answered my questions in a hesitating manner, I concluded that it was an assumed name." "Very likely." "Then he doesn't live in the village?" "No; but he has been here for a day or two." "I wonder what could have been his object in representing himself to me as a grain merchant?" said Bob, thoughtfully. "Oh," answered the drummer, "he probably wanted to strike up an acquaintance which would justify him in borrowing a few dollars of you. I have met plenty of such characters They live by what they can borrow." When supper was over Bob and the drummer rose together. "Won't you have a cigar, Mr. Burton?" asked the latter. "No, thank you; I don't smoke." "Oh, well, you'll learn after a while. At any rate, sit down and keep me company for a while." "Thank you, but I shall have to go back to the boat and give Clip a chance to get his supper." Clip returned from supper at half-past seven, and Bob, feeling wide awake, decided to go on shore again. He did not care to go to the hotel, but took a leisurely walk through the village and beyond. It was an unfortunate walk, for it made him an easy prey to the men who were scheming against him. In a lonely place two men sprang upon him suddenly, and before he could understand what was going on, he was gagged and helpless. In this condition the two men, taking him between them, hurried him to a lonely house at some distance from the road. Bob Burton was brave, but this sudden and mysterious attack startled and alarmed him not a little. He would have expostulated, but was unable, from being gagged, to utter a word. Reaching the house, a short, sharp knock at the door was answered by a rough-looking man, dressed in a suit of faded and shabby cloth. "So you've got him!" was his laconic greeting. "Yes, Joe! Now where shall we put him?" "Come upstairs." The two men set Bob down, and pushed him forward, and up a staircase, steep and dark. He was thrust into a room with a sloping roof, and the gag was removed from his mouth. "What does all this mean?" he asked, angrily, turning to the two men whom he recognized by the light of the lantern which Joe Springer carried in his hand. "It's all right, my lad!" said Brown. "All you've got to do is to keep quiet, and no harm will come to you." "How long do you mean to keep me here?" asked Bob, with, a feeling of despair in his heart. He suspected now what it all meant. "Two weeks, perhaps; but you will be well taken care of." The men went out leaving the lantern behind them. Bob heard the bolt shot in the lock. He looked around him. There was a low pallet in the corner. He threw himself on it, and, brave boy as he was, came near shedding tears. CHAPTER XXXI. HOW CLIP WAS CAPTURED. Everything had gone well with Bob so far, and he was looking forward hopefully to the end of his journey, and the final success of his expedition. Now all was changed. He was a prisoner, and though Clip was on board the boat, he was utterly incompetent to take the place of his master. Bob hardly dared trust himself to think of the future. He knew not what would become of his valuable cargo, but that it was lost to him seemed probable. This meant utter ruin, for he and his mother would have nothing to live upon till the next harvest, and meanwhile Aaron Wolverton would foreclose the mortgage. Certainly, Bob had reason to shed tears, and could not be charged with being unmanly if for a time he gave up to a feeling of despondency and almost despair. Leaving him for an hour, we will accompany the two conspirators on their return to the boat. Clip was on deck, anxiously watching for the return of Bob. He was beginning to feel a little troubled. "Can't think what's 'come of Massa Bob," he said to himself. "He said he'd be back in fifteen minutes. If anything's happened to him, what'll 'come of Clip?" Instead of fifteen minutes, an hour passed, and still Bob had not returned. Clip was seriously thinking of going on shore and looking for him, when two men came to the river bank. "Hallo!" they said. "Are you Clip?" "Yes," answered Clip, in some surprise, not understanding how these two strangers could know his name. "You are sailing with Robert Burton?" "Yes, massa." "Where is he?" "Gone on shore for a walk. Did you see him anywhere?" "Yes; we come from him." "Why don't he come himself?" "The poor fellow has met with an accident. He has broken his leg." "Massa Bob broken him leg!" ejaculated Clip, turning as pale as his complexion would admit. "How came he to do dat?" "I can't explain," said Brown. "My friend and I came up just after it happened, and we took him to a house near by, where he was put to bed. He asked us to come for you and bring you to him." "Yes, massa; I'll go right off," said Clip, with alacrity. Then he hesitated at the thought of leaving the boat. "What'll I do about de boat?" he asked, in perplexity. "Pooh! no one will run off with it. Probably your friend will want to be brought on board; we will help to bring him. Meanwhile I will stay here and look after things, and my friend will take you to Massa Bob, as you call him." Clip saw no objection to this plan. He was too simple-minded to suspect a trick, and being very much attached to his young master he was anxious to be taken to him. He put on his hat and expressed himself ready to go. "Very well; Minton, show him the house, and see if the boy is fit to be moved." Clip did not see the wink that accompanied the last words. The two started on their journey. Clip, though the smaller, walked so fast that Minton was obliged to quicken his pace. He plied Minton with questions till the latter was tired. "I can't tell you much about it," said the man, at length. "My friend and I saw young Burton lying by the side of the road. He was groaning with pain. We took him up and carried him to a house close by." "He won't die?" faltered Clip, in a tone of anxious inquiry. "Oh, no! He's as safe to live as you or I. A broken leg doesn't amount to much." "I don' see why he lef' the boat," said Clip, mournfully. "Well, accidents will happen," said Minton, philosophically. "Do you think we can get him on de boat, massa?" "Oh, yes. I have no doubt of it. You needn't feel worried. It'll all come right." Clip, however, felt that there was sufficient reason for feeling troubled. He was rather surprised at the length of the walk. "What made Massa Bob go so far?" he asked. "He said he was just exploring a little--wanted to see the country, you know." "He couldn't see much in de dark." "Well, he will explain the matter to you; I can't." At length they reached the lonely house. "This is where your friend was carried," said Minton. Clip thought it was a gloomy place, but his mind was now so occupied with thoughts of Bob, whom he was to see immediately, that he said nothing. Minton knocked at the door. It was opened by Joe Springer, whose appearance rather frightened Clip. "Oh, so you're back?" he said to Minton. "Who is this?" "It's a friend of the boy with the broken leg," answered Minton, with a significant look. "Ho! ho!" laughed Joe, to Clip's surprise. He could not understand what there was to laugh at. "I hope the poor boy's more comfortable," said Minton. "I reckon so," answered Joe, with another grin. "Has he been quiet?" "Yes, he hasn't made any noise; but he's been walking round the room." "Walkin' round wid a broken leg!" repeated Clip, amazed. "What a fool you are, Joe!" exclaimed Minton, in a vexed tone. "How could he walk round with a broken leg?" "I only meant it for a joke," said Joe, in a half-sullen tone. "How did I know his leg was broken?" "My friend, here, was not in when we brought the boy," said Minton, in an aside to Clip. "Now, Joe, we'll go upstairs. Clip, here, has come to keep his friend company." "I hope he'll like it," returned Joe, with another incomprehensible grin. "Well, get a light, and show us upstairs." Clip thought the house far from pleasant. He had just started to go upstairs, when a little girl ran crying through the door of the adjoining room. "I want to go home," she cried. "I want to go to my papa." She was followed by a tall, gaunt woman, who seized the child in her bony grasp. "You're a very naughty girl," she said. "Your papa sent you to stay with me." "No, he didn't. My papa doesn't know you." "If you talk like that I'll give you a whipping. I am your aunt--your father's sister." "No, you're not. I wouldn't have such an ugly aunt." "Of all the perverse imps, this 'ere one is the most cantankerous I ever see," said the woman. "I should think you'd ought to be able to manage a little girl," said Joe, roughly. "So I be. There's only one way of managin' one like her. I've got a strap in the other room, and she'll feel of it if she keeps on." Clip followed Minton up the steep, narrow staircase, and the two paused before the door of the chamber occupied by Bob Burton. "He is in here," said Minton, briefly. He opened the door, and by the faint light of the lantern, Clip recognized the figure of a boy stretched out on a pallet in the corner. Bob looked up, and when he saw Clip, he sprang to his feet. "You here, Clip?" he asked. "Yes, Massa Bob. Which of you legs is broke?" "My legs broke! Neither." "The man told me you broke you leg," said Clip, bewildered. He turned to appeal to Minton for a confirmation of his words, but the door was shut, and his conductor was already on the way downstairs. CHAPTER XXXII. THE BOYS IMPRISONED. "Now sit down and tell me all about it, Clip," said Bob. "So you were told my leg was broke. Who told you?" "De two men." "I think I know the two men. One of them brought you here. Where is the other?" "He stayed on board the boat till we come back." "Was there anything said about our going back?" asked Bob, in surprise. "Yes, Massa Bob. Dey said you leg was broke, and you wanted me to come for you. De man said we would take you back with us." "Clip," said Bob, sadly, "these men deceived you. We are in a trap." "What's dat?" "They have made us prisoners, and I don't dare to think what they will do next." "Dey won't 'sassinate us?" asked Clip, who had picked up the word somewhere. "No; but I'll tell you what I think they will do. They will take the boat down the river, and sell the grain in St. Louis, and run off with the money." This was the conclusion to which Bob was led by Clip's story. "We won't let 'em, Massa Bob," said Clip, in excitement. "How shall we help it, Clip?" "We must get out, and run away." "I wish I knew how," said Bob. "If we can get out, we'll take a boat to the city, and git there ahead of 'em." Somehow Clip's words seemed to reassure Bob. Misery loves company, and the presence of his trusty friend and servant perceptibly lightened Bob's spirits. "You are right, Clip," he said. "To-morrow we will see what we can do. We can't do anything to-night." "Who is de little girl, Massa Bob?" asked Clip, suddenly. "What little girl?" "Haven't you seen her? De little girl downstairs." "I haven't seen her. Tell me about her." Clip described her as well as he could, and succeeded in conveying to Bob a general idea of her appearance, and that of the woman who had charge of her. Bob listened, thoughtfully. "You don't think the little girl was any relation to the woman, Clip?" he said. "No, Massa Bob; no more'n you is relation to me. De girl was a little lady, and de woman was awful ugly." "Did the little girl say anything in your hearing?" "She asked to be taken back to her fader." Suddenly there came into Bob's mind the story about a little girl abducted from St. Louis. "Clip," he said, "I think the little girl has been stolen from her home. I think it is the same one we heard about the other day." "I pity de poor girl. De ol' woman shook her, and treated her bad." "If we could only run away from this place and take the little girl with us, it would be a capital idea. I would like to get her away from these wretches." "I'm wid you, Massa Bob," said Clip, enthusiastically. "Hush!" said Bob, suddenly raising his finger. A little girl's voice was heard, and it was easy to judge that she was ascending the stairs. Bob put his ear to the keyhole. "Take me home to my papa!" said the poor child. "I don't want to stay here." "I'll whip you," said a harsh voice, "if you are not good. It's time little girls were a-bed. I'm going to put you to bed, and you can sleep till morning." "I don't want to go to bed." There was a little scream, for the woman had slapped her. "I'd like to get at that woman, Clip," said Bob, indignantly. They heard the door open--the door of the room adjoining. The partition was very thin, and it was easy to hear what was going on. Not only this, but Clip discovered an auger hole about eighteen inches above the floor, of sufficient size to enable him to look through it. "Who was that black boy?" he heard the little girl say. "He's a funny-looking boy." "He's come to stay here with the other boy," answered the woman, glad to find something of interest to take the place of the complaints. "Where are they?" asked the girl. "They are sleeping in the next room, so you need not be afraid if I go down and leave you." "May I play with them to-morrow?" "Yes, if you will be a good girl," said the woman, willing to promise anything. Then there was a little pause, spent in undressing the child. "Now, get into bed, and go to sleep as soon as you can." "Will you take me to my papa to-morrow?" "No," answered the woman, shortly. "Your papa wants you to stay with me." "Won't I never see my papa again?" asked the child, almost ready to cry. "Yes; perhaps he'll come to see you next week," answered the woman, fearing that the child might sob and compel her to remain upstairs. "Clip," said Bob, who had taken Clip's place at the hole in the partition, "there's no doubt of it. The girl has been stolen. I wish I could go into the room, and asked her about her father and her home." He went to the door and tried it, but it was firmly locked, and it was quite useless to try to get out. Meanwhile, Joe and his wife were conversing downstairs. "Joe," said the woman, "I hope I'll get rid of that brat soon. She's a heap of trouble." "We shall be well paid," said Joe. "Who's to pay us?" asked the woman. "Brown. He's the man that's got charge of the job. She's got a rich father, who'll shell out liberal to get her back." "Did he pay you anything in advance?" "I squeezed five dollars out of him." "Where is it, Joe?" "Don't you wish you knew, old woman?" said Joe, with a grin. "I can take care of it." "Half of it belongs to me." "How do you make that out?" "Haven't I the care of the child? It don't trouble you." "It's all right, old lady. You won't be forgotten." "How much more is Brown to pay you?" asked the woman, appearing dissatisfied. "Forty-five dollars." The woman's eyes sparkled. To her this seemed a vast sum of money. "And how much am I to have?" "What do you want money for?" demanded Joe, impatiently. "I do want it, and that's enough." "Well, I can't say yet, old lady, but maybe you'll get ten dollars." "Altogether?" "Of course. Ain't that enough?" "No, it isn't. We ought to divide even." "Pooh, you're a woman. You don't need money." An unpleasant look came over the woman's face, but she said nothing. "Come, old woman, I've got something that'll put you into good humor. See here!" Joe produced from an out-of-the-way corner a suspicious-looking jug. "Do you know what's in this?" "What is it?" asked the woman, looking interested. "Whisky. Get some boiling water, and I'll make you some punch. We'll make a night of it." His wife brightened up. Evidently she did not belong to the Temperance Society, any more than her husband. She moved about the room with alacrity, and, assisted by her husband, brewed a punch which was of considerable strength. Then they put it on the table, and set about enjoying themselves. "Here's your health, ol' woman!" said Joe, and he tried to sing a stave of an old drinking-song. Together they caroused till a late hour, and then fell into a drunken sleep, which lasted till a late hour in the morning. About seven o'clock the little girl woke up, and, as is usual with children, wished to be dressed at once. "Aunt," Bob heard her say, "I want to be dressed." But no one came at her call. After a little waiting, she got out of bed and went downstairs, but returned in a minute or two, crying. Bob called through the partition. "What's the matter, little girl?" "There's nobody to dress me. Are you the boy that came yesterday?" "Yes. Where is the woman that put you to bed?" "She's downstairs--she and the man. They're lying on the floor. I can't wake them up." An idea came to Bob. "Come to our door, little girl, and see if you can draw back the bolt. We are fastened in." "Will you take me to my papa?" "Yes; I will try to." The child came to the door, and, following Bob's directions, with some difficulty slipped back the bolt. "Clip," said Bob, in a tone of triumph, "We're free. Now do as I tell you, and we'll get away, and reach St. Louis ahead of the boat." CHAPTER XXXIII. A LUCKY ESCAPE. "Now," said Bob to the little girl, as they descended the steep and narrow staircase, "will you do as I tell you?" "Yes," answered the child, placing her hand confidingly in his. "Then make as little noise as possible. We don't want them to wake up. If they do they will prevent your going away." "Will you take me back to my papa, certain sure?" "Yes." "Oh, I am so glad." "Clip," said Bob, warningly, "mind you remain perfectly quiet. We must go through the room where the man and woman are sleeping. Any little noise might wake them up." "Don't be afeared for me, Massa Bob," said Clip. The staircase led into the main room below, so that, as Bob said, it was necessary to pass through it. Entering the room on tip-toe, they witnessed a reassuring, but disgusting spectacle. Joe Springer was stretched out on the floor on his back, breathing heavily; while his wife, seated in a chair, rested her head on the kitchen table. She, too, seemed to be in a drunken stupor. The little girl regarded the woman nervously, remembering the harsh treatment she had received from her. There was one more ordeal, and one more danger to run. The outer door was locked, but the key was in the lock. There was a creaking sound as Bob turned it. But he opened the door successfully, and once more they breathed freely in the clear air of morning. As the door opened they heard a muttered sound from Joe Springer. It sounded like "more whisky!" He was probably dreaming of his potations of the previous night. Bob hurried along his two companions till they had reached a point some half a mile distant from the place of their imprisonment. Then he thought it best to question the little girl. [Illustration: LITTLE MAUD'S ESCAPE FROM HER ABDUCTORS.] "What is your name?" he asked, gently. "Don't you know my name?" asked the child, in surprise. "My name is Maud." "What is your other name?" "Pearson--my name is Maud Lilian Pearson." "Just as I thought, Clip," said Bob, triumphantly. "This is the little girl that was stolen from her parents in St. Louis." "Yes; my papa lives in St. Louis. Will you take me to him?" "Yes, Maud. Only be a good little girl, and do as I tell you." "And you won't let that ugly woman take me away?" "No; we will hide you away from her. Did she treat you badly?" "Yes; she shook me, and said she would whip me. She said she was my aunt; but it isn't true." "Who brought you to her?" Maud thereupon described the man whom we know as Brown, the abler one of the confederates who had stolen the ferry-boat. "I wonder whether our boat is gone?" said Bob. "Mebbe we can see from the hill," suggested Clip. There was a small elevation near by. Bob ascended it, and looked towards the point where his boat had been tied up. There was no sign of it. It had disappeared. Though still early, Brown and Minton, fearing interference, had cut loose about four o'clock, and were, by this time, several miles on their way to the great city. "It's gone, Clip," said Bob, sadly. "Never mind, Massa Bob, we'll catch 'em," answered Clip, energetically. "Yes, if there is any boat starts down the river to-day." This, however, was something which he was not sure of. Moreover, he felt that the sooner he got away from Joe Springer and his estimable wife, the better. But where could he take refuge? Not at the hotel, for Springer would find him out and reclaim the little girl. While he was considering, in his perplexity, what course to pursue, he fell in with two boys, who appeared to be about fifteen years of age. They regarded Bob and his party with curiosity. Bob eyed the boys closely, and decided that they could be depended upon. They seemed to be just the friends he was in search of. He introduced himself, and learned that their names were John Sheehan and Edward Bovee. "Can you tell me, boys, when the next steamer will start for St. Louis?" "Yes," answered John; "there is one at seven o'clock to-morrow morning." "That is the earliest?" "Yes," said John. "Do you know of any private house where we can stay till that time? I am willing to pay a fair price." "You can come to our house," said Edward Bovee. "I am sure my mother will take you in. But you won't get as good meals as at the hotel." "I don't mind that. I shall be glad to stay at your house. Could we go there to breakfast?" "Yes; follow me, and I will lead the way." Edward Bovee led the way to a neat cottage, where his mother, a pleasant-looking lady, welcomed them, and readily undertook to keep them till the boat started for St. Louis. Bob, feeling the necessity of concealment, took Mrs. Bovee into his confidence, and readily secured the co-operation of the good lady, who took a motherly interest in little Maud. Now that the children have found a safe retreat, we will return to Joe Springer and his interesting wife. About half an hour after their young prisoners had escaped, Mrs. Springer raised her head from the table, and looked about her in a bewildered way. The bright sunshine entering at the window revealed to her that she had spent the night in a drunken stupor, even if Joe's prostrate form had not been a visible reminder. She went to her husband, and shook him roughly. "Get up, Joe!" she said. "It's morning." He opened his eyes, and looked around him with stupefaction. "What's up, old woman?" he asked. "I am, and you ought to be," she answered, sharply. "Where's the whisky?" "You've had enough. Now get up and hustle round, if you want some breakfast. I'll go up and dress the little girl." Mrs. Springer went upstairs, but came down again two steps at a time, in a state of high excitement. "Joe," said she, quickly, "the little gal's gone!" "_What?_" "The little gal's gone! Run out and see if you can't catch her. If we lose her, we lose fifty dollars!" "Are the boys all right?" "Yes; the door is bolted. They couldn't get out." This was true. Bob had taken the precaution to lock the door, after leaving the room. For this reason, it was half an hour later before Joe discovered that all his prisoners had escaped. Then, as might have been expected, there was a wild scene of recrimination, ending in a fight, in which Mrs. Springer did her part, for she was by no means a weak or delicate lady, but a woman without fear, who believed in the right of self-defense. The worthy pair instituted a search throughout the village, but failed to discover any trace of the lost children. The next morning, however, Joe Springer got up unusually early, for him, and strolled to the steamboat-landing. The boat was already out in the stream, when on the deck he discovered Maud and the two boys. "Stop the boat!" screamed Joe, in excitement. "What's the matter?" asked the man beside him. "Those three children. They have run away!" "From you?" "Yes; from my house." "Why, man, you must be drunk. You have no children." "I had charge of 'em, particularly the little gal! Stop the boat, I say!" "Has that man any claim on you?" asked the captain, who chanced to be standing near Bob. "Not the slightest," answered Bob. "Or the little girl?" "No; her father lives in St. Louis, and I am taking her to him." "Stop the boat!" screamed Joe, frantically. "He's drunk!" said Joe's neighbor. "He doesn't know what he's talking about." This settled the matter so far as the captain was concerned. Bob paid the full passage-money for the party, and they were enrolled as regular passengers. Towards the middle of the afternoon a surprise awaited them. They saw, not far ahead, their own boat, which was drifting down the river, with Brown at the helm. "Do you see that, Clip?" asked Bob. "Yes, Massa Bob." "Quick, hide! Don't let them see us. I have no objection to their working their passage down to the city. When they get there, we will be on hand to take possession." "Dat's a good joke! Won't they be s'prised, dough?" said Clip, showing his white teeth. So the steamboat swept by, carrying the three children past the two conspirators, who fancied them safely housed in Joe Springer's house up the river. CHAPTER XXXIV. MR. WOLVERTON'S LETTER. While the boys are meeting with adventures, on their way down the river, we will return to the town of Carver, in which, as it will be remembered, the Burton ranch was located. There was no one more interested in the progress of the expedition than Aaron Wolverton. It was against his wishes and his interest that Bob should succeed in carrying out his plans. He wanted to get possession of the Burton ranch, and force Mrs. Burton to take him for her second husband. Most of all, perhaps, he wanted to humble the pride of "the Burton boy," as he styled Bob, for he cordially hated him, and was well aware that Bob disliked and despised him. If he could only bring about the failure of Bob's trip, and the loss of his cargo, he would have both Bob and his mother in his power. Wolverton had been anxiously awaiting intelligence from his agents, and the postmaster was somewhat surprised at his numerous visits to the office for letters. At length, one morning, Aaron Wolverton's patience was rewarded. A letter was handed him, directed in an almost illegible scrawl to MR. A. WOLVERTON, ESQ. It was written by Brown, who was by no means an accomplished scholar. Wolverton opened it eagerly, and read the following lines: MR. WOLVERTON: I write you these few lines from Rocky Creek. I am pleased to say we have got the bote, and are jest starting for St. Louis with the cargo onbord. If you want to know about the boys, bob burton and the little nigger are locked up in a house in the village belonging to one of my friends, and they won't be let out till it is perfecly saif. We got hold of them by a nise trick. I haven't time to tell you about it now, but when we meat, you shall kno all. Send that fifty dollars to Mr. J. Brown, St. Louis Post Office. Don't forget! This is important. Yours to command, J. BROWN. This letter, ill-spelled as it was, seemed to give Aaron Wolverton unbounded satisfaction. A gratified smile overspread his face, and he said to himself: "That will bring down the Burton pride. That young whipper-snapper will come home with a few less airs than when he set out. The chances are that he'll have to walk home or buy a passage." Wolverton chuckled at this agreeable thought. He would be revenged upon poor Bob for all the mortifications to which the boy had subjected him: and, to a man of Wolverton's temperament, revenge was sweet. "You have received good news, Mr. Wolverton," said the postmaster, observing the land agent's evident glee. "What makes you think so?" asked Wolverton, cautiously. "I judged from your smiling face." "It wasn't the letter. I was thinking of something." "That is only a blind," thought the postmaster. "I saw his face light up when he read the letter. Let me see; it was mailed from Rocky Creek. I will bear that in mind, and some day I may discover the secret." As Wolverton picked his way through the mud from the post-office to his office, he fell in with Mrs. Burton, who had come to the village on business. He smiled to himself, and prepared to accost her. "I hope I see you well, Mrs. Burton," he said, with gravity. "Very well, thank you, Mr. Wolverton," answered the widow, coldly. "What do you hear from your son?" "I received a letter yesterday. All was going well with him." "I am really glad to hear it," said Wolverton, with a queer smile. "Still you must remember that 'there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.'" "What do you mean, Mr. Wolverton?" asked Mrs. Burton, quickly. "What should I mean?" said Wolverton, in apparent surprise. "Have you heard any bad news of Robert?" "Oh, dear, no! I am sorry to say that your son is prejudiced against me, and would hardly favor me with any letter." Mrs. Burton looked relieved. "I was only warning you on general principles. 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,' as the Scriptures have it." "Thank you for the caution," said Mrs. Burton, dryly. "By the way, have you heard anything of your nephew, Sam?" Wolverton's face darkened. "No," he answered. "I did think, I confess, that he might have run away with Bob, but I don't think so now." "If he did, I know nothing of it." This was true. For obvious reasons, Bob had not taken his mother into his confidence on this subject. "The boy has shown base ingratitude to me," continued Wolverton, bitterly. "I cared for him and kept him from starving, and how has he rewarded me?" "If his home was so agreeable as you represent, it is certainly surprising that he should have left you. Good-morning, Mr. Wolverton." "What did she mean?" Wolverton asked himself. "Some of her sarcasm, I suppose. When she becomes Mrs. Wolverton, I will get even with her." As nothing had been said of Sam in the letter of his confidential agent, Wolverton no longer suspected that he had gone down the river with Bob Burton. On the whole, as he had Sam's property in his possession, he did not care whether the boy ever returned, except that he would have liked to give him a good flogging. CHAPTER XXXV. BOB'S ARRIVAL IN ST. LOUIS. Meanwhile Bob and Clip were steaming rapidly down the river. Now that he was pretty sure of recovering his boat and cargo, Bob gave himself up to the enjoyment of the trip, and was fain to confess that he enjoyed it better than working his passage on the ferry-boat. As for Maud, she seemed to feel as much confidence in our hero as if she had known him all her life. She seemed also to appreciate Clip, but in a different way. "You're a funny boy!" she said. "Yah, yah, little missy!" laughed Clip. "Where's your mother?" "Dunno, missy! I expect she dead." "My mamma's dead, too. She's in heaven. Is your mamma there too?" "S'pect so, little missy." Bob questioned the little girl as to the manner of her abduction. He learned that she had been carried off from the street in which she lived by Brown, who secured her consent by a promise of candy. Then she was put into a carriage, and given something to drink. When she woke up she was on a river steamer, being landed at length at the place where Bob found her. "Did my papa send you for me?" she asked. "No, Maud," answered Bob, "but I heard you had been stolen, and I determined to carry you back, if I could." "On what street does your father live?" asked Bob, later. "On Laclede Avenue." "Can you tell me the number?" This also Maud was able to tell. At the first stopping-place, after he had obtained this information, Bob, appreciating the anxiety of Maud's friends, telegraphed her father as follows: I have discovered your little daughter, and am on my way to the city with her. She was taken to Rocky Creek, and confined there. Our steamer--the Gazelle--will probably arrive at her wharf to-morrow morning. ROBERT BURTON. When this telegram was received, Mr. Pearson was suffering deep grief and anxiety; but the message comforted him not a little. When the steamer reached the pier, a middle-aged man of medium size and dark complexion was waiting on the wharf. "That's my papa!" exclaimed Maud, clapping her hands; and the little girl danced on the deck in her joy. In a moment she was in the arms of her father. "My darling Maud?" he exclaimed, caressing her fondly. "Thank Heaven I have you back again! Where is Mr. Burton?" "My name is Robert Burton," said Bob, modestly. "What, a boy!" exclaimed Mr. Pearson, in amazement. "I supposed the person who telegraphed me was a man." "He's a nice boy," said Maud, putting her hand confidingly in Bob's. "I am sure of it," said Mr. Pearson, cordially, grasping the hand of our hero. "And _he's_ a funny boy," continued Maud, pointing out Clip. "Yah, yah!" laughed Clip, with a broad grin on his shining face. "Clip is a companion of mine," explained Bob, "and we came down the river together." "I am glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Clip," said Mr. Pearson, smiling, and taking Clip by the hand. "Yah, yah!" laughed the delighted Clip. "Now, boys," said Mr. Pearson, as they passed over the gang-plank and set foot upon the wharf, "I shall take you both home with me. I have not yet had an opportunity of asking questions about how you came to find my dear child, and rescue her from her terrible captivity. There stands my carriage. Get in, both of you, and we will go to my home at once." It was a strange sensation to Clip to find himself riding in a hansom carriage, the favored guest of the wealthy proprietor. He was not sure whether he were awake or dreaming. They drove rapidly for perhaps a couple of miles, and then stopped in front of an elegant mansion in the upper part of Laclede Avenue. The two boys never expected to enter St. Louis in such grand style. CHAPTER XXXVI. A THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD. A little awed by the splendid appointments of the merchant's house, Bob and Clip entered, following Mr. Pearson. A stout, pleasant-looking woman of middle age--the housekeeper--appeared at the door of a side room. She darted forward, and clasped Maud in a fond embrace. "My darling Maud, how glad I am to see you back!" she said. "I thought we had lost you." "This is the young man who rescued Maud, Margaret," said Mr. Pearson, pointing to Bob. "And _he_ so young! I must kiss him, too!" said Margaret; and, considerably to our hero's embarrassment, Margaret gave him a resounding kiss. "This boy also assisted," said Mr. Pearson, indicating Clip, with a smile. Margaret hesitated a moment--she was not quite prepared to kiss a colored boy--but compromised by shaking his hand cordially. "You look like a nice boy, Clip," she said. "So I is, missus; yah, yah!" responded Clip, laughing. "Now, Margaret, can you give us something to eat?" said Mr. Pearson. "It's all ready, sir. I thought you and Miss Maud would be hungry." "I suspect we are all hungry," said Mr. Pearson, leading the way into a handsome dining-room. "Now, boys, take your seats," he said. Clip felt a little awkward, for he was not used to being a guest at a rich man's table, but he did not allow his bashfulness to interfere with the gratification of an excellent appetite. When the meal was over, Mr. Pearson invited the boys into his library, and seated himself at a desk. He drew a check-book from a drawer and wrote for a minute. Then he tore off a check, and handed it to Bob. "This is the reward I offered for the return of my dear daughter," he said. "I have made the check payable to your order." Bob took it and read as follows: "FIRST NATIONAL BANK, "Pay to the order of Robert Burton, One Thousand Dollars. "$1000. JOHN PEARSON." "I don't like to take this large sum, Mr. Pearson," said Bob. "I did not rescue your daughter for money." "I am quite aware of that, my dear boy, but it is a pleasure for me to give you this proof of my gratitude. I am sure you will spend it creditably." "I shall find it very useful, sir; and I thank you sincerely. May I ask if you do not deal in wheat?" "That is a part of my business." "I shall have about fourteen hundred bushels to dispose of if I recover my boat." "I will give you two dollars and a quarter a bushel, if it is in good condition." "I accept, sir," answered Bob, promptly. "Now, may I ask your advice as to how to proceed to regain possession of the boat?" "When do you expect it to arrive?" asked the merchant. "Probably not till to-morrow, but I can't guess at what part of the day. It depends on how well the thieves succeed in managing the boat." "I will order my carriage and drive round with you to the Central Police Office. The police will take proper measures to recover the boat and arrest the rascals who robbed you of it." "Won't it be too much trouble, sir?" "I shall not count it a trouble, for I shall at the same time be punishing the men who abducted my dear Maud. They will be tried for both offenses, and will probably get a long term of imprisonment." In an hour information had been lodged at the Central Police Office, and orders had been given to watch the river, and to keep a good lookout for the boat, of which Bob furnished a description. That night Bob and Clip slept at Mr. Pearson's house, being treated as honored guests. CHAPTER XXXVII. BROWN AND MINTON WALK INTO A TRAP. Little suspecting the reception awaiting them in St. Louis, Minton and Brown were laboriously guiding their stolen craft down the river. Not being accustomed to labor of any sort, they found the confinement irksome, but the prize for which they were striving was so large that they took it very good-humoredly. They whiled away the time by indulging in visions of future ease and prosperity, and in exchanging witticisms at the expense of Bob, the youthful owner of the boat. "I wonder how the young captain is enjoying himself," said Minton, as he lay back, with one of the bins for a support, while puffing at a choice cigar. "He is ready to tear his hair out, I presume," said Brown. "He's a conceited young popinjay, and deserves to have his pride taken down." "You're right there, Brown. We shall make a tidy sum out of our venture." "Yes; we can afford to retire for a time. Of course I shall want more than half." "I don't see that," said Minton, quickly. "Why, man, I've done all the headwork. What have you done to compare with me?" "We are equal partners," said Minton, doggedly. "That is where you are mistaken. I don't mind, though, giving you half of what we get for the girl." "How shall we arrange to get anything? It is rather a ticklish business--" "That's where the headwork comes in. I shall wait upon old Pearson, and tell him that I have a clew, and suspect I know who abducted the child. Then I'll work him up to a point where he'll shell out liberally." "Won't there be risk?" "How can there be? Leave the thing to me and I'll arrange it. The fact is, Minton, you are a man of no ideas. If I depended on you, you wouldn't make a cent out of one of the neatest jobs I've ever been concerned in." Minton was conscious that there was some truth in this, and it helped to reconcile him to the evident determination of his companion to appropriate the lion's share of the fruits of their questionable enterprises. "I suppose Joe's all right?" he said, after a pause. "Of course he is. What would he make by proving false to us?" "Nothing, that I can see. Still, if he should do so, it might upset our plans. The boy could afford to pay him well for releasing him." "That is true," returned Brown, thoughtfully. "On all accounts it will be necessary for us to expedite matters. I sha'n't waste any time once we are in St. Louis." "You mean in disposing of the cargo?" "Precisely. I am in no position to haggle about prices. I'll offer it at a bargain to some large dealer. He will naturally think I'm a country gentleman, and clinch the bargain at once. Do you see?" "Yes, Brown. You've got the right idea." "Of course I have," said Brown, complacently. "It takes a long head to outwit me. Got another cigar, Minton?" Minton drew out one and handed to his confederate, and presently took his turn at the rudder. So time passed, the boat making good progress, and about three o'clock in the afternoon the boat reached an obscure pier in the lower part of St. Louis. There were some interested persons watching its arrival. Among them were Bob and his friend Clip, and a small squad of policemen. Not suspecting anything, Brown and Minton busied themselves in bringing the boat to anchor. Meanwhile Bob, without being observed, stepped aboard. "Good afternoon, Mr. Brown! I hope you had a pleasant trip," he said, quietly. Brown felt as if he had been struck by lightning. Wheeling around suddenly, he saw Bob's eyes fixed upon him. He was absolutely speechless with amazement and consternation. "Who are you?" he finally ejaculated, quickly resolving to brazen it out, and deny Bob's claim to ownership. "I think you know me, Mr. Brown!" replied Bob. "I have only to thank you for taking charge of my boat and bringing it safe to St. Louis." "Look here, young feller!" said Brown, roughly, "you must be crazy. I never saw you before in my life, and here you come on board my boat and claim it as your own. If you don't clear out I'll have you arrested." "There will be no difficulty about that, Mr. Brown. Here are policemen close at hand." Mr. Brown's face grew pale as he saw three stalwart policemen marching on board the boat. "I guess it's all up, Minton!" he said, and made a dash for liberty; but he was not quick enough. He and Minton were quickly secured and marched off, with handcuffs on their wrists. As we are now to bid these gentlemen farewell, it may be said briefly that they pleaded guilty in hopes of a lighter sentence, and were sent to prison for seven years. Thus far the community has been able to spare them without inconvenience. Bob and Clip resumed charge of the boat, and during the next day disposed of the cargo to Mr. Pearson at the price agreed upon. CHAPTER XXXVIII. WHAT BOB BROUGHT HOME. After disposing of his cargo, Bob was puzzled to know what to do with the ferry-boat. Finally he had an offer of one hundred dollars, from a speculative Yankee who had drifted out to St. Louis, and gladly accepted it. This sum paid all expenses, including his and Clip's return fare, and left him with a handsome sum to his credit, viz.: 1,400 bushels wheat, at $2.25, $3,150 Reward, 1,000 ------ $4,150 This sum, with the exception of one hundred and fifty dollars, by advice of Mr. Pearson, he deposited in a St. Louis bank, and then started for home. He could not make the whole passage by steamer, but went part way by railroad, and then engaged a carriage to a point four miles from home. Thence he and Clip walked. He wanted to surprise not only his mother, but Wolverton. He knew now that Brown and Minton had only been agents of his more crafty enemy, Brown having made a written confession, not so much out of friendship to Bob as out of spite against Wolverton, whom he held responsible for getting him into this scrape. With soiled shoes and clothes covered with dust, Bob and Clip entered the village, and purposely walked by Wolverton's office. The latter, spying them through the window, smiled maliciously, and hurried out to meet them. "Aha, my young friends," he said, with a pleased glance at their soiled clothes, "so you have returned?" "Yes, sir," answered Bob, soberly. "And what luck did you have, may I ask?" "We had good luck at first, but at Rocky Creek two rascals entrapped us, and stole our boat and cargo." Wolverton laughed outright. So it was true, after all. "Excuse my smiling," he said; "but you seem to have come out at the little end of the horn." "It does seem so, sir." "You remember what I told you before you started?" "What was that?" "That you were too young for such an expedition. It would have been much better for you to accept my offer." "It seems so," answered Bob again. "Seems so! Of course it would have been. But the trouble was, you were so puffed up by your own self-conceit that you thought you knew best." "I plead guilty to that, sir; I did think so," answered Bob, candidly. "I am glad you admit it. So you had to walk back?" "You can judge for yourself, Mr. Wolverton." "Well, you certainly do look like two tramps. The next time you may feel like following my advice." "I may," answered Bob. It did occur to Mr. Wolverton that Bob's answers were rather unusual, and his manner rather queer; quite unlike his usual tone and manner. But this he readily accounted for. The boy's pride had been humbled. He knew now that he was in Wolverton's power, and he had the sense to be humble, in the hope of making better terms. "But it won't do," said the agent to himself. "He will find that I will have what is mine, and he cannot soften my heart by any appeal to my pity." "It appears to me you are in rather a scrape," he said, after a pause. "How is that." "Why, a part of your mortgage comes due in a short time. I hope you don't expect me to wait." "No doubt you will be considerate, Mr. Wolverton, remembering what luck we have had." "No, I won't!" snarled Wolverton. "Don't flatter yourself so far. I am not responsible for your misfortune, or folly, as I call it." "Still, Mr. Wolverton--" "Oh, it's no use to talk!" continued the agent, raising his hand impatiently. "You have been a fool, and you must suffer the penalty of your folly." "Has Sam got back, Mr. Wolverton?" asked Bob, changing the subject, rather to Mr. Wolverton's surprise. "No; have you seen him?" asked the agent, eagerly. "Yes, sir." "Where?" asked Wolverton, quickly. "The fact is, we discovered him on our boat soon after we started." "You did!" ejaculated the agent, his eyes almost starting out of his head. "Why didn't you send him back?" "Because he said you didn't treat him well, and begged to stay." "Young man, do you know I could have you arrested for abducting my nephew?" demanded Wolverton, angrily. "Was it my fault that he hid himself on my boat?" "Where is he now?" asked Wolverton, abruptly. "He left the boat at a point on the way." "Where was it?" "You must excuse my answering that question. Sam wouldn't like it." "What difference does that make?" "Sam is my friend. I think, however, you will soon know, as he means to come back." Wolverton smiled triumphantly. "I shall be glad to see him," he said, significantly. Bob knew what that meant. "You must excuse me now, Mr. Wolverton," said Bob. "I must hurry home, as mother will be anxious to see me." "Tell her I shall call very soon--on business." "I will." When they were out of hearing the boys laughed in amusement. They had a surprise in store for Wolverton. CHAPTER XXXIX. CONCLUSION. There was another arrival at Burton's Ranch the next day. Sam Wolverton came in charge of his new-found relative, Robert Granger. They took a carriage, and reached the ranch without attracting the attention of Aaron Wolverton. Mrs. Burton welcomed her visitors, and expressed great pleasure at the discovery that Sam's fortunes were likely to be improved. Mr. Granger proposed to make a call upon the faithless guardian, but was saved the necessity, as Mr. Wolverton called early in the afternoon of the same day. He was in a hurry to show his power, and foreclose the mortgage. It was arranged that Sam and Mr. Granger should remain out of sight at first. Robert answered the knock at the door. "Is your mother at home?" asked Wolverton. "Yes, sir; will you walk in?" "I believe I will." He entered the sitting-room, and Mrs. Burton soon made her appearance. "I see your son has returned, widder," remarked the agent. "Yes; it seems pleasant to have him back. I missed him greatly." "Humph! I s'pose so. It's a pity he went at all." "I don't know that." "Why, it stands to reason," said Wolverton, impatiently. "He went on a fool's errand." "What makes you say that?" "He might have known a boy like him couldn't succeed in such an enterprise. If he had taken up with my offer, he would have been all right." "He said you offered him much less than the market price." "And so he started off to do better, and lost his whole cargo," sneered Wolverton, smiling unpleasantly. Mrs. Burton was silent. "I came to tell you that I should require not only the interest, but a payment of half the mortgage, according to the conditions. It is due next Saturday." "Won't you wait, under the circumstances, Mr. Wolverton?" "No; I will not." "Do you think that is kind?" asked Mrs. Burton. "Kindness is kindness, and business is business, Mrs. Burton. Still, I am willing to spare you on one condition." "What is that?" "That you become Mrs. Wolverton." Mrs. Burton made a gesture of repulsion. "That is entirely out of the question," she said. "Then I shall show no mercy." Mrs. Burton went to the door and called "Robert." Bob entered. "Mr. Wolverton demands his interest and the payment of half the mortgage, according to the terms." "It is not due yet." "It will be, next Saturday," said the agent, triumphantly. "And I won't listen to any palaver or any entreaties to put off the payment. As you have made your bed you can lie upon it." "What do you propose to do if we don't pay?" asked Bob. "Foreclose the mortgage!" exclaimed the agent, bringing down his fist upon the table before him. "In that case, I think, mother, we will pay," said Bob, quietly. "You can't pay!" snarled Wolverton. "That is where you are mistaken, Mr. Wolverton. I will not only pay what you ask, but I am ready to take up the whole mortgage." "Is the boy crazy?" ejaculated Wolverton. "Not that I am aware of," answered Bob, smiling. "You haven't got the money." "Mistaken again, Mr. Wolverton." "When did you get it?" gasped Wolverton. "Wasn't your cargo stolen?" "Yes, by emissaries of yours!" was Bob's unexpected reply; "but I recovered it, and sold the grain for two dollars and a quarter a bushel." "You recovered it?" said Wolverton, turning pale. "Yes; and the men that stole it are now in jail. I have a letter from one of them, declaring that he was employed by you." "It's a lie!" hastily exclaimed the agent; but he looked frightened. "I have reason to believe it is true. Mr. Wolverton, your base conspiracy failed." "I guess I'll go," said Wolverton, rising. He wanted time to think. "Not just yet! Here are two persons who wish to see you"; and, to Wolverton's surprise, Sam and Robert Granger entered the room. "You didn't expect to see me, Aaron Wolverton," said Captain Granger. "I have come here with your nephew to demand restitution of the property which you have appropriated to your own use, giving him to understand that he was living on charity." Wolverton looked like a man in a state of collapse. He didn't dare to deny what he knew Captain Granger would have no difficulty in proving. He glared at Sam as if he would like to have him in his power for a short time. "Are you coming back with me?" he asked. "I will answer for him," said Captain Granger. "Sam is of an age when the law authorizes him to select his own guardian. I have accepted the trust, and I demand the transfer of his property to me." If there had been any chance of success, Wolverton would have contested the matter, and, as it was, he interposed all the obstacles in his power. Finally, Sam got his own, however, much to Wolverton's disappointment. ---- Five years have passed. The mortgage on Burton's Ranch has long since been paid, and Bob is making a handsome profit every year for his mother and himself. Clip is still a member of the family, and, though he cannot be called a model of industry, he is a favorite through his good nature and love of fun. He is thoroughly loyal to the Burtons, and hates Wolverton as much as it is in his nature to hate anybody. Wolverton is getting worse in temper as he grows older, and his ill-gotten gains do not bring him happiness. The sight of Bob's prosperity is gall and wormwood to him; but for this Bob cares little. Sam is employed in a store under his new guardian's charge, but every summer he comes to Burton's Ranch and stays a month, where he, Bob, and Clip have fine times. Mrs. Burton is happy in her prosperity, and is thankful to God for having given her so good a son. Bob has made more than one trip down the river, but none so eventful as the one described in this story. THE END. THE FAMOUS CASTLEMON BOOKS. BY HARRY CASTLEMON. [Illustration: Specimen Cover of the Gunboat Series.] No author of the present day has become a greater favorite with boys than "Harry Castlemon;" every book by him is sure to meet with hearty reception by young readers generally. His naturalness and vivacity lead his readers from page to page with breathless interest, and when one volume is finished the fascinated reader, like Oliver Twist, asks "for more." Any volume sold separately. +GUNBOAT SERIES.+ By Harry Castlemon. 6 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $7 50 +Frank, the Young Naturalist+ 1 25 +Frank in the Woods+ 1 25 +Frank on the Prairie+ 1 25 +Frank on a Gunboat+ 1 25 +Frank before Vicksburg+ 1 25 +Frank on the Lower Mississippi+ 1 25 +GO AHEAD SERIES.+ By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $3 75 +Go Ahead+; or, The Fisher Boy's Motto 1 25 +No Moss+; or, The Career of a Rolling Stone 1 25 +Tom Newcombe+; or, The Boy of Bad Habits 1 25 +ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES.+ By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $3 75 +Frank at Don Carlos' Rancho+ 1 25 +Frank among the Rancheros+ 1 25 +Frank in the Mountains+ 1 25 +SPORTSMAN'S CLUB SERIES.+ By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $3 75 +The Sportsman's Club in the Saddle+ 1 25 +The Sportsman's Club Afloat+ 1 25 +The Sportsman's Club among the Trappers+ 1 25 +FRANK NELSON SERIES.+ By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols. 12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $3 75 +Snowed Up+; or, The Sportsman's Club in the Mts. 1 25 +Frank Nelson in the Forecastle+; or, The Sportsman's Club among the Whalers 1 25 +The Boy Traders+; or, The Sportsman's Club among the Boers 1 25 +BOY TRAPPER SERIES.+ By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $3 75 +The Buried Treasure+; or, Old Jordan's "Haunt" 1 25 +The Boy Trapper+; or, How Dave Filled the Order 1 25 +The Mail Carrier+ 1 25 36281 ---- THE SLAYER OF SOULS ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AUTHOR OF "IN SECRET," "THE COMMON LAW," "THE RECKONING," "LORRAINE," ETC. NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY _Copyright, 1920, By Robert W. Chambers_ _Copyright, 1919, 1920, by International Magazine Company_ _Printed in the United States of America_ TO MY FRIEND GEORGE ARMSBY I Mirror of Fashion, Admiral of Finance, Don't, in a passion, Denounce this poor Romance; For, while I dare not hope it might Enthuse you, Perhaps it will, some rainy night, Amuse you. II So, your attention, In poetry polite, To my invention I bashfully invite. Don't hurl the book at Eddie's head Deep laden, Or Messmore's; you might hit instead Will Braden. III Kahn among Canners, And Grand Vizier of style, Emir of Manners, Accept--and place on file-- This tribute, which I proffer while I grovel, And honor with thy matchless Smile My novel. R. W. C. CONTENTS I THE YEZIDEE II THE YELLOW SNAKE III GREY MAGIC IV BODY AND SOUL V THE ASSASSINS VI IN BATTLE VII THE BRIDAL VIII THE MAN IN WHITE IX THE WEST WIND X AT THE RITZ XI YULUN THE BELOVED XII HIS EXCELLENCY XIII SA-N'SA XIV A DEATH-TRAIL XV IN THE FIRELIGHT XVI THE PLACE OF PRAYER XVII THE SLAYER OF SOULS THE SLAYER OF SOULS CHAPTER I THE YEZIDEE Only when the _Nan-yang Maru_ sailed from Yuen-San did her terrible sense of foreboding begin to subside. For four years, waking or sleeping, the awful subconsciousness of supreme evil had never left her. But now, as the Korean shore, receding into darkness, grew dimmer and dimmer, fear subsided and grew vague as the half-forgotten memory of horror in a dream. She stood near the steamer's stern apart from other passengers, a slender, lonely figure in her silver-fox furs, her ulster and smart little hat, watching the lights of Yuen-San grow paler and smaller along the horizon until they looked like a level row of stars. Under her haunted eyes Asia was slowly dissolving to a streak of vapour in the misty lustre of the moon. Suddenly the ancient continent disappeared, washed out by a wave against the sky; and with it vanished the last shreds of that accursed nightmare which had possessed her for four endless years. But whether during those unreal years her soul had only been held in bondage, or whether, as she had been taught, it had been irrevocably destroyed, she still remained uncertain, knowing nothing about the death of souls or how it was accomplished. As she stood there, her sad eyes fixed on the misty East, a passenger passing--an Englishwoman--paused to say something kind to the young American; and added, "if there is anything my husband and I can do it would give us much pleasure." The girl had turned her head as though not comprehending. The other woman hesitated. "This is Doctor Norne's daughter, is it not?" she inquired in a pleasant voice. "Yes, I am Tressa Norne.... I ask your pardon.... Thank you, madam:--I am--I seem to be--a trifle dazed----" "What wonder, you poor child! Come to us if you feel need of companionship." "You are very kind.... I seem to wish to be alone, somehow." "I understand.... Good-night, my dear." Late the next morning Tressa Norne awoke, conscious for the first time in four years that it was at last her own familiar self stretched out there on the pillows where sunshine streamed through the porthole. All that day she lay in her bamboo steamer chair on deck. Sun and wind conspired to dry every tear that wet her closed lashes. Her dark, glossy hair blew about her face; scarlet tinted her full lips again; the tense hands relaxed. Peace came at sundown. That evening she took her Yu-kin from her cabin and found a chair on the deserted hurricane deck. And here, in the brilliant moonlight of the China Sea, she curled up cross-legged on the deck, all alone, and sounded the four futile strings of her moon-lute, and hummed to herself, in a still voice, old songs she had sung in Yian before the tragedy. She sang the tent-song called _Tchinguiz_. She sang _Camel Bells_ and _The Blue Bazaar_,--children's songs of the Yiort. She sang the ancient Khiounnou song called "The Saghalien": _I_ _In the month of Saffar Among the river-reeds I saw two horsemen Sitting on their steeds. Tulugum! Heitulum! By the river-reeds_ _II_ _In the month of Saffar A demon guards the ford. Tokhta, my Lover! Draw your shining sword! Tulugum! Heitulum! Slay him with your sword!_ _III_ _In the month of Saffar Among the water-weeds I saw two horsemen Fighting on their steeds. Tulugum! Heitulum! How my lover bleeds!_ _IV_ _In the month of Saffar, The Year I should have wed-- The Year of The Panther-- My lover lay dead,-- Tulugum! Heitulum! Dead without a head._ And songs like these--the one called "Keuke Mongol," and an ancient air of the Tchortchas called "The Thirty Thousand Calamities," and some Chinese boatmen's songs which she had heard in Yian before the tragedy; these she hummed to herself there in the moonlight playing on her round-faced, short-necked lute of four strings. Terror indeed seemed ended for her, and in her heart a great overwhelming joy was welling up which seemed to overflow across the entire moonlit world. * * * * * She had no longer any fear; no premonition of further evil. Among the few Americans and English aboard, something of her story was already known. People were kind; and they were also considerate enough to subdue their sympathetic curiosity when they discovered that this young American girl shrank from any mention of what had happened to her during the last four years of the Great World War. It was evident, also, that she preferred to remain aloof; and this inclination, when finally understood, was respected by her fellow passengers. The clever, efficient and polite Japanese officers and crew of the _Nan-yang Maru_ were invariably considerate and courteous to her, and they remained nicely reticent, although they also knew the main outline of her story and very much desired to know more. And so, surrounded now by the friendly security of civilised humanity, Tressa Norne, reborn to light out of hell's own shadows, awoke from four years of nightmare which, after all, perhaps, never had seemed entirely actual. And now God's real sun warmed her by day; His real moon bathed her in creamy coolness by night; sky and wind and wave thrilled her with their blessed assurance that this was once more the real world which stretched illimitably on every side from horizon to horizon; and the fair faces and pleasant voices of her own countrymen made the past seem only a ghastly dream that never again could enmesh her soul with its web of sorcery. * * * * * And now the days at sea fled very swiftly; and when at last the Golden Gate was not far away she had finally managed to persuade herself that nothing really can harm the human soul; that the monstrous devil-years were ended, never again to return; that in this vast, clean Western Continent there could be no occult threat to dread, no gigantic menace to destroy her body, no secret power that could consign her soul to the dreadful abysm of spiritual annihilation. * * * * * Very early that morning she came on deck. The November day was delightfully warm, the air clear save for a belt of mist low on the water to the southward. She had been told that land would not be sighted for twenty-four hours, but she went forward and stood beside the starboard rail, searching the horizon with the enchanted eyes of hope. As she stood there a Japanese ship's officer crossing the deck, forward, halted abruptly and stood staring at something to the southward. At the same moment, above the belt of mist on the water, and perfectly clear against the blue sky above, the girl saw a fountain of gold fire rise from the fog, drift upward in the daylight, slowly assume the incandescent outline of a serpentine creature which leisurely uncoiled and hung there floating, its lizard-tail undulating, its feet with their five stumpy claws closing, relaxing, like those of a living reptile. For a full minute this amazing shape of fire floated there in the sky, brilliant in the morning light, then the reptilian form faded, died out, and the last spark vanished in the sunshine. When the Japanese officer at last turned to resume his promenade, he noticed a white-faced girl gripping a stanchion behind him as though she were on the point of swooning. He crossed the deck quickly. Tressa Norne's eyes opened. "Are you ill, Miss Norne?" he asked. "The--the Dragon," she whispered. The officer laughed. "Why, that was nothing but Chinese day-fireworks," he explained. "The crew of some fishing boat yonder in the fog is amusing itself." He looked at her narrowly, then with a nice little bow and smile he offered his arm: "If you are indisposed, perhaps you might wish to go below to your stateroom, Miss Norne?" She thanked him, managed to pull herself together and force a ghost of a smile. He lingered a moment, said something cheerful about being nearly home, then made her a punctilious salute and went his way. Tressa Norne leaned back against the stanchion and closed her eyes. Her pallor became deathly. She bent over and laid her white face in her folded arms. After a while she lifted her head, and, turning very slowly, stared at the fog-belt out of frightened eyes. And saw, rising out of the fog, a pearl-tinted sphere which gradually mounted into the clear daylight above like the full moon's phantom in the sky. Higher, higher rose the spectral moon until at last it swam in the very zenith. Then it slowly evaporated in the blue vault above. A great wave of despair swept her; she clung to the stanchion, staring with half-blinded eyes at the flat fog-bank in the south. But no more "Chinese day-fireworks" rose out of it. And at length she summoned sufficient strength to go below to her cabin and lie there, half senseless, huddled on her bed. * * * * * When land was sighted, the following morning, Tressa Norne had lived a century in twenty-four hours. And in that space of time her agonised soul had touched all depths. But now as the Golden Gate loomed up in the morning light, rage, terror, despair had burned themselves out. From their ashes within her mind arose the cool wrath of desperation armed for anything, wary, alert, passionately determined to survive at whatever cost, recklessly ready to fight for bodily existence. That was her sole instinct now, to go on living, to survive, no matter at what price. And if it were indeed true that her soul had been slain, she defied its murderers to slay her body also. * * * * * That night, at her hotel in San Francisco, she double-locked her door and lay down without undressing, leaving all lights burning and an automatic pistol underneath her pillow. Toward morning she fell asleep, slept for an hour, started up in awful fear. And saw the double-locked door opposite the foot of her bed slowly opening of its own accord. Into the brightly illuminated room stepped a graceful young man in full evening dress carrying over his left arm an overcoat, and in his other hand a top hat and silver tipped walking-stick. With one bound the girl swung herself from the bed to the carpet and clutched at the pistol under her pillow. "Sanang!" she cried in a terrible voice. "Keuke Mongol!" he said, smilingly. For a moment they confronted each other in the brightly lighted bedroom, then, partly turning, he cast a calm glance at the open door behind him; and, as though moved by a wind, the door slowly closed. And she heard the key turn of itself in the lock, and saw the bolt slide smoothly into place again. Her power of speech came back to her presently--only a broken whisper at first: "Do you think I am afraid of your accursed magic?" she managed to gasp. "Do you think I am afraid of you, Sanang?" "You are afraid," he said serenely. "You lie!" "No, I do not lie. To one another the Yezidees never lie." "You lie again, assassin! I am no Yezidee!" He smiled gently. His features were pleasing, smooth, and regular; his cheek-bones high, his skin fine and of a pale and delicate ivory colour. Once his black, beautifully shaped eyes wandered to the levelled pistol which she now held clutched desperately close to her right hip, and a slightly ironical expression veiled his gaze for an instant. "Bullets?" he murmured. "But you and I are of the Hassanis." "The third lie, Sanang!" Her voice had regained its strength. Tense, alert, blue eyes ablaze, every faculty concentrated on the terrible business before her, the girl now seemed like some supple leopardess poised on the swift verge of murder. "Tokhta!"[1] She spat the word. "Any movement toward a hidden weapon, any gesture suggesting recourse to magic--and I kill you, Sanang, exactly where you stand!" [Footnote 1: "Look out!" Nomad-Mongol dialect.] "With a pistol?" He laughed. Then his smooth features altered subtly. He said: "Keuke Mongol, who call yourself Tressa Norne,--Keuke--heavenly azure-blue,--named so in the temple because of the colour of your eyes--listen attentively, for this is the Yarlig which I bring to you by word of mouth from Yian, as from Yezidee to Yezidee: "Here, in this land called the United States of America, the Temple girl, Keuke Mongol, who has witnessed the mysteries of Erlik and who understands the magic of the Sheiks-el-Djebel, and who has seen Mount Alamout and the eight castles and the fifty thousand Hassanis in white turbans and in robes of white;--_you_--Azure-blue eyes--heed the Yarlig!--or may thirty thousand calamities overtake you!" There was a dead silence; then he went on seriously: "It is decreed: You shall cease to remember that you are a Yezidee, that you are of the Hassanis, that you ever have laid eyes on Yian the Beautiful, that you ever set naked foot upon Mount Alamout. It is decreed that you remember nothing of what you have seen and heard, of what has been told and taught during the last four years reckoned as the Christians reckon from our Year of the Bull. Otherwise--my Master sends you this for your--_convenience_." Leisurely, from under his folded overcoat, the young man produced a roll of white cloth and dropped it at her feet and the girl shrank aside, shuddering, knowing that the roll of white cloth was meant for her winding-sheet. Then the colour came back to lip and cheek; and, glancing up from the soft white shroud, she smiled at the young man: "Have you ended your Oriental mummery?" she asked calmly. "Listen very seriously in your turn, Sanang, Sheik-el-Djebel, Prince of the Hassanis who, God knows when and how, have come out into the sunshine of this clean and decent country, out of a filthy darkness where devils and sorcerers make earth a hell. "If you, or yours, threaten me, annoy me, interfere with me, I shall go to our civilised police and tell all I know concerning the Yezidees. I mean to live. Do you understand? You know what you have done to me and mine. I come back to my own country alone, without any living kin, poor, homeless, friendless,--and, perhaps, damned. I intend, nevertheless, to survive. I shall not relax my clutch on bodily existence whatever the Yezidees may pretend to have done to my soul. I am determined to live in the body, anyway." He nodded gravely. She said: "Out at sea, over the fog, I saw the sign of Yu-lao in fire floating in the day-sky. I saw his spectral moon rise and vanish in mid-heaven. I understood. But----" And here she suddenly showed an edge of teeth under the full scarlet upper lip: "Keep your signs and your shrouds to yourself, dog of a Yezidee!--toad!--tortoise-egg!--he-goat with three legs! Keep your threats and your messages to yourself! Keep your accursed magic to yourself! Do you think to frighten me with your sorcery by showing me the Moons of Yu-lao?--by opening a bolted door? I know more of such magic than do you, Sanang--Death Adder of Alamout!" Suddenly she laughed aloud at him--laughed insultingly in his expressionless face: "I saw you and Gutchlug Khan and your cowardly Tchortchas in red-lacquered jackets slink out of the Temple of Erlik where the bronze gong thundered and a cloud settled down raining little yellow snakes all over the marble steps--all over you, Prince Sanang! You were _afraid_, my Tougtchi!--you and Gutchlug and your red Tchortchas with their halberds all dripping with human entrails! And I saw you mount and gallop off into the woods while in the depths of the magic cloud which rained little yellow snakes all around you, we temple girls laughed and mocked at you--at you and your cowardly Tchortcha horsemen." A slight tinge of pink came into the young man's pale face. Tressa Norne stepped nearer, her levelled pistol resting on her hip. "Why did you not complain of us to your Master, the Old Man of the Mountain?" she asked jeeringly. "And where, also, was your Yezidee magic when it rained little snakes?--What frightened you away--who had boldly come to seize a temple girl--you who had screwed up your courage sufficiently to defy Erlik in his very shrine and snatch from his temple a young thing whose naked body wrapped in gold was worth the chance of death to you?" The young man's top-hat dropped to the floor. He bent over to pick it up. His face was quite expressionless, quite colourless, now. "I went on no such errand," he said with an effort. "I went with a thousand prayers on scarlet paper made in----" "A lie, Yezidee! You came to seize _me_!" He turned still paler. "By Abu, Omar, Otman, and Ali, it is not true!" "You lie!--by the Lion of God, Hassini!" She stepped closer. "And I'll tell you another thing you fear--you Yezidee of Alamout--you robber of Yian--you sorcerer of Sabbah Khan, and chief of his sect of Assassins! You fear this native land of mine, America; and its laws and customs, and its clear, clean sunshine; and its cities and people; and its police! Take that message back. We Americans fear nobody save the true God!--nobody--neither Yezidee nor Hassani nor Russ nor German nor that sexless monster born of hell and called the Bolshevik!" "Tokhta!" he cried sharply. "Damn you!" retorted the girl; "get out of my room! Get out of my sight! Get out of my path! Get out of my life! Take that to your Master of Mount Alamout! I do what I please; I go where I please; I live as I please. And if I please, _I turn against him_!" "In that event," he said hoarsely, "there lies your winding-sheet on the floor at your feet! Take up your shroud; and make Erlik seize you!" "Sanang," she said very seriously. "I hear you, Keuke-Mongol." "Listen attentively. I wish to live. I have had enough of death in life. I desire to remain a living, breathing thing--even if it be true--as you Yezidees tell me, that you have caught my soul in a net and that your sorcerers really control its destiny. "But damned or not, I passionately desire to live. And I am coward enough to hold my peace for the sake of living. So--I remain silent. I have no stomach to defy the Yezidees; because, if I do, sooner or later I shall be killed. I know it. I have no desire to die for others--to perish for the sake of the common good. I am young. I have suffered too much; I am determined to live--and let my soul take its chances between God and Erlik." She came close to him, looked curiously into his pale face. "I laughed at you out of the temple cloud," she said. "I know how to open bolted doors as well as you do. And I know _other things_. And if you ever again come to me in this life I shall first torture you, then slay you. Then I shall tell all!... and unroll my shroud." "I keep your word of promise until you break it," he interrupted hastily. "Yarlig! It is decreed!" And then he slowly turned as though to glance over his shoulder at the locked and bolted door. "Permit me to open it for you, Prince Sanang," said the girl scornfully. And she gazed steadily at the door. Presently, all by itself, the key turned in the lock, the bolt slid back, the door gently opened. Toward it, white as a corpse, his overcoat on his left arm, his stick and top-hat in the other hand, crept the young man in his faultless evening garb. Then, as he reached the threshold, he suddenly sprang aside. A small yellow snake lay coiled there on the door sill. For a full throbbing minute the young man stared at the yellow reptile in unfeigned horror. Then, very cautiously, he moved his fascinated eyes sideways and gazed in silence at Tressa Norne. The girl laughed. "Sorceress!" he burst out hoarsely. "Take that accursed thing from my path!" "What thing, Sanang?" At that his dark, frightened eyes stole toward the threshold again, seeking the little snake. But there was no snake there. And when he was certain of this he went, twitching and trembling all over. Behind him the door closed softly, locking and bolting itself. And behind the bolted door in the brightly lighted bedroom Tressa Norne fell on both knees, her pistol still clutched in her right hand, calling passionately upon Christ to forgive her for the dreadful ability she had dared to use, and begging Him to save her body from death and her soul from the snare of the Yezidee. CHAPTER II THE YELLOW SNAKE When the young man named Sanang left the bed-chamber of Tressa Norne he turned to the right in the carpeted corridor outside and hurried toward the hotel elevator. But he did not ring for the lift; instead he took the spiral iron stairway which circled it, and mounted hastily to the floor above. Here was his own apartment and he entered it with a key bearing the hotel tag. A dusky-skinned powerful old man wearing a grizzled beard and a greasy broadcloth coat of old-fashioned cut known to provincials as a "Prince Albert" looked up from where he was seated cross-legged upon the sofa, sharpening a curved knife on a whetstone. "Gutchlug," stammered Sanang, "I am afraid of her! What happened two years ago at the temple happened again a moment since, there in her very bedroom! She made a yellow death-adder out of nothing and placed it upon the threshold, and mocked me with laughter. May Thirty Thousand Calamities overtake her! May Erlik seize her! May her eyes rot out and her limbs fester! May the seven score and three principal devils----" "You chatter like a temple ape," said Gutchlug tranquilly. "Does Keuke Mongol die or live? That alone interests me." "Gutchlug," faltered the young man, "thou knowest that m-my heart is inclined to mercy toward this young Yezidee----" "I know that it is inclined to lust," said the other bluntly. Sanang's pale face flamed. "Listen," he said. "If I had not loved her better than life had I dared go that day to the temple to take her for my own?" "You loved life better," said Gutchlug. "You fled when it rained snakes on the temple steps--you and your Tchortcha horsemen! Kai! I also ran. But I gave every soldier thirty blows with a stick before I slept that night. And you should have had your thirty, also, conforming to the Yarlig, my Tougtchi." Sanang, still holding his hat and cane and carrying his overcoat over his left arm, looked down at the heavy, brutal features of Gutchlug Khan--at the cruel mouth with its crooked smile under the grizzled beard; at the huge hands--the powerful hands of a murderer--now deftly honing to a razor-edge the Kalmuck knife held so firmly yet lightly in his great blunt fingers. "Listen attentively, Prince Sanang," growled Gutchlug, pausing in his monotonous task to test the blade's edge on his thumb--"Does the Yezidee Keuke Mongol live? Yes or no?" Sanang hesitated, moistened his pallid lips. "She dares not betray us." "By what pledge?" "Fear." "That is no pledge. You also were afraid, yet you went to the temple!" "She has listened to the Yarlig. She has looked upon her shroud. She has admitted that she desires to live. Therein lies her pledge to us." "And she placed a yellow snake at your feet!" sneered Gutchlug. "Prince Sanang, tell me, what man or what devil in all the chronicles of the past has ever tamed a Snow-Leopard?" And he continued to hone his yataghan. "Gutchlug----" "No, she dies," said the other tranquilly. "Not yet!" "When, then?" "Gutchlug, thou knowest me. Hear my pledge! At her first gesture toward treachery--her first thought of betrayal--I myself will end it all." "You promise to slay this young snow-leopardess?" "By the four companions, I swear to kill her with my own hands!" Gutchlug sneered. "Kill her--yes--with the kiss that has burned thy lips to ashes for all these months. I know thee, Sanang. Leave her to me. Dead she will no longer trouble thee." "Gutchlug!" "I hear, Prince Sanang." "Strike when I nod. Not until then." "I hear, Tougtchi. I understand thee, my Banneret. I whet my knife. Kai!" Sanang looked at him, put on his top-hat and overcoat, pulled on a pair of white evening gloves. "I go forth," he said more pleasantly. "I remain here to talk to my seven ancestors and sharpen my knife," remarked Gutchlug. "When the white world and the yellow world and the brown world and the black world finally fall before the Hassanis," said Sanang with a quick smile, "I shall bring thee to her. Gutchlug--once--before she is veiled, thou shalt behold what is lovelier than Eve." The other stolidly whetted his knife. Sanang pulled out a gold cigarette case, lighted a cigarette with an air. "I go among Germans," he volunteered amiably. "The huns swam across two oceans, but, like the unclean swine, it is their own throats they cut when they swim! Well, there is only one God. And not very many angels. Erlik is greater. And there are many million devils to do his bidding. Adieu. There is rice and there is koumiss in the frozen closet. When I return you shall have been asleep for hours." When Sanang left the hotel one of two young men seated in the hotel lobby got up and strolled out after him. A few minutes later the other man went to the elevator, ascended to the fourth floor, and entered an apartment next to the one occupied by Sanang. There was another man there, lying on the lounge and smoking a cigar. Without a word, they both went leisurely about the matter of disrobing for the night. When the shorter man who had been in the apartment when the other entered, and who was dark and curly-headed, had attired himself in pyjamas, he sat down on one of the twin beds to enjoy his cigar to the bitter end. "Has Sanang gone out?" he inquired in a low voice. "Yes. Benton went after him." The other man nodded. "Cleves," he said, "I guess it looks as though this Norne girl is in it, too." "What happened?" "As soon as she arrived, Sanang made straight for her apartment. He remained inside for half an hour. Then he came out in a hurry and went to his own rooms, where that surly servant of his squats all day, shining up his arsenal, and drinking koumiss." "Did you get their conversation?" "I've got a record of the gibberish. It requires an interpreter, of course." "I suppose so. I'll take the records east with me to-morrow, and by the same token I'd better notify New York that I'm leaving." He went, half-undressed, to the telephone, got the telegraph office, and sent the following message: "RECKLOW, _New York_: "Leaving to-morrow for N. Y. with samples. Retain expert in Oriental fabrics. "VICTOR CLEVES." "Report for me, too," said the dark young man, who was still enjoying his cigar on his pillows. So Cleves sent another telegram, directed also to "RECKLOW, _New York_: "Benton and I are watching the market. Chinese importations fluctuate. Recent consignment per _Nan-yang Maru_ will be carefully inspected and details forwarded. "ALEK SELDEN." In the next room Gutchlug could hear the voice of Cleves at the telephone, but he merely shrugged his heavy shoulders in contempt. For he had other things to do beside eavesdropping. Also, for the last hour--in fact, ever since Sanang's departure--something had been happening to him--something that happens to a Hassani only once in a lifetime. And now this unique thing had happened to him--to him, Gutchlug Khan--to him before whose Khiounnou ancestors eighty-one thousand nations had bowed the knee. It had come to him at last, this dread thing, unheralded, totally unexpected, a few minutes after Sanang had departed. And he suddenly knew he was going to die. And, when, presently, he comprehended it, he bent his grizzled head and listened seriously. And, after a little silence, he heard his soul bidding him farewell. So the chatter of white men at a telephone in the next apartment had no longer any significance for him. Whether or not they had been spying on him; whether they were plotting, made no difference to him now. He tested his knife's edge with his thumb and listened gravely to his soul bidding him farewell. But, for a Yezidee, there was still a little detail to attend to before his soul departed;--two matters to regulate. One was to select his shroud. The other was to cut the white throat of this young snow-leopardess called Keuke Mongol, the Yezidee temple girl. And he could steal down to her bedroom and finish that matter in five minutes. But first he must choose his shroud, as is the custom of the Yezidee. That office, however, was quickly accomplished in a country where fine white sheets of linen are to be found on every hotel bed. So, on his way to the door, his naked knife in his right hand, he paused to fumble under the bed-covers and draw out a white linen sheet. Something hurt his hand like a needle. He moved it, felt the thing squirm under his fingers and pierce his palm again and again. With a shriek, he tore the bedclothes from the bed. A little yellow snake lay coiled there. He got as far as the telephone, but could not use it. And there he fell heavily, shaking the room and dragging the instrument down with him. * * * * * There was some excitement. Cleves and Selden in their bathrobes went in to look at the body. The hotel physician diagnosed it as heart-trouble. Or, possibly, poison. Some gazed significantly at the naked knife still clutched in the dead man's hands. Around the wrist of the other hand was twisted a pliable gold bracelet representing a little snake. It had real emeralds for eyes. It had not been there when Gutchlug died. But nobody except Sanang could know that. And later when Sanang came back and found Gutchlug very dead on the bed and a policeman sitting outside, he offered no information concerning the new bracelet shaped like a snake with real emeralds for eyes, which adorned the dead man's left wrist. Toward evening, however, after an autopsy had confirmed the house physician's diagnosis that heart-disease had finished Gutchlug, Sanang mustered enough courage to go to the desk in the lobby and send up his card to Miss Norne. * * * * * It appeared, however, that Miss Norne had left for Chicago about noon. CHAPTER III GREY MAGIC To Victor Cleves came the following telegram in code: "_Washington_, "_April 14th, 1919._ "_Investigation ordered by the State Department as the result of frequent mention in despatches of Chinese troops operating with the Russian Bolsheviki forces has disclosed that the Bolsheviki are actually raising a Chinese division of 30,000 men recruited in Central Asia. This division has been guilty of the greatest cruelties. A strange rumour prevails among the Allied forces at Archangel that this Chinese division is led by Yezidee and Hassani officers belonging to the sect of devil-worshipers and that they employ black arts and magic in battle._ "_From information so far gathered by the several branches of the United States Secret Service operating throughout the world, it appears possible that the various revolutionary forces of disorder, in Europe and Asia, which now are violently threatening the peace and security, of all established civilisation on earth, may have had a common origin. This origin, it is now suspected, may date back to a very remote epoch; the wide-spread forces of violence and merciless destruction may have had their beginning among some ancient and predatory race whose existence was maintained solely by robbery and murder._ "_Anarchists, terrorists, Bolshevists, Reds of all shades and degrees, are now believed to represent in modern times what perhaps once was a tribe of Assassins--a sect whose religion was founded upon a common predilection for crimes of violence._ "_On this theory then, for the present, the United States Government will proceed with this investigation of Bolshevism; and the Secret Service will continue to pay particular attention to all Orientals in the United States and other countries. You personally are formally instructed to keep in touch with XLY-371 (Alek Selden) and ZB-303 (James Benton), and to employ every possible means to become friendly with the girl Tressa Norne, win her confidence, and, if possible, enlist her actively in the Government Service as your particular aid and comrade._ "_It is equally important that the movements of the Oriental, called Sanang, be carefully observed in order to discover the identity and whereabouts of his companions. However, until further instructions he is not to be taken into custody. M. H. 2479._ "_(Signed)_ "(John Recklow.)" The long despatch from John Recklow made Cleves's duty plain enough. For months, now, Selden and Benton had been watching Tressa Norne. And they had learned practically nothing about her. And now the girl had come within Cleves's sphere of operation. She had been in New York for two weeks. Telegrams from Benton in Chicago, and from Selden in Buffalo, had prepared him for her arrival. He had his men watching her boarding-house on West Twenty-eighth Street, men to follow her, men to keep their eyes on her at the theatre, where every evening, at 10:45, her _entr' acte_ was staged. He knew where to get her. But he, himself, had been on the watch for the man Sanang; and had failed to find the slightest trace of him in New York, although warned that he had arrived. So, for that evening, he left the hunt for Sanang to others, put on his evening clothes, and dined with fashionable friends at the Patroons' Club, who never for an instant suspected that young Victor Cleves was in the Service of the United States Government. About half-past nine he strolled around to the theatre, desiring to miss as much as possible of the popular show without being too late to see the curious little _entr' acte_ in which this girl, Tressa Norne, appeared alone. He had secured an aisle seat near the stage at an outrageous price; the main show was still thundering and fizzing and glittering as he entered the theatre; so he stood in the rear behind the orchestra until the descending curtain extinguished the outrageous glare and din. Then he went down the aisle, and as he seated himself Tressa Norne stepped from the wings and stood before the lowered curtain facing an expectant but oddly undemonstrative audience. The girl worked rapidly, seriously, and in silence. She seemed a mere child there behind the footlights, not more than sixteen anyway--her winsome eyes and wistful lips unspoiled by the world's wisdom. Yet once or twice the mouth drooped for a second and the winning eyes darkened to a remoter blue--the brooding iris hue of far horizons. She wore the characteristic tabard of stiff golden tissue and the gold pagoda-shaped headpiece of a Yezidee temple girl. Her flat, slipper-shaped foot-gear was of stiff gold, too, and curled upward at the toes. All this accentuated her apparent youth. For in face and throat no firmer contours had as yet modified the soft fullness of immaturity; her limbs were boyish and frail, and her bosom more undecided still, so that the embroidered breadth of gold fell flat and straight from her chest to a few inches above the ankles. She seemed to have no stock of paraphernalia with which to aid the performance; no assistant, no orchestral diversion, nor did she serve herself with any magician's patter. She did her work close to the footlights. Behind her loomed a black curtain; the strip of stage in front was bare even of carpet; the orchestra remained mute. But when she needed anything--a little table, for example--well, it was suddenly there where she required it--a tripod, for instance, evidently fitted to hold the big iridescent bubble of glass in which swarmed little tropical fishes--and which arrived neatly from nowhere. She merely placed her hands before her as though ready to support something weighty which she expected and--suddenly, the huge crystal bubble was visible, resting between her hands. And when she tired of holding it, she set it upon the empty air and let go of it; and instead of crashing to the stage with its finny rainbow swarm of swimmers, out of thin air appeared a tripod to support it. Applause followed, not very enthusiastic, for the sort of audience which sustains the shows of which her performance was merely an _entr' acte_ is an audience responsive only to the obvious. Nobody ever before had seen that sort of magic in America. People scarcely knew whether or not they quite liked it. The lightning of innovation stupefies the dull; ignorance is always suspicious of innovation--always afraid to put itself on record until its mind is made up by somebody else. So in this typical New York audience approbation was cautious, but every fascinated eye remained focused on this young girl who continued to do incredible things, which seemed to resemble "putting something over" on them; a thing which no uneducated American conglomeration ever quite forgives. The girl's silence, too, perplexed them; they were accustomed to gabble, to noise, to jazz, vocal and instrumental, to that incessant metropolitan clamour which fills every second with sound in a city whose only distinction is its din. Stage, press, art, letters, social existence unless noisy mean nothing in Gotham; reticence, leisure, repose are the three lost arts. The megaphone is the city's symbol; its chiefest crime, silence. The girl having finished with the big glass bubble full of tiny fish, picked it up and tossed it aside. For a moment it apparently floated there in space like a soap-bubble. Changing rainbow tints waxed and waned on the surface, growing deeper and more gorgeous until the floating globe glowed scarlet, then suddenly burst into flame and vanished. And only a strange, sweet perfume lingered in the air. But she gave her perplexed audience no time to wonder; she had seated herself on the stage and was already swiftly busy unfolding a white veil with which she presently covered herself, draping it over her like a tent. The veil seemed to be translucent; she was apparently visible seated beneath it. But the veil turned into smoke, rising into the air in a thin white cloud; and there, where she had been seated, was a statue of white stone the image of herself!--in all the frail springtide of early adolescence--a white statue, cold, opaque, exquisite in its sculptured immobility. There came, the next moment, a sound of distant thunder; flashes lighted the blank curtain; and suddenly a vein of lightning and a sharper peal shattered the statue to fragments. There they lay, broken bits of her own sculptured body, glistening in a heap behind the footlights. Then each fragment began to shimmer with a rosy internal light of its own, until the pile of broken marble glowed like living coals under thickening and reddening vapours. And, presently, dimly perceptible, there she was in the flesh again, seated in the fiery centre of the conflagration, stretching her arms luxuriously, yawning, seemingly awakening from refreshing slumber, her eyes unclosing to rest with a sort of confused apology upon her astounded audience. As she rose to her feet nothing except herself remained on the stage--no débris, not a shred of smoke, not a spark. She came down, then, across an inclined plank into the orchestra among the audience. In the aisle seat nearest her sat Victor Cleves. His business was to be there that evening. But she didn't know that, knew nothing about him--had never before set eyes on him. At her gesture of invitation he made a cup of both his hands. Into these she poured a double handful of unset diamonds--or what appeared to be diamonds--pressed her own hands above his for a second--and the diamonds in his palms had become pearls. These were passed around to people in the vicinity, and finally returned to Mr. Cleves, who, at her request, covered the heap of pearls with both his hands, hiding them entirely from view. At her nod he uncovered them. The pearls had become emeralds. Again, while he held them, and without even touching him, she changed them into rubies. Then she turned away from him, apparently forgetting that he still held the gems, and he sat very still, one cupped hand over the other, while she poured silver coins into a woman's gloved hands, turned them into gold coins, then flung each coin into the air, where it changed to a living, fragrant rose and fell among the audience. Presently she seemed to remember Cleve, came back down the aisle, and under his close and intent gaze drew from his cupped hands, one by one, a score of brilliant little living birds, which continually flew about her and finally perched, twittering, on her golden headdress--a rainbow-crest of living jewels. As she drew the last warm, breathing little feathered miracle from Cleves's hands and released it, he said rapidly under his breath: "I want a word with you later. Where?" She let her clear eyes rest on him for a moment, then with a shrug so slight that it was perceptible, perhaps, only to him, she moved on along the inclined way, stepped daintily over the footlights, caught fire, apparently, nodded to a badly rattled audience, and sauntered off, burning from head to foot. What applause there was became merged in a dissonant instrumental outburst from the orchestra; the great god Jazz resumed direction, the mindless audience breathed freely again as the curtain rose upon a familiar, yelling turbulence, including all that Gotham really understands and cares for--legs and noise. Victor Cleves glanced up at the stage, then continued to study the name of the girl on the programme. It was featured in rather pathetic solitude under "_Entr' acte_." And he read further: "During the _entr' acte_ Miss Tressa Norne will entertain you with several phases of Black Magic. This strange knowledge was acquired by Miss Norne from the Yezidees, among which almost unknown people still remain descendants of that notorious and formidable historic personage known in the twelfth century as The Old Man of the Mountain--or The Old Man of Mount Alamout. "The pleasant profession of this historic individual was assassination; and some historians now believe that genuine occult power played a part in his dreadful record--a record which terminated only when the infantry of Genghis Khan took Mount Alamout by storm and hanged the Old Man of the Mountain and burned his body under a boulder of You-Stone. "For Miss Norne's performance there appears to be no plausible, practical or scientific explanation. "During her performance the curtain will remain lowered for fifteen minutes and will then rise on the last act of 'You Betcha Life.'" The noisy show continued while Cleves, paying it scant attention, brooded over the programme. And ever his keen, grey eyes reverted to her name, Tressa Norne. Then, for a little while, he settled back and let his absent gaze wander over the galloping battalions of painted girls and the slapstick principals whose perpetual motion evoked screams of approbation from the audience amid the din of the great god Jazz. He had an aisle seat; he disturbed nobody when he went out and around to the stage door. The aged man on duty took his card, called a boy and sent it off. The boy returned with the card, saying that Miss Norne had already dressed and departed. Cleves tipped him and then tipped the doorman heavily. "Where does she live?" he asked. "Say," said the old man, "I dunno, and that's straight. But them ladies mostly goes up to the roof for a look in at the 'Moonlight Masque' and a dance afterward. Was you ever up there?" "Yes." "Seen the new show?" "No." "Well, g'wan up while you can get a table. And I bet the little girl will be somewheres around." "The little girl" _was_ "somewheres around." He secured a table, turned and looked about at the vast cabaret into which only a few people had yet filtered, and saw her at a distance in the carpeted corridor buying violets from one of the flower-girls. A waiter placed a reserve card on his table; he continued on around the outer edge of the auditorium. Miss Norne had already seated herself at a small table in the rear, and a waiter was serving her with iced orange juice and little French cakes. When the waiter returned Cleves went up and took off his hat. "May I talk with you for a moment, Miss Norne?" he said. The girl looked up, the wheat-straw still between her scarlet lips. Then, apparently recognising in him the young man in the audience who had spoken to her, she resumed her business of imbibing orange juice. The girl seemed even frailer and younger in her hat and street gown. A silver-fox stole hung from her shoulders; a gold bag lay on the table under the bunch of violets. She paid no attention whatever to him. Presently her wheat-straw buckled, and she selected a better one. He said: "There's something rather serious I'd like to speak to you about if you'll let me. I'm not the sort you evidently suppose. I'm not trying to annoy you." At that she looked around and upward once more. Very, very young, but already spoiled, he thought, for the dark-blue eyes were coolly appraising him, and the droop of the mouth had become almost sullen. Besides, traces of paint still remained to incarnadine lip and cheek and there was a hint of hardness in the youthful plumpness of the features. "Are you a professional?" she asked without curiosity. "A theatrical man? No." "Then if you haven't anything to offer me, what is it you wish?" "I have a job to offer if you care for it and if you are up to it," he said. Her eyes became slightly hostile: "What kind of job do you mean?" "I want to learn something about you first. Will you come over to my table and talk it over?" "No." "What sort do you suppose me to be?" he inquired, amused. "The usual sort, I suppose." "You mean a Johnny?" "Yes--of sorts." She let her insolent eyes sweep him once more, from head to foot. He was a well-built young man and in his evening dress he had that something about him which placed him very definitely where he really belonged. "Would you mind looking at my card?" he asked. He drew it out and laid it beside her, and without stirring she scanned it sideways. "That's my name and address," he continued. "I'm not contemplating mischief. I've enough excitement in life without seeking adventure. Besides, I'm not the sort who goes about annoying women." She glanced up at him again: "You are annoying me!" "I'm sorry. I was quite honest. Good-night." He took his _congé_ with unhurried amiability; had already turned away when she said: "Please ... what do you desire to say to me?" He came back to her table: "I couldn't tell you until I know a little more about you." "What--do you wish to know?" "Several things. I could scarcely ask you--go over such matters with you--standing here." There was a pause; the girl juggled with the straw on the table for a few moments, then, partly turning, she summoned a waiter, paid him, adjusted her stole, picked up her gold bag and her violets and stood up. Then she turned to Cleves and gave him a direct look, which had in it the impersonal and searching gaze of a child. When they were seated at the table reserved for him the place already was filling rapidly--backwash from the theatres slopped through every aisle--people not yet surfeited with noise, not yet sufficiently sodden by their worship of the great god Jazz. "Jazz," said Cleves, glancing across his dinner-card at Tressa Norne--"what's the meaning of the word? Do you happen to know?" "Doesn't it come from the French '_jaser_'?" He smiled. "Possibly. I'm rather hungry. Are you?" "Yes." "Will you indicate your preferences?" She studied her card, and presently he gave the order. "I'd like some champagne," she said, "unless you think it's too expensive." He smiled at that, too, and gave the order. "I didn't suggest any wine because you seem so young," he said. "How old do I seem?" "Sixteen perhaps." "I am twenty-one." "Then you've had no troubles." "I don't know what you call trouble," she remarked, indifferently, watching the arriving throngs. The orchestra, too, had taken its place. "Well," she said, "now that you've picked me up, what do you really want of me?" There was no mitigating smile to soften what she said. She dropped her elbows on the table, rested her chin between her palms and looked at him with the same searching, undisturbed expression that is so disconcerting in children. As he made no reply: "May I have a cocktail?" she inquired. He gave the order. And his mind registered pessimism. "There is nothing doing with this girl," he thought. "She's already on the toboggan." But he said aloud: "That was beautiful work you did down in the theatre, Miss Norne." "Did you think so?" "Of course. It was astounding work." "Thank you. But managers and audiences differ with you." "Then they are very stupid," he said. "Possibly. But that does not help me pay my board." "Do you mean you have trouble in securing theatrical engagements?" "Yes, I am through here to-night, and there's nothing else in view, so far." "That's incredible!" he exclaimed. She lifted her glass, slowly drained it. For a few moments she caressed the stem of the empty glass, her gaze remote. "Yes, it's that way," she said. "From the beginning I felt that my audiences were not in sympathy with me. Sometimes it even amounts to hostility. Americans do not like what I do, even if it holds their attention. I don't quite understand why they don't like it, but I'm always conscious they don't. And of course that settles it--to-night has settled the whole thing, once and for all." "What are you going to do?" "What others do, I presume." "What do others do?" he inquired, watching the lovely sullen eyes. "Oh, they do what I'm doing now, don't they?--let some man pick them up and feed them." She lifted her indifferent eyes. "I'm not criticising you. I meant to do it some day--when I had courage. That's why I just asked you if I might have some champagne--finding myself a little scared at my first step.... But you _did_ say you might have a job for me. Didn't you?" "Suppose I haven't. What are you going to do?" The curtain was rising. She nodded toward the bespangled chorus. "Probably that sort of thing. They've asked me." Supper was served. They both were hungry and thirsty; the music made conversation difficult, so they supped in silence and watched the imbecile show conceived by vulgarians, produced by vulgarians and served up to mental degenerates of the same species--the average metropolitan audience. For ten minutes a pair of comedians fell up and down a flight of steps, and the audience shrieked approval. "Miss Norne?" The girl who had been watching the show turned in her chair and looked back at him. "Your magic is by far the most wonderful I have ever seen or heard of. Even in India such things are not done." "No, not in India," she said, indifferently. "Where then?" "In China." "You learned to do such things there?" "Yes." "Where, in China, did you learn such amazing magic?" "In Yian." "I never heard of it. Is it a province?" "A city." "And you lived there?" "Fourteen years." "When?" "From 1904 to 1918." "During the great war," he remarked, "you were in China?" "Yes." "Then you arrived here very recently." "In November, from the Coast." "I see. You played the theatres from the Coast eastward." "And went to pieces in New York," she added calmly, finishing her glass of champagne. "Have you any family?" he asked. "No." "Do you care to say anything further?" he inquired, pleasantly. "About my family? Yes, if you wish. My father was in the spice trade in Yian. The Yezidees took Yian in 1910, threw him into a well in his own compound and filled it up with dead imperial troops. I was thirteen years old.... The Hassani did that. They held Yian nearly eight years, and I lived with my mother, in a garden pagoda, until 1914. In January of that year Germans got through from Kiaou-Chou. They had been six months on the way. I think they were Hassanis. Anyway, they persuaded the Hassanis to massacre every English-speaking prisoner. And so--my mother died in the garden pagoda of Yian.... I was not told for four years." "Why did they spare you?" he asked, astonished at her story so quietly told, so utterly destitute of emotion. "I was seventeen. A certain person had placed me among the temple girls in the temple of Erlik. It pleased this person to make of me a Mongol temple girl as a mockery at Christ. They gave me the name Keuke Mongol. I asked to serve the shrine of Kwann-an--she being like to our Madonna. But this person gave me the choice between the halberds of the Tchortchas and the sorcery of Erlik." She lifted her sombre eyes. "So I learned how to do the things you saw. But--what I did there on the stage is not--respectable." An odd shiver passed over him. For a second he took her literally, suddenly convinced that her magic was not white but black as the demon at whose shrine she had learned it. Then he smiled and asked her pleasantly, whether indeed she employed hypnosis in her miraculous exhibitions. But her eyes became more sombre still, and, "I don't care to talk about it," she said. "I have already said too much." "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry into professional secrets----" "I can't talk about it," she repeated. "... Please--my glass is quite empty." When he had refilled it: "How did you get away from Yian?" he asked. "The Japanese." "What luck!" "Yes. One battle was fought at Buldak. The Hassanis and Blue Flags were terribly cut up. Then, outside the walls of Yian, Prince Sanang's Tchortcha infantry made a stand. He was there with his Yezidee horsemen, all in leather and silk armour with casques and corselets of black Indian steel. "I could see them from the temple--saw the Japanese gunners open fire. The Tchortchas were blown to shreds in the blast of the Japanese guns.... Sanang got away with some of his Yezidee horsemen." "Where was that battle?" "I told you, outside the walls of Yian." "The newspapers never mentioned any such trouble in China," he said, suspiciously. "Nobody knows about it except the Germans and the Japanese." "Who is this Sanang?" he demanded. "A Yezidee-Mongol. He is one of the Sheiks-el-Djebel--a servant of The Old Man of Mount Alamout." "What is _he_?" "A sorcerer--assassin." "What!" exclaimed Cleves incredulously. "Why, yes," she said, calmly. "Have you never heard of The Old Man of Mount Alamout?" "Well, yes----" "The succession has been unbroken since 1090 B.C.A Hassan Sabbah is still the present Old Man of the Mountain. His Yezidees worship Erlik. They are sorcerers. But you would not believe that." Cleves said with a smile, "Who is Erlik?" "The Mongols' Satan." "Oh! So these Yezidees are devil-worshipers!" "They are more. They _are_ actually devils." "You don't really believe that even in unexplored China there exists such a creature as a real sorcerer, do you?" he inquired, smilingly. "I don't wish to talk of it." To his surprise her face had flushed, and he thought her sensitive mouth quivered a little. He watched her in silence for a moment; then, leaning a little way across the table: "Where are you going when the show here closes?" "To my boarding-house." "And then?" "To bed," she said, sullenly. "And to-morrow what do you mean to do?" "Go out to the agencies and ask for work." "And if there is none?" "The chorus," she said, indifferently. "What salary have you been getting?" She told him. "Will you take three times that amount and work with me?" CHAPTER IV BODY AND SOUL The girl's direct gaze met his with that merciless searching intentness he already knew. "What do you wish me to do?" "Enter the service of the United States." "Wh-what?" "Work for the Government." She was too taken aback to answer. "Where were you born?" he demanded abruptly. "In Albany, New York," she replied in a dazed way. "You are loyal to your country?" "Yes--certainly." "You would not betray her?" "No." "I don't mean for money; I mean from fear." After a moment, and, avoiding his gaze: "I am afraid of death," she said very simply. He waited. "I--I don't know what I might do--being afraid," she added in a troubled voice. "I desire to--live." He still waited. She lifted her eyes: "I'd try not to betray my country," she murmured. "Try to face death for your country's honour?" "Yes." "And for your own?" "Yes; and for my own." He leaned nearer: "Yet you're taking a chance on your own honour to-night." She blushed brightly: "I didn't think I was taking a very great chance with you." He said: "You have found life too hard. And when you faced failure in New York you began to let go of life--real life, I mean. And you came up here to-night wondering whether you had courage to let yourself go. When I spoke to you it scared you. You found you hadn't the courage. But perhaps to-morrow you might find it--or next week--if sufficiently scared by hunger--you might venture to take the first step along the path that you say others usually take sooner or later." The girl flushed scarlet, sat looking at him out of eyes grown dark with anger. He said: "You told me an untruth. You _have_ been tempted to betray your country. You have resisted. You _have_ been threatened with death. You _have_ had courage to defy threats and temptations where your country's honour was concerned!" "How do you know?" she demanded. He continued, ignoring the question: "From the time you landed in San Francisco you have been threatened. You tried to earn a living by your magician's tricks, but in city after city, as you came East, your uneasiness grew into fear, and your fear into terror, because every day more terribly confirmed your belief that people were following you determined either to use you to their own purposes or to murder you----" The girl turned quite white and half rose in her chair, then sank back, staring at him out of dilated eyes. Then Cleves smiled: "So you've got the nerve to do Government work," he said, "and you've got the intelligence, and the knowledge, and something else--I don't know exactly what to call it--Skill? Dexterity? Sorcery?" he smiled--"I mean your professional ability. That's what I want--that bewildering dexterity of yours, to help your own country in the fight of its life. Will you enlist for service?" "W-what fight?" she asked faintly. "The fight with the Red Spectre." "Anarchy?" "Yes.... Are you ready to leave this place? I want to talk to you." "Where?" "In my own rooms." After a moment she rose. "I'll go to your rooms with you," she said. She added very calmly that she was glad it was to be his rooms and not some other man's. Out of countenance, he demanded what she meant, and she said quite candidly that she'd made up her mind to live at any cost, and that if she couldn't make an honest living she'd make a living anyway. He offered no reply to this until they had reached the street and he had called a taxi. On their way to his apartment he re-opened the subject rather bluntly, remarking that life was not worth living at the price she had mentioned. "That is the accepted Christian theory," she replied coolly, "but circumstances alter things." "Not such things." "Oh, yes, they do. If one is already damned, what difference does anything else make?" He asked, sarcastically, whether she considered herself already damned. She did not reply for a few moments, then she said, in a quick, breathless way, that souls have been entrapped through ignorance of evil. And asked him if he did not believe it. "No," he said, "I don't." She shook her head. "You couldn't understand," she said. "But I've made up my mind to one thing; even if my soul has perished, my body shall not die for a long, long time. I mean to live," she added. "I shall not let my body be slain! They shall not steal life from me, whatever they have done to my soul----" "What in heaven's name are you talking about?" he exclaimed. "Do you actually believe in soul-snatchers and life-stealers?" She seemed sullen, her profile turned to him, her eyes on the brilliantly lighted avenue up which they were speeding. After a while: "I'd rather live decently and respectably if I can," she said. "That is the natural desire of any girl, I suppose. But if I can't, nevertheless I shall beat off death at any cost. And whatever the price of life is, I shall pay it. Because I am absolutely determined to go on living. And if I can't provide the means I'll have to let some man do it, I suppose." "It's a good thing it was I who found you when you were out of a job," he remarked coldly. "I hope so," she said. "Even in the beginning I didn't really believe you meant to be impertinent"--a tragic smile touched her lips--"and I was almost sorry----" "Are you quite crazy?" he demanded. "No, my mind is untouched. It's my soul that's gone.... Do you know I was very hungry when you spoke to me? The management wouldn't advance anything, and my last money went for my room.... Last Monday I had three dollars to face the future--and no job. I spent the last of it to-night on violets, orange juice and cakes. My furs and my gold bag remain. I can go two months more on them. Then it's a job or----." She shrugged and buried her nose in her violets. "Suppose I advance you a month's salary?" he said. "What am I to do for it?" The taxi stopped at a florist's on the corner of Madison Avenue and 58th Street. Overhead were apartments. There was no elevator--merely the street door to unlock and four dim flights of stairs rising steeply to the top. He lived on the top floor. As they paused before his door in the dim corridor: "Are you afraid?" he asked. She came nearer, laid a hand on his arm: "Are _you_ afraid?" He stood silent, the latch-key in his hand. "I'm not afraid of myself--if that is what you mean," he said. "That is partly what I mean ... you'll have to mount guard over your soul." "I'll look out for my soul," he retorted dryly. "Do so. I lost mine. I--I would not wish any harm to yours through our companionship." "Don't you worry about my soul," he remarked, fitting the key to the lock. But again her hand fell on his wrist: "Wait. I can't--can't help warning you. Neither your soul nor your body are safe if--if you ever do make of me a companion. I've _got_ to tell you this!" "What are you talking about?" he demanded bluntly. "Because you have been courteous--considerate--and you _don't_ know--oh, you don't realise what spiritual peril is!--What your soul and body have to fear if you--if you win me over--if you ever manage to make of me a friend!" He said: "People follow and threaten you. We know that. I understand also that association with you involves me, and that I shall no doubt be menaced with bodily harm." He laid his hand on hers where it still rested on his sleeves: "But that's my business, Miss Norne," he added with a smile. "So, otherwise, it being merely a plain business affair between you and me, I think I may also venture my immortal soul alone with you in my room." The girl flushed darkly. "You have misunderstood," she said. He looked at her coolly, intently; and arrived at no conclusion. Young, very lovely, confessedly without moral principle, he still could not believe her actually depraved. "What did you mean?" he said bluntly. "In companionship with the lost, one might lose one's way--unawares.... Do you know that there is an Evil loose in the world which is bent upon conquest by _obtaining control of men's minds_?" "No," he replied, amused. "And that, through the capture of men's minds and souls the destruction of civilisation is being planned?" "Is that what you learned in your captivity, Miss Norne?" "You do not believe me." "I believe your terrible experiences in China have shaken you to your tragic little soul. Horror and grief and loneliness have left scars on tender, impressionable youth. They would have slain maturity--broken it, crushed it. But youth is flexible, pliable, and bends--gives way under pressure. Scars become slowly effaced. It shall be so with you. You will learn to understand that nothing really can harm the soul." For a few moments' silence they stood facing each other on the dim landing outside his locked door. "Nothing can slay our souls," he repeated in a grave voice. "I do not believe you really ever have done anything to wound even your self-respect. I do not believe you are capable of it, or ever have been, or ever will be. But somebody has deeply wounded you, spiritually, and has wounded your mind to persuade you that your soul is no longer in God's keeping. For that is a lie!" He saw her features working with poignant emotions as though struggling to believe him. "Souls are never lost," he said. "Ungoverned passions of every sort merely cripple them for a space. God always heals them in the end." He laid his hand on the door-knob once more and lifted the latch-key. "Don't!" she whispered, catching his hand again, "if there should be somebody in there waiting for us!" "There is not a soul in my rooms. My servant sleeps out." "There _is_ somebody there!" she said, trembling. "Nobody, Miss Norne. Will you come in with me?" "I don't dare----" "Why?" "You and I alone together--no! oh, please--please! I am afraid!" "Of what?" "Of--giving you--my c-confidence--and trust--and--and f-friendship." "I want you to." "I must not! It would destroy us both, soul and body!" "I tell you," he said, impatiently, "that there is no destruction of the soul--and it's a clean comradeship anyway--a fighting friendship I ask of you--_all_ I ask; all I offer! Wherein, then, lies this peril in being alone together?" "Because I am finding it in my heart to believe in you, trust you, hold fast to your strength and protection. And if I give way--yield--and if I make you a promise--and _if there is anybody in that room to see us and hear us--then_ we shall be destroyed, both of us, soul and body----" He took her hands, held them until their trembling ceased. "I'll answer for our bodies. Let God look after the rest. Will you trust Him?" She nodded. "And me?" "Yes." But her face blanched as he turned the latch-key, switched on the electric light, and preceded her into the room beyond. The place was one of those accentless, typical bachelor apartments made comfortable for anything masculine, but quite unlivable otherwise. Live coals still glowed in the hob grate; he placed a lump of cannel coal on the embers, used a bellows vigorously and the flame caught with a greasy crackle. The girl stood motionless until he pulled up an easy chair for her, then he found another for himself. She let slip her furs, folded her hands around the bunch of violets and waited. "Now," he said, "I'll come to the point. In 1916 I was at Plattsburg, expecting a commission. The Department of Justice sent for me. I went to Washington where I was made to understand that I had been selected to serve my country in what is vaguely known as the Secret Service--and which includes government agents attached to several departments. "The great war is over; but I am still retained in the service. Because something more sinister than a hun victory over civilisation threatens this Republic. And threatens the civilised world." "Anarchy," she said. "Bolshevism." She did not stir in her chair. She had become very white. She said nothing. He looked at her with his quiet, reassuring smile. "That's what I want of you," he repeated. "I want your help," he went on, "I want your valuable knowledge of the Orient. I want whatever secret information you possess. I want your rather amazing gifts, your unprecedented experience among almost unknown people, your familiarity with occult things, your astounding powers--whatever they are--hypnotic, psychic, material. "Because, to-day, civilisation is engaged in a secret battle for existence against gathering powers of violence, the force and limit of which are still unguessed. "It is a battle between righteousness and evil, between sanity and insanity, light and darkness, God and Satan! And if civilisation does not win, then the world perishes." She raised her still eyes to his, but made no other movement. "Miss Norne," he said, "we in the International Service know enough about you to desire to know more. "We already knew the story you have told to me. Agents in the International Secret Service kept in touch with you from the time that the Japanese escorted you out of China. "From the day you landed, and all across the Continent to New York, you have been kept in view by agents of this government. "Here, in New York, my men have kept in touch with you. And now, to-night, the moment has come for a personal understanding between you and me." The girl's pale lips moved--became stiffly articulate: "I--I wish to live," she stammered, "I fear death." "I know it. I know what I ask when I ask your help." She said in the ghost of a voice: "If I turn against _them_--they will kill me." "They'll try," he said quietly. "They will not fail, Mr. Cleves." "That is in God's hands." She became deathly white at that. "No," she burst out in an agonised voice, "it is not in God's hands! If it were, I should not be afraid! It is in the hands of those who stole my soul!" She covered her face with both arms, fairly writhing on her chair. "If the Yezidees have actually made you believe any such nonsense"--he began; but she dropped her arms and stared at him out of terrible blue eyes: "I don't want to die, I tell you! I am afraid!--_afraid_! If I reveal to you what I know they'll kill me. If I turn against them and aid you, they'll slay my body, and send it after my soul!" She was trembling so violently that he sprang up and went to her. After a moment he passed one arm around her shoulders and held her firmly, close to him. "Come," he said, "do your duty. Those who enlist under the banner of Christ have nothing to dread in this world or the next." "If--if I could believe I were safe there." "I tell you that you are. So is every human soul! What mad nonsense have the Yezidees made you believe? Is there any surer salvation for the soul than to die in Christ's service?" He slipped his arm from her quivering shoulders and grasped both her hands, crushing them as though to steady every fibre in her tortured body. "I want you to live. I want to live, too. But I tell you it's in God's hands, and we soldiers of civilisation have nothing to fear except failure to do our duty. Now, then, are we comrades under the United States Government?" "O God--I--dare not!" "_Are_ we?" Perhaps she felt the physical pain of his crushing grip for she turned and looked him in the eyes. "I don't want to die," she whispered. "Don't make me!" "Will you help your country?" The terrible directness of her child's gaze became almost unendurable to him. "Will you offer your country your soul and body?" he insisted in a low, tense voice. Her stiff lips formed a word. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "Yes." For a moment she rested against his shoulder, deathly white, then in a flash she had straightened, was on her feet in one bound and so swiftly that he scarcely followed her movement--was unaware that she had risen until he saw her standing there with a pistol glittering in her hand, her eyes fixed on the portières that hung across the corridor leading to his bedroom. "What on earth," he began, but she interrupted him, keeping her gaze focused on the curtains, and the pistol resting level on her hip. "I'll answer you if I die for it!" she cried. "I'll tell you everything I know! You wish to learn what is this monstrous evil that threatens the world with destruction--what you call anarchy and Bolshevism? It is an Evil that was born before Christ came! It is an Evil which not only destroys cities and empires and men but which is more terrible still for it obtains control of the human mind, and uses it at will; and it obtains sovereignty over the soul, and makes it prisoner. Its aim is to dominate first, then to destroy. It was conceived in the beginning by Erlik and by Sorcerers and devils.... Always, from the first, there have been sorcerers and living devils. "And when human history began to be remembered and chronicled, devils were living who worshiped Erlik and practised sorcery. "They have been called by many names. A thousand years before Christ Hassan Sabbah founded his sect called Hassanis or Assassins. The Yezidees are of them. Their Chief is still called Sabbah; their creed is the annihilation of civilisation!" Cleves had risen. The girl spoke in a clear, accentless monotone, not looking at him, her eyes and pistol centred on the motionless curtains. "Look out!" she cried sharply. "What is the matter?" he demanded. "Do you suppose anybody is hidden behind that curtain in the passageway?" "If there is," she replied in her excited but distinct voice, "here is a tale to entertain him: "The Hassanis are a sect of assassins which has spread out of Asia all over the world, and they are determined upon the annihilation of everything and everybody in it except themselves! "In Germany is a branch of the sect. The hun is the lineal descendant of the ancient Yezidee; the gods of the hun are the old demons under other names; the desire and object of the hun is the same desire--to rule the minds and bodies and souls of men and use them to their own purposes!" She lifted her pistol a little, came a pace forward: "Anarchist, Yezidee, Hassani, Boche, Bolshevik--all are the same--all are secretly swarming in the hidden places for the same purpose!" The girl's blue eyes were aflame, now, and the pistol was lifting slowly in her hand to a deadly level. "Sanang!" she cried in a terrible voice. "Sanang!" she cried again in her terrifying young voice--"Toad! Tortoise egg! Spittle of Erlik! May the Thirty Thousand Calamities overtake you! Sheik-el-Djebel!--cowardly Khan whom I laughed at from the temple when it rained yellow snakes on the marble steps when all the gongs in Yian sounded in your frightened ears!" She waited. "What! You won't step out? _Tokhta!_" she exclaimed in a ringing tone, and made a swift motion with her left hand. Apparently out of her empty open palm, like a missile hurled, a thin, blinding beam of light struck the curtains, making them suddenly transparent. _A man stood there._ He came out, moving very slowly as though partly stupefied. He wore evening dress under his overcoat, and had a long knife in his right hand. Nobody spoke. "So--I really was to die then, if I came here," said the girl in a wondering way. Sanang's stealthy gaze rested on her, stole toward Cleves. He moistened his lips with his tongue. "You deliver me to this government agent?" he asked hoarsely. "I deliver nobody by treachery. You may go, Sanang." He hesitated, a graceful, faultless, metropolitan figure in top-hat and evening attire. Then, as he started to move, Cleves covered him with his weapon. "I can't let that man go free!" cried Cleves angrily. "Very well!" she retorted in a passionate voice--"then take him if you are able! _Tokhta!_ Look out for yourself!" Something swift as lightning struck the pistol from his grasp,--blinded him, half stunned him, set him reeling in a drenching blaze of light that blotted out all else. He heard the door slam; he stumbled, caught at the back of a chair while his senses and sight were clearing. "By heavens!" he whispered with ashen lips, "you--you _are_ a sorceress--or something. What--what, are you doing to me?" There was no answer. And when his vision cleared a little more he saw her crouched on the floor, her head against the locked door, listening, perhaps--or sobbing--he scarcely understood which until the quiver of her shoulders made it plainer. When at last Cleves went to her and bent over and touched her she looked up at him out of wet eyes, and her grief-drawn mouth quivered. "I--I don't know," she sobbed, "if he truly stole away my soul--there--there in the temple dusk of Yian. But he--he stole my heart--for all his wickedness--Sanang, Prince of the Yezidees--and I have been fighting him for it all these years--all these long years--fighting for what he stole in the temple dusk!... And now--now I have it back--my heart--all broken to pieces--here on the floor behind your--your bolted door." CHAPTER V THE ASSASSINS On the wall hung a map of Mongolia, that indefinite region a million and a half square miles in area, vast sections of which have never been explored. Turkestan and China border it on the south, and Tibet almost touches it, not quite. Even in the twelfth century, when the wild Mongols broke loose and nearly overran the world, the Tibet infantry under Genghis, the Tchortcha horsemen drafted out of Black China, and a great cloud of Mongol cavalry under the Prince of the Vanguard commanding half a hundred Hezars, never penetrated that grisly and unknown waste. The "Eight Towers of the Assassins" guarded it--still guard it, possibly. The vice-regent of Erlik, Prince of Darkness, dwelt within this unknown land. And dwells there still, perhaps. In front of this wall-map stood Tressa Norne. Behind her, facing the map, four men were seated--three of them under thirty. These three were volunteers in the service of the United States Government--men of independent means, of position, who had volunteered for military duty at the outbreak of the great war. However, they had been assigned by the Government to a very different sort of duty no less exciting than service on the fighting line, but far less conspicuous, for they had been drafted into the United States Department of Justice. The names of these three were Victor Cleves, a professor of ornithology at Harvard University before the war; Alexander Selden, junior partner in the banking firm of Milwyn, Selden, and Co., and James Benton, a New York architect. The fourth man's name was John Recklow. He might have been over fifty, or under. He was well-built, in a square, athletic way, clear-skinned and ruddy, grey-eyed, quiet in voice and manner. His hair and moustache had turned silvery. He had been employed by the Government for many years. He seemed to be enormously interested in what Miss Norne was saying. Also he was the only man who interrupted her narrative to ask questions. And his questions revealed a knowledge which was making the girl more sensitive and uneasy every moment. Finally, when she spoke of the Scarlet Desert, he asked if the Scarlet Lake were there and if the Xin was still supposed to inhabit its vermilion depths. And at that she turned and looked at him, her forefinger still resting on the map. "Where have you ever heard of the Scarlet Lake and the Xin?" she asked as though frightened. Recklow said quietly that as a boy he had served under Gordon and Sir Robert. "If, as a boy, you served under Chinese Gordon, you already know much of what I have told you, Mr. Recklow. Is it not true?" she demanded nervously. "That makes no difference," he replied with a smile. "It is all very new to these three young gentlemen. And as for myself, I am checking up what you say and comparing it with what I heard many, many years ago when my comrade Barres and I were in Yian." "Did you really know Sir Robert Hart?" "Yes." "Then why do you not explain to these gentlemen?" "Dear child," he interrupted gently, "what did Chinese Gordon or Sir Robert Hart, or even my comrade Barres, or I myself know about occult Asia in comparison to what you know?--a girl who has actually served the mysteries of Erlik for four amazing years!" She paled a trifle, came slowly across the room to where Recklow was seated, laid a timid hand on his sleeve. "Do you believe there are sorcerers in Asia?" she asked with that child-like directness which her wonderful blue eyes corroborated. Recklow remained silent. "Because," she went on, "if, in your heart, you do not believe this to be an accursed fact, then what I have to say will mean nothing to any of you." Recklow touched his short, silvery moustache, hesitating. Then: "The worship of Erlik is devil worship," he said. "Also I am entirely prepared to believe that there are, among the Yezidees, adepts who employ scientific weapons against civilisation--who have probably obtained a rather terrifying knowledge of psychic laws which they use scientifically, and which to ordinary, God-fearing folk appear to be the black magic of sorcerers." Cleves said: "The employment by the huns of poison gases and long-range cannon is a parallel case. Before the war we could not believe in the possibility of a cannon that threw shells a distance of seventy miles." The girl still addressed herself to Recklow: "Then you do not believe there are real sorcerers in Asia, Mr. Recklow?" "Not sorcerers with supernatural powers for evil. Only degenerate human beings who, somehow, have managed to tap invisible psychic currents, and have learned how to use terrific forces about which, so far, we know practically nothing." She spoke again in the same uneasy voice: "Then you do not believe that either God or Satan is involved?" "No," he replied smilingly, "and you must not so believe." "Nor the--the destruction of human souls," she persisted; "you do not believe it is being accomplished to-day?" "Not in the slightest, dear young lady," he said cheerfully. "Do you not believe that to have been instructed in such unlawful knowledge is damning? Do you not believe that ability to employ unknown forces is forbidden of God, and that to disobey His law means death to the soul?" "No!" "That it is the price one pays to Satan for occult power over people's minds?" she insisted. "Hypnotic suggestion is not one of the cardinal sins," explained Recklow, still smiling--"unless wickedly employed. The Yezidee priesthood is a band of so-called sorcerers only because of their wicked employment of whatever hypnotic and psychic knowledge they may have obtained. "There was nothing intrinsically wicked in the huns' discovery of phosgene. But the use they made of it made devils out of them. My ability to manufacture phosgene gas is no crime. But if I manufacture it and use it to poison innocent human beings, then, in that sense, I am, perhaps, a sort of modern sorcerer." Tressa Norne turned paler: "I had better tell you that I _have_ used--forbidden knowledge--which the Yezidees taught me in the temple of Erlik." "Used it how?" demanded Cleves. "To--to earn a living.... And once or twice to defend myself." There was the slightest scepticism in Recklow's bland smile. "You did quite right, Miss Norne." She had become very white now. She stood beside Recklow, her back toward the suspended map, and looked in a scared sort of way from one to the other of the men seated before her, turning finally to Cleves, and coming toward him. "I--I once killed a man," she said with a catch in her breath. Cleves reddened with astonishment. "Why did you do that?" he asked. "He was already on his way to kill me in bed." "You were perfectly right," remarked Recklow coolly. "I don't know ... I was in bed.... And then, on the edge of sleep, I felt his mind groping to get hold of mine--feeling about in the darkness to get hold of my brain and seize it and paralyse it." All colour had left her face. Cleves gripped the arm of his chair and watched her intently. "I--I had only a moment's mental freedom," she went on in a ghost of a voice. "I was just able to rouse myself, fight off those murderous brain-fingers--let loose a clear mental ray.... And then, O God! I saw him in his room with his Kalmuck knife--saw him already on his way to murder me--Gutchlug Khan, the Yezidee--looking about in his bedroom for a shroud.... And when--when he reached for the bed to draw forth a fine, white sheet for the shroud without which no Yezidee dares journey deathward--then--_then_ I became frightened.... And I killed him--I slew him there in his hotel bedroom on the floor above mine!" Selden moistened his lips: "That Oriental, Gutchlug, died from heart-failure in a San Francisco hotel," he said. "I was there at the time." "He died by the fangs of a little yellow snake," whispered the girl. "There was no snake in his room," retorted Cleves. "And no wound on his body," added Selden. "I attended the autopsy." She said, faintly: "There was no snake, and no wound, as you say.... Yet Gutchlug died of both there in his bedroom.... And before he died he heard his soul bidding him farewell; and he saw the death-adder coiled in the sheet he clutched--saw the thing strike him again and again--saw and felt the tiny wounds on his left hand; felt the fangs pricking deep, deep into the veins; died of it there within the minute--died of the swiftest poison known. And yet----" She turned her dead-white face to Cleves--"And yet _there was no snake there_!... And never had been.... And so I--I ask you, gentlemen, if souls do not die when minds learn to fight death with death--and deal it so swiftly, so silently, while one's body lies, unstirring on a bed--in a locked room on the floor below----" She swayed a little, put out one hand rather blindly. Recklow rose and passed a muscular arm around her; Cleves, beside her, held her left hand, crushing it, without intention, until she opened her eyes with a cry of pain. "Are you all right?" asked Recklow bluntly. "Yes." She turned and looked at Cleves and he caressed her bruised hand as though dazed. "Tell me," she said to Cleves--"you who know--know more about my mind than anybody living----" a painful colour surged into her face--but she went on steadily, forcing herself to meet his gaze: "tell me, Mr. Cleves--do you still believe that nothing can really destroy my soul? And that it shall yet win through to safety?" He said: "Your soul is in God's keeping, and always shall be.... And if the Yezidees have made you believe otherwise, they lie." Recklow added in a slow, perplexed way: "I have no personal knowledge of psychic power. I am not psychic, not susceptible. But if you actually possess such ability, Miss Norne, and if you have employed such knowledge to defend your life, then you have done absolutely right." "No guilt touches you," added Selden with an involuntary shiver, "if by hypnosis or psychic ability you really did put an end to that would-be murderer, Gutchlug." Selden said: "If Gutchlug died by the fangs of a yellow death-adder which existed only in his own mind, and if you actually had anything to do with it you acted purely in self-defence." "You did your full duty," added Benton--"but--good God!--it seems incredible to me, that such power can actually be available in the world!" Recklow spoke again in his pleasant, undisturbed voice: "Go back to the map, Miss Norne, and tell us a little more about this rather terrifying thing which you believe menaces the civilised world with destruction." Tressa Norne laid a slim finger on the map. Her voice had become steady. She said: "The devil-worship, of which one of the modern developments is Bolshevism, and another the terrorism of the hun, began in Asia long before Christ's advent: At least so it was taught us in the temple of Erlik. "It has always existed, its aim always has been the annihilation of good and the elevation of evil; the subjection of right by might, and the worldwide triumph of wrong. "Perhaps it is as old as the first battle between God and Satan. I have wondered about it, sometimes. There in the dusk of the temple when the Eight Assassins came--the eight Sheiks-el-Djebel, all in white--chanting the Yakase of Sabbah--always that dirge when they came and spread their eight white shrouds on the temple steps----" Her voice caught; she waited to recover her composure. Then went on: "The ambition of Genghis was to conquer the world by force of arms. It was merely of physical subjection that he dreamed. But the Slayer of Souls----" "Who?" asked Recklow sharply. "The Slayer of Souls--Erlik's vice-regent on earth--Hassan Sabbah. The Old Man of the Mountain. It is of him I am speaking," exclaimed Tressa Norne--with quiet resolution. "Genghis sought only physical conquest of man; the Yezidee's ambition is more awful, _for he is attempting to surprise and seize the very minds of men_!" There was a dead silence. Tressa looked palely upon the four. "The Yezidees--who you tell me are not sorcerers--are using power--which you tell me is not magic accursed by God--to waylay, capture, enslave, and destroy _the minds and souls of mankind_. "It may be that what they employ is hypnotic ability and psychic power and can be, some day, explained on a scientific basis when we learn more about the occult laws which govern these phenomena. "But could anything render the threat less awful? For there have existed for centuries--perhaps always--a sect of Satanists determined upon the destruction of everything that is pure and holy and good on earth; and they are resolved to substitute for righteousness the dreadful reign of hell. "In the beginning there were comparatively few of these human demons. Gradually, through the eras, they have increased. In the twelfth century there were fifty thousand of the Sect of Assassins. "Beside the castle of the Slayer of Souls on Mount Alamout----" she laid her finger on the map--"eight other towers were erected for the Eight Chief Assassins, called Sheiks-el-Djebel. "In the temple we were taught where these eight towers stood." She picked up a pencil, and on eight blank spaces of unexplored and unmapped Mongolia she made eight crosses. Then she turned to the men behind her. "It was taught to us in the temple that from these eight _foci_ of infection the disease of evil has been spreading throughout the world; from these eight towers have gone forth every year the emissaries of evil--perverted missionaries--to spread the poisonous propaganda, to teach it, to tamper stealthily with the minds of men, dominate them, pervert them, instruct them in the creed of the Assassin of Souls. "All over the world are people, already contaminated, whose minds are already enslaved and poisoned, and who are infecting the still healthy brains of others--stealthily possessing themselves of the minds of mankind--teaching them evil, inviting them to mock the precepts of Christ. "Of such lost minds are the degraded brains of the Germans--the pastors and philosophers who teach that might is right. "Of such crippled minds are the Bolsheviki, poisoned long, long ago by close contact with Asia which, before that, had infected and enslaved the minds of the ruling classes with ferocious philosophy. "Of such minds are all anarchists of every shade and stripe--all terrorists, all disciples of violence,--the murderously envious, the slothful slinking brotherhood which prowls through the world taking every opportunity to set it afire; those mentally dulled by reason of excesses; those weak intellects become unsound through futile gabble,--parlour socialists, amateur revolutionists, theoretical incapables excited by discussion fit only for healthy minds." She left the map and came over to where the four men were seated terribly intent upon her every word. "In the temple of Erlik, where my girlhood was passed after the murder of my parents, I learned what I am repeating to you," she said. "I learned this, also, that the Eight Towers still exist--still stand to-day,--at least theoretically--and that from the Eight Towers pours forth across the world a stream of poison. "I was told that, to every country, eight Yezidees were allotted--eight sorcerers--or adepts in scientific psychology if you prefer it--whose mission is to teach the gospel of hell and gradually but surely to win the minds of men to the service of the Slayer of Souls. "That is what was taught us in the temple. We were educated in the development of occult powers--for it seems all human beings possess this psychic power latent within them--only few, even when instructed, acquire any ability to control and use this force.... "I--I learned--rapidly. I even thought, sometimes, that the Yezidees were beginning to be a little afraid of me,--even the Hassani priests.... And the Sheiks-el-Djebel, spreading their shrouds on the temple steps, looked at me with unquiet eyes, where I stood like a corpse amid the incense clouds----" She passed her fingers over her eyelids, then framed her face between both hands for a moment's thought lost in tragic retrospection. "Kai!" she whispered dreamily as though to herself--"what Erlik awoke within my body that was asleep, God knows, but it was as though a twin comrade arose within me and looked out through my eyes upon a world which never before had been visible." Utter silence reigned in the room: Cleves's breathing seemed almost painful to him so intently was he listening and watching this girl; Benton's hands whitened with his grip on the chair-arms; Selden, tense, absorbed, kept his keen gaze of a business man fastened on her face. Recklow slowly caressed the cold bowl of his pipe with both thumbs. Tressa Norne's strange and remote eyes subtly altered, and she lifted her head and looked calmly at the men before her. "I think that there is nothing more for me to add," she said. "The Red Spectre of Anarchy, called Bolshevism at present, threatens our country. Our Government is now awake to this menace and the Secret Service is moving everywhere. "Great damage already has been done to the minds of many people in this Republic; poison has spread; is spreading. The Eight Towers still stand. The Eight Assassins are in America. "But these eight Assassins know me to be their enemy.... They will surely attempt to kill me.... I don't believe I can avoid--death--very long.... But I want to serve my country and--and mankind." "They'll have to get me first," said Cleves, bluntly. "I shall not permit you out of my sight." Recklow said in a musing voice: "And these eight gentlemen, who are very likely to hurt us, also, are the first people we ought to hunt." "To get them," added Selden, "we ought to choke the stream at its source." "To find out who they are is what is going to worry us," added Benton. Cleves had stood holding a chair for Tressa Norne. Finally she noticed it and seated herself as though tired. "Is Sanang one of these eight?" he asked her. The girl turned and looked up at him, and he saw the flush mounting in her face. "Sometimes," she said steadily, "I have almost believed he was Erlik's own vice-regent on earth--the Slayer of Souls himself." * * * * * Benton and Selden had gone. Recklow left a little later. Cleves accompanied him out to the landing. "Are you going to keep Miss Norne here with you for the present?" inquired the older man. "Yes. I dare not let her out of my sight, Recklow. What else can I do?" "I don't know. Is she prepared for the consequences?" "Gossip? Slander?" "Of course." "I can get a housekeeper." "That only makes it look worse." Cleves reddened. "Well, do you want to find her in some hotel or apartment with her throat cut?" "No," replied Recklow, gently, "I do not." "Then what else is there to do but keep her here in my own apartment and never let her out of my sight until we can find and lock up the eight gentlemen who are undoubtedly bent on murdering her?" "Isn't there some woman in the Service who could help out? I could mention several." "I tell you I can't trust Tressa Norne to anybody except myself," insisted Cleves. "I got her into this; I am responsible if she is murdered; I dare not entrust her safety to anybody else. And, Recklow, it's a ghastly responsibility for a man to induce a young girl to face death, even in the service of her country." "If she remains here alone with you she'll face social destruction," remarked Recklow. Cleves was silent for a moment, then he burst out: "Well, what am I to do? What is there left for me to do except to watch over her and see her through this devilish business? What other way have I to protect her, Recklow?" "You could offer her the protection of your name," suggested the other, carelessly. "What? You mean--marry her?" "Well, nobody else would be inclined to, Cleves, if it ever becomes known she has lived here quite alone with you." Cleves stared at the elder man. "This is nonsense," he said in a harsh voice. "That young girl doesn't want to marry anybody. Neither do I. She doesn't wish to have her throat cut, that's all. And I'm determined she shan't." "There are stealthier assassins, Cleves,--the slayers of reputations. It goes badly with their victim. It does indeed." "Well, hang it, what do you think I ought to do?" "I think you ought to marry her if you're going to keep her here." "Suppose she doesn't mind the unconventionality of it?" "All women mind. No woman, at heart, is unconventional, Cleves." "She--she seems to agree with me that she ought to stay here.... Besides, she has no money, no relatives, no friends in America----" "All the more tragic. If you really believe it to be your duty to keep her here where you can look after her bodily safety, then the other obligation is still heavier. And there may come a day when Miss Norne will wish that you had been less conscientious concerning the safety of her pretty throat.... For the knife of the Yezidee is swifter and less cruel than the tongue that slays with a smile.... And this young girl has many years to live, after this business of Bolshevism is dead and forgotten in our Republic." "Recklow!" "Yes?" "You think I might dare try to find a room somewhere else for her and let her take her chances? _Do_ you?" "It's your affair." "I know--hang it! I know it's my affair. I've unintentionally made it so. But can't you tell me what I ought to do?" "I can't." "What would _you_ do?" "Don't ask me," returned Recklow, sharply. "If you're not man enough to come to a decision you may turn her over to me." Cleves flushed brightly. "Do you think _you_ are old enough to take my job and avoid scandal?" Recklow's cold eyes rested on him: "If you like," he said, "I'll assume your various kinds of personal responsibility toward Miss Norne." Cleve's visage burned. "I'll shoulder my own burdens," he retorted. "Sure. I knew you would." And Recklow smiled and held out his hand. Cleves took it without cordiality. Standing so, Recklow, still smiling, said: "What a rotten deal that child has had--is having. Her father and mother were fine people. Did you ever hear of Dr. Norne?" "She mentioned him once." "They were up-State people of most excellent antecedents and no money. "Dr. Norne was our Vice-Consul at Yarkand in the province of Sin Kiang. All he had was his salary, and he lost that and his post when the administration changed. Then he went into the spice trade. "Some Jew syndicate here sent him up the Yarkand River to see what could be done about jade and gold concessions. He was on that business when the tragedy happened. The Kalmuks and Khirghiz were responsible, under Yezidee instigation. And there you are:--and here is his child, Cleves--back, by some miracle, from that flowering hell called Yian, believing in her heart that she really lost her soul there in the temple. And now, here in her own native land, she is exposed to actual and hourly danger of assassination.... Poor kid!... Did you ever hear of a rottener deal, Cleves?" Their hands had remained clasped while Recklow was speaking. He spoke again, clearly, amiably: "To lay down one's life for a friend is fine. I'm not sure that it's finer to offer one's honour in behalf of a girl whose honour is at stake." After a moment Cleves's grip tightened. "All right," he said. Recklow went downstairs. CHAPTER VI IN BATTLE Cleves went back into the apartment; he noticed that Miss Norne's door was ajar. To get to his own room he had to pass that way; and he saw her, seated before the mirror, partly undressed, her dark, lustrous hair being combed out and twisted up for the night. Whether this carelessness was born of innocence or of indifference mattered little; he suddenly realised that these conditions wouldn't do. And his first feeling was of anger. "If you'll put on your robe and slippers," he said in an unpleasant voice, "I'd like to talk to you for a few moments." She turned her head on its charming neck and looked around and up at him over one naked shoulder. "Shall I come into your room?" she inquired. "No!... when you've got some clothes on, call me." "I'm quite ready now," she said calmly, and drew the Chinese slippers over her bare feet and passed a silken loop over the silver bell buttons on her right shoulder. Then, undisturbed, she continued to twist up her hair, following his movements in the mirror with unconcerned blue eyes. He entered and seated himself, the impatient expression still creasing his forehead and altering his rather agreeable features. "Miss Norne," he said, "you're absolutely convinced that these people mean to do you harm. Isn't that true?" "Of course," she said simply. "Then, until we get them, you're running a serious risk. In fact, you live in hourly peril. That is your belief, isn't it?" She put the last peg into her thick, curly hair, lowered her arms, turned, dropped one knee over the other, and let her candid gaze rest on him in silence. "What I mean to explain," he said coldly, "is that as long as I induced you to go into this affair I'm responsible for you. If I let you out of my sight here in New York and if anything happens to you, I'll be as guilty as the dirty beast who takes your life. What is your opinion? It's up to me to stand by you now, isn't it?" "I had rather be near you--for a while," she said timidly. "Certainly. But, Miss Norne, our living here together, in my apartment--or living together anywhere else--is never going to be understood by other people. You know that, don't you?" After a silence, still looking at him out of clear unembarrassed eyes: "I know.... But ... I don't want to die." "I told you," he said sharply, "they'll have to kill me first. So that's all right. But how about what I am doing to your reputation?" "I understand." "I suppose you do. You're very young. Once out of this blooming mess, you will have all your life before you. But if I kill your reputation for you while saving your body from death, you'll find no happiness in living. Do you realise that?" "Yes." "Well, then? Have you any solution for this problem that confronts you?" "No." "Haven't you any idea to suggest?" "I don't--don't want to die," she repeated in an unsteady voice. He bit his lip; and after a moment's scowling silence under the merciless scrutiny of her eyes: "Then you had better marry me," he said. It was some time before she spoke. For a second or two he sustained the searching quality of her gaze, but it became unendurable. Presently she said: "I don't ask it of you. I can shoulder my own burdens." And he remembered what he had just said to Recklow. "You've shouldered more than your share," he blurted out. "You are deliberately risking death to serve your country. I enlisted you. The least I can do is to say my affections are not engaged; so naturally the idea of--of marrying anybody never entered my head." "Then you do not care for anybody else?" Her candour amazed and disconcerted him. "No." He looked at her, curiously. "Do you care for anybody in that way?" A light blush tinted her face. She said gravely: "If we really are going to marry each other I had better tell you that I did care for Prince Sanang." "What!" he cried, astounded. "It seems incredible, doesn't it? Yet it is quite true. I fought him; I fought myself; I stood guard over my mind and senses there in the temple; I knew what he was and I detested him and I mocked him there in the temple.... And I loved him." "Sanang!" he repeated, not only amazed but also oddly incensed at the naïve confession. "Yes, Sanang.... If we are to marry, I thought I ought to tell you. Don't you think so?" "Certainly," he replied in an absent-minded way, his mind still grasping at the thing. Then, looking up: "Do you still care for this fellow?" She shook her head. "Are you perfectly sure, Miss Norne?" "As sure as that I am alive when I awake from a nightmare. My hatred for Sanang is very bitter," she added frankly, "and yet somehow it is not my wish to see him harmed." "You still care for him a little?" "Oh, no. But--can't you understand that it is not in me to wish him harm?... No girl feels that way--once having cared. To become indifferent to a familiar thing is perhaps natural; but to desire to harm it is not in my character." "You have plenty of character," he said, staring; at her. "You don't think so. Do you?" "Why not?" "Because of what I said to you on the roof-garden that night. It was shameful, wasn't it?" "You behaved like many a thoroughbred," he returned bluntly; "you were scared, bewildered, ready to bolt to any shelter offered." "It's quite true I didn't know what to do to keep alive. And that was all that interested me--to keep on living--having lost my soul and being afraid to die and find myself in hell with Erlik." He said: "Isn't that absurd notion out of your head yet?" "I don't know ... I can't suddenly believe myself safe after all those years. It is not easy to root out what was planted in childhood and what grew to be part of one during the tender and formative period.... You can't understand, Mr. Cleves--you can't ever feel or visualise what became my daily life in a region which was half paradise and half hell----" She bent her head and took her face between her fingers, and sat so, brooding. After a little while: "Well," he said, "there's only one way to manage this affair--if you are willing, Miss Norne." She merely lifted her eyes. "I think," he said, "there's only that one way out of it. But you understand"--he turned pink--"it will be quite all right--your liberty--privacy--I shan't bother you--annoy----" She merely looked at him. "After this Bolshevistic flurry is settled--in a year or two--or three--then you can very easily get your freedom; and you'll have all life before you" ... he rose: "--and a jolly good friend in me--a good comrade, Miss Norne. And that means you can count on me when you go into business--or whatever you decide to do." She also had risen, standing slim and calm in her exquisite Chinese robe, the sleeves of which covered her finger tips. "Are you going to marry me?" she asked. "If you'll let me." "Yes--I will ... it's so generous and considerate of you. I--I don't ask it; I really don't----" "But _I_ do." "--And I never dreamed of such a thing." He forced a smile. "Nor I. It's rather a crazy thing to do. But I know of no saner alternative.... So we had better get our license to-morrow.... And that settles it." He turned to go; and, on her threshold, his feet caught in something on the floor and he stumbled, trying to free his feet from a roll of soft white cloth lying there on the carpet. And when he picked it up, it unrolled, and a knife fell out of the folds of cloth and struck his foot. Still perplexed, not comprehending, he stooped to recover the knife. Then, straightening up, he found himself looking into the colourless face of Tressa Norne. "What's all this?" he asked--"this sheet and knife here on the floor outside your door?" She answered with difficulty: "They have sent you your shroud, I think." "Are not those things yours? Were they not already here in your baggage?" he demanded incredulously. Then, realising that they had not been there on the door-sill when he entered her room a few moments since, a rough chill passed over him--the icy caress of fear. "Where did that thing come from?" he said hoarsely. "How could it get here when my door is locked and bolted? Unless there's somebody hidden here!" Hot anger suddenly flooded him; he drew his pistol and sprang into the passageway. "What the devil is all this!" he repeated furiously, flinging open his bedroom door and switching on the light. He searched his room in a rage, went on and searched the dining-room, smoking-room, and kitchen, and every clothes-press and closet, always aware of Tressa's presence close behind him. And when there remained no tiniest nook or cranny in the place unsearched, he stood in the centre of the carpet glaring at the locked and bolted door. He heard her say under her breath: "This is going to be a sleepless night. And a dangerous one." And, turning to stare at her, saw no fear in her face, only excitement. He still held clutched in his left hand the sheet and the knife. Now he thrust these toward her. "What's this damned foolery, anyway?" he demanded harshly. She took the knife with a slight shudder. "There is something engraved on the silver hilt," she said. He bent over her shoulder. "Eighur," she added calmly, "not Arabic. The Mongols had no written characters of their own." She bent closer, studying the inscription. After a moment, still studying the Eighur characters, she rested her left hand on his shoulder--an impulsive, unstudied movement that might have meant either confidence or protection. "Look," she said, "it is not addressed to you after all, but to a symbol--a series of numbers, 53-6-26." "That is my designation in the Federal Service," he said, sharply. "Oh!" she nodded slowly. "Then this is what is written in the Mongol-Yezidee dialect, traced out in Eighur characters: 'To 53-6-26! By one of the Eight Assassins the Slayer of Souls sends this shroud and this knife from Mount Alamout. Such a blade shall divide your heart. This sheet is for your corpse.'" After a grim silence he flung the soft white cloth on the floor. "There's no use my pretending I'm not surprised and worried," he said; "I don't know how that cloth got here. Do you?" "It was sent." "How?" She shook her head and gave him a grave, confused look. "There are ways. You could not understand.... This is going to be a sleepless night for us." "You can go to bed, Tressa. I'll sit up and read and keep an eye on that door." "I can't let you remain alone here. I'm afraid to do that." He gave a laugh, not quite pleasant, as he suddenly comprehended that the girl now considered their _rôles_ to be reversed. "Are _you_ planning to sit up in order to protect _me_?" he asked, grimly amused. "Do you mind?" "Why, you blessed little thing, I can take care of myself. How funny of you, when I am trying to plan how best to look out for _you_!" But her face remained pale and concerned, and she rested her left hand more firmly on his shoulder. "I wish to remain awake with you," she said. "Because I myself don't fully understand this"--she looked at the knife in her palm, then down at the shroud. "It is going to be a strange night for us," she sighed. "Let us sit together here on the lounge where I can face _that bolted door_. And if you are willing, I am going to turn out the lights----" She suddenly bent forward and switched them off--"because I must keep my mind on guard." "Why do you do that?" he asked, "you can't see the door, now." "Let me help you in my own way," she whispered. "I--I am very deeply disturbed, and very, very angry. I do not understand this new menace. Yezidee that I am, I do not understand what kind of danger threatens you through your loyalty to me." She drew him forward, and he opened his mouth to remonstrate, to laugh; but as he turned, his foot touched the shroud, and an uncontrollable shiver passed over him. They went close together, across the dim room to the lounge, and seated themselves. Enough light from Madison Avenue made objects in the room barely discernible. * * * * * Sounds from the street below became rarer as the hours wore away. The iron jar of trams, the rattle of vehicles, the harsh warning of taxicabs broke the stillness at longer and longer intervals, until, save only for that immense and ceaseless vibration of the monstrous iron city under the foggy stars, scarcely a sound stirred the silence. The half-hour had struck long ago on the bell of the little clock. Now the clear bell sounded three times. Cleves stirred on the lounge beside Tressa. Again and again he had thought that she was asleep for her head had fallen back against the cushions, and she lay very still. But always, when he leaned nearer to peer down at her, he saw her eyes open, and fixed intently upon the bolted door. His pistol, which still rested on his knee, was pointed across the room, toward the door. Once he reminded her in a whisper that she was unarmed and that it might be as well for her to go and get her pistol. But she murmured that she was sufficiently equipped; and, in spite of himself, he shivered as he glanced down at her frail and empty hands. It was some time between three and half-past, he judged, when a sudden movement of the girl brought him upright on his seat, quivering with excitement. "Mr. Cleves!" "Yes?" "The Sorcerers!" "Where? Outside the door?" "Oh, my God," she murmured, "_they are after my mind again_! Their fingers are groping to seize my brain and get possession of it!" "What!" he stammered, horrified. "Here--in the dark," she whispered--"and I feel their fingers caressing me--searching--moving stealthily to surprise and grasp my thoughts.... I know what they are doing.... I am resisting.... I am fighting--fighting!" She sat bolt upright with clenched hands at her breast, her face palely aglow in the dimness as though illumined by some vivid inward light--or, as he thought--from the azure blaze in her wide-open eyes. "Is--is this what you call--what you believe to be magic?" he asked unsteadily. "Is there some hostile psychic influence threatening you?" "Yes. I'm resisting. I'm fighting--fighting. They shall not trap me. They shall not harm you!... I know how to defend myself and you!... And _you_!" Suddenly she flung her left arm around his neck and the delicate clenched hand brushed his cheek. "They shall not have you," she breathed. "I am fighting. I am holding my own. There are eight of them--eight Assassins! My mind is in battle with theirs--fiercely in battle.... I hold my own! I am armed and waiting!" With a convulsive movement she drew his head closer to her shoulder. "Eight of them!" she whispered,--"trying to entrap and seize my brain. But my thoughts are free! My mind is defending you--you, here in my arms!" After a breathless silence: "Look out!" she whispered with terrible energy; "they are after _your_ mind at last. Fix your thoughts on me! Keep your mind clear of their net! Don't let their ghostly fingers touch it. Look at me!" She drew him closer. "Look at _me_! Believe in _me_! I can resist. I can defend you. Does your head feel confused?" "Yes--numb." "_Don't sleep!_ Don't close your eyes! Keep them open and look at me!" "I can scarcely see you----" "You _must_ see me!" "My eyes are heavy," he said drowsily. "I can't see you, Tressa----" "Wake! Look at me! Keep your mind clear. Oh, I beg you--I beg you! They're after our minds and souls, I tell you! Oh, believe in me," she beseeched him in an agonised whisper--"Can't you believe in me for a moment,--as if you loved me!" His heavy lids lifted and he tried to look at her. "Can you see me? _Can_ you?" He muttered something in a confused voice. "Victor!" At the sound of his own name, he opened his eyes again and tried to straighten up, but his pistol fell to the carpet. "Victor!" she gasped, "clear your mind in the name of God!" "I can not----" "I tell you hell is opening beyond that door!--outside your bolted door, there! Can't you believe me! Can't you hear me! Oh, what will hold you if the love of God can not!" she burst out. "I'd crucify myself for you if you'd look at me--if you'd only fight hard enough to believe in me--as though you loved me!" His eyes unclosed but he sank back against her shoulder. "Victor!" she cried in a terrible voice. There was no answer. "If the love of God could only hold you for a moment more!"--she stammered with her mouth against his ear, "just for a moment, Victor! Can't you hear me?" "Yes--very far away." "Fight for me! Try to care for me! Don't let Sanang have me!" He shuddered in her arms, reached out and resting heavily on her shoulder, staggered to his feet and stood swaying like a drunken man. "No, by God," he said thickly, "Sanang shall not touch you." The girl was on her feet now, holding him upright with an arm around his shoulders. "They can't--can't harm us together," she stammered. "Hark! Listen! Can you hear? Oh, can you hear?" "Give me my pistol," he tried to say, but his tongue seemed twisted. "No--by God--Sanang shall not touch you." She stooped lithely and recovered the weapon. "Hush," she said close to his burning face. "Listen. Our minds are safe! I can hear somebody's soul bidding its body farewell!" White-lipped she burst out laughing, kicked the shroud out of the way, thrust the pistol into his right hand, went forward, forcing him along beside her, and drew the bolts from the door. Suddenly he spoke distinctly: "Is there anything outside that door on the landing?" "Yes.... I don't know what. Are you ready?" She laid her hand on lock and knob. He nodded. At the same instant she jerked open the door; and a hunchback who had been picking at the lock fell headlong into the room, his pistol exploding on the carpet in a streak of fire. It was a horrible struggle to secure the powerful misshapen creature, for he clawed and squealed and bounced about on the floor, striking blindly with ape-like arms. But at last Cleves held him down, throttled and twitching, and Tressa ripped strips from the shroud to truss up the writhing thing. Then Cleves switched on the light. "Why--why--you rat!" he exclaimed in hysterical relief at seeing a living man whom he recognised there at his feet. "What are you doing here?" The hunchback's red eyes blazed up at him from the floor. "Who--who is he?" faltered the girl. "He's a German tailor named Albert Feke--one of the Chicago Bolsheviki--the most dangerous sort we harbour--one of their vile leaders who preaches that might is right and tells his disciples to go ahead and take what they want." He looked down at the malignant cripple. "You're wanted for the I. W. W. bomb murder, Albert. Did you know it?" The hunchback licked his bloody lips. Then he kicked himself to a sitting position, squatted there like a toad and looked steadily at Tressa Norne out of small red-rimmed eyes. Blood dripped on his beard; his huge hairy fists, tied and crossed behind his back, made odd, spasmodic movements. Cleves went to the telephone. Presently Tressa heard his voice, calm and distinct as usual: "We've caught Albert Feke. He's here at my rooms. I'd like to have you come over, Recklow.... Oh, yes, he kicked and scuffled and scratched like a cat.... What?... No, I hadn't heard that he'd been in China.... Who?... Albert Feke? You say he was one of the Germans who escaped from Shantung four years ago?... You think he's a Yezidee! You mean one of the Eight Assassins?" The hunchback, staring at Tressa out of red-rimmed eyes, suddenly snarled and lurched his misshapen body at her. "Teufelstuck!" he screamed, "ain't I tell efferybody in Yian already it iss safer if we cut your throat! Devil-slut of Erlik--snow-leopardess!--cat of the Yezidees who has made of Sanang a fool!--it iss I who haf said always, always, that you know too damn much!... Kai!... I hear my soul bidding me farewell. Gif me my shroud!" Cleves came back from the telephone. With the toe of his left foot he lifted the shroud and kicked it across the hunchback's knees. "So you were one of the huns who instigated the massacre in Yian," he said, curiously. At that Tressa turned very white and a cry escaped her. But the hunchback's features were all twisted into ferocious laughter, and he beat on the carpet with the heels of his great splay feet. "Ja! Ja!" he shrieked, "in Yian it vas a goot hunting! English and Yankee men und vimmens ve haff dropped into dose deep wells down. Py Gott in Himmel, how dey schream up out of dose deep wells in Yian!" He began to cackle and shriek in his frenzy. "Ach Gott ja! It iss not you either--you there, Keuke Mongol, who shall escape from the Sheiks-el-Djebel! It iss dot Old Man of the Mountain who shall tell your soul it iss time to say farewell! Ja! Ja! Ach Gott!--it iss my only regret that I shall not see the world when it is all afire! Ja! Ja!--all on fire like hell! But you shall see it, slut-leopard of the snows! You shall see it und you shall burn! Kai! Kai! My soul it iss bidding my body farewell. Kai! May Erlik curse you, Keuke Mongol--Heavenly Azure--Sorceress of the temple!--" He spat at her and rolled over in his shroud. The girl looking down on him closed her eyes for a moment, and Cleves saw her bloodless lips move, and bent nearer, listening. And he heard her whispering to herself: "Preserve us all, O God, from the wrath of Satan who was stoned." CHAPTER VII THE BRIDAL Over the United States stretched an unseen network of secret intrigue woven tirelessly night and day by the busy enemies of civilisation--Reds, parlour-socialists, enemy-aliens, terrorists, Bolsheviki, pseudo-intellectuals, I. W. W.'s, social faddists, and amateur meddlers of every nuance--all the various varieties of the vicious, witless, and mentally unhinged--brought together through the "cohesive power of plunder" and the degeneration of cranial tissue. All over the United States the various departmental divisions of the Secret Service were busily following up these threads of intrigue leading everywhere through the obscurity of this vast and secret maze. To meet the constantly increasing danger of physical violence and to uncover secret plots threatening sabotage and revolution, there were capable agents in every branch of the Secret Service, both Federal and State. But in the first months of 1919 something more terrifying than physical violence suddenly threatened civilised America,--a wild, grotesque, incredible threat of a _war on human minds_! And, little by little, the United States Government became convinced that this ghastly menace was no dream of a disordered imagination, but that it was real: that among the enemies of civilisation there actually existed a few powerful but perverted minds capable of wielding psychic forces as terrific weapons: that by the sinister use of psychic knowledge controlling these mighty forces the very minds of mankind could be stealthily approached, seized, controlled and turned upon civilisation to aid in the world's destruction. In terrible alarm the Government turned to England for advice. But Sir William Crookes was dead. However, in England, Sir Conan Doyle immediately took up the matter, and in America Professor Hyslop was called into consultation. And then, when the Government was beginning to realise what this awful menace meant, and that there were actually in the United States possibly half a dozen people who already had begun to carry on a diabolical warfare by means of psychic power, for the purpose of enslaving and controlling the very minds of men,--then, in the terrible moment of discovery, a young girl landed in America after fourteen years' absence in Asia. And this was the amazing girl that Victor Cleves had just married, at Recklow's suggestion, and in the line of professional duty,--and moral duty, perhaps. It had been a brief, matter-of-fact ceremony. John Recklow, of the Secret Service, was there; also Benton and Selden of the same service. The bride's lips were unresponsive; cold as the touch of the groom's unsteady hand. She looked down at her new ring in a blank sort of way, gave her hand listlessly to Recklow and to the others in turn, whispered a timidly comprehensive "Thank you," and walked away beside Cleves as though dazed. There was a taxicab waiting. Tressa entered. Recklow came out and spoke to Cleves in a low voice. "Don't worry," replied Cleves dryly. "That's why I married her." "Where are you going now?" inquired Recklow. "Back to my apartment." "Why don't you take her away for a month?" Cleves flushed with annoyance: "This is no occasion for a wedding trip. You understand that, Recklow." "I understand. But we ought to give her a breathing space. She's had nothing but trouble. She's worn out." Cleves hesitated: "I can guard her better in the apartment. Isn't it safer to go back there, where your people are always watching the street and house day and night?" "In a way it might be safer, perhaps. But that girl is nearly exhausted. And her value to us is unlimited. She may be the vital factor in this fight with anarchy. Her weapon is her mind. And it's got to have a chance to rest." Cleves, with one hand on the cab door, looked around impatiently. "Do _you_, also, conclude that the psychic factor is actually part of this damned problem of Bolshevism?" Recklow's cool eyes measured him: "Do _you_?" "My God, Recklow, I don't know--after what my own eyes have seen." "I don't know either," said the other calmly, "but I am taking no chances. I don't attempt to explain certain things that have occurred. But if it be true that a misuse of psychic ability by foreigners--Asiatics--among the anarchists is responsible for some of the devilish things being done in the United States, then your wife's unparalleled knowledge of the occult East is absolutely vital to us. And so I say, better take her away somewhere and give her mind a chance to recover from the incessant strain of these tragic years." The two men stood silent for a moment, then Recklow went to the window of the taxicab. "I have been suggesting a trip into the country, Mrs. Cleves," he said pleasantly, "--into the real country, somewhere,--a month's quiet in the woods, perhaps. Wouldn't it appeal to you?" Cleves turned to catch her low-voiced answer. "I should like it very much," she said in that odd, hushed way of speaking, which seemed to have altered her own voice and manner since the ceremony a little while before. Driving back to his apartment beside her, he strove to realise that this girl was his wife. One of her gloves lay across her lap, and on it rested a slender hand. And on one finger was his ring. But Victor Cleves could not bring himself to believe that this brand-new ring really signified anything to him,--that it had altered his own life in any way. But always his incredulous eyes returned to that slim finger resting there, unstirring, banded with a narrow circlet of virgin gold. In the apartment they did not seem to know exactly what to do or say--what attitude to assume--what effort to make. Tressa went into her own room, removed her hat and furs, and came slowly back into the living-room, where Cleves still stood gazing absently out of the window. A fine rain was falling. They seated themselves. There seemed nothing better to do. He said, politely: "In regard to going away for a rest, you wouldn't care for the North Woods, I fancy, unless you like winter sports. Do you?" "I like sunlight and green leaves," she said in that odd, still voice. "Then, if it would please you to go South for a few weeks' rest----" "Would it inconvenience you?" Her manner touched him. "My dear Miss Norne," he began, and checked himself, flushing painfully. The girl blushed, too; then, when he began to laugh, her lovely, bashful smile glimmered for the first time. "I really can't bring myself to realise that you and I are married," he explained, still embarrassed, though smiling. Her smile became an endeavour. "I can't believe it either, Mr. Cleves," she said. "I feel rather stunned." "Hadn't you better call me Victor--under the circumstances?" he suggested, striving to speak lightly. "Yes.... It will not be very easy to say it--not for some time, I think." "Tressa?" "Yes." "Yes--_what_?" "Yes--Victor." "That's the idea," he insisted with forced gaiety. "The thing to do is to face this rather funny situation and take it amiably and with good humour. You'll have your freedom some day, you know." "Yes--I--know." "And we're already on very good terms. We find each other interesting, don't we?" "Yes." "It even seems to me," he ventured, "it certainly seems to me, at times, as though we are approaching a common basis of--of mutual--er--esteem." "Yes. I--I do esteem you, Mr. Cleves." "In point of fact," he concluded, surprised, "we _are_ friends--in a way. Wouldn't you call it--friendship?" "I think so, I think I'd call it that," she admitted. "I think so, too. And that is lucky for us. That makes this crazy situation more comfortable--less--well, perhaps less ponderous." The girl assented with a vague smile, but her eyes remained lowered. "You see," he went on, "when two people are as oddly situated as we are, they're likely to be afraid of being in each other's way. But they ought to get on without being unhappy as long as they are quite confident of each other's friendly consideration. Don't you think so, Tressa?" Her lowered eyes rested steadily on her ring-finger. "Yes," she said. "And I am not--unhappy, or--afraid." She lifted her blue gaze to his; and, somehow, he thought of her barbaric name, Keuke,--and its Yezidee significance, "heavenly--azure." "Are we really going away together?" she asked timidly. "Certainly, if you wish." "If you, also, wish it, Mr. Cleves." He found himself saying with emphasis that he always wished to do what she desired. And he added, more gently: "You _are_ tired, Tressa--tired and lonely and unhappy." "Tired, but not the--others." "Not unhappy?" "No." "Aren't you lonely?" "Not with you." The answer came so naturally, so calmly, that the slight sensation of pleasure it gave him arrived only as an agreeable afterglow. "We'll go South," he said.... "I'm so glad that you don't feel lonely with me." "Will it be warmer where we are going, Mr. Cleves?" "Yes--you poor child! You need warmth and sunshine, don't you? Was it warm in Yian, where you lived so many years?" "It was always June in Yian," she said under her breath. She seemed to have fallen into a revery; he watched the sensitive face. Almost imperceptibly it changed; became altered, younger, strangely lovely. Presently she looked up--and it seemed to him that it was not Tressa Norne at all he saw, but little Keuke--Heavenly Azure--of the Yezidee temple, as she dropped one slim knee over the other and crossed her hands above it. "It was very beautiful in Yian," she said, "--Yian of the thousand bridges and scented gardens so full of lilies. Even after they took me to the temple, and I thought the world was ending, God's skies still remained soft overhead, and His weather fair and golden.... And when, in the month of the Snake, the Eight Sheiks-el-Djebel came to the temple to spread their shrouds on the rose-marble steps, then, after they had departed, chanting the Prayers for the Dead, each to his Tower of Silence, we temple girls were free for a week.... And once I went with Tchagane--a girl--and with Yulun--another girl--and we took our keutch, which is our luggage, and we went to the yaïlak, or summer pavilion on the Lake of the Ghost. Oh, wonderful,--a silvery world of pale-gilt suns and of moons so frail that the cloud-fleece at high-noon has more substance!" Her voice died out; she sat gazing down at her spread fingers, on one of which gleamed her wedding-ring. After a little, she went on dreamily: "On that week, each three months, we were free.... If a young man should please us...." "Free?" he repeated. "To love," she explained coolly. "Oh." He nodded, but his face became rather grim. "There came to me at the yaïlak," she went on carelessly, "one Khassar Noïane--Noïane means Prince--all in a surcoat of gold tissue with green vines embroidered, and wearing a green cap trimmed with dormouse, and green boots inlaid with stiff gold.... "He was so young ... a boy. I laughed. I said: 'Is this a Yaçaoul? An Urdu-envoy of Prince Erlik?'--mocking him as young and thoughtless girls mock--not in unfriendly manner--though I would not endure the touch of any man at all. "And when I laughed at him, this Eighur boy flew into such a rage! Kai! I was amazed. "'Sou-sou! Squirrel!' he cried angrily at me. 'Learn the Yacaz, little chatterer! Little mocker of men, it is ten blows with a stick you require, not kisses!' "At that I whistled my two dogs, Bars and Alaga, for I did not think what he said was funny. "I said to him: 'You had better go home, Khassar Noïane, for if no man has ever pleased me where I am at liberty to please myself, here on the Lake of the Ghost, then be very certain that no boy can please Keuke-Mongol here or anywhere!' "And at that--kai! What did he say--that monkey?" She looked at her husband, her splendid eyes ablaze with wrathful laughter, and made a gesture full of angry grace: "'Squirrel!' he cries--'little malignant sorceress of Yian! May everything high about you become a sandstorm, and everything long a serpent, and everything broad a toad, and everything----' "But I had had enough, Victor," she added excitedly, "and I made a wild bee bite him on the lip! WHAT do you think of such a courtship?" she cried, laughing. But Cleves's face was a study in emotions. And then, suddenly, the laughing mask seemed to slip from the bewitching features of Keuke Mongol; and there was Tressa Norne--Tressa Cleves--disconcerted, paling a little as the memory of her impulsive confidence in this man beside her began to dawn on her more clearly. "I--I'm sorry----" she faltered.... "You'll think me silly--think evil of me, perhaps----" She looked into his troubled eyes, then suddenly she took her face into both hands and covered it, sitting very still. "We'll go South together," he said in an uncertain voice.... "I hope you will try to think of me as a friend.... I'm just troubled because I am so anxious to understand you. That is all.... I'm--I'm troubled, too, because I am anxious that you should think well of me. Will you try, always?" She nodded. "I want to be your friend, always," he said. "Thank you, Mr. Cleves." * * * * * It was a strange spot he chose for Tressa--strange but lovely in its own unreal and rather spectral fashion--where a pearl-tinted mist veiled the St. Johns, and made exquisite ghosts of the palmettos, and softened the sun to a silver-gilt wafer pasted on a nacre sky. It was a still country, where giant water-oaks towered, fantastic under their misty camouflage of moss, and swarming with small birds. Among the trees the wood-ibis stole; without on the placid glass of the stream the eared grebe floated. There was no wind, no stirring of leaves, no sound save the muffled splash of silver mullet, the breathless whirr of a humming-bird, or the hushed rustle of lizards in the woods. For Tressa this was the blessed balm that heals,--the balm of silence. And, for the first week, she slept most of the time, or lay in her hammock watching the swarms of small birds creeping and flitting amid the moss-draped labyrinths of the live-oaks at her very door. It had been a little club house before the war, this bungalow on the St. Johns at Orchid Hammock. Its members had been few and wealthy; but some were dead in France and Flanders, and some still remained overseas, and others continued busy in the North. And these two young people were quite alone there, save for a negro cook and a maid, and an aged negro kennel-master who wore a scarlet waistcoat and cords too large for his shrunken body, and who pottered, pottered through the fields all day, with his whip clasped behind his bent back and the pointers ranging wide, or plodding in at heel with red tongues lolling. Twice Cleves went a little way for quail, using Benton's dogs; but even here in this remote spot he dared not move out of view of the little house where Tressa lay asleep. So he picked up only a few brace of birds, and confined his sport to impaling too-familiar scorpions on the blade of his knife. And all the while life remained unreal for him; his marriage seemed utterly unbelievable; he could not realise it, could not reconcile himself to conditions so incomprehensible. Also, ever latent in his mind, was knowledge that made him restless--the knowledge that the young girl he had married had been in love with another man: Sanang. And there were other thoughts--thoughts which had scarcely even taken the shape of questions. One morning he came from his room and found Tressa on the veranda in her hammock. She had her moon-lute in her lap. "You feel better--much better!" he said gaily, saluting her extended hand. "Yes. Isn't this heavenly? I begin to believe it is life to me, this pearl-tinted world, and the scent of orange bloom and the stillness of paradise itself." She gazed out over the ghostly river. Not a wing stirred its glassy surface. "Is this dull for you?" she asked in a low voice. "Not if you are contented, Tressa." "You're so nice about it. Don't you think you might venture a day's real shooting?" "No, I think I won't," he replied. "On my account?" "Well--yes." "I'm so sorry." "It's all right as long as you're getting rested. What is that instrument?" "My moon-lute." "Oh, is that what it's called?" She nodded, touched the strings. He watched her exquisite hands. "Shall I?" she inquired a little shyly. "Go ahead. I'd like to hear it!" "I haven't touched it in months--not since I was on the steamer." She sat up in her hammock and began to swing there; and played and sang while swinging in the flecked shadow of the orange bloom: "_Little Isle of Cispangou, Isle of iris, isle of cherry, Tell your tiny maidens merry Clouds are looming over you! La-[=e]-la! La-[=e]-la! All your ocean's but a ferry; Ships are bringing death to you! La-[=e]-lou! La-[=e]-lou!_ "_Little Isle of Cispangou, Half a thousand ships are sailing; Captain Death commands each crew; Lo! the ruddy moon is paling! La-[=e]-la! La-[=e]-la! Clouds the dying moon are veiling, Every cloud a shroud for you! La-[=e]-lou! La-[=e]-lou!_" "Cispangou," she explained, "is the very, very ancient name, among the Mongols, for Japan." "It's not exactly a gay song," he said. "What's it about?" "Oh, it's a very ancient song about the Mongol invasion of Japan. I know scores and scores of such songs." She sang some other songs. Afterward she descended from the hammock and came and sat down beside him on the veranda steps. "I wish I could amuse you," she said wistfully. "Why do you think I'm bored, Tressa? I'm not at all." But she only sighed, lightly, and gathered her knees in both arms. "I don't know how young men in the Western world are entertained," she remarked presently. "You don't have to entertain me," he said, smiling. "I should be happy to, if I knew how." "How are young men entertained in the Orient?" "Oh, they like songs and stories. But I don't think you do." He laughed in spite of himself. "Do you really wish to entertain me?" "I do," she said seriously. "Then please perform some of those tricks of magic which you can do so amazingly well." Her dawning smile faded a trifle. "I don't--I haven't----" She hesitated. "You haven't your professional paraphernalia with you," he suggested. "Oh--as for that----" "Don't you need it?" "For some things--some kinds of things.... I _could_ do--other things----" He waited. She seemed disconcerted. "Don't do anything you don't wish to do, Tressa," he said. "I was only--only afraid--that if I should do some little things to amuse you, I might stir--stir up--interfere--encounter some sinister current--and betray myself--betray my whereabouts----" "Well, for heaven's sake don't venture then!" he said with emphasis. "Don't do anything to stir up any other wireless--any Yezidee----" "I am wondering," she reflected, "just what I dare venture to do to amuse you." "Don't bother about me. I wouldn't have you try any psychic stunt down here, and run the chance of stirring up some Asiatic devil somewhere!" She nodded absently, occupied with her own thoughts, sitting there, chin on hand, her musing eyes intensely blue. "I think I can amuse you," she concluded, "without bringing any harm to myself." "Don't try it, Tressa!----" "I'll be very careful. Now, sit quite still--closer to me, please." He edged closer; and became conscious of an indefinable freshness in the air that enveloped him, like the scent of something young and growing. But it was no magic odour,--merely the virginal scent of her hair and skin that even clung to her summer gown. He heard her singing under her breath to herself: "La-[=e]-la! La-[=e]-la!" and murmuring caressingly in an unknown tongue. Then, suddenly in the pale sunshine, scores of little birds came hovering around them, alighting all over them. And he saw them swarming out of the mossy festoons of the water-oaks--scores and scores of tiny birds--Parula warblers, mostly--all flitting fearlessly down to alight upon his shoulders and knees, all keeping up their sweet, dreamy little twittering sound. "This is wonderful," he whispered. The girl laughed, took several birds on her forefinger. "This is nothing," she said. "If I only dared--wait a moment!----" And, to the Parula warblers: "Go home, little friends of God!" The air was filled with the musical whisper of wings. She passed her right arm around her husband's neck. "Look at the river," she said. "Good God!" he blurted out. And sat dumb. For, over the St. John's misty surface, there was the span of a bridge--a strange, marble bridge humped up high in the centre. And over it were passing thousands of people--he could make them out vaguely--see them passing in two never-ending streams--tinted shapes on the marble bridge. And now, on the farther shore of the river, he was aware of a city--a vast one, with spectral pagoda shapes against the sky---- Her arm tightened around his neck. He saw boats on the river--like the grotesque shapes that decorate ancient lacquer. She rested her face lightly against his cheek. In his ears was a far confusion of voices--the stir and movement of multitudes--noises on ships, boatmen's cries, the creak of oars. Then, far and sonorous, quavering across the water from the city, the din of a temple gong. There were bells, too--very sweet and silvery--camel bells, bells from the Buddhist temples. He strained his eyes, and thought, amid the pagodas, that there were minarets, also. Suddenly, clear and ringing came the distant muezzin's cry: "There is no other god but God!... It is noon. Mussulmans, pray!" The girl's arm slipped from his neck and she shuddered and pushed him from her. There was nothing, now, on the river or beyond it but the curtain of hanging mist; no sound except the cry of a gull, sharp and querulous in the vapours overhead. "Have--have you been amused?" she asked. "What did you do to me!" he demanded harshly. She smiled and drew a light breath like a sigh. "God knows what we living do to one another,--or to ourselves," she said. "I only tried to amuse you--after taking counsel with the birds." "What was that bridge I saw!" "The Bridge of Ten Thousand Felicities." "And the city?" "Yian." "You lived there?" "Yes." He moistened his dry lips and stole another glance at this very commonplace Florida river. Sky and water were blank and still, and the ghostly trees stood tall, reflected palely in the translucent tide. "You merely made me visualise what you were thinking about," he concluded in a voice which still remained unsteady. "Did you _hear_ nothing?" He was silent, remembering the bells and the enormous murmur of a living multitude. "And--there were the birds, too." She added, with an uncertain smile: "I do not mean to worry you.... And you did ask me to amuse you." "I don't know how you did it," he said harshly. "And the details--those thousands and thousands of people on the bridge!... And there was one, quite near this end of the bridge, who looked back.... A young girl who turned and laughed at us--" "That was Yulun." "Who?" "Yulun. I taught her English." "A temple girl?" "Yes. From Black China." "How could you make _me_ see _her_!" he demanded. "Why do you ask such things? I do not know how to tell you how I do it." "It's a dangerous, uncanny knowledge!" he blurted out; and suddenly checked himself, for the girl's face went white. "I don't mean uncanny," he hastened to add. "Because it seems to me that what you did by juggling with invisible currents to which, when attuned, our five senses respond, is on the same lines as the wireless telegraph and telephone." She said nothing, but her colour slowly returned. "You mustn't be so sensitive," he added. "I've no doubt that it's all quite normal--quite explicable on a perfectly scientific basis. Probably it's no more mysterious than a man in an airplane over midocean conversing with people ashore on two continents." * * * * * For the remainder of the day and evening Tressa seemed subdued--not restless, not nervous, but so quiet that, sometimes, glancing at her askance, Cleves involuntarily was reminded of some lithe young creature of the wilds, intensely alert and still, immersed in fixed and dangerous meditation. About five in the afternoon they took their golf sticks, went down to the river, and embarked in the canoe. The water was glassy and still. There was not a ripple ahead, save when a sleeping gull awoke and leisurely steered out of their way. Tressa's arms and throat were bare and she wore no hat. She sat forward, wielding the bow paddle and singing to herself in a low voice. "You feel all right, don't you?" he asked. "Oh, I am so well, physically, now! It's really wonderful, Victor--like being a child again," she replied happily. "You're not much more," he muttered. She heard him: "Not very much more--in years," she said.... "Does Scripture tell us how old Our Lord was when He descended into Hell?" "I don't know," he replied, startled. After a little while Tressa tranquilly resumed her paddling and singing: "_--And eight tall towers Guard the route Of human life, Where at all hours Death looks out, Holding a knife Rolled in a shroud._ _For every man, Humble or proud, Mighty or bowed, Death has a shroud;--for every man,-- Even for Tchingniz Khan! Behold them pass!--lancer. Baroulass, Temple dancer In tissue gold, Khiounnou, Karlik bold,_ _Christian, Jew,-- Nations swarm to the great Urdu. Yaçaoul, with your kettledrum, Warn your Khan that his hour is come! Shroud and knife at his spurred feet throw, And bid him stretch his neck for the blow!--_" "You know," remarked Cleves, "that some of those songs you sing are devilish creepy." Tressa looked around at him over her shoulder, saw he was smiling, smiled faintly in return. They were off Orchid Cove now. The hotel and cottages loomed dimly in the silver mist. Voices came distinctly across the water. There were people on the golf course paralleling the river; laughter sounded from the club-house veranda. They went ashore. CHAPTER VIII THE MAN IN WHITE It was at the sixth hole that they passed the man ahead who was playing all alone--a courteous young fellow in white flannels, who smiled and bowed them "through" in silence. They thanked him, drove from the tee, and left the polite and reticent young man still apparently hunting for a lost ball. Like other things which depended upon dexterity and precision, Tressa had taken most naturally to golf. Her supple muscles helped. At the ninth hole they looked back but did not see the young man in white flannels. Hammock, set with pine and palmetto, and intervals of evil-looking swamp, flanked the course. Rank wire-grass, bayberry and scrub palmetto bounded the fairgreen. On every blossoming bush hung butterflies--Palomedes swallowtails--drugged with sparkle-berry honey, their gold and black velvet wings conspicuous in the sunny mist. "Like the ceremonial vestments of a Yezidee executioner," murmured the girl. "The Tchortchas wear red when they robe to do a man to death." "I wish you could forget those things," said Cleves. "I am trying.... I wonder where that young man in white went." Cleves searched the links. "I don't see him. Perhaps he had to go back for another ball." "I wonder who he was," she mused. "I don't remember seeing him before," said Cleves.... "Shall we start back?" They walked slowly across the course toward the tenth hole. Tressa teed up, drove low and straight. Cleves sliced, and they walked together into the scrub and towards the woods, where his ball had bounded into a bunch of palm trees. Far in among the trees something white moved and vanished. "Probably a white egret," he remarked, knocking about in the scrub with his midiron. "It was that young man in white flannels," said Tressa in a low voice. "What would he be doing in there?" he asked incredulously. "That's merely a jungle, Tressa--swamp and cypress, thorn and creeper,--and no man would go into that mess if he could. There is no bottom to those swamps." "But I saw him in there," she said in a troubled voice. "But when I tell you that only a wild animal or a snake or a bird could move in that jungle! The bog is one vast black quicksand. There's death in those depths." "Victor." "Yes?" He looked around at her. She was pale. He came up and took her hand inquiringly. "I don't feel--well," she murmured. "I'm not ill, you understand----" "What's the matter, Tressa?" She shook her head drearily: "I don't know.... I wonder whether I should have tried to amuse you this morning----" "You don't think you've stirred up any of those Yezidee beasts, do you?" he asked sharply. And as she did not answer, he asked again whether she was afraid that what she had done that morning might have had any occult consequences. And he reminded her that she had hesitated to venture anything on that account. His voice, in spite of him, betrayed great nervousness now, and he saw apprehension in her eyes, also. "Why should that man in white have followed us, keeping out of sight in the woods?" he went on. "Did you notice about him anything to disturb you, Tressa?" "Not at the time. But--it's odd--I can't put him out of my mind. Since we passed him and left him apparently hunting a lost ball, I have not been able to put him out of my mind." "He seemed civil and well bred. He was perfectly good-humoured--all courtesy and smiles." "I think--perhaps--it was the way he smiled at us," murmured the girl. "Everybody in the East smiles when they draw a knife...." He placed his arm through hers. "Aren't you a trifle morbid?" he said pleasantly. She stooped for her golf ball, retaining a hold on his arm. He picked up his ball, too, put away her clubs and his, and they started back together in silence, evidently with no desire to make it eighteen holes. "It's a confounded shame," he muttered, "just as you were becoming so rested and so delightfully well, to have anything--any unpleasant flash of memory cut in to upset you----" "I brought it on myself. I should not have risked stirring up the sinister minds that were asleep." "Hang it all!--and I asked you to amuse me." "It was not wise in me," she said under her breath. "It is easy to disturb the unknown currents which enmesh the globe. I ought not to have shown you Yian. I ought not to have shown you Yulun. It was my fault for doing that. I was a little lonely, and I wanted to see Yulun." They came down the river back to the canoe, threw in their golf bags, and embarked on the glassy stream. Over the calm flood, stained deep with crimson, the canoe glided in the sanguine evening light. But Tressa sang no more and her head was bent sideways as though listening--always listening--to something inaudible to Cleves--something very, very far away which she seemed to hear through the still drip of the paddles. They were not yet in sight of their landing when she spoke to him, partly turning: "I think some of your men have arrived." "Where?" he asked, astonished. "At the house." "Why do you think so?" "I think so." They paddled a little faster. In a few minutes their dock came into view. "It's funny," he said, "that you should think some of our men have arrived from the North. I don't see anybody on the dock." "It's Mr. Recklow," she said in a low voice. "He is seated on our veranda." As it was impossible to see the house, let alone the veranda, Cleves made no reply. He beached the canoe; Tressa stepped out; he followed, carrying the golf bags. A mousy light lingered in the shrubbery; bats were flying against a salmon-tinted sky as they took the path homeward. With an impulse quite involuntary, Cleves encircled his young wife's shoulders with his left arm. "Girl-comrade," he said lightly, "I'd kill any man who even looked as though he'd harm you." He smiled, but she had not missed the ugly undertone in his words. They walked slowly, his arm around her shoulders. Suddenly he felt her start. They halted. "What was it?" he whispered. "I thought there was something white in the woods." "Where, dear?" he asked coolly. "Over there beyond the lawn." What she called the "lawn" was only a vast sheet of pink and white phlox, now all misty with the whirring wings of sphinx-moths and Noctuidæ. The oak grove beyond was dusky. Cleves could see nothing among the trees. After a moment they went forward. His arm had fallen away from her shoulders. There were no lights except in the kitchen when they came in sight of the house. At first nobody was visible on the screened veranda under the orange trees. But when he opened the swing door for her a shadowy figure arose from a chair. It was John Recklow. He came forward, bent his strong white head, and kissed Tressa's hand. "Is all well with you, Mrs. Cleves?" "Yes. I am glad you came." Cleves clasped the elder man's firm hand. "I'm glad too, Recklow. You'll stop with us, of course." "Do you really want me?" "Of course," said Cleves. "All right. I've a coon and a surrey behind your house." So Cleves went around in the dusk and sent the outfit back to the hotel, and he himself carried in Recklow's suitcase. Then Tressa went away to give instructions, and the two men were left together on the dusky veranda. "Well?" said Recklow quietly. Cleves went to him and rested both hands on his shoulders: "I'm playing absolutely square. She's a perfectly fine girl and she'll have her chance some day, God willing." "Her chance?" repeated Recklow. "To marry whatever man she will some day care for." "I see," said Recklow drily. There was a silence, then: "She's simply a splendid specimen of womanhood," said Cleves earnestly. "And intensely interesting to me. Why, Recklow, I haven't known a dull moment--though I fear she has known many----" "Why?" "Why? Well, being married to a--a sort of temporary figurehead--shut up here all day alone with a man of no particular interest to her----" "Don't you interest her?" "Well, how could I? She didn't choose me because she liked me particularly." "Didn't she?" asked Recklow, still more drily. "Well, that does make it a trifle dull for you both." "Not for me," said the younger man naïvely. "She is one of the most interesting women I ever met. And good heavens!--what psychic knowledge that child possesses! She did a thing to-day--merely to amuse me----" He checked himself and looked at Recklow out of sombre eyes. "What did she do?" inquired the older man. "I think I'll let her tell you--if she wishes.... And that reminds me. Why did you come down here, Recklow?" "I want to show you something, Cleves. May we step into the house?" They went into a little lamplit living-room. Recklow handed a newspaper clipping to Cleves: the latter read it, standing: "HAD DEADLIEST GAS READY FOR GERMANS "_'Lewisite' Might Have Killed Millions_ "WASHINGTON, APRIL 24.--Guarded night and day and far out of human reach on a pedestal at the Interior Department Exposition here is a tiny vial. It contains a specimen of the deadliest poison ever known, 'Lewisite,' the product of an American scientist. "Germany escaped this poison by signing the armistice before all the resources of the United States were turned upon her. "Ten airplanes carrying 'Lewisite' would have wiped out, it is said, every vestige of life--animal and vegetable--in Berlin. A single day's output would snuff out the millions of lives on Manhattan Island. A drop poured in the palm of the hand would penetrate to the blood, reach the heart and kill the victim in agony. "What was coming to Germany may be imagined by the fact that when the armistice was signed 'Lewisite' was being manufactured at the rate of ten tons a day. Three thousand tons of this most terrible instrument ever conceived for killing would have been ready for business on the American front in France on November 1. "'Lewisite' is another of the big secrets of the war just leaking out. It was developed in the Bureau of Mines by Professor W. Lee Lewis, of Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., who took a commission as a captain in the army. "The poison was manufactured in a specially built plant near Cleveland, called the 'Mouse Trap,' because every workman who entered the stockade went under an agreement not to leave the eleven-acre space until the war was won. The object of this, of course, was to protect the secret. "Work on the plant was started eighteen days after the Bureau of Mines had completed its experiments. "Experts are certain that no one will want to steal the sample. Everybody at the Exposition, which shows what Secretary Lane's department is doing, keeps as far away from it as possible." When Cleves had finished reading, he raised his eyes in silence. "That vial was stolen a week ago," said Recklow gravely, "by a young man who killed one guard and fatally wounded the other." "Was there any ante-mortem statement?" "Yes. I've followed the man. I lost all trace of him at Palm Beach, but I picked it up again at Ormond. _And now I'm here_, Cleves." "You don't mean you've traced him here!" exclaimed Cleves under his breath. "He's here on the St. Johns River, somewhere. He came up in a motor-boat, but left it east of Orchard Cove. Benton knows this country. He's covering the motor-boat. And I--came here to see how you are getting on." "And to warn us," added Cleves quietly. "Well--yes. He's got that stuff. It's deadlier than the newspaper suspects. And I guess--I guess, Cleves, he's one of those damned Yezidee witch-doctors--or sorcerers, as they call them;--one of that sect of Assassins sent over here to work havoc on feeble minds and do murder on the side." "Why do you think so?" "Because the dirty beast lugs his shroud around with him--a bed-sheet stolen from the New Willard in Washington. "We were so close to him in Jacksonville that we got it, and his luggage. But we didn't get him, the rat! God knows how he knew we were waiting for him in his room. He never came back to get his luggage. "But he stole a bed-sheet from his hotel in St. Augustine, and that is how we picked him up again. Then, at Palm Beach, we lost the beggar, but somehow or other I felt it in my bones that he was after you--you and your wife. So I sent Benton to Ormond and I went to Palatka. Benton picked up his trail. It led toward you--toward the St. Johns. And the reptile has been here forty-eight hours, trying to nose you out, I suppose----" Tressa came into the room. Both men looked at her. Cleves said in a guarded voice: "To-day, on the golf links at Orchard Cove, there was a young man in white flannels--very polite and courteous to us--but--Tressa thought she saw him slinking through the woods as though following and watching us." "My man, probably," said Recklow. He turned quietly to Tressa and sketched for her the substance of what he had just told Cleves. "The man in white flannels on the golf links," said Cleves, "was well built and rather handsome, and not more than twenty-five. I thought he was a Jew." "I thought so too," said Tressa, calmly, "until I saw him in the woods. And then--and then--suddenly it came to me that his smile was the smile of a treacherous Shaman sorcerer. "... And the idea haunts me--the memory of those smooth-faced, smiling men in white--men who smile only when they slay--when they slay body and soul under the iris skies of Yian!--O God, merciful, long suffering," she whispered, staring into the East, "deliver our souls from Satan who was stoned, and our bodies from the snare of the Yezidee!" CHAPTER IX THE WEST WIND The night grew sweet with the scent of orange bloom, and all the perfumed darkness was vibrant with the feathery whirr of hawk-moths' wings. Tressa had taken her moon-lute to the hammock, but her fingers rested motionless on the strings. Cleves and Recklow, shoulder to shoulder, paced the moonlit path along the hedges of oleander and hibiscus which divided garden from jungle. And they moved cautiously on the white-shell road, not too near the shadow line. For in the cypress swamp the bloated grey death was awake and watching under the moon; and in the scrub palmetto the diamond-dotted death moved lithely. And somewhere within the dark evil of the jungle a man in white might be watching. So Recklow's pistol swung lightly in his right hand and Cleves' weapon lay in his side-pocket, and they strolled leisurely around the drive and up and down the white-shell walks, passing Tressa at regular intervals, where she sat in her hammock with the moon-lute across her knees. Once Cleves paused to place two pink hibiscus blossoms in her hair above her ears; and the girl smiled gravely at him in the light. Again, pausing beside her hammock on one of their tours of the garden, Recklow said in a low voice: "If the beast would only show himself, Mrs. Cleves, we'd not miss him. Have you caught a glimpse of anything white in the woods?" "Only the night mist rising from the branch and a white ibis stealing through it." Cleves came nearer: "Do you think the Yezidee is in the woods watching us, Tressa?" "Yes, he is there," she said calmly. "You _know_ it?" "Yes." Recklow stared at the woods. "We can't go in to hunt for him," he said. "That fellow would get us with his Lewisite gas before we could discover and destroy him." "Suppose he waits for a west wind and squirts his gas in this direction?" whispered Cleves. "There is no wind," said Tressa tranquilly. "He has been waiting for it, I think. The Yezidee is very patient. And he is a Shaman sorcerer." "My God!" breathed Recklow. "What sort of hellish things has the Old World been dumping into America for the last fifty years? An ordinary anarchist is bad enough, but this new breed of devil--these Yezidees--this sect of Assassins----" "Hush!" whispered Tressa. All three listened to the great cat-owl howling from the jungle. But Tressa had heard another sound--the vague stir of leaves in the live-oaks. Was it a passing breeze? Was a night wind rising? She listened. But heard no brittle clatter from the palm-fronds. "Victor," she said. "Yes, Tressa." "If a wind comes, we must hunt him. That will be necessary." "Either we hunt him and get him, or he kills us here with his gas," said Recklow quietly. "If the night wind comes," said Tressa, "we must hunt the darkness for the Yezidee." She spoke coolly. "If he'd only show himself," muttered Recklow, staring into the darkness. The girl picked up her lute, caught Cleves' worried eyes fixed on her, suddenly comprehended that his anxiety was on her account, and blushed brightly in the moonlight. And he saw her teeth catch at her underlip; saw her look up again at him, confused. "If I dared leave you," he said, "I'd go into the hammock and start that reptile. This won't do--this standing pat while he comes to some deadly decision in the woods there." "What else is there to do?" growled Recklow. "Watch," said the girl. "Out-watch the Yezidee. If there is no night-wind he may tire of waiting. Then you must shoot fast--very, very fast and straight. But if the night-wind comes, then we must hunt him in darkness." Recklow, pistol in hand, stood straight and sturdy in the moonlight, gazing fixedly at the forest. Cleves sat down at his wife's feet. She touched her moon-lute tranquilly and sang in her childish voice: "_Ring, ring, Buddha bells, Gilded gods are listening. Swing, swing, lily bells, In my garden glistening. Now I hear the Shaman drum; Now the scarlet horsemen come; Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Through the chanting of the throng Thunders now the temple gong. Boom-boom! Ding-dong!_ "_Let the gold gods listen! In my garden; what care I Where my lily bells hang mute! Snowy-sweet they glisten Where I'm singing to my lute. In my garden; what care I Who is dead and who shall die? Let the gold gods save or slay Scented lilies bloom in May. Boom, boom, temple gong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!_" "What are you singing?" whispered Cleves. "'The Bells of Yian.'" "Is it old?" "Of the 13th century. There were few Buddhist bells in Yian then. It is Lamaism that has destroyed the Mongols and that has permitted the creed of the Assassins to spread--the devil worship of Erlik." He looked at her, not understanding. And she, pale, slim prophetess, in the moonlight, gazed at him out of lost eyes--eyes which saw, perhaps, the bloody age of men when mankind took the devil by the throat and all Mount Alamout went up in smoking ruin; and the Eight Towers were dark as death and as silent before the blast of the silver clarions of Ghenghis Khan. "Something is stirring in the forest," whispered Tressa, her fingers on her lips. "Damnation," muttered Recklow, "it's the wind!" They listened. Far in the forest they heard the clatter of palm-fronds. They waited. The ominous warning grew faint, then rose again,--a long, low rattle of palm-fronds which became a steady monotone. "We hunt," said Recklow bluntly. "Come on!" But the girl sprang from the hammock and caught her husband's arm and drew Recklow back from the hibiscus hedge. "Use me," she said. "You could never find the Yezidee. Let me do the hunting; and then shoot very, very fast." "We've got to take her," said Recklow. "We dare not leave her." "I can't let her lead the way into those black woods," muttered Cleves. "The wind is blowing in my face," insisted Recklow. "We'd better hurry." Tressa laid one hand on her husband's arm. "I can find the Yezidee, I think. You never could find him before he finds you! Victor, let me use my own _knowledge_! Let me find the way. Please let me lead! Please, Victor. Because, if you don't, I'm afraid we'll all die here in the garden where we stand." Cleves cast a haggard glance at Recklow, then looked at his wife. "All right," he said. The girl opened the hedge gate. Both men followed with pistols lifted. The moon silvered the forest. There was no mist, but a night-wind blew mournfully through palm and cypress, carrying with it the strange, disturbing pungency of the jungle--wild, unfamiliar perfumes,--the acrid aroma of swamp and rotting mould. "What about snakes?" muttered Recklow, knee deep in wild phlox. But there was a deadlier snake to find and destroy, somewhere in the blotched shadows of the forest. The first sentinel trees were very near, now; and Tressa was running across a ghostly tangle, where once had been an orange grove, and where aged and dying citrus stumps rose stark amid the riot of encroaching jungle. "She's circling to get the wind at our backs," breathed Recklow, running forward beside Cleves. "That's our only chance to kill the dirty rat--catch him with the wind at our backs!" Once, traversing a dry hammock where streaks of moonlight alternated with velvet-black shadow a rattlesnake sprang his goblin alarm. They could not locate the reptile. They shrank together and moved warily, chilled with fear. Once, too, clear in the moonlight, the Grey Death reared up from bloated folds and stood swaying rhythmically in a horrible shadow dance before them. And Cleves threw one arm around his wife and crept past, giving death a wide berth there in the checkered moonlight. Now, under foot, the dry hammock lay everywhere and the night wind blew on their backs. Then Tressa turned and halted the two men with a gesture. And went to her husband where he stood in the palm forest, and laid her hands on his shoulders, looking him very wistfully in the eyes. Under her searching gaze he seemed oddly to comprehend her appeal. "You are going to use--to use your _knowledge_," he said mechanically. "You are going to find the man in white." "Yes." "You are going to find him in a way we don't understand," he continued, dully. "Yes.... You will not hold me in--in horror--will you?" Recklow came up, making no sound on the spongy palm litter underfoot. "Can you find this devil?" he whispered. "I--think so." "Does your super-instinct--finer sense--knowledge--whatever it is--give you any inkling as to his whereabouts, Mrs. Cleves?" "I think he is here in this hammock. Only----" she turned again, with swift impulse, to her husband, "--only if you--if _you_ do not hold me in--in horror--because of what I do----" There was a silence; then: "What are you about to do?" he asked hoarsely. "Slay this man." "We'll do that," said Cleves with a shudder. "Only show him to us and we'll shoot the dirty reptile to slivers----" "Suppose we hit the jar of gas," said Recklow. After a silence, Tressa said: "I have got to give him back to Satan. There is no other way. I understood that from the first. He can not die by your pistols, though you shoot very fast and straight. No!" After another silence, Recklow said: "You had better find him before the wind changes. We hunt down wind or--we die here together." She looked at her husband. "Show him to us in your own way," he said, "and deal with him as he must be dealt with." A gleam passed across her pale face and she tried to smile at her husband. Then, turning down the hammock to the east, she walked noiselessly forward over the fibrous litter, the men on either side of her, their pistols poised. They had halted on the edge of an open glade, ringed with young pines in fullest plumage. Tressa was standing very straight and still in a strange, supple, agonised attitude, her left forearm across her eyes, her right hand clenched, her slender body slightly twisted to the left. The men gazed pallidly at her with tense, set faces, knowing that the girl was in terrible mental conflict against another mind--a powerful, sinister mind which was seeking to grasp her thoughts and control them. Minute after minute sped: the girl never moved, locked in her psychic duel with this other brutal mind,--beating back its terrible thought-waves which were attacking her, fighting for mental supremacy, struggling in silence with an unseen adversary whose mental dominance meant death. Suddenly her cry rang out sharply in the moonlight, and then, all at once, a man in white stood there in the lustre of the moon--a young, graceful man dressed in white flannels and carrying on his right arm what seemed to be a long white cloak. Instantly the girl was transformed from a living statue into a lithe, supple, lightly moving thing that passed swiftly to the west of the glade, keeping the young man in white facing the wind, which was blowing and tossing the plumy young pines. "So it is _you_, young man, with whom I have been wrestling here under the moon of the only God!" she said in a strange little voice, all vibrant and metallic with menacing laughter. "It is I, Keuke Mongol," replied the young man in white, tranquilly; yet his words came as though he were tired and out of breath, and the hand he raised to touch his small black moustache trembled as if from physical exhaustion. "Yarghouz!" she exclaimed. "Why did I not know you there on the golf links, Assassin of the Seventh Tower? And why do you come here with your shroud over your arm and hidden under it, in your right hand, a flask full of death?" He said, smiling: "I come because you are to die, Heavenly-Azure Eyes. I bring you your shroud." And he moved warily westward around the open circle of young pines. Instantly the girl flung her right arm straight upward. "Yarghouz!" "I hear thee, Heavenly Azure." "Another step to the west and I shatter thy flask of gas." "With what?" he demanded; but stood discreetly motionless. "With what I grasp in an empty palm. Thou knowest, Yarghouz." "I have heard," he said with smiling uncertainty, "but to hear of force that can be hurled out of an empty palm is one thing, and to see it and feel it is another. I think you lie, Heavenly Azure." "So thought Gutchlug. And died of a yellow snake." The young man seemed to reflect. Then he looked up at her in his frank, smiling way. "Wilt thou listen, Heavenly Eyes?" "I hear thee, Yarghouz." "Listen then, Keuke Mongol. Take life from us as we offer it. Life is sweet. Erlik, like a spider, waits in darkness for lost souls that flutter to his net." "You think my soul was lost there in the temple, Yarghouz?" "Unutterably lost, little temple girl of Yian. Therefore, live. Take life as a gift!" "Whose gift?" "Sanang's." "It is written," she said gravely, "that we belong to God and we return to him. Now then, Yezidee, do your duty as I do mine! Kai!" At the sound of the formula always uttered by the sect of Assassins when about to do murder, the young man started and shrank back. The west wind blew fresh in his startled eyes. "Sorceress," he said less firmly, "you leave your Yiort to come all alone into this forest and seek me. Why then have you come, if not to submit!--if not to take the gift of life--if not to turn away from your seducers who are hunting me, and who have corrupted you?" "Yarghouz, I come to slay you," she said quietly. Suddenly the man snarled at her, flung the shroud at her feet, and crept deliberately to the left. "Be careful!" she cried sharply; "look what you're about! Stand still, son of a dog! May your mother bewail your death!" Yarghouz edged toward the west, clasping in his right hand the flask of gas. "Sorceress," he laughed, "a witch of Thibet prophesied with a drum that the three purities, the nine perfections, and the nine times nine felicities shall be lodged in him who slays the treacherous temple girl, Keuke Mongol! There is more magic in this bottle which I grasp than in thy mind and body. Heavenly Eyes! I pray God to be merciful to this soul I send to Erlik!" All the time he was advancing, edging cautiously around the circle of little plumy pines; and already the wind struck his left cheek. "Yarghouz Khan!" cried the girl in her clear voice. "Take up your shroud and repeat the fatha!" "Backward!" laughed the young man, "--as do you, Keuke Mongol!" "Heretic!" she retorted. "Do you also refuse to name the ten Imaums in your prayers? Dog! Toad! Spittle of Erlik! May all your cattle die and all your horses take the glanders and all your dogs the mange!" "Silence, sorceress!" he shouted, pale with fear and fury. "Witch! Mud worm! May Erlik seize you! May your skin be covered with putrefying sores! May all the demons torment you! May God remember you in hell!" "Yarghouz! Stand still!" "Is your word then the Rampart of Gog and Magog, you young witch of Yian, that a Khan of the Seventh Tower need fear you!" he sneered, stealing stealthily westward through the feathery pines. "I give thee thy last chance, Yarghouz Khan," she said in an excited voice that trembled. "Recite thy prayer naming the ten, because with their holy names upon thy lips thou mayest escape damnation. For I am here to slay thee, Yarghouz! Take up thy shroud and pray!" The young man felt the west wind at the back of his left ear. Then he began to laugh. "Heavenly Eyes," he said, "thy end is come--together with the two police who hide in the pines yonder behind thee! Behold the bottle magic of Yarghouz Khan!" And he lifted the glass flask in the moonlight as though he were about to smash it at her feet. Then a terrible thing occurred. The entire flask glowed red hot in his grasp; and the man screamed and strove convulsively to fling the bottle; but it stuck to his hand, melted into the smoking flesh. Then he screamed again--or tried to--but his entire lower jaw came off and he stood there with the awful orifice gaping in the moonlight--stood, reeled a moment--and then--and _then_--his whole face slid off, leaving nothing but a bony mask out of which burst shriek after shriek---- Keuke Mongol had fainted dead away. Cleves took her into his arms. Recklow, trembling and deathly white, went over to the thing that lay among the young pines and forced himself to bend over it. The glass flask still stuck to one charred hand, but it was no longer hot. And Recklow rolled the unspeakable thing into the white shroud and pushed it into the swamp. An evil ooze took it, slowly sucked it under and engulfed it. A few stinking bubbles broke. Recklow went back to the little glade among the pines. A young girl lay sobbing convulsively in her husband's arms, asking God's pardon and his for the justice she had done upon an enemy of all mankind. CHAPTER X AT THE RITZ When Victor Cleves telegraphed from St. Augustine to Washington that he and his wife were on their way North, and that they desired to see John Recklow as soon as they arrived, John Recklow remarked that he knew of no place as private as a public one. And he came on to New York and established himself at the Ritz, rather regally. To dine with him that evening were two volunteer agents of the United States Secret Service, _ZB-303_, otherwise James Benton, a fashionable architect; and _XYL-371_, Alexander Selden, sometime junior partner in the house of Milwin, Selden & Co. A single lamp was burning in the white-and-rose rococo room. Under its veiled glow these three men sat conversing in guarded voices over coffee and cigars, awaiting the advent of _53-6-26_, otherwise Victor Cleves, recently Professor of Ornithology at Cambridge; and his young wife, Tressa, known officially as _V-69_. "Did the trip South do Mrs. Cleves any good?" inquired Benton. "Some," said Recklow. "When Selden and I saw her she was getting better." "I suppose that affair of Yarghouz upset her pretty thoroughly." "Yes." Recklow tossed his cigar into the fireplace and produced a pipe. "Victor Cleves upsets her more," he remarked. "Why?" asked Benton, astonished. "She's beginning to fall in love with him and doesn't know what's the matter with her," replied the elder man drily. "Selden noticed it, too." Benton looked immensely surprised. "I supposed," he said, "that she and Cleves considered the marriage to be merely a temporary necessity. I didn't imagine that they cared for each other." "I don't suppose they did at first," said Selden. "But I think she's interested in Victor. And I don't see how he can help falling in love with her, because she's a very beautiful thing to gaze on, and a most engaging one to talk to." "She's about the prettiest girl I ever saw," admitted Benton, "and about the cleverest. All the same----" "All the same--_what_?" "Well, Mrs. Cleves has her drawbacks, you know--as a real wife, I mean." Recklow said: "There is a fixed idea in Cleves's head that Tressa Norne married him as a last resort, which is true. But he'll never believe she's changed her ideas in regard to him unless she herself enlightens him. And the girl is too shy to do that. Besides, she believes the same thing of him. There's a mess for you!" Recklow filled his pipe carefully. "In addition," he went on, "Mrs. Cleves has another and very terrible fixed idea in her charming head, and that is that she really did lose her soul among those damned Yezidees. She believes that Cleves, though kind to her, considers her merely as something uncanny--something to endure until this Yezidee campaign is ended and she is safe from assassination." Benton said: "After all, and in spite of all her loveliness, I myself should not feel entirely comfortable with such a girl for a real wife." "Why?" demanded Recklow. "Well--good heavens, John!--those uncanny things she does--her rather terrifying psychic knowledge and ability--make a man more or less uneasy." He laughed without mirth. "For example," he added, "I never was nervous in any physical crisis; but since I've met Tressa Norne--to be frank--I'm not any too comfortable in my mind when I remember Gutchlug and Sanang and Albert Feke and that dirty reptile Yarghouz--and when I recollect _how that girl dealt with them_! Good God, John, I'm not a coward, I hope, but that sort of thing worries me!" Recklow lighted his pipe. He said: "In the Government's campaign against these eight foreigners who have begun a psychic campaign against the unsuspicious people of this decent Republic, with the purpose of surprising, overpowering and enslaving the minds of mankind by a misuse of psychic power, we agents of the Secret Service are slowly gaining the upper hand. "In this battle of minds we are gaining a victory. But we are winning solely and alone through the psychic ability and the loyalty and courage of a young girl who, through tragedy of circumstances, spent the years of her girlhood in the infamous Yezidee temple at Yian, and who learned from the devil-worshipers themselves not only this so-called magic of the Mongol sorcerers, but also how to meet its psychic menace and defeat it." He looked at Benton, shrugged: "If you and if Cleves really feel the slightest repugnance toward the strange psychic ability of this brave and generous girl, I for one do not share it." Benton reddened: "It isn't exactly repugnance----" But Recklow interrupted sharply: "Do you realise, Benton, what she's already accomplished for us in our secret battle against Bolshevism?--against the very powers of hell itself, led by these Mongol sorcerers? "Of the Eight Assassins--or Sheiks-el-Djebel--who came to the United States to wield the dreadful weapon of psychic power against the minds of our people, and to pervert them and destroy all civilisation,--of the Eight Chief Assassins of the Eight Towers, this girl already has discovered and identified four,--Sanang, Gutchlug, Albert Feke, and Yarghouz; and she has destroyed the last three." He sat calmly enjoying his pipe for a few moments' silence, then: "Five of this sect of Assassins remain--five sly, murderous, psychic adepts who call themselves sorcerers. Except for Prince Sanang, I do not know who these other four men may be. I haven't a notion. Nor have you. Nor do I believe that with all the resources of the United States Secret Service we ever should be able to discover these four Sheiks-el-Djebel except for the astounding spiritual courage and psychic experience of the young wife of Victor Cleves." After a moment Selden nodded. "That is quite true," he said simply. "We are utterly helpless against unknown psychic forces. And I, for one, feel no repugnance toward what Mrs. Cleves has done for all mankind and in the name of God." "She's a brave girl," muttered Benton, "but it's terrible to possess such knowledge and horrible to use it." Recklow said: "The horror of it nearly killed the girl herself. Have you any idea how she must suffer by being forced to employ such terrific knowledge? by being driven to use it to combat this menace of hell? Can you imagine what this charming, sensitive, tragic young creature must feel when, with powers natural to her but unfamiliar to us, she destroys with her own mind and will-power demons in human shape who are about to destroy her? "Talk of nerve! Talk of abnegation! Talk of perfect loyalty and courage! There is more than these in Tressa Cleves. There is that dauntless bravery which faces worse than physical death. Because the child still believes that her soul is damned for whatever happened to her in the Yezidee temple; and that when these Yezidees succeed in killing her body, Erlik will surely seize the soul that leaves it." There was a knocking at the door. Benton got up and opened it. Victor Cleves came in with his young wife. * * * * * Tressa Cleves seemed to have grown since she had been away. Taller, a trifle paler, yet without even the subtlest hint of that charming maturity which the young and happily married woman invariably wears, her virginal allure now verged vaguely on the delicate edges of austerity. Cleves, sunburnt and vigorous, looked older, somehow--far less boyish--and he seemed more silent than when, nearly seven months before, he had been assigned to the case of Tressa Norne. Recklow, Selden and Benton greeted them warmly; to each in turn Tressa gave her narrow, sun-tanned hand. Recklow led her to a seat. A servant came with iced fruit juice and little cakes and cigarettes. Conversation, aimless and general, fulfilling formalities, gradually ceased. A full June moon stared through the open windows--searching for the traditional bride, perhaps--and its light silvered a pale and lovely figure that might possibly have passed for the pretty ghost of a bride, but not for any girl who had married because she was loved. Recklow broke the momentary silence, bluntly: "Have you anything to report, Cleves?" The young fellow hesitated: "My wife has, I believe." The others turned to her. She seemed, for a moment, to shrink back in her chair, and, as her eyes involuntarily sought her husband, there was in them a vague and troubled appeal. Cleves said in a sombre voice: "I need scarcely remind you how deeply distasteful this entire and accursed business is to my wife. But she is going to see it through, whatever the cost. And we four men understand something of what it has cost her--is costing her--in violence to her every instinct." "We honour her the more," said Recklow quietly. "We couldn't honour her too much," said Cleves. A slight colour came into Tressa's face; she bent her head, but Recklow saw her eyes steal sideways toward her husband. Still bowed a little in her chair, she seemed to reflect for a while concerning what she had to say; then, looking up at John Recklow: "I saw Sanang." "Good heavens! Where?" he demanded. "I--don't--know." Cleves, flushing with embarrassment, explained: "She saw him clairvoyantly. She was lying in the hammock. You remember I had a trained nurse for her after--what happened in Orchid Lodge." Tressa looked miserably at Recklow,--dumbly, for a moment. Then her lips unclosed. "I saw Prince Sanang," she repeated. "He was near the sea. There were rocks--cottages on cliffs--and very brilliant flowers in tiny, pocket-like gardens. "Sanang was walking on the cliffs with another man. There were forests, inland." "Do you know who the other man was?" asked Recklow gently. "Yes. He was one of the Eight. I recognised him. When I was a girl he came once to the Temple of Yian, all alone, and spread his shroud on the pink marble steps. And we temple girls mocked him and threw stemless roses on the shroud, telling him they were human heads with which to grease his toug." She became excited and sat up straighter in her chair, and her strange little laughter rippled like a rill among pebbles. "I threw a big rose without a stem upon the shroud," she exclaimed, "and I cried out, 'Niaz!' which means, 'Courage,' and I mocked him, saying, 'Djamouk Khagan,' when he was only a Khan, of course; and I laughed and rubbed one finger against the other, crying out, 'Toug ia glachakho!' which means, 'The toug is anointed.' And which was very impudent of me, because Djamouk was a Sheik-el-Djebel and Khan of the Fifth Tower, and entitled to a toug and to eight men and a Toughtchi. And it is a grave offence to mock at the anointing of a toug." She paused, breathless, her splendid azure eyes sparkling with the memory of that girlish mischief. Then their brilliancy faded; she bit her lip and stole an uncertain glance at her husband. And after a pause she explained in a very subdued voice that the "Iagla michi," or action of "greasing the toug," or standard, was done when a severed human head taken in battle was cast at the foot of the lance shaft stuck upright in the ground. "You see," she said sadly, "we temple girls, being already damned, cared little what we said, even to such a terrible man as Djamouk Khan. And even had the ghost of old Tchinguiz Khagan himself come to the temple and looked at us out of his tawny eyes, I think we might have done something saucy." Tressa's pretty face was spiritless, now; she leaned back in her armchair and they heard an unconscious sigh escape her. "Ai-ya! Ai-ya!" she murmured to herself, "what crazy things we did on the rose-marble steps, Yulun and I, so long--so long ago." Cleves got up and went over to stand beside his wife's chair. "What happened is this," he said heavily. "During my wife's convalescence after that Yarghouz affair, she found herself, at a certain moment, clairvoyant. And she thought she saw--she _did_ see--Sanang, and an Asiatic she recognised as being one of the chiefs of the Assassins sect, whose name is Djamouk. "But, except that it was somewhere near the sea--some summer colony probably on the Atlantic coast--she does not know where this pair of jailbirds roost. And this is what we have come here to report." Benton, politely appalled, tried not to look incredulous. But it was evident that Selden and Recklow had no doubts. "Of course," said Recklow calmly, "the thing to do is for you and your wife to try to find this place she saw." "Make a tour of all such ocean-side resorts until Mrs. Cleves recognises the place she saw," added Selden. And to Recklow he added: "I believe there are several perfectly genuine cases on record where clairvoyants have aided the police." "Several authentic cases," said Recklow quietly. But Benton's face was a study. Tressa looked up at her husband. He dropped his hand reassuringly on her shoulder and nodded with a slight smile. "There--there was something else," she said with considerable hesitation--"something not quite in line of duty--perhaps----" "It seems to concern Benton," added Cleves, smiling. "What is it?" inquired Selden, smiling also as Benton's features froze to a mask. "Let me tell you, first," interrupted Cleves, "that my wife's psychic ability and skill can make me visualise and actually see scenes and people which, God knows, I never before laid eyes upon, but which she has both seen and known. "And one morning, in Florida, I asked her to do something strange--something of that sort to amuse me--and we were sitting on the steps of our cottage--you know, the old club-house at Orchid!--and the first I knew I saw, in the mist on the St. Johns, a Chinese bridge humped up over that very commonplace stream, and thousands of people passing over it,--and a city beyond--the town of Yian, Tressa tells me,--and I heard the Buddhist bells and the big temple gong and the noises in streets and on the water----" He was becoming considerably excited at the memory, and his lean face reddened and he gesticulated as he spoke: "It was astounding, Recklow! There was that bridge, and all those people moving over it; and the city beyond, and the boats and shipping, and the vast murmur of multitudes.... And then, there on the bridge crossing toward Yian, I saw a young girl, who turned and looked back at my wife and laughed." "And I told him it was Yulun," said Tressa, simply. "A playfellow of my wife's in Yian," explained Cleves. "But if she were really Chinese she didn't look like what are my own notions of a Chinese girl." "Yulun came from Black China," said Mrs. Cleves. "I taught her English. I loved her dearly. I was her most intimate friend in Yian." There ensued a silence, broken presently by Benton; and: "Where do I appear in this?" he asked stiffly. Tressa's smile was odd; she looked at Selden and said: "When I was convalescent I was lonely.... I made _the effort_ one evening. And I found Yulun. And again she was on a bridge. But she was dressed as I am. And the bridge was one of those great, horrible steel monsters that sprawl across the East River. And I was astonished, and I said, 'Yulun, darling, are you really here in America and in New York, or has a demon tangled the threads of thought to mock my mind in illness?' "Then Yulun looked very sorrowfully at me and wrote in Arabic characters, in the air, the name of our enemy who once came to the Lake of Ghosts for love of her--Yaddin-ed-Din, Tougtchi to Djamouk the Fox.... And who went his way again amid our scornful laughter.... He is a demon. And he was tangling my thread of thought!" Tressa became exceedingly animated once more. She rose and came swiftly to where Benton was standing. "And what do you think!" she said eagerly. "I said to her, 'Yulun! Yulun! Will you _make the effort_ and come to me if I _make the effort_? Will you come to me, beloved?' And Yulun made 'Yes,' with her lips." After a silence: "But--where do I come in?" inquired Benton, stiffly fearful of such matters. "You _came_ in." "I don't understand." "You came in the door while Yulun and I were talking." "When?" "When you came to see me after I was better, and you and Mr. Selden were going North with Mr. Recklow. Don't you remember; I was lying in the hammock in the moonlight, and Victor told you I was asleep?" "Yes, of course----" "I was not asleep. I had _made the effort_ and I was with Yulun.... I did not know you were standing beside my hammock in the moonlight until Yulun told me.... And _that_ is what I am to tell you; Yulun saw you.... And Yulun has written it in Chinese, in Eighur characters and in Arabic,--tracing them with her forefinger in the air--that Yulun, loveliest in Yian, flame-slender and very white, has seen her heart, like a pink pearl afire, burning between your august hands." "My hands!" exclaimed Benton, very red. There fell an odd silence. Nobody laughed. Tressa came nearer to Benton, wistful, uncertain, shy. "Would you care to see Yulun?" she asked. "Well--no," he said, startled. "I--I shall not deny that such things worry me a lot, Mrs. Cleves. I'm a--an Episcopalian." The tension released, Selden was the first to laugh. "There's no use blinking the truth," he said; "we're up against something absolutely new. Of course, it isn't magic. It can, of course, be explained by natural laws about which we happen to know nothing at present." Recklow nodded. "What do we know about the human mind? It has been proven that no thought can originate within that mass of convoluted physical matter called the brain. It has been proven that _something outside_ the brain originates thought and uses the brain as a vehicle to incubate it. What do we know about thought?" Selden, much interested, sat cogitating and looking at Mrs. Cleves. But Benton, still flushed and evidently nervous, sat staring out of the window at the full moon, and twisting an unlighted cigarette to shreds. "Why didn't you tell Benton when the thing occurred down there at Orchid Lodge, the night we called to say good-bye?" asked Selden, curiously. Tressa gave him a distressed smile: "I was afraid he wouldn't believe me. And I was afraid that you and Mr. Recklow, even if you believed it, might not like--like me any the better for--for being clairvoyant." Recklow came over, bent his handsome grey head, and kissed her hand. "I never liked any woman better, nor respected any woman as deeply," he said. And, lifting his head, he saw tears sparkling in her eyes. "My dear," he said in a low voice, and his firm hand closed over the slim fingers he had kissed. Benton got up from his chair, went to the window, turned shortly and came over to Tressa. "You're braver than I ever could learn to be," he said shortly. "I ask your pardon if I seem sceptical. I'm more worried than incredulous. There's something born in me--part of me--that shrinks from anything that upsets my orthodox belief in the future life. But--if you wish me to see this--this girl--Yulun--it's quite all right." She said softly, and with gentle wonder: "I know of nothing that could upset your belief, Mr. Benton. There is only one God. And if Mahomet be His prophet, or if he be Lord Buddha, or if your Lord Christ be vice-regent to the Most High, I do not know. All I know is that God is God, and that He prevailed over Satan who was stoned. And that in Paradise is eternal life, and in hell demons hide where dwells Erlik, Prince of Darkness." Benton, silent and secretly aghast at her theology, said nothing. Recklow pleasantly but seriously denied that Satan and his demons were actual and concrete creatures. Again Cleves's hand fell lightly on his wife's shoulder, in a careless gesture of reassurance. And, to Benton, "No soul is ever lost," he said, calmly. "I don't exactly know how that agrees with your orthodoxy, Benton. But it is surely so." "I don't know myself," said Benton. "I hope it's so." He looked at Tressa a moment and then blurted out: "Anyway, if ever there was a soul in God's keeping and guarded by His angels, it's your wife's!" "That also is true," said Cleves quietly. "By the way," remarked Recklow carelessly, "I've arranged to have you stop at the Ritz while you're in town, Mrs. Cleves. You and your husband are to occupy the apartment adjoining this. Where is your luggage, Victor?" "In our apartment." "That won't do," said Recklow decisively. "Telephone for it." Cleves went to the telephone, but Recklow took the instrument out of his hand and called the number. The voice of one of his own agents answered. Cleves was standing alone by the open window when Recklow hung up the telephone. Tressa, on the sofa, had been whispering with Benton. Selden, looking over the evening paper by the rose-shaded lamp, glanced up as Recklow went over to Cleves. "Victor," he said, "your man has been murdered. His throat was cut; his head was severed completely. Your luggage has been ransacked and so has your apartment. Three of my men are in possession, and the local police seem to comprehend the necessity of keeping the matter out of the newspapers. What was in your baggage?" "Nothing," said Cleves, ghastly pale. "All right. We'll have your effects packed up again and brought over here. Are you going to tell your wife?" Cleves, still deathly pale, cast a swift glance toward her. She sat on the sofa in animated conversation with Benton. She laughed once, and Benton smiled at what she was saying. "Is there any need to tell her, Recklow?" "Not for a while, anyway." "All right. I suppose the Yezidees are responsible for this horrible business." "Certainly. Your poor servant's head lay at the foot of a curtain-pole which had been placed upright between two chairs. On the pole were tied three tufts of hair from the dead man's head. The pole had been rubbed with blood." "That's Mongol custom," muttered Cleves. "They made a toug and 'greased' it!--the murderous devils!" "They did more. They left at the foot of your bed and at the foot of your wife's bed two white sheets. And a knife lay in the centre of each sheet. That, of course, is the symbol of the Sect of Assassins." Cleves nodded. His body, as he leaned there on the window sill in the moonlight, trembled. But his face had grown dark with rage. "If I could--could only get my hands on one of them," he whispered hoarsely. "Be careful. Don't wear a face like that. Your wife is looking at us," murmured Recklow. With an effort Cleves raised his head and smiled across the room at his wife. "Our luggage will be sent over shortly," he said. "If you're tired, we'll say good-night." So she rose and the three men came to make their adieux and pay their compliments and devoirs. Then, with a smile that seemed almost happy, she went into her own apartment on her husband's arm. Cleves and his wife had connecting bedrooms and a sitting-room between. Here they paused for a moment before the always formal ceremony of leave-taking at night. There were roses on the centre table. Tressa dropped one hand on the table and bent over the flowers. "They seem so friendly," she said under her breath. He thought she meant that she found even in flowers a refuge from the solitude of a loveless marriage. He said quietly: "I think you will find the world very friendly, if you wish." But she shook her head, looking at the roses. Finally he said good-night and she extended her hand, and he took it formally. Then their hands fell away. Tressa turned and went toward her bedroom. At the door she stopped, turned slowly. "What shall I do about Yulun?" she asked. "What is there to do? Yulun is in China." "Yes, her body is." "Do you mean that the rest of her--whatever it is--could come here?" "Why, of course." "So that Benton could see her?" "Yes." "Could he see her just as she is? Her face and figure--clothes and everything?" "Yes." "Would she seem real or like a ghost--spirit--whatever you choose to call such things?" Tressa smiled. "She'd be exactly as real as you or I, Victor. She'd seem like anybody else." "That's astonishing," he muttered. "Could Benton hear her speak?" "Certainly." "Talk to her?" Tressa laughed: "Of course. If Yulun should _make the effort_ she could leave her body as easily as she undresses herself. It is no more difficult to divest one's self of one's body than it is to put off one garment and put on another.... And, somehow, I think Yulun will do it to-night." "Come _here_?" "It would be like her." Tressa laughed. "Isn't it odd that she should have become so enamoured of Mr. Benton--just seeing him there in the moonlight that night at Orchid Lodge?" For a moment the smile curved her lips, then the shadow fell again across her eyes, veiling them in that strange and lovely way which Cleves knew so well; and he looked into her impenetrable eyes in troubled silence. "Victor," she said in a low voice, "were you afraid to tell me that your man had been murdered?" After a moment: "You always know everything," he said unsteadily. "When did you learn it?" "Just before Mr. Recklow told you." "How did you learn it, Tressa?" "I looked into our apartment." "When?" "While you were telephoning." "You mean you looked into our rooms from _here_?" "Yes, clairvoyantly." "What did you see?" "The Iaglamichi!" she said with a shudder. "Kai! The Toug of Djamouk is anointed at last!" "Is that the beast of a Mongol who did this murder?" "Djamouk and Prince Sanang planned it," she said, trembling a little. "But that butchery was Yaddin's work, I think. Kai! The work of Yaddined-Din, Tougtchi to Djamouk the Fox!" They stood confronting each other, the length of the sitting-room between them. And after the silence had lasted a full minute Cleves reddened and said: "I am going to sleep on the couch at the foot of your bed, Tressa." His young wife reddened too. He said: "This affair has thoroughly scared me. I can't let you sleep out of my sight." "I am quite safe. And you would have an uncomfortable night," she murmured. "Do you mind if I sleep on the couch, Tressa?" "No." "Will you call me when you are ready?" "Yes." She went into her bedroom and closed the door. When he was ready he slipped a pistol into the pocket of his dressing-gown, belted it over his pyjamas, and walked into the sitting-room. His wife called him presently, and he went in. Her night-lamp was burning and she extended her hand to extinguish it. "Could you sleep if it burns?" he asked bluntly. "Yes." "Then let it burn. This business has got on my nerves," he muttered. They looked at each other in an expressionless way. Both really understood how useless was this symbol of protection--this man the girl called husband;--how utterly useless his physical strength, and the pistol sagging in the pocket of his dressing-gown. Both understood that the only real protection to be looked for must come from her--from the gifted and guardian mind of this young girl who lay there looking at him from the pillows. "Good-night," he said, flushing; "I'll do my best. But only one of God's envoys, like you, knows how to do battle with things that come out of hell." After a moment's silence she said in a colourless voice: "I wish you'd lie down on the bed." "Had you rather I did?" "Yes." So he went slowly to the bed, placed his pistol under the pillow, drew his dressing-gown around him, and lay down. After he had lain unstirring for half an hour: "Try to sleep, Tressa," he said, without turning his head. "Can't you seem to sleep, Victor?" she asked. And he heard her turn her head. "No." "Shall I help you?" "Do you mean use hypnosis--the power of suggestion--on me?" "No. I can help you to sleep very gently. I can make you very drowsy.... You are drowsy now.... You are very close to the edge of sleep.... Sleep, dear.... Sleep, easily, naturally, confidently as a tired boy.... You are sleeping, ... deeply ... sweetly ... my dear ... my dear, dear husband." CHAPTER XI YULUN THE BELOVED Cleves opened his eyes. He was lying on his left side. In the pink glow of the night-lamp he saw his wife in her night-dress, seated sideways on the farther edge of the bed, talking to a young girl. The strange girl wore what appeared to be a chamber-robe of frail gold tissue that clung to her body and glittered as she moved. He had never before seen such a dress; but he had seen the girl; he recognised her instantly as the girl he had seen turn to look back at Tressa as she crossed the phantom bridge over that misty Florida river. And Cleves comprehended that he was looking at Yulun. But this charming young thing was no ghost, no astral projection. This girl was warm, living, breathing flesh. The delicate scent of her strange garments and of her hair, her very breath, was in the air of the room. Her half-hushed but laughing voice was deliciously human; her delicate little hands, caressing Tressa's, were too eagerly real to doubt. Both talked at the same time, their animated voices mingling in the breathless delight of the reunion. Their exclamations, enchanting laughter, bubbling chatter, filled his ears. But not one word of what they were saying to each other could he understand. Suddenly Tressa looked over her shoulder and met his astonished eyes. "Tokhta!" she exclaimed. "Yulun! My lord is awake!" Yulun swung around swiftly on the edge of the bed and looked laughingly at Cleves. But when her red lips unclosed she spoke to Tressa: and, "Darling," she said in English, "I think your dear lord remembers that he saw me on the Bridge of Dreams. And heard the bells of Yian across the mist." Tressa said, laughing at her husband: "This is Yulun, flame-slender, very white, loveliest in Yian. On the rose-marble steps of the Yezidee Temple she flung a stemless rose upon Djamouk's shroud, where he had spread it like a patch of snow in the sun. "And at the Lake of the Ghosts, where there is freedom to love, for those who desire love, came Yaddin, Tougtchi to Djamouk the Fox, in search of love--and Yulun, flame-slim, and flower-white.... Tell my dear lord, Yulun!" Yulun laughed at Cleves out of her dark eyes that slanted charmingly at the corners. "Kai!" she cried softly, clapping her palms. "I took his roses and tore them with my hands till their petals rained on him and their golden hearts were a powdery cloud floating across the water. "I said: 'Even the damned do not mate with demons, my Tougtchi! So go to the devil, my Banneret, and may Erlik seize you!'" Cleves, his ears ringing with the sweet confusion of their girlish laughter, rose from his pillow, supporting himself on one arm. "You are Yulun. You are alive and real----" He looked at Tressa: "She is real, isn't she?" And, to Yulun: "Where do you come from?" The girl replied seriously: "I come from Yian." She turned to Tressa with a dazzling smile: "Thou knowest, my heart's gold, how it was I came. Tell thy dear lord in thine own way, so that it shall be simple for his understanding.... And now--because my visit is ending--I think thy dear lord should sleep. Bid him sleep, my heart's gold!" At that calm suggestion Cleves sat upright on the bed,--or attempted to. But sank back gently on his pillow and met there a dark, delicious rush of drowsiness. He made an effort--or tried to: the smooth, sweet tide of sleep swept over him to the eyelids, leaving him still and breathing evenly on his pillow. The two girls leaned over and looked down at him. "Thy dear lord," murmured Yulun. "Does he love thee, rose-bud of Yian?" "No," said Tressa, under her breath. "Does he know thou art damned, heart of gold?" "He says no soul is ever really harmed," whispered Tressa. "Kai! Has he never heard of the Slayer of Souls?" exclaimed Yulun incredulously. "My lord maintains that neither the Assassin of Khorassan nor the Sheiks-el-Djebel of the Eight Towers, nor their dark prince Erlik, can have power over God to slay the human soul." "Tokhta, Rose of Yian! Our souls were slain there in the Yezidee temple." Tressa looked down at Cleves: "My dear lord says no," she said under her breath. "And--Sanang?" Tressa paled: "His mind and mine did battle. I tore my heart from his grasp. I have laid it, bleeding, at my dear lord's feet. Let God judge between us, Yulun." "There was a day," whispered Yulun, "when Prince Sanang went to the Lake of the Ghosts." Tressa, very pallid, looked down at her sleeping husband. She said: "Prince Sanang came to the Lake of the Ghosts. The snow of the cherry-trees covered the young world. "The water was clear as sunlight; and the lake was afire with scarlet carp.... Yulun--beloved--the nightingale sang all night long--all night long.... Then I saw Sanang shining, all gold, in the moonlight.... May God remember him in hell!" "May God remember him." "Sanang Noïane. May he be accursed in the Namaz Ga!" "May he be tormented in Jehaunum!--Sanang, Slayer of Souls." Tressa leaned forward on the bed, stretched herself out, and laid her face gently across her husband's feet, touching them with her lips. Then she straightened herself and sat up, supported by one hand, and looking silently down at the sleeping man. "No soul shall die," she said. "Niaz!" "Is it written?" asked Yulun, surprised. "My lord has said it." "Allahou Ekber," murmured Yulun; "thy lord is only a man." Tressa said: "Neither the Tekbir nor the fatha, nor the warning of Khidr, nor the Yacaz of the Khagan, nor even the prayers of the Ten Imaums are of any value to me unless my dear lord confirms the truth of them with his own lips." "And Erlik? Is he nothing, then?" "Erlik!" repeated Tressa insolently. "Who is Erlik but the servant of Satan who was stoned?" Her beautiful, angry lips were suddenly distorted; her blue eyes blazed. Then she spat, her mouth still tremulous with hatred. She said in a voice shaking with rage: "Yulun, beloved! Listen attentively. I have slain two of the Slayers of the Eight Towers. With God's help I shall slay them all--all!--Djamouk, Yaddin, Arrak Sou-Sou--all!--every one!--Tiyang Khan, Togrul,--all shall I slay, even to the last one among them!" "_Sanang, also?_" "I leave him to God. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!" Yulun calmly paraphrased the cant phrase of the Assassins: "For it is written that we belong to God and we return to Him. Heart of gold, I shall execute my duty!" Then Yulun slipped from the edge of the bed to the floor, and stood there looking oddly at Tressa, her eyes rain-bright as though choking back tears--or laughter. "Heart of a rose," she said in a suppressed voice, "my time is nearly ended.... So.... I go to the chamber of this strange young man who holds my soul like a pearl afire between his hands.... I think it it written that I shall love him." Tressa rose also and placed her lips close to Yulun's ear: "His name, beloved, is Benton. His room is on this floor. Shall we _make the effort_ together?" "Yes," said Yulun. "Lay your body down upon the bed beside your lord who sleeps so deeply.... And now stretch out.... And fold both hands.... And now put off thy body like a silken garment.... So! And leave it there beside thy lord, asleep." They stood together for a moment, shining like dewy shapes of tall flowers, whispering and laughing together in the soft glow of the night lamp. Cleves slept on, unstirring. There was the white and sleeping figure of his wife lying on the bed beside him. But Tressa and Yulun were already melting away between the wall and the confused rosy radiance of the lamp. Benton, in night attire and chamber-robe belted in, fresh from his bath and still drying his curly hair on a rough towel, wandered back into his bedroom. When his short, bright hair was dry, he lighted a cigarette, took the automatic from his dresser, examined the clip, and shoved it under his pillow. Then he picked up the little leather-bound Testament, seated himself, and opened it. And read tranquilly while his cigarette burned. When he was ready he turned out the ceiling light, leaving only the night lamp lighted. Then he knelt beside his bed,--a custom surviving the nursery period,--and rested his forehead against his folded hands. Then, as he prayed, something snapped the thread of prayer as though somebody had spoken aloud in the still room; and, like one who has been suddenly interrupted, he opened his eyes and looked around and upward. The silent shock of her presence passed presently. He got up from his knees, looking at her all the while. "You are Yulun," he said very calmly. The girl flushed brightly and rested one hand on the foot of the bed. "Do you remember in the moonlight where you walked along the hedge of white hibiscus and oleander--that night you said good-bye to Tressa in the South?" "Yes." "Twice," she said, laughing, "you stopped to peer at the blossoms in the moonlight." "I thought I saw a face among them." "You were not sure whether it was flowers or a girl's face looking at you from the blossoming hedge of white hibiscus," said Yulun. "I know now," he said in an odd, still voice, unlike his own. "Yes, it was I," she murmured. And of a sudden the girl dropped to her knees without a sound and laid her head on the velvet carpet at his feet. So swiftly, noiselessly was it done that he had not comprehended--had not moved--when she sat upright, resting on her knees, and grasped the collar of her tunic with both gemmed hands. "Have pity on me, lord of my lost soul!" she cried softly. Benton stooped in a dazed way to lift the girl; but found himself knee deep in a snowy drift of white hibiscus blossoms--touched nothing but silken petals--waded in them as he stepped forward. And saw her standing before him still grasping the collar of her golden tunic. A great white drift of bloom lay almost waist deep between them; the fragrance of oleander, too, was heavy in the room. "There are years of life before the flaming gates of Jehaunum open. And I am very young," said Yulun wistfully. Somebody else laughed in the room. Turning his head, he saw Tressa standing by the empty fireplace. "What you see and hear need not disturb you," she said, looking at Benton out of brilliant eyes. "There is no god but God; and His prophet has been called by many names." And to Yulun: "Have I not told you that nothing can harm our souls?" Yulun's expression altered and she turned to Benton: "Say it to me!" she pleaded. As in a dream he heard his own words: "Nothing can ever really harm the soul." Yulun's hands fell from her tunic collar. Very slowly she lifted her head, looking at him out of lovely, proud young eyes. She said, evenly, her still gaze on him: "I am Yulun of the Temple. My heart is like a blazing pearl which you hold between your hands. May the four Blessed Companions witness the truth of what I say." Then a delicate veil of colour wrapped her white skin from throat to temple; she looked at Benton with sudden and exquisite distress, frightened and ashamed at his silence. In the intense stillness Benton moved toward her. Into his outstretched hands her two hands fell; but, bending above them, his lips touched only two white hibiscus flowers that lay fresh and dewy in his palms. Bewildered, he straightened up; and saw the girl standing by the mantel beside Tressa, who had caught her by the left hand. "Tokhta! Look out!" she said distinctly. Suddenly he saw two men in the room, close to him--their broad faces, slanting eyes, and sparse beards thrust almost against his shoulder. "Djamouk! Yaddin-ed-Din!" cried Tressa in a terrible voice. But quick as a flash Yulun tore a white sheet from the bed, flung it on the floor, and, whipping a tiny, jewelled knife from her sleeve, threw it glittering upon the sheet at the feet of the two men. "One shroud for two souls!" she said breathlessly, "--and a knife like that to sever them from their bodies!" The two men sprang backward as the sheet touched their feet, and now they stood there as though confounded. "Djamouk, Kahn of the Fifth Tower!" cried Tressa in a clear voice, "you have put off your body like a threadbare cloak, and your form that stands there is only your mind! And it is only the evil will of Yaddin in the shape of his body that confronts us in this room of a man you have doomed!" Yulun, intent as a young leopardess on her prey, moved soundlessly toward Yaddin. "Tougtchi!" she said coldly, "you did murder this day, my Banneret, and the Toug of Djamouk has been greased. Now look out for yourself!" "Don't stir!" came Tressa's warning voice, as Benton snatched his pistol from the pillow. "Don't fire! Those men have no real substance! For God's sake don't fire! I tell you they have no bodies!" Suddenly something--some force--flung Benton on the bed. The two men did not seem to touch him at all, but he lay there struggling, crushed, held by something that was strangling him. Through his swimming eyes he saw Yaddin trying to drive a long nail into his skull with a hammer,--felt the piercing agony of the first crashing blow,--struggled upright, drenched in blood, his ears ringing with the screaming of Yaddin. Then, there in the little rococo bedroom of the Ritz-Carlton, began a strange and horrible struggle--the more dreadful because the struggle was not physical and the combatants never touched each other--scarcely moved at all. Yaddin, still screaming, confronted Yulun. The girl's eyes were ablaze, her lips parted with the violence of her breathing. And Yaddin writhed and screamed under the terrible concentration of her gaze, his inferior but ferocious mind locked with her mind in deadly battle. The girl said slowly, showing a glimmer of white teeth: "Your will to do evil to my young lord is breaking, Yaddin-ed-Din.... I am breaking it. The nail and hammer were but symbols. It was your brain that brooded murder--that willed he should die as though shattered by lightning when that blood-vessel burst in his brain!" "Sorceress!" shrieked Yaddin, "what are you doing to my heart, where my body lies asleep in a berth on the Montreal Express!" "Your heart is weak, Yaddin. Soon the valves shall fail. A negro porter shall discover you dead in your berth, my Banneret!" The man's swarthy face became livid with the terrific mental battle. "Let me go back to my body!" he panted. "What are you doing to me that I can not go back? I will go back! I wish it!--I----" "Let us go back and rejoin our bodies!" cried Djamouk in an agonised voice. "There are teeth in my throat, deep in my throat, biting and tearing out the cords." "Cancer," said Tressa calmly. "Your body shall die of it while your soul stumbles on through darkness." "My Tougtchi!" shouted Djamouk, "I hear my soul bidding my body farewell! I must go before my mind expires in the terrible gaze of this young sorceress!" He turned, drifted like something misty to the solid wall. "My soul be ransom for yours!" cried Yulun to Tressa. "Bar that man's path to life!" Tressa flung out her right hand and, with her forefinger, drew a barrier through space, bar above bar. And Benton, half swooning on his bed, saw a cage of terrible and living light penning in Djamouk, who beat upon the incandescent bars and grasped them and clawed his way about, squealing like a tortured rat in a red-hot cage. Through the deafening tumult Yulun's voice cut like a sword: "Their bodies are dying, Heart of a Rose!... Listen! I hear their souls bidding their minds farewell!" And, after a dreadful silence: "The train speeding north carries two dead men! God is God. Niaz!" The bars of living fire faded. Two cinder-like and shapeless shadows floated and eddied like whitened ashes stirred by a wind on the hearth; then drifted through the lamp-light, fading, dissolving, lost gradually in thin air. Tressa, leaning back against the mantel, covered her face with both hands. Yulun crept to the bed where Benton lay, breathing evenly in deepest sleep. With the sheer sleeve of her tunic she wiped the blood from his face. And, at her touch, the wound in the temple closed and the short, bright hair dried and curled over a forehead as clean and fresh as a boy's. Then Yulun laid her lips against his, rested so a moment. "Seek me, dear lord," she whispered. "Or send me a sign and I shall come." And, after a pause, she said, her lips scarcely stirring: "Love me. My heart is a flaming pearl burning between your hands." Then she lifted her head. But Tressa had rejoined her body, where it lay asleep beside her deeply sleeping husband. So Yulun stood a moment, her eyes remote. Then, after a while, the little rococo bedroom in the Ritz-Carlton was empty save for a young man asleep on the bed, holding in his clenched hand a white hibiscus blossom. CHAPTER XII HIS EXCELLENCY His Excellency President Tintinto, Chief Executive of one of the newer and cruder republics, visiting New York incognito with his Secretaries of War and of the Navy, had sent for John Recklow. And now the reception was in full operation. Recklow was explaining. "In the beginning," he said, "the Bolsheviks' aim was to destroy everything and everybody except themselves, and then to reorganise for their own benefit what was left of a wrecked world. That was their programme----" "Quite a programme," interrupted the Secretary of War, with something that almost resembled a giggle. But his prominent eyes continued to stare at Recklow untouched by the mirth which stretched his large, silly mouth. The face of the Secretary of the Navy resembled the countenance of a benevolent manatee. The visage of the President was a study in tinted chalks. Recklow said: "To combat that sort of Bolshevism was a business that we of the United States Secret Service understood--or supposed we understood. "Then, suddenly, out of unknown Mongolia and into the civilised world stepped eight men." "Yezidees," said the President mechanically. "Your Government has sent me a very full report." "Yezidees of the Sect of the Assassins," continued Recklow; "--the most ancient sect in the world surviving from ancient times--the Sorcerers of Asia. And, as it was in ancient times, so it is now: the Yezidees are devil worshipers; their god is Satan; _his_ prophet is Erlik, Prince of Darkness; _his_ regent on earth is the old man of Mount Alamout; and to this ancient and sinister title a Yezidee sorcerer called Prince Sanang, or Sanang Noïane, has succeeded. "His murderous deputies were the Eight Khans of the Eight Towers. Four of these assassins are dead--Gutchlug, Yarghouz, Djamouk the Fox, and Yaddin-ed-Din. One is in prison charged with murder,--Albert Feke. "Four of the sorcerers remain alive: Tiyang Khan, Togrul, Arrak, Sou-Sou, called The Squirrel, and the Old Man of the Mountain himself, Saï-Sanang, Prince of the Yezidees." Recklow paused; the pop-eyes of the War Secretary were upon him; the benevolent manatee gazed mildly at him; the countenance of the President seemed more like a Rocky Mountain goat than ever--chiselled out of a block of tinted chalk. Recklow said: "To the menace of Bolshevism, which endangers this Republic and yours, has been added a more terrible threat--the threat of powerful and evil minds made formidable by psychic knowledge. "For these Yezidee Sorcerers are determined to conquer, seize, and subdue the minds of mankind. They are here for that frightful purpose. Powerfully, terrifically equipped to surprise and capture the unarmed minds of our people, enslave their very thoughts and use them to their own purposes, these Sorcerers of the Yezidees assumed control of the Bolsheviki, who were merely envious and ferocious bandits, but whose crippled minds are now utterly enslaved by these Assassins from Asia. "And this is what the United States Secret Service has to combat. And its weapons are not warrants, not pistols. For in this awful battle between decency and evil, it is mind against mind in an occult death grapple. And our only weapon against these minds made powerful by psychic knowledge and made terrible by an esoteric ability akin to what is called black magic,--our only weapon is the mind of a young girl." "I understand," said the President, "that she became an adept in occult practices while imprisoned in the Yezidee Temple of Erlik at Yian." Recklow looked into the President's face, which had grown very pale. "Yes, sir," he said. "God alone knows what this child learned in the Yezidee Temple. All I know is that with this knowledge she has met the Yezidees in a battle of minds, has halted them, confounded them, fought them with their own occult knowledge, and has slain four of them." The intense silence was broken by the frivolous titter of the Secretary of War: "Of course I don't believe any of this supernatural stuff," he said with the split grin which did not modify his protruding stare. "This girl is merely a clever detective, that is the gist of the matter. And I don't believe anything else." "Perhaps, sir, you will believe this, then," said John Recklow quietly. "I cut it from the _Times_ this morning." And he handed the clipping to the Secretary of War. NEW PLOT IN EAST Moslem and Hindu Conspirators Have Formed Secret Organisation Have World Revolution in View Think to Rouse Asia, America, and Africa to Outbreaks by Their Propaganda. * * * * * Copyright, 1919, by _The New York Times_ Company. Special Cable to _The New York Times_. July 1.--A significant event has recently taken place. Under the name of the Oriental League has recently been established a central organisation uniting all the various secret societies of Moslem and Hindu nationalists. The aim of the new association is to prepare for joint revolutionary action in Asia, America, and Africa. The effects of this vast conspiracy may already be traced in recent events in Egypt, India, and Afghanistan. For the first time, through the creation of this league, the racial and religious differences which have divided Eastern conspirators have been overcome. The Ottoman League, founded by Mahmud Muktar Pasha, Munir Pasha, and Ahmed Rechid Bey, has adhered to the new organisation. So have the extreme Egyptian nationalists and the Hindu revolutionary group, "Pro India," emissaries of which were recently sentenced for bringing bombs into Switzerland during the war at the instigation of the German General Staff. At a "Constituent Assembly" of the league, which took place in Yian, there were present, besides Young Turks, Egyptians and Hindus, delegates representing Persia, Afghanistan, Algeria, Morocco, and Mongolia. The league is of Mongolian origin. Its leading spirit is a certain Prince Sanang, of whom little is known. Associated with this mischievous and rather mysterious Mongolian personage are three better known criminals, now fugitives from justice--Talaat, Enver, and Djemal. It is to Enver Pasha's talent for intrigue that the union between Moslems and Hindus, the most striking and dangerous feature of the movement, is chiefly due. Considerable funds are at the disposal of the league. These are partly supplied from Germany. Besides enjoying the support of the Germans, the league is also in close touch with Lenine, who very soon after his advent to power organised an Oriental Department in Moscow. The alliance between the league and the Russian Bolsheviki was brought about by the notorious German Socialist agent, "Parvus," who is now in Switzerland. Many weeks ago he conferred with the Soviet rulers in Moscow, whence he went to Afghanistan, hoping to reorganise the new Amir's army and establish lines of communication for propaganda in India. Evidence exists that the recent insurrection in Egypt, the sudden attack of the Afghans, and the rising in India, remarkable for co-operation between Moslems and Hindus, were connected with the activities of the league. The Secretary looked up after he finished the reading. "I don't see anything about Black Magic in this?" he remarked flippantly. Recklow's features became very grave. "I think," he said, "that everybody--myself included--and, with all respect, even yourself, sir,--and your honourable colleague,--and perhaps even his Excellency your President,--should be on perpetual guard over their minds, and the thoughts that range there, lest, surreptitiously, stealthily, some taint of Yezidee infection lodge there and take root--and spread--perhaps--throughout your new Republic." The Secretary of War grinned. "They say I'm something of a socialist already," he chuckled. "Do you think your magic Yezidees are responsible?" The President, troubled and pallid, gazed steadily at Recklow. "Mine is a single-track mind," he remarked as though to himself. Recklow said nothing. It is one kind of mind, after all. However, single-track roads are now obsolete. "A single-track mind," repeated the President. "And--I should not like anything to happen to the switch. It would mean ditching--or a rusty siding at best.... Please do all that is possible to get those four Yezidees, Mr. Recklow." Recklow said calmly: "Our only hope is in this young girl, Tressa Norne, who is now Mrs. Cleves." "My conscience!" piped the Secretary of the Navy. "What would happen to us if these Yezidees should murder her?" "God knows," replied John Recklow, unsmiling. "Why not put her aboard our new dreadnought?" suggested the Secretary, "and keep her cruising until you United States Secret Service fellows get the rest of these infernal Yezidees and clap 'em into jail?" "We can do nothing without her," said Recklow sombrely. There was a painful silence. The President joined his finger tips and stared palely into space. "May I not say," he suggested, "that I think it a vital necessity that these Yezidees be caught and destroyed before they do any damage to the minds of myself and my cabinet?" "God grant it, sir," said Recklow grimly. "Mine," murmured the President, "is a single-track mind. I should be very much annoyed if anybody tampered with the rails--very much annoyed indeed, Mr. Recklow." "They mustn't murder that girl," said the Secretary of the Navy. "Do you need any Marines, Mr. Recklow? Why not ask your Government for a few?" Recklow rose: "Mr. President," he said, "I shall not deny that my Government is very deeply disturbed by this situation. In the beginning, these eight Assassins, and Sanang, came here for the purpose of attacking, overpowering, and enslaving the minds of the people of the United States and of the South American Republics. "But now, after four of their infamous colleagues have been destroyed, the ferocious survivors, thoroughly alarmed, have turned their every energy toward accomplishing the death of Mrs. Cleves! Why, sir, scarcely a day passes but that some attempt upon her life is made by these Yezidees. "Scarcely a day passes that this young girl is not suddenly summoned to defend her mind as well as her body against the occult attacks of these Mongol Sorcerers. Yes, sir, Sorcerers!" repeated Recklow, his calm voice deep with controlled passion, "--whatever your honourable Secretary of War may think about it!" His cold, grey eyes measured the President as he stood there. "Mr. President, I am at my wits' end to protect her from assassination! Her husband is always with her--Victor Cleves, sir, of our Secret Service. But wherever he takes her these devils follow and send their emissaries to watch her, to follow, to attempt her mental destruction or her physical death. "There is no end to their stealthy cunning, to their devilish devices, to their hellish ingenuity! "And all we can do is to guard her person from the approach of strangers, and stand ready, physically, to aid her. "She is our only barrier--_your_ only defence--between civilisation and horrors worse than Bolshevism. "I believe, Mr. President, that civilisation in North and South America--in your own Republic as well as in ours--depends, literally, upon the safety of Tressa Cleves. For, if the Yezidees kill her, then I do not see what is to save civilisation from utter disintegration and total destruction." There was a silence. Recklow was not certain that the President had been listening. His Excellency sat with finger tips joined, gazing pallidly into space; and Recklow heard him murmuring under his breath and all to himself, as though to fix the deathless thought forever in his brain: "May I not say that mine is a single-track mind? May I not say it? May I not,--may I not,--not, not, not----" CHAPTER XIII SA-N'SA June sunshine poured through the window of his bedroom in the Ritz; and Cleves had just finished dressing when he heard his wife's voice in the adjoining sitting-room. He had not supposed that Tressa was awake. He hastened to tie his tie and pull on a smoking jacket, listening all the while to his wife's modulated but gay young voice. Then he opened the sitting-room door and went in. And found his wife entirely alone. She looked up at him, her lips still parted as though checked in what she had been saying, the smile still visible in her blue eyes. "Who on earth are you talking to?" he asked, his bewildered glance sweeping the sunny room again. She did not reply; her smile faded as a spot of sunlight wanes, veiled by a cloud--yet a glimmer of it remained in her gaze as he came over to her. "I thought they'd brought our breakfast," he said, "--hearing your voice.... Did you sleep well?" "Yes, Victor." He seated himself, and his perplexed scrutiny included her frail morning robe of China silk, her lovely bare arms, and her splendid hair twisted up and pegged down with a jade dagger. Around her bare throat and shoulders, too, was a magnificent necklace of imperial jade which he had never before seen; and on one slim, white finger a superb jade ring. "By Jove!" he said, "you're very exotic this morning, Tressa. I never before saw that negligee effect." The girl laughed, glanced at her ring, lifted a frail silken fold and examined the amazing embroidery. "I wore it at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said. The name of that place always chilled him. He had begun to hate it, perhaps because of all that he did not know about it--about his wife's strange girlhood--about Yian and the devil's Temple there--and about Sanang. He said coldly but politely that the robe was unusual and the jade very wonderful. The alteration in his voice and expression did not escape her. It meant merely masculine jealousy, but Tressa never dreamed he cared in that way. Breakfast was brought, served; and presently these two young people were busy with their melons, coffee, and toast in the sunny room high above the softened racket of traffic echoing through avenue and street below. "Recklow telephoned me this morning," he remarked. She looked up, her face serious. "Recklow says that Yezidee mischief is taking visible shape. The Socialist Party is going to be split into bits and a new party, impudently and publicly announcing itself as the Communist Party of America, is being organised. Did you ever hear of anything as shameless--as outrageous--in this Republic?" She said very quietly: "Sanang has taken prisoner the minds of these wretched people. He and his remaining Yezidees are giving battle to the unarmed minds of our American people." "Gutchlug is dead," said Cleves, "--and Yarghouz and Djamouk, and Yaddin." "But Tiyang Khan is alive, and Togrul, and that cunning demon Arrak Sou-Sou, called The Squirrel," she said. She bent her head, considering the jade ring on her finger. "--And Prince Sanang," she added in a low voice. "Why didn't you let me shoot him when I had the chance?" said Cleves harshly. So abrupt was his question, so rough his sudden manner, that the girl looked up in dismayed surprise. Then a deep colour stained her face. "Once," she said, "Prince Sanang held my heart prisoner--as Erlik held my soul.... I told you that." "Is that the reason you gave the fellow a chance?" "Yes." "Oh.... And possibly you gave Sanang a chance because he still holds your--affections!" She said, crimson with the pain of the accusation: "I tore my heart out of his keeping.... I told you that.... And, believing--trying to believe what you say to me, I have tried to tear my soul out of the claws of Erlik.... Why are you angry?" "I don't know.... I'm not angry.... The whole horrible situation is breaking my nerve, I guess.... With whom were you talking before I came in?" After a silence the girl's smile glimmered. "I'm afraid you won't like it if I tell you." "Why not?" "You--such things perplex and worry you.... I am afraid you won't like me any the better if I tell you who it was I had been talking with." His intent gaze never left her. "I want you to tell me," he repeated. "I--I was talking with Sa-n'sa," she faltered. "With whom?" "With Sa-n'sa.... We called her Sansa." "Who the dickens is Sansa?" "We were three comrades at the Temple," she said timidly, "--Yulun, Sansa, and myself. We loved each other. We always went to the Lake of the Ghosts together--for protection----" "Go on!" "Sansa was a girl of the Aroulads, born at Buldak--as was Temujin. The night she was born three moon-rainbows made circles around her Yaïlak. The Baroulass horsemen saw this and prayed loudly in their saddles. Then they galloped to Yian and came crawling on their bellies to Sanang Noïane with the news of the miracle. And Sanang came with a thousand riders in leather armour. And, 'What is this child's name?' he shouted, riding into the Yaïlak with his black banners flapping around him like devil's wings. "A poor Manggoud came out of the tent of skins, carrying the new born infant, and touched his head to Sanang's stirrup. 'This babe is called Tchagane,' he said, trembling all over. 'No!' cries Sanang, 'she is called Sansa. Give her to me and may Erlik seize you!' "And he took the baby on his saddle in front of him and struck his spurs deep; and so came Sansa to Yian under a roaring rustle of black silk banners.... It is so written in the Book of Iron.... Allahou Ekber." * * * * * Cleves had leaned his elbow on the table, his forehead rested in his palm. Perhaps he was striving in a bewildered way to reconcile such occult and amazing things with the year 1920--with the commonplace and noisy city of New York--with this pretty, modern, sunlit sitting-room in the Ritz-Carlton on Madison Avenue--with this girl in her morning negligee opposite, her coffee and melon fragrant at her elbow, her wonderful blue eyes resting on him. "Sansa," he repeated slowly, as though striving to grasp even a single word from the confusion of names and phrases that were sounding still in his ears like the vibration of distant and unfamiliar seas. "Is this the girl you were talking with just now? In--in _this_ room?" he added, striving to understand. "Yes." "She wasn't here, of course." "Her body was not." "Oh!" Tressa said in her sweet, humorous way: "You must try to accustom yourself to such things, Victor. You know that Yulun talks to me.... I wanted to talk to Sansa. The longing awakened me. So--_I made the effort_." "And she came--I mean the part of her which is not her body." "Yes, she came. We talked very happily while I was bathing and dressing. Then we came in here. She is such a darling!" "Where is she?" "In Yian, feeding her silk-worms and making a garden. You see, Sansa is quite wealthy now, because when the Japanese came she filled a bullock cart with great lumps of spongy gold from the Temple and filled another cart with Yu-stone, and took the Hezar of Baroulass horsemen on guard at the Lake of the Ghosts. And with this Keutch, riding a Soubz horse, and dressed like an Urieng lancer, my pretty little comrade Tchagane, who is called Sansa, marched north preceded by two kettle-drums and a toug with two tails----" Tressa's clear laughter checked her; she clapped her hands, breathless with mirth at the picture she evoked. "Kai!" she laughed; "what adorable impudence has Sansa! Neither Tchortcha nor Khiounnou dared ask her who were her seven ancestors! No! And when her caravan came to the lovely Yliang river, my darling Sansa rode out and grasped the lance from her Tougtchi and drove the point deep into the fertile soil, crying in a clear voice: 'A place for Tchagane and her people! Make room for the toug!' "Then her Manggoud, who carried the spare steel tip for her lance, got out of his saddle and, gathering a handful of mulberry leaves, rubbed the shaft of the lance till it was all pale green. "'Toug iaglachakho!' cries my adorable Sansa! 'Build me here my Urdu![2]--my Mocalla![3] And upon it pitch my tent of skins!" [Footnote 2: Urdu = An imperial encampment.] [Footnote 3: Mocalla = A platform used as a Moslem pulpit.] Again Tressa's laughter checked her, and she strove to control it with the jade ring pressed to her lips. "Oh, Victor," she added in a stifled voice, looking at him out of eyes full of mischief, "you don't realise how funny it was--Sansa and her toug and her Urdu--Oh, Allah!--the bones of Tchinguiz must have rattled in his tomb!" Her infectious laughter evoked a responsive but perplexed smile from Cleves; but it was the smile of a bewildered man who has comprehended very little of an involved jest; and he looked around at the modern room as though to find his bearings. Suddenly Tressa leaned forward swiftly and laid one hand on his. "You don't think all this is very funny. You don't like it," she said in soft concern. "It isn't that, Tressa. But this is New York City in the year 1920. And I can't--I absolutely can not get into touch--hook up, mentally, with such things--with the unreal Oriental life that is so familiar to you." She nodded sympathetically: "I know. You feel like a Mergued Pagan from Lake Baïkal when all the lamps are lighted in the Mosque;--like a camel driver with his jade and gold when he enters Yarkand at sunrise." "Probably I feel like that," said Cleves, laughing outright. "I take your word, dear, anyway." But he took more; he picked up her soft hand where it still rested on his, pressed it, and instantly reddened because he had done it. And Tressa's bright flush responded so quickly that neither of them understood, and both misunderstood. The girl rose with heightened colour, not knowing why she stood up or what she meant to do. And Cleves, misinterpreting her emotion as a silent rebuke to the invasion of that convention tacitly accepted between them, stood up, too, and began to speak carelessly of commonplace things. She made the effort to reply, scarcely knowing what she was saying, so violently had his caress disturbed her heart,--and she was still speaking when their telephone rang. Cleves went; listened, then, still listening, summoned Tressa to his side with a gesture. "It's Selden," he said in a low voice. "He says he has the Yezidee Arrak Sou-Sou under observation, and that he needs you desperately. Will you help us?" "I'll go, of course," she replied, turning quite pale. Cleves nodded, still listening. After a while: "All right. We'll be there. Good-bye," he said sharply; and hung up. Then he turned and looked at his wife. "I wish to God," he muttered, "that this business were ended. I--I can't bear to have you go." "I am not afraid.... Where is it?" "I never heard of the place before. We're to meet Selden at 'Fool's Acre.'" "Where is it, Victor?" "I don't know. Selden says there are no roads,--not even a spotted trail. It's a wilderness left practically blank by the Geological Survey. Only the contours are marked, and Selden tells me that the altitudes are erroneous and the unnamed lakes and water courses are all wrong. He says it is his absolute conviction that the Geological Survey never penetrated this wilderness at all, but merely skirted it and guessed at what lay inside, because the map he has from Washington is utterly misleading, and the entire region is left blank except for a few vague blue lines and spots indicating water, and a few heights marked '1800.'" He turned and began to pace the sitting-room, frowning, perplexed, undecided. "Selden tells me," he said, "that the Yezidee, Arrak Sou-Sou, is in there and very busy doing something or other. He says that he can do nothing without you, and will explain why when we meet him." "Yes, Victor." Cleves turned on his heel and came over to where his wife stood beside the sunny window. "I hate to ask you to go. I know that was the understanding. But this incessant danger--your constant peril----" "That does not count when I think of my country's peril," she said in a quiet voice. "When are we to start? And what shall I pack in my trunk?" "Dear child," he said with a brusque laugh, "it's a wilderness and we carry what we need on our backs. Selden meets us at a place called Glenwild, on the edge of this wilderness, and we follow him in on our two legs." He glanced across at the mantel clock. "If you'll dress," he said nervously, "we'll go to some shop that outfits sportsmen for the North. Because, if we can, we ought to leave on the one o'clock train." She smiled; came up to him. "Don't worry about me," she said. "Because I also am nervous and tired; and I mean to make an end of every Yezidee remaining in America." "Sanang, too?" They both flushed deeply. She said in a steady voice: "Between God and Erlik there is a black gulf where a million million stars hang, lighting a million million other worlds. "Prince Sanang's star glimmers there. It is a sun, called Yramid. And it lights the planet, Yu-tsung. Let him reign there between God and Erlik." "You will slay this man?" "God forbid!" she said, shuddering. "But I shall send him to his own star. Let my soul be ransom for his! And may Allah judge between us--between this man and me." Then, in the still, sunny room, the girl turned to face the East. And her husband saw her lips move as though speaking, but heard no sound. * * * * * "What on earth are you saying there, all to yourself?" he demanded at last. She turned her head and looked at him across her left shoulder. "I asked Sansa to help me.... And she says she will." Cleves nodded in a dazed way. Then he opened a window and leaned there in the sunshine, looking down into Madison Avenue. And the roar of traffic seemed to soothe his nerves. But "Good heavens!" he thought; "do such things really go on in New York in 1920! Is the entire world becoming a little crazy? Am I really in my right mind when I believe that the girl I married is talking, without wireless, to another girl in China!" He leaned there heavily, gazing down into the street with sombre eyes. "What a ghastly thing these Yezidees are trying to do to the world--these Assassins of men's minds'!" he thought, turning away toward the door of his bedroom. As he crossed the threshold he stumbled, and looking down saw that he had tripped over a white sheet lying there. For a moment he thought it was a sheet from his own bed, and he started to pick it up. Then he saw the naked blade of a knife at his feet. With an uncontrollable shudder he stepped out of the shroud and stood staring at the knife as though it were a snake. It had a curved blade and a bone hilt coarsely inlaid with Arabic characters in brass. The shroud was a threadbare affair--perhaps a bed-sheet from some cheap lodging house. But its significance was so repulsive that he hesitated to touch it. However, he was ashamed to have it discovered in his room. He picked up the brutal-looking knife and kicked the shroud out into the corridor, where they could guess if they liked how such a rag got into the Ritz-Carlton. Then he searched his bedroom, and, of course, discovered nobody hiding. But chills crawled on his spine while he was about it, and he shivered still as he stood in the centre of the room examining the knife and testing edge and point. Then, close to his ear, a low voice whispered: "Be careful, my lord; the Yezidee knife is poisoned. But it is written that a poisoned heart is more dangerous still." He had turned like a flash; and he saw, between him and the sitting-room door, a very young girl with slightly slanting eyes, and rose and ivory features as perfect as though moulded out of tinted bisque. She wore a loose blue linen robe, belted in, short at the elbows and skirt, showing two creamy-skinned arms and two bare feet in straw sandals. In one hand she had a spray of purple mulberries, and she looked coolly at Cleves and ate a berry or two. "Give me the knife," she said calmly. He handed it to her; she wiped it with a mulberry leaf and slipped it through her girdle. "I am Sansa," she said with a friendly glance at him, busy with her fruit. Cleves strove to speak naturally, but his voice trembled. "Is it you--I mean your real self--your own body?" "It's my real self. Yes. But my body is asleep in my mulberry grove." "In--in China?" "Yes," she said calmly, detaching another mulberry and eating it. A few fresh leaves fell on the centre table. Sansa chose another berry. "You know," she said, "that I came to Tressa this morning,--to my little Heart of Fire I came when she called me. And I was quite sleepy, too. But I heard her, though there was a night wind in the mulberry trees, and the river made a silvery roaring noise in the dark.... And now I must go. But I shall come again very soon." She smiled shyly and held out her lovely little hand, "--As Tressa tells me is your custom in America," she said, "I offer you a good-bye." He took her hand and found it a warm, smooth thing of life and pulse. "Why," he stammered in his astonishment, "you _are_ real! You are not a ghost!" "Yes, I am real," she answered, surprised, "but I'm not in my body,--if you mean that." Then she laughed and withdrew her hand, and, going, made him a friendly gesture. "Cherish, my lord, my darling Heart of Fire. Serpents twist and twine. So do rose vines. May their petals make your path of velvet and sweet scented. May everything that is round be a pomegranate for you two to share; may everything that sways be lilies bordering a path wide enough for two. In the name of the Most Merciful God, may the only cry you hear be the first sweet wail of your first-born. And when the tenth shall be born, may you and Heart of Fire bewail your fate because both of you desire more children!" She was laughing when she disappeared. Cleves thought she was still there, so radiant the sunshine, so sweet the scent in the room. But the golden shadow by the door was empty of her. If she had slipped through the doorway he had not noticed her departure. Yet she was no longer there. And, when he understood, he turned back into the empty room, quivering all over. Suddenly a terrible need of Tressa assailed him--an imperative necessity to speak to her--hear her voice. "Tressa!" he called, and rested his hand on the centre table, feeling weak and shaken to the knees. Then he looked down and saw the mulberry leaves lying scattered there, tender and green and still dewy with the dew of China. "Oh, my God!" he whispered, "such things _are_! It isn't my mind that has gone wrong. There _are_ such things!" The conviction swept him like a tide till his senses swam. As though peering through a mist of gold he saw his wife enter and come to him;--felt her arm about him, sustaining him where he swayed slightly with one hand on the table among the mulberry leaves. "Ah," murmured Tressa, noticing the green leaves, "she oughtn't to have done that. That was thoughtless of her, to show herself to you." Cleves looked at her in a dazed way. "The body is nothing," he muttered. "The rest only is real. That is the truth, isn't it?" "Yes." "I seem to be beginning to believe it.... Sansa said things--I shall try to tell you--some day--dear.... I'm so glad to hear your voice." "Are you?" she murmured. "And so glad to feel your touch.... I found a shroud on my threshold. And a knife." "The Yezidees are becoming mountebanks.... Where is the knife?" she asked scornfully. "Sansa said it was poisoned. She took it. She--she said that a poisoned heart is more dangerous still." Then Tressa threw up her head and called softly into space: "Sansa! Little Silk-Moth! What are these mischievous things you have told to my lord?" She stood silent, listening. And, in the answer which he could not hear, there seemed to be something that set his young wife's cheeks aflame. "Sansa! Little devil!" she cried, exasperated. "May Erlik send his imps to pinch you if you have said to my lord these shameful things. It was impudent! It was mischievous! You cover me with shame and confusion, and I am humbled in the dust of my lord's feet!" Cleves looked at her, but she could not sustain his gaze. "Did Sansa say to you what she said to me?" he demanded unsteadily. "Yes.... I ask your pardon.... And I had already _told_ her you did not--did not--were not--in--love--with me.... I ask your pardon." "Ask more.... Ask your heart whether it would care to hear that I am in love. And with whom. Ask your heart if it could ever care to listen to what my heart could say to it." "Y-yes--I'll ask--my heart," she faltered.... "I think I had better finish dressing----" She lifted her eyes, gave him a breathless smile as he caught her hand and kissed it. "It--it would be very wonderful," she stammered, "--if our necessity should be-become our choice." But that speech seemed to scare her and she fled, leaving her husband standing tense and upright in the middle of the room. * * * * * Their train on the New York Central Railroad left the Grand Central Terminal at one in the afternoon. Cleves had made his arrangements by wire. They travelled lightly, carrying, except for the clothing they wore, only camping equipment for two. It was raining in the Hudson valley; they rushed through the outlying towns and Po'keepsie in a summer downpour. At Hudson the rain slackened. A golden mist enveloped Albany, through which the beautiful tower and façades along the river loomed, masking the huge and clumsy Capitol and the spires beyond. At Schenectady, rifts overhead revealed glimpses of blue. At Amsterdam, where they descended from the train, the flag on the arsenal across the Mohawk flickered brilliantly in the sunny wind. By telegraphic arrangement, behind the station waited a touring car driven by a trooper of State Constabulary, who, with his comrade, saluted smartly as Cleves and Tressa came up. There was a brief, low-voiced conversation. Their camping outfit was stowed aboard, Tressa sprang into the tonneau followed by Cleves, and the car started swiftly up the inclined roadway, turned to the right across the railroad bridge, across the trolley tracks, and straight on up the steep hill paved with blocks of granite. On the level road which traversed the ridge at last they speeded up, whizzed past the great hedged farm where racing horses are bred, rushing through the afternoon sunshine through the old-time Scotch settlements which once were outposts of the old New York frontier. Nine miles out the macadam road ended. They veered to the left over a dirt road, through two hamlets; then turned to the right. The landscape became rougher. To their left lay the long, low Maxon hills; behind them the Mayfield range stretched northward into the open jaws of the Adirondacks. All around them were woods, now. Once a Gate House appeared ahead; and beyond it they crossed four bridges over a foaming, tumbling creek where Cleves caught glimpses of shadowy forms in amber-tinted pools--big yellow trout that sank unhurriedly out of sight among huge submerged boulders wet with spray. The State trooper beside the chauffeur turned to Cleves, his purple tie whipping in the wind. "Yonder is Glenwild, sir," he said. It was a single house on the flank of a heavily forested hill. Deep below to the left the creek leaped two cataracts and went flashing out through a belt of cleared territory ablaze with late sunshine. The car swung into the farm-yard, past the barn on the right, and continued on up a very rough trail. "This is the road to the Ireland Vlaie," said the trooper. "It is possible for cars for another mile only." Splendid spruce, pine, oak, maple, and hemlock fringed the swampy, uneven trail which was no more than a wide, rough vista cut through the forest. And, as the trooper had said, a little more than a mile farther the trail became a tangle of bushes and swale; the car slowed down and stopped; and a man rose from where he was seated on a mossy log and came forward, his rifle balanced across the hollow of his left arm. The man was Alek Selden. * * * * * It was long after dark and they were still travelling through pathless woods by the aid of their electric torches. There was little underbrush; the forest of spruce and hemlock was first growth. Cleves shined the trees but could discover no blazing, no trodden path. In explanation, Selden said briefly that he had hunted the territory for years. "But I don't begin to know it," he added. "There are vast and ugly regions of bog and swale where a sea of alders stretches to the horizon. There are desolate wastes of cat-briers and witch-hopple under leprous tangles of grey birches, where stealthy little brooks darkle deep under matted débris. Only wild things can travel such country. "Then there are strange, slow-flowing creeks in the perpetual shadows of tamarack woods, where many a man has gone in never to come out." "Why?" asked Tressa. "Under the tender carpet of green cresses are shining black bogs set with tussock; and under the bog stretches quicksand,--and death." "Do you know these places?" asked Cleves. "No." Cleves stepped forward to Tressa's side. "Keep flashing the ground," he said harshly. "I don't want you to step into some hell-hole. I'm sorry I brought you, anyway." "But I had to come," she said in a low voice. Like the two men, she wore a grey flannel shirt, knickers, and spiral puttees. They, however, carried rifles as well as packs; and the girl's pack was lighter. They had halted by a swift, icy rivulet to eat, without building a fire. After that they crossed the Ireland Vlaie and the main creek, where remains of a shanty stood on the bluff above the right bank--the last sign of man. Beyond lay the uncharted land, skimped and shirked entirely in certain regions by map-makers;--an unknown wilderness on the edges of which Selden had often camped when deer shooting. It was along this edge he was leading them, now, to a lean-to which he had erected, and from which he had travelled in to Glenwild to use the superintendent's telephone to New York. There seemed to be no animal life stirring in this forest; their torches illuminated no fiery orbs of dazed wild things surprised at gaze in the wilderness; no leaping furry form crossed their flashlights' fan-shaped radiance. There were no nocturnal birds to be seen or heard, either: no bittern squawked from hidden sloughs; no herons howled; not an owl-note, not a whispering cry of a whippoorwill, not the sudden uncanny twitter of those little birds that become abruptly vocal after dark, interrupted the dense stillness of the forest. And it was not until his electric torch glimmered repeatedly upon reaches of dusk-hidden bog that Cleves understood how Selden took his bearings--for the night was thick and there were no stars. "Yes," said Selden tersely, "I'm trying to skirt the bog until I shine a peeled stick." * * * * * An hour later the peeled alder-stem glittered in the beam of the torches. In ten minutes something white caught the electric rays. It was Selden's spare undershirt drying on a bush behind the lean-to. "Can we have a fire?" asked Cleves, relieving his wife of her pack and striding into the open-faced camp. "Yes, I'll fix it," replied Selden. "Are you all right, Mrs. Cleves?" Tressa said: "Delightfully tired, thank you." And smiled faintly at her husband as he let go his own pack, knelt, and spread a blanket for his wife. He remained there, kneeling, as she seated herself. "Are you quite fit?" he asked bluntly. Yet, through his brusqueness her ear caught a vague undertone of something else--anxiety perhaps--perhaps tenderness. And her heart stirred deliciously in her breast. He inflated a pillow for her; the firelight glimmered, brightened, spread glowing across her feet. She lay back with a slight sigh, relaxed. Then, suddenly, the thrill of her husband's touch flooded her face with colour; but she lay motionless, one arm flung across her eyes, while he unrolled her puttees and unlaced her muddy shoes. A heavenly warmth from the fire dried her stockinged feet. Later, on the edge of sleep, she opened her eyes and found herself propped upright on her husband's shoulder. Drowsily, obediently she swallowed spoonfuls of the hot broth which he administered. "Are you really quite comfortable, dear?" he whispered. "Wonderfully.... And so very happy.... Thank you--dear." She lay back, suffering him to bathe her face and hands with warm water. When the fire was only a heap of dying coals, she turned over on her right side and extended her hand a little way into the darkness. Searching, half asleep, she touched her husband, and her hand relaxed in his nervous clasp. And she fell into the most perfect sleep which she had known in years. * * * * * She dreamed that somebody whispered to her, "Darling, darling, wake up. It is morning, beloved." Suddenly she opened her eyes; and saw her husband set a tray, freshly plaited out of Indian willow, beside her blanket. "Here's your breakfast, pretty lady," he said, smilingly. "And over there is an exceedingly frigid pool of water. You're to have the camp to yourself for the next hour or two." "You dear fellow," she murmured, still confused by sleep, and reached out to touch his hand. He caught hers and kissed it, back and palm, and got up hastily as though scared. "Selden and I will stand sentry," he muttered. "There is no hurry, you know." She heard him and his comrade walking away over dried leaves; their steps receded; a dry stick cracked distantly; then silence stealthily invaded the place like a cautious living thing, creeping unseen through the golden twilight of the woods. Seated in her blanket, she drank the coffee; ate a little; then lay down again in the early sun, feeling the warmth of the heap of whitening coals at her feet, also. For an hour she dozed awake, drowsily opening her eyes now and then to look across the glade at the pool over which a single dragon-fly glittered on guard. Finally she rose resolutely, grasped a bit of soap, and went down to the edge of the pool. * * * * * Tressa was in flannel shirt and knickers when her husband and Selden hailed the camp and presently appeared walking slowly toward the dead fire. Their grave faces checked her smile of greeting; her husband came up and laid one hand on her arm, looking at her out of thoughtful, preoccupied eyes. "What is the Tchordagh?" he said in a low voice. The girl's quiet face went white. "The--the Tchordagh!" she stammered. "Yes, dear. What is it?" "I don't--don't know where you heard that term," she whispered. "The Tchordagh is the--the power of Erlik. It is a term.... In it is comprehended all the evil, all the cunning, all the perverted spiritual intelligence of Evil,--its sinister might,--its menace. It is an Alouäd-Yezidee term, and it is written in brass in Eighur characters on the Eight Towers, and on the Rampart of Gog and Magog;--nowhere else in the world!" "It is written on a pine tree a few paces from this camp," said Cleves absently. Selden said: "It has not been there more than an hour or two, Mrs. Cleves. A square of bark was cut out and on the white surface of the wood this word is written in English." "Can you tell us what it signifies?" asked Cleves, quietly. Tressa's studied effort at self-control was apparent to both men. She said: "When that word is written, then it is a death struggle between all the powers of Darkness and those who have read the written letters of that word.... For it is written in The Iron Book that no one but the Assassin of Khorassan--excepting the Eight Sheiks--shall read that written word and live to boast of having read it." "Let us sit here and talk it over," said Selden soberly. And when Tressa was seated on a fallen log, and Cleves settled down cross-legged at her feet, Selden spoke again, very soberly: "On the edges of these woods, to the northwest, lies a sea of briers, close growing, interwoven and matted, strong and murderous as barbed wire. "Miles out in this almost impenetrable region lies a patch of trees called Fool's Acre. "At Wells I heard that the only man who had ever managed to reach Fool's Acre was a trapper, and that he was still living. "I found him at Rainbow Lake--a very old man, who had a fairly clear recollection of Fool's Acre and his exhausting journey there. "And he told me that man had been there before he had. For there was a roofless stone house there, and the remains of a walled garden. And a skull deep in the wild grasses." Selden paused and looked down at the recently healed scars on his wrists and hands. "It was a rotten trip," he said bluntly. "It took me three days to cut a tunnel through that accursed tangle of matted brier and grey birch.... Fool's Acre is a grove of giant trees--first growth pine, oak, and maple. Great outcrops of limestone ledges bound it on the east. A brook runs through the woods. "There is a house there, _no longer roofless_, and built of slabs of fossil-pitted limestone. The glass in the windows is so old that it is iridescent. "A seven-foot wall encloses the house, built also of slabs blasted out of the rock outcrop, and all pitted with fossil shells. "Inside is a garden--not the _remains_ of one--a beautiful garden full of unfamiliar flowers. And in this garden I saw the Yezidee on his knees _making living things out of lumps of dead earth_!" "The Tchordagh!" whispered the girl. "What was the Yezidee doing?" demanded Cleves nervously. Involuntarily all three drew nearer each other there in the sunshine. "It was difficult for me to see," said Selden in his quiet, serious voice. "It was nearly twilight: I lay flat on top of the wall under the curving branches of a huge syringa bush in full bloom. The Yezidees----" "Were there two!" exclaimed Cleves. "Two. They were squatting on the old stone path bordering one of the flower-beds." He turned to Tressa: "They both wore white cloths twisted around their heads, and long soft garments of white. Under these their bare, brown legs showed, but they wore things on their naked feet which were shaped like what we call Turkish slippers--only different." "Black and green," nodded Tressa with the vague horror growing in her face. "Yes. The soles of their shoes were bright green." "Green is the colour sacred to Islam," said Tressa. "The priests of Satan defile it by staining with green the soles of their footwear." After an interval: "Go on," said Cleves nervously. Selden drew closer, and they bent their heads to listen: "I don't, even now, know what the Yezidees were actually doing. In the twilight it was hard to see clearly. But I'll tell you what it looked like to me. One of these squatting creatures would scoop out a handful of soil from the flower-bed, and mould it for a few moments between his lean, sinewy fingers, and then he'd open his hands and--and something _alive_--something small like a rat or a toad, or God knows what, would escape from between his palms and run out into the grass----" Selden's voice failed and he looked at Cleves with sickened eyes. "I can't--can't make you understand how repulsive to me it was to see a wriggling live thing creep out between their fingers and--and go running or scrambling away--little loathsome things with humpy backs that hopped or scurried through the grass----" "What on earth _were_ these Yezidees doing, Tressa?" asked Cleves almost roughly. The girl's white face was marred by the imprints of deepening horror. "It is the Tchor-Dagh," she said mechanically. "They are using every resource of hell to destroy me--testing the gigantic power of Evil--as though it were some vast engine charged with thunderous destruction!--and they were testing it to discover its terrific capacity to annihilate----" Her voice died in her dry throat; she dropped her bloodless visage into both hands and remained seated so. Both men looked at her in silence, not daring to interfere. Finally the girl lifted her pallid face from her hands. "That is what they were doing," she said in a dull voice. "Out of inanimate earth they were making things animate--living creatures--to--to test the hellish power which they are storing--concentrating--for my destruction." "What is their purpose?" asked Cleves harshly. "What do these Mongol Sorcerers expect to gain by making little live things out of lumps of garden dirt?" "They are testing their power," whispered the girl. "Like tuning up a huge machine?" muttered Selden. "Yes." "For what purpose?" "To make larger living creatures out of--of clay." "They can't--they can't _create_!" exclaimed Cleves. "I don't know how--by what filthy tricks--they make rats out of dirt. But they can't make a--anything--like a--like a man!" Tressa's body trembled slightly. "Once," she said, "in the temple, Prince Sanang took dust which was brought in sacks of goat-skin, and fashioned the heap of dirt with his hands, so that it resembled the body of a man lying there on the marble floor under the shrine of Erlik.... And--and then, there in the shadows where only the Dark Star burned--that black lamp which is called the Dark Star--the long heap of dust lying there on the marble pavement began to--to _breathe_!--" She pressed both hands over her breast as though to control her trembling body: "I saw it; I saw the long shape of dust begin to breathe, to stir, move, and slowly lift itself----" "A Yezidee trick!" gasped Cleves; but he also was trembling now. "God!" whispered the girl. "Allah alone knows--the Merciful, the Long Suffering--He knows what it was that we temple girls saw there--that Yulun saw--that Sa-n'sa and I beheld there rising up like a man from the marble floor--and standing erect in the shadowy twilight of the Dark Star...." Her hands gripped at her breast; her face was deathly. "Then," she said, "I saw Prince Sanang draw his sabre of Indian steel, and he struck ... once only.... And a dead man fell down where the _thing_ had stood. And all the marble was flooded with scarlet blood." "A trick," repeated Cleves, in the ghost of his own voice. But his gaze grew vacant. Presently Selden spoke in tones that sounded weakly querulous from emotional reaction: "There is a path--a tunnel under the matted briers. It took me more than a week to cut it out. It is possible to reach Fool's Acre. We can try--with our rifles--if you say so, Mrs. Cleves." The girl looked up. A little colour came into her cheeks. She shook her head. "Their bodies may not be there in the garden," she said absently. "What you saw may not have been that part of them--the material which dies by knife or bullet.... And it is necessary that these Yezidees should die." "Can you do anything?" asked Cleves, hoarsely. She looked at her husband; tried to smile: "I must try.... I think we had better not lose any time--if Mr. Selden will lead us." "Now?" "Yes, we had better go, I think," said the girl. Her smile still remained stamped on her lips, but her eyes seemed preoccupied as though following the movements of something remote that was passing across the far horizon. CHAPTER XIV A DEATH TRAIL The way to Fool's Acre was under a tangled canopy of thorns, under rotting windfalls of grey mirch, through tunnel after tunnel of fallen débris woven solidly by millions of strands of tough cat-briers which cut the flesh like barbed wire. There was blood on Tressa, where her flannel shirt had been pierced in a score of places. Cleves and Selden had been painfully slashed. Silent, thread-like streams flowed darkling under the tangled mass that roofed them. Sometimes they could move upright; more often they were bent double; and there were long stretches where they had to creep forward on hands and knees through sparse wild grasses, soft, rotten soil, or paths of sphagnum which cooled their feverish skin in velvety, icy depths. At noon they rested and ate, lying prone under the matted roof of their tunnel. Cleves and Selden had their rifles. Tressa lay like a slender boy, her brier-torn hands empty. And, as she lay there, her husband made a sponge of a handful of sphagnum moss, and bathed her face and her arms, cleansing the dried blood from the skin, while the girl looked up at him out of grave, inscrutable eyes. * * * * * The sun hung low over the wilderness when they came to the woods of Fool's Acre. They crept cautiously out of the briers, among ferns and open spots carpeted with pine needles and dead leaves which were beginning to burn ruddy gold under the level rays of the sun. Lying flat behind an enormous oak, they remained listening for a while. Selden pointed through the woods, eastward, whispering that the house stood there not far away. "Don't you think we might risk the chance and use our rifles?" asked Cleves in a low voice. "No. It is the Tchor-Dagh that confronts us. I wish to talk to Sansa," she murmured. A moment later Selden touched her arm. "My God," he breathed, "who is that!" "It is Sansa," said Tressa calmly, and sat up among the ferns. And the next instant Sansa stepped daintily out of the red sunlight and seated herself among them without a sound. Nobody spoke. The newcomer glanced at Selden, smiled slightly, blushed, then caught a glimpse of Cleves where he lay in the brake, and a mischievous glimmer came into her slanting eyes. "Did I not tell my lord truths?" she inquired in a demure whisper. "As surely as the sun is a dragon, and the flaming pearl burns between his claws, so surely burns the soul of Heart of Flame between thy guarding hands. There are as many words as there are demons, my lord, but it is written that _Niaz_ is the greatest of all words save only the name of God." She laughed without any sound, sweetly malicious where she sat among the ferns. "Heart of Flame," she said to Tressa, "you called me and I _made the effort_." "Darling," said Tressa in her thrilling voice, "the Yezidees are making living things out of dust,--as Sanang Noïane made that thing in the Temple.... And slew it before our eyes." "The Tchor-Dagh," said Sansa calmly. "The Tchor-Dagh," whispered Tressa. Sansa's smooth little hands crept up to the collar of her odd, blue tunic; grasped it. "In the name of God the Merciful," she said without a tremor, "listen to me, Heart of Flame, and may my soul be ransom for yours!" "I hear you, Sansa." Sansa said, her fingers still grasping the embroidered collar of her tunic: "Yonder, behind walls, two Tower Chiefs meddle with the Tchor-Dagh, making living things out of the senseless dust they scrape from the garden." Selden moistened his dry lips. Sansa said: "The Yezidees who have come into this wilderness are Arrak Sou-Sou, the Squirrel; and Tiyang Khan.... May God remember them in Hell!" "May God remember them," said Tressa mechanically. "And these two Yezidee Sorcerers," continued Sansa coolly, "have advanced thus far in the Tchor-Dagh; for they now roam these woods, digging like demons, for the roots of Ginseng; and thou knowest, O Heart of Flame, what that indicates." "Does Ginseng grow in these woods!" exclaimed Tressa with a new terror in her widening eyes. "Ginseng grows here, little Rose-Heart, and the roots are as perfect as human bodies. And Tiyang Khan squats in the walled garden moulding the Ginseng roots in his unclean hands, while Sou-Sou the Squirrel scratches among the dead leaves of the woods for roots as perfect as a naked human body. "All day long the Sou-Sou rummages among the trees; all day long Tiyang pats and rubs and moulds the Ginseng roots in his skinny fingers. It is the Tchor-Dagh, Heart of Flame. And these Sorcerers must be destroyed." "Are their bodies here?" "Arrak is in the body. And thus it shall be accomplished: listen attentively, Rose Heart Afire!--I shall remain here with----" she looked at Selden and flushed a trifle, "--with you, my lord. And when the Squirrel comes a-digging, so shall my lord slay him with a bullet.... And when I hear his soul bidding his body farewell, then I shall make prisoner his soul.... And send it to the Dark Star.... And the rest shall be in the hands of Allah." She turned to Tressa and caught her hands in both of her own: "It is written on the Iron Pages," she whispered, "that we belong to Erlik and we return to him. But in the Book of Gold it is written otherwise: 'God preserve us from Satan who was stoned!' ... Therefore, in the name of Allah! Now then, Heart of Flame, do your duty!" A burning flush leaped over Tressa's features. "Is my soul, then, my own!" "It belongs to God," said Sansa gravely. "And--Sanang?" "God is greatest." "But--was God there--at the Lake of the Ghosts?" "God is everywhere. It is so written in the Book of Gold," replied Sansa, pressing her hands tenderly. "Recite the Fatha, Heart of Flame. Thy lips shall not stiffen; God listens." Tressa rose in the sunset glory and stood as though dazed, and all crimsoned in the last fiery bars of the declining sun. Cleves also rose. Sansa laughed noiselessly: "My lord would go whither thou goest, Heart of Fire!" she whispered. "And thy ways shall be his ways!" Tressa's cheeks flamed and she turned and looked at Cleves. Then Sansa rose and laid a hand on Tressa's arm and on her husband's: "Listen attentively. Tiyang Khan must be destroyed. The signal sounds when my lord's rifle-shot makes a loud noise here among these trees." "Can I prevail against the Tchor-Dagh?" asked Tressa, steadily. "Is not that event already in God's hands, darling?" said Sansa softly. She smiled and resumed her seat beside Selden, amid the drooping fern fronds. "Bid thy dear lord leave his rifle here," she added quietly. Cleves laid down his weapon. Selden pointed eastward in silence. So they went together into the darkening woods. * * * * * In the dusk of heavy foliage overhanging the garden, Tressa lay flat as a lizard on the top of the wall. Beside her lay her husband. In the garden below them flowers bloomed in scented thickets, bordered by walks of flat stone slabs split from boulders. A little lawn, very green, centred the garden. And on this lawn, in the clear twilight still tinged with the sombre fires of sundown, squatted a man dressed in a loose white garment. Save for a twisted breadth of white cloth, his shaven head was bare. His sinewy feet were naked, too, the lean, brown toes buried in the grass. Tressa's lips touched her husband's ear. "Tiyang Khan," she breathed. "Watch what he does!" Shoulder to shoulder they lay there, scarcely daring to breathe. Their eyes were fastened on the Mongol Sorcerer, who, squatted below on his haunches, grave and deliberate as a great grey ape, continued busy with the obscure business which so intently preoccupied him. In a short semi-circle on the grass in front of him he had placed a dozen wild Ginseng roots. The roots were enormous, astoundingly shaped like the human body, almost repulsive in their weird symmetry. The Yezidee had taken one of these roots into his hands. Squatting there in the semi-dusk, he began to massage it between his long, muscular fingers, rubbing, moulding, pressing the root with caressing deliberation. His unhurried manipulation, for a few moments, seemed to produce no result. But presently the Ginseng root became lighter in colour and more supple, yielding to his fingers, growing ivory pale, sinuously limber in a newer and more delicate symmetry. "Look!" gasped Cleves, grasping his wife's arm. "_What_ is that man doing?" "The Tchor-Dagh!" whispered Tressa. "Do you see what lies twisting there in his hands?" The Ginseng root had become the tiny naked body of a woman--a little ivory-white creature, struggling to escape between the hands that had created it--dark, powerful, masterly hands, opening leisurely now, and releasing the living being they had fashioned. The thing scrambled between the fingers of the Sorcerer, leaped into the grass, ran a little way and hid, crouched down, panting, almost hidden by the long grass. The shocked watchers on the wall could still see the creature. Tressa felt Cleves' body trembling beside her. She rested a cool, steady hand on his. "It is the Tchor-Dagh," she breathed close to his face. "The Mongol Sorcerer is becoming formidable." "Oh, God!" murmured Cleves, "that thing he made is _alive_! I saw it. I can see it hiding there in the grass. It's frightened--breathing! It's alive!" His pistol, clutched in his right hand, quivered. His wife laid her hand on it and cautiously shook her head. "No," she said, "that is of no use." "But what that Yezidee is doing is--is blasphemous----" "Watch him! His mind is stealthily feeling its way among the laws and secrets of the Tchor-Dagh. He has found a thread. He is following it through the maze into hell's own labyrinth! He has created a tiny thing in the image of the Creator. He will try to create a larger being now. Watch him with his Ginseng roots!" Tiyang, looming ape-like on his haunches in the deepening dusk, moulded and massaged the Ginseng roots, one after another. And one after another, tiny naked creatures wriggled out of his palms between his fingers and scuttled away into the herbage. Already the dim lawn was alive with them, crawling, scurrying through the grass, creeping in among the flower-beds, little, ghostly-white things that glimmered from shade into shadow like moonbeams. Tressa's mouth touched her husband's ear: "It is for the secret of Destruction that the Yezidee seeks. But first he must learn the secret of creation. He is learning.... And he must learn no more than he has already learned." "That Yezidee is a living man. Shall I fire?" "No." "I can kill him with the first shot." "Hark!" she whispered excitedly, her hand closing convulsively on her husband's arm. The whip-crack of a rifle-shot still crackled in their ears. Tiyang had leaped to his feet in the dusk, a Ginseng root, half-alive, hanging from one hand and beginning to squirm. Suddenly the first moonbeam fell across the wall. And in its lustre Tressa rose to her knees and flung up her right hand. Then it was as though her palm caught and reflected the moon's ray, and hurled it in one blinding shaft straight into the dark visage of Tiyang-Khan. The Yezidee fell as though he had been pierced by a shaft of steel, and lay sprawling there on the grass in the ghastly glare. And where his features had been there gaped only a hole into the head. Then a dreadful thing occurred; for everywhere the grass swarmed with the little naked creatures he had made, running, scrambling, scuttling, darting into the black hole which had been the face of Tiyang-Khan. They poured into the awful orifice, crowding, jostling one another so violently that the head jerked from side to side on the grass, a wabbling, inert, soggy mass in the moonlight. And presently the body of Tiyang-Khan, Warden of the Rampart of Gog and Magog, and Lord of the Seventh Tower, began to burn with white fire--a low, glimmering combustion that seemed to clothe the limbs like an incandescent mist. On the wall knelt Tressa, the glare from her lifted hand streaming over the burning form below. Cleves stood tall and shadowy beside his wife, the useless pistol hanging in his grasp. Then, in the silence of the woods, and very near, they heard Sansa laughing. And Selden's anxious voice: "Arrak is dead. The Sou-Sou hangs across a rock, head down, like a shot squirrel. Is all well with you?" "Tiyang is on his way to his star," said Tressa calmly. "Somewhere in the world his body has bid its mind farewell.... And so his body may live for a little, blind, in mental darkness, fed by others, and locked in all day, all night, until the end." Sansa, at the base of the wall, turned to Selden. "Shall I bring my body with me, one day, my lord?" she asked demurely. "Oh, Sansa----" he whispered, but she placed a fragrant hand across his lips and laughed at him in the moonlight. CHAPTER XV IN THE FIRELIGHT In 1920 the whole spiritual world was trembling under the thundering shock of the Red Surf pounding the frontiers of civilisation from pole to pole. Up out of the hell-pit of Asia had boiled the molten flood, submerging Russia, dashing in giant waves over Germany and Austria, drenching Italy, France, England with its bloody spindrift. And now the Red Rain was sprinkling the United States from coast to coast, and the mindless administration, scared out of its stupidity at last, began a frantic attempt to drain the country of the filthy flood and throw up barriers against the threatened deluge. In every state and city Federal agents made wholesale arrests--too late! A million minds had already been perverted and dominated by the terrible Sect of the Assassins. A million more were sickening under the awful psychic power of the Yezidee. Thousands of the disciples of the Yezidee devil-worshipers had already been arrested and held for deportation,--poor, wretched creatures whose minds were no longer their own, but had been stealthily surprised, seized and mastered by Mongol adepts and filled with ferocious hatred against their fellow men. Yet, of the Eight Yezidee Assassins only two now remained alive in America,--Togrul, and Sanang, the Slayer of Souls. Yarghouz was dead; Djamouk the Fox, Kahn of the Fifth Tower was dead; Yaddin-ed-Din, Arrak the Sou-Sou, Gutchlug, Tiyang Khan, all were dead. Six Towers had become dark and silent. From them the last evil thought, the last evil shape had sped; the last wicked prayer had been said to Erlik, Khagan of all Darkness. But his emissary on earth, Prince Sanang, still lived. And at Sanang's heels stole Togrul, Tougtchi to Sanang Noïane, the Slayer of Souls. * * * * * In the United States there had been a cessation of the active campaign of violence toward those in authority. Such unhappy dupes of the Yezidees as the I. W. W. and other radicals were, for the time, physically quiescent. Crude terrorism with its more brutal outrages against life and law ceased. But two million sullen eyes, in which all independent human thought had been extinguished, watched unblinking the wholesale arrests by the government--watched panic-stricken officials rushing hither and thither to execute the mandate of a miserable administration--watched and waited in dreadful silence. In that period of ominous quiet which possessed the land, the little group of Secret Service men that surrounded the young girl who alone stood between a trembling civilisation and the threat of hell's own chaos, became convinced that Sanang was preparing a final and terrible effort to utterly overwhelm the last vestige of civilisation in the United States. What shape that plan would develop they could not guess. John Recklow sent Benton to Chicago to watch that centre of infection for the appearance there of the Yezidee Togrul. Selden went to Boston where a half-witted group of parlour-socialists at Cambridge were talking too loudly and loosely to please even the most tolerant at Harvard. But neither Togrul nor Sanang had, so far, materialised in either city; and John Recklow prowled the purlieus of New York, haunting strange byways and obscure quarters where the dull embers of revolution always smouldered, watching for the Yezidee who was the deep-bedded, vital root of this psychic evil which menaced the minds of all mankind,--Sanang, the Slayer of Souls. Recklow's lodgings were tucked away in Westover Court--three bedrooms, a parlour and a kitchenette. Tressa Cleves occupied one bedroom; her husband another; Recklow the third. And in this tiny apartment, hidden away among a group of old buildings, the very existence of which was unknown to the millions who swarmed the streets of the greatest city in the world,--here in Westover Court, a dozen paces from the roar of Broadway, was now living a young girl upon whose psychic power the only hope of the world now rested. * * * * * The afternoon had turned grey and bitter; ragged flakes still fell; a pallid twilight possessed the snowy city, through which lighted trains and taxis moved in the foggy gloom. By three o'clock in the afternoon all shops were illuminated; the south windows of the Hotel Astor across the street spread a sickly light over the old buildings of Westover Court as John Recklow entered the tiled hallway, took the stairs to the left, and went directly to his apartment. He unlocked the door and let himself in and stood a moment in the entry shaking the snow from his hat and overcoat. The sitting-room lamp was unlighted but he could see a fire in the grate, and Tressa Cleves seated near, her eyes fixed on the glowing coals. He bade her good evening in a low voice; she turned her charming head and nodded, and he drew a chair to the fender and stretched out his wet shoes to the warmth. "Is Victor still out?" he inquired. She said that her husband had not yet returned. Her eyes were on the fire, Recklow's rested on her shadowy face. "Benton got his man in Chicago," he said. "It was not Togrul Kahn." "Who was it?" "Only a Swami fakir who'd been preaching sedition to a little group of greasy Bengalese from Seattle.... I've heard from Selden, too." She nodded listlessly and lifted her eyes. "Neither Sanang nor Togrul have appeared in Boston," he said. "I think they're here in New York." The girl said nothing. After a silence: "Are you worried about your husband?" he asked abruptly. "I am always uneasy when he is absent," she said quietly. "Of course.... But I don't suppose he knows that." "I suppose not." Recklow leaned over, took a coal in the tongs and lighted a cigar. Leaning back in his armchair, he said in a musing voice: "No, I suppose your husband does not realise that you are so deeply concerned over his welfare." The girl remained silent. "I suppose," said Recklow softly, "he doesn't dream you are in love with him." Tressa Cleves did not stir a muscle. After a long silence she said in her even voice: "Do you think I am in love with my husband, Mr. Recklow?" "I think you fell in love with him the first evening you met him." "I did." Neither of them spoke again for some minutes. Recklow's cigar went wrong; he rose and found another and returned to the fire, but did not light it. "It's a rotten day, isn't it?" he said with a shiver, and dumped a scuttle of coal on the fire. They watched the blue flames playing over the grate. Tressa said: "I could no more help falling in love with him than I could stop my heart beating.... But I did not dream that anybody knew." "Don't you think he ought to know?" "Why? He is not in love with me." "Are you sure, Mrs. Cleves?" "Yes. He is wonderfully sweet and kind. But he could not fall in love with a girl who has been what I have been." Recklow smiled. "What have you been, Tressa Norne?" "You know." "A temple-girl at Yian?" "And at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said in a low voice. "What of it?" "I can not tell you, Mr. Recklow.... Only that I lost my soul in the Yezidee Temple----" "That is untrue!" "I wish it were untrue.... My husband tells me that nothing can really harm the soul. I try to believe him.... But Erlik lives. And when my soul at last shall escape my body, it shall not escape the Slayer of Souls." "That is monstrously untrue----" "No. I tell you that Prince Sanang slew my soul. And my soul's ghost belongs to Erlik. How can any man fall in love with such a girl?" "Why do you say that Sanang slew your soul?" asked Recklow, peering at her averted face through the reddening firelight. She lay still in her chair for a moment, then turned suddenly on him: "He _did_ slay it! He came to the Lake of the Ghosts as my lover; he meant to have done it there; but I would not have him--would not listen, nor suffer his touch!--I mocked at him and his passion. I laughed at his Tchortchas. They were afraid of me!--" She half rose from her chair, grasped the arms, then seated herself again, her eyes ablaze with the memory of wrongs. "How dare I show my dear lord that I am in love with him when Sanang's soul caught my soul out of my body one day--surprised my soul while my body lay asleep in the Yezidee Temple!--and bore it in his arms to the very gates of hell!" "Good God," whispered Recklow, "what do you mean? Such things can't happen." "Why not? They do happen. I was caught unawares.... It was one golden afternoon, and Yulan and Sansa and I were eating oranges by the fountain in the inner shrine. And I lay down by the pool and _made the effort_--you understand?" "Yes." "Very well. My soul left my body asleep and I went out over the tops of the flowers--idly, without aim or intent--as the winds blow in summer.... It was in the Wood of the White Moth that I saw Sanang's soul flash downward like a streak of fire and wrap my soul in flame!... And, in a flash, we were at the gates of hell before I could free myself from his embrace.... Then, by the Temple pool, among the oranges, I cried out asleep; and my terrified body sat up sobbing and trembling in Yulun's arms. But the Slayer of Souls had slain mine in the Wood of the White Moth--slain it as he caught me in his flaming arms.... And now you know why such a woman as I dare not bend to kiss the dust from my dear Lord's feet--Aie-a! Aie-a! I who have lost my girl's soul to him who slew it in the Wood of the White Moth!" She sat rocking in her chair in the red firelight, her hands framing her lovely face, her eyes staring straight ahead as though they saw opening before them through the sombre shadows of that room all the dread magic of the East where the dancing flame of Sanang's blazing soul lighted their path to hell through the enchanted forest. Recklow had grown pale, but his voice was steady. "I see no reason," he said, "why your husband should not love you." "I tell you my girl's soul belonged to Sanang--was part of his, for an instant." "It is burned pure of dross." "It is _burned_." Recklow remained silent. Tressa lay deep in her armchair, twisting her white fingers. "What makes him so late?" she said.... "I sent my soul out twice to look for him, and could not find him." "Send it again," said Recklow, fearfully. For ten minutes the girl lay as though asleep, then her eyes unclosed and she said drowsily: "I can not find him." "Did--did you learn anything while--while you were--away?" asked Recklow cautiously. "Nothing. There is a thick darkness out there--I mean a darkness gathering over the whole land. It is like a black fog. When the damned pray to Erlik there is a darkness that gathers like a brown mist----" Her voice ceased; her hands tightened on the arms of her chair. "_That_ is what Sanang is doing!" she said in a breathless voice. "What?" demanded Recklow. "_Praying!_ That is what he is doing! A million perverted minds which he has seized and obsessed are being concentrated on blasphemous prayers to Erlik! Sanang is directing them. Do you understand the terrible power of a million minds all _willing_, in unison, the destruction of good and the triumph of evil? A million human minds! More! For that is what he is doing. That is the thick darkness that is gathering over the entire Western world. It is the terrific materialisation of evil power from evil minds, all focussed upon the single thought that evil must triumph and good die!" She sat, gripping the arms of her chair, pale, rigid, terribly alert, dreadfully enlightened, now, concerning the awful and new menace threatening the sanity of mankind. She said in her steady, emotionless voice: "When the Yezidee Sorcerers desire to overwhelm a nomad people--some yort perhaps that has resisted the Sheiks of the Eight Towers, then the Slayer of Souls rides with his Black Banners to the Namaz-Ga or Place of Prayer. "Two marble bridges lead to it. There are fourteen hundred mosques there. Then come the Eight, each with his shroud, chanting the prayers for those dead in hell. And there the Yezidees pray blasphemously, all their minds in ferocious unison.... And I have seen a little yort full of Broad Faces with their slanting eyes and sparse beards, sicken and die, and turn black in the sun as though the plague had breathed on them. And I have seen the Long Noses and bushy beards of walled towns wither and perish in the blast and blight from the Namaz-Ga where the Slayer of Souls sat his saddle and prayed to Erlik, and half a million Yezidees prayed in blasphemous unison." Recklow's head rested on his left hand. The other, unconsciously, had crept toward his pistol--the weapon which had become so useless in this awful struggle between this girl and the loosened forces of hell. "Is that what you think Sanang is about?" he asked heavily. "Yes. I know it. He has seized the minds of a million men in America. Every anarchist is to-day concentrating in one evil and supreme mental effort, under Sanang's direction, to will the triumph of evil and the doom of civilisation.... I wish my husband would come home." "Tressa?" She turned her pallid face in the firelight: "If Sanang has appointed a Place of Prayer," she said, "he himself will pray on that spot. That will be the Namaz-Ga for the last two Yezidee Sorcerers still alive in the Western World." "That's what I wished to ask you," said Recklow softly. "Will you try once more, Tressa?" "Yes. I will send out my soul again to look for the Namaz-Ga." She lay back in her armchair and closed her eyes. "Only," she added, as though to herself, "I wish my dear lord were safe in this room beside me.... May God's warriors be his escort. And surely they are well armed, and can prevail over demons. Aie-a! I wish my lord would come home out of the darkness.... Mr. Recklow?" "Yes, Tressa." "I thought I heard him on the stairs." "Not yet." "Aie-a!" she sighed and closed her eyes again. She lay like one dead. There was no sound in the room save the soft purr of the fire. Suddenly from the sleeping girl a frightened voice burst: "Yulun! Yulun! Where is that yellow maid of the Baroulass?... What is she doing? That sleek young thing belongs to Togrul Kahn? Yulun! I am afraid of her! Tell Sansa to watch that she does not stir from the Lake of the Ghosts!... Warn that young Baroulass Sorceress that if she stirs I slay her. And know how to do it in spite of Sanang and all the prayers from the Namaz-Ga! Yulun! Sansa! Watch her, follow her, hearts of flame! My soul be ransom for yours! Tokhta!" The girl's eyes unclosed. Presently she stirred slightly, passed one hand across her forehead, turned her head toward Recklow. "I could not discover the Namaz-Ga," she said wearily. "I wish my husband would return." CHAPTER XVI THE PLACE OF PRAYER Her husband called her on the telephone a few minutes later: "Fifty-three, Six-twenty-six speaking! Who is this?" "V-sixty-nine," replied his young wife happily. "Are you all right?" "Yes. Is M. H. 2479 there?" "He is here." "Very well. An hour ago I saw Togrul Khan in a limousine and chased him in a taxi. His car got away in the fog but it was possible to make out the number. An empty Cadillac limousine bearing that number is now waiting outside the 44th Street entrance to the Hotel Astor. The doorman will hold it until I finish telephoning. Tell M. H. 2479 to send men to cover this matter----" "Victor!" "Be careful! Yes, what is it?" "I beg you not to stir in this affair until I can join you----" "Hurry then. It's just across the street from Westover Court----" His voice ceased; she heard another voice, faintly, and an exclamation from her husband; then his hurried voice over the wire: "The doorman just sent word to hurry. The car number is N. Y. _015 F 0379_! I've got to run! Good-b----" * * * * * He left the booth at the end of Peacock Alley, ran down the marble steps to the left and out to the snowy sidewalk, passing on his way a young girl swathed to the eyes in chinchilla who was hurrying into the hotel. As he came to where the limousine was standing, he saw that it was still empty although the door stood open and the engine was running. Around the chauffeur stood the gold laced doorman, the gorgeously uniformed carriage porter and a mounted policeman. "Hey!" said the latter when he saw Cleves,--"what's the matter here? What are you holding up this car for?" Cleves beckoned him, whispered, then turned to the doorman. "Why did you send for me? Was the chauffeur trying to pull out?" "Yes, sir. A lady come hurrying out an' she jumps in, and the shawfur he starts her humming----" "A lady! Where did she go?" "It was that young lady in chinchilla fur. The one you just met when you run out. Yessir! Why, as soon as I held up the car and called this here cop, she opens the door and out she jumps and beats it into the hotel again----" "Hold that car, Officer!" interrupted Cleves. "Keep it standing here and arrest anybody who gets into it! I'll be back again----" He turned and hurried into the hotel, traversed Peacock Alley scanning every woman he passed, searching for a slim shape swathed in chinchilla. There were no chinchilla wraps in Peacock Alley; none in the dining-room where people already were beginning to gather and the orchestra was now playing; no young girl in chinchilla in the waiting room, or in the north dining-room. Then, suddenly, far across the crowded lobby, he saw a slender, bare-headed girl in a chinchilla cloak turn hurriedly away from the room-clerk's desk, holding a key in her white gloved hand. Before he could take two steps in her direction she had disappeared in the crowd. He made his way through the packed lobby as best he could amid throngs of people dressed for dinner, theatre, or other gaiety awaiting them somewhere out there in the light-smeared winter fog; but when he arrived at the room clerk's desk he looked for a chinchilla wrap in vain. Then he leaned over the desk and said to the clerk in a low voice: "I am a Federal agent from the Department of Justice. Here are my credentials. Now, who was that young woman in chinchilla furs to whom you gave her door key a moment ago?" The clerk leaned over his counter and, dropping his voice, answered that the lady in question had arrived only that morning from San Francisco; had registered as Madame Aoula Baroulass; and had been given a suite on the fourth floor numbered from 408 to 414. "Do you mean to arrest her?" added the clerk in a weird whisper. "I don't know. Possibly. Have you the master-key?" The clerk handed it to him without a word; and Cleves hurried to the elevator. On the fourth floor the matron on duty halted him, but when he murmured an explanation she nodded and laid a finger on her lips. "Madame has gone to her apartment," she whispered. "Has she a servant? Or friends with her?" "No, sir.... I did see her speak to two foreign looking gentlemen in the elevator when she arrived this morning." Cleves nodded; the matron pointed out the direction in silence, and he went rapidly down the carpeted corridor, until he came to a door numbered 408. For a second only he hesitated, then swiftly fitted the master-key and opened the door. The room--a bedroom--was brightly lighted; but there was nobody there. The other rooms--dressing closet, bath-room and parlour, all were brilliantly lighted by ceiling fixtures and wall brackets; but there was not a person to be seen in any of the rooms--nor, save for the illumination, was there any visible sign that anybody inhabited the apartment. Swiftly he searched the apartment from end to end. There was no baggage to be seen, no garments, no toilet articles, no flowers in the vases, no magazines or books, not one article of feminine apparel or of personal bric-a-brac visible in the entire place. Nor had the bed even been turned down--nor any preparation for the night's comfort been attempted. And, except for the blazing lights, it was as though the apartment had not been entered by anybody for a month. All the windows were closed, all shades lowered and curtains drawn. The air, though apparently pure enough, had that vague flatness which one associates with an unused guest-chamber when opened for an airing. Now, deliberately, Cleves began a more thorough search of the apartment, looking behind curtains, under beds, into clothes presses, behind sofas. Then he searched the bureau drawers, dressers, desks for any sign or clew of the girl in the chinchillas. There was no dust anywhere,--the hotel management evidently was particular--but there was not even a pin to be found. Presently he went out into the corridor and looked again at the number on the door. He had made no mistake. Then he turned and sped down the long corridor to where the matron was standing beside her desk preparing to go off duty as soon as the other matron arrived to relieve her. To his impatient question she replied positively that she had seen the girl in chinchillas unlock 408 and enter the apartment less than five minutes before he had arrived in pursuit. "And I saw her lights go on as soon as she went in," added the matron, pointing to the distant illuminated transom. "Then she went out through into the next apartment," insisted Cleves. "The fire-tower is on one side of her; the scullery closet on the other," said the matron. "She could not have left that apartment without coming out into the corridor. And if she had come out I should have seen her." "I tell you she isn't in those rooms!" protested Cleves. "She must be there, sir. I saw her go in a few seconds before you came up." At that moment the other matron arrived. There was no use arguing. He left the explanation of the situation to the woman who was going off duty, and, hastening his steps, he returned to apartment 408. The door, which he had left open, had swung shut. Again he fitted the master-key, entered, paused on the threshold, looked around nervously, his nostrils suddenly filled with a puff of perfume. And there on the table by the bed he saw a glass bowl filled with a mass of Chinese orchids--great odorous clusters of orange and snow-white bloom that saturated all the room with their freshening scent. So astounded was he that he stood stock still, one hand still on the door-knob; then in a trice he had closed and locked the door from inside. _Somebody_ was in that apartment. There could be no doubt about it. He dropped his right hand into his overcoat pocket and took hold of his automatic pistol. For ten minutes he stood so, listening, peering about the room from bed to curtains, and out into the parlour. There was not a sound in the place. Nothing stirred. Now, grasping his pistol but not drawing it, he began another stealthy tour of the apartment, exploring every nook and cranny. And, at the end, had discovered nothing new. When at length he realised that, as far as he could discover, there was not a living thing in the place excepting himself, a very faint chill grew along his neck and shoulders, and he caught his breath suddenly, deeply. He had come back to the bedroom, now. The perfume of the orchids saturated the still air. And, as he stood staring at them, all of a sudden he saw, where their twisted stalks rested in the transparent bowl of water, something moving--something brilliant as a live ember gliding out from among the mass of submerged stems--a living fish glowing in scarlet hues and winnowing the water with grotesquely trailing fins as delicate as filaments of scarlet lace. To and fro swam the fish among the maze of orchid stalks. Even its eyes were hot and red as molten rubies; and as its crimson gills swelled and relaxed and swelled, tints of cherry-fire waxed and waned over its fat and glowing body. And vaguely, now, in the perfume saturated air, Cleves seemed to sense a subtle taint of evil,--something sinister in the intense stillness of the place--in the jewelled fish gliding so silently in and out among the pallid convolutions of the drowned stems. As he stood staring at the fish, the drugged odour of the orchids heavy in his throat and lungs, something stirred very lightly in the room. Chills crawling over every limb, he looked around across his shoulder. There was a figure seated cross-legged in the middle of the bed! Then, in the perfumed silence, the girl laughed. For a full minute neither of them moved. No sound had echoed her low laughter save the deadened pulsations of his own heart. But now there grew a faint ripple of water in the bowl where the scarlet fish, suddenly restless, was swimming hither and thither as though pursued by an invisible hand. With the slight noise of splashing water in his ears, Cleves stood staring at the figure on the bed. Under her chinchilla the girl seemed to be all a pale golden tint--hair, skin, eyes. The scant shred of an evening gown she wore, the jewels at her throat and breast, all were yellow and amber and saffron-gold. And now, looking him in the eyes, she leisurely disengaged the robe of silver fur from her naked shoulders and let it fall around her on the bed. For a second the lithe, willowy golden thing gathered there as gracefully as a coiled snake filled him with swift loathing. Then, almost instantly, the beauty of the lissome creature fascinated him. She leaned forward and set her elbows on her two knees, and rested her face between her hands--like a gold rose-bud between two ivory petals, he thought, dismayed by this young thing's beauty, shaken by the dull confusion of his own heart battering his breast like the blows of a rising tide. "What do you wish?" she inquired in her soft young voice. "Why have you come secretly into my rooms to search--and clasping in your hand a loaded pistol deep within your pocket?" "Why have you hidden yourself until now?" he retorted in a dull and laboured voice. "I have been here." "Where?" "Here!... Looking at you.... And watching my scarlet fish. His name is Dzelim. He is nearly a thousand years old and as wise as a magician. Look upon him, my lord! See how rapidly he darts around his tiny crystal world!--like a comet through outer star-dust, running the eternal race with Time.... And--yonder is a chair. Will my lord be seated--at his new servant's feet?" A strange, physical weariness seemed to weight his limbs and shoulders. He seated himself near the bed, never taking his heavy gaze from the smiling, golden thing which squatted there watching him so intently. "Whose limousine was that which you entered and then left so abruptly?" he asked. "My own." "What was the Yezidee Togrul Kahn doing in it?" "Did you see anybody in my car?" she asked, veiling her eyes a little with their tawny lashes. "I saw a man with a thick beard dyed red with henna, and the bony face and slant eyes of Togrul the Yezidee." "May my soul be ransom for yours, my lord, but you lie!" she said softly. Her lips parted in a smile; but her half-veiled eyes were brilliant as two topazes. "Is that your answer?" She lifted one hand and with her forefinger made signs from right to left and then downward as though writing in Turkish and in Chinese characters. "It is written," she said in a low voice, "that we belong to God and we return to him. Look out what you are about, my lord!" He drew his pistol from his overcoat and, holding it, rested his hand on his knee. "Now," he said hoarsely, "while we await the coming of Togrul Kahn, you shall remain exactly where you are, and you shall tell me exactly who you are in order that I may decide whether to arrest you as an alien enemy inciting my countrymen to murder, or to let you go as a foreigner who is able to prove her honesty and innocence." The girl laughed: "Be careful," she said. "My danger lies in your youth and mine--somewhere between your lips and mine lies my only danger from you, my lord." A dull flush mounted to his temples and burned there. "I am the golden comrade to Heavenly-Azure," she said, still smiling. "I am the Third Immaum in the necklace Keuke wears where Yulun hangs as a rose-pearl, and Sansa as a pearl on fire. "Look upon me, my lord!" There was a golden light in his eyes which seemed to stiffen the muscles and confuse his vision. He heard her voice again as though very far away: "It is written that we shall love, my lord--thou and I--this night--this night. Listen attentively. I am thy slave. My lips shall touch thy feet. Look upon me, my lord!" There was a dazzling blindness in his eyes and in his brain. He swayed a little still striving to fix her with his failing gaze. His pistol hand slipped sideways from his knee, fell limply, and the weapon dropped to the thick carpet. He could still see the glimmering golden shape of her, still hear her distant voice: "It is written that we belong to God.... Tokhta!..." Over his knees was settling a snow-white sheet; on it, in his lap, lay a naked knife. There was not a sound in the room save the rushing and splashing of the scarlet fish in its crystal bowl. Bending nearer, the girl fixed her yellow eyes on the man who looked back at her with dying gaze, sitting upright and knee deep in his shroud. Then, noiselessly she uncoiled her supple golden body, extending her right arm toward the knife. "Throw back thy head, my lord, and stretch thy throat to the knife's sweet edge," she whispered caressingly. "No!--do not close your eyes. Look upon me. Look into my eyes. I am Aoula, temple girl of the Baroulass! I am mistress to the Slayer of Souls! I am a golden plaything to Sanang Noïane, Prince of the Yezidees. Look upon me attentively, my lord!" Her smooth little hand closed on the hilt; the scarlet fish splashed furiously in the bowl, dislodging a blossom or two which fell to the carpet and slowly faded into mist. Now she grasped the knife, and she slipped from the bed to the floor and stood before the dazed man. "This is the Namaz-Ga," she said in her silky voice. "Behold, this is the appointed Place of Prayer. Gaze around you, my lord. These are the shadows of mighty men who come here to see you die in the Place of Prayer." Cleves's head had fallen back, but his eyes were open. The Baroulass girl took his head in both hands and turned it hither and thither. And his glazing eyes seemed to sweep a throng of shadowy white-robed men crowding the room. And he saw the bloodless, symmetrical visage of Sanang among them, and the great red beard of Togrul; and his stiffening lips parted in an uttered cry, and sagged open, flaccid and soundless. The Baroulass sorceress lifted the shroud from his knees and spread it on the carpet, moving with leisurely grace about her business and softly intoning the Prayers for the Dead. Then, having made her arrangements, she took her knife into her right hand again and came back to the half-conscious man, and stood close in front of him, bending near and looking curiously into his dimmed eyes. "Ayah!" she said smilingly. "This is the Place of Prayer. And you shall add your prayer to ours before I use my knife. So! I give you back your power of speech. Pronounce the name of Erlik!" Very slowly his dry lips moved and his dry tongue trembled. The word they formed was, "Tressa!" Instantly the girl's yellow eyes grew incandescent and her lovely mouth became distorted. With her left hand she caught his chin, forced his head back, exposing his throat, and using all her strength drew the knife's edge across it. But it was only her clenched fingers that swept the taut throat--clenched and empty fingers in which the knife had vanished. And when the Baroulass girl saw that her clenched hand was empty, felt her own pointed nails cutting into the tender flesh of her own palm, she stared at her blood-stained fingers in sudden terror--stared, spread them, shrieked where she stood, and writhed there trembling and screaming as though gripped in an invisible trap. But she fell silent when the door of the room opened noiselessly behind her;--and it was as though she dared not turn her head to face the end of all things which had entered the room and was drawing nearer in utter silence. Suddenly she saw its shadow on the wall; and her voice burst from her lips in a last shuddering scream. Then the end came slowly, without a sound, and she sank at the knees, gently, to a kneeling posture, then backward, extending her supple golden shape across the shroud; and lay there limp as a dead snake. Tressa went to the bowl of water and drew from it every blossom. The scarlet fish was now thrashing the water to an iridescent spume; and Tressa plunged in her hands and seized it and flung it out--squirming and wheezing crimson foam--on the shroud beside the golden girl of the Baroulass. Then, very slowly, she drew the shroud over the dying things; stepped back to the chair where her husband lay unconscious; knelt down beside him and took his head on her shoulder, gazing, all the while, at the outline of the dead girl under the snowy shroud. After a long while Cleves stirred and opened his eyes. Presently he turned his head sideways on her shoulder. "Tressa," he whispered. "Hush," she whispered, "all is well now." But she did not move her eyes from the shroud, which now outlined the still shapes of _two_ human figures. "John Recklow!" she called in a low voice. Recklow entered noiselessly with drawn pistol. She motioned to him; he bent and lifted the edge of the shroud, cautiously. A bushy red beard protruded. "Togrul!" he exclaimed.... "But who is this young creature lying dead beside him?" Then Tressa caught the collar of her tunic in her left hand and flung back her lovely face looking upward out of eyes like sapphires wet with rain: "In the name of the one and only God," she sobbed--"if there be no resurrection for dead souls, then I have slain this night in vain! "For what does it profit a girl if her soul be lost to a lover and her body be saved for her husband?" She rose from her knees, the tears still falling, and went and looked down at the outlined shapes beneath the shroud. Recklow had gone to the telephone to summon his own men and an ambulance. Now, turning toward Tressa from his chair: "God knows what we'd do without you, Mrs. Cleves. I believe this accounts for all the Yezidees except Sanang." "Excepting Prince Sanang," she said drearily. Then she went slowly to where her husband lay in his armchair, and sank down on the floor, and laid her cheek across his feet. CHAPTER XVII THE SLAYER OF SOULS In that great blizzard which, on the 4th of February, struck the eastern coast of the United States from Georgia to Maine, John Recklow and his men hunted Sanang, the last of the Yezidees. And Sanang clung like a demon to the country which he had doomed to destruction, imbedding each claw again as it was torn loose, battling for the supremacy of evil with all his dreadful psychic power, striving still to seize, cripple, and slay the bodies and souls of a hundred million Americans. Again he scattered the uncounted myriads of germs of the Black Plague which he and his Yezidees had brought out of Mongolia a year before; and once more the plague swept over the country, and thousands on thousands died. But now the National, State and City governments were fighting, with physicians, nurses, and police, this gruesome epidemic which had come into the world from they knew not where. And National, State and City governments, aroused at last, were fighting the more terrible plague of anarchy. Nation-wide raids were made from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf to the Lakes. Thousands of terrorists of all shades and stripes whose minds had been seized and poisoned by the Yezidees were being arrested. Deportations had begun; government agents were everywhere swarming to clean out the foulness that had struck deeper into the body of the Republic than any one had supposed. And it seemed, at last, as though the Red Plague, too, was about to be stamped out along with the Black Death called Influenza. But only a small group of Secret Service men knew that a resurgence of these horrors was inevitable unless Sanang, the Slayer of Souls, was destroyed. And they knew, too, that only one person in America could hope to destroy Sanang, the last of the Yezidees, and that was Tressa Cleves. Only by the sudden onset of the plague in various cities of the land had Recklow any clew concerning the whereabouts of Sanang. In Boston, then Washington, then Kansas City, and then New York the epidemic suddenly blazed up. And in these places of death the Secret Service men always found a clew, and there they hunted Sanang, the Yezidee, to kill him without mercy where they might find him. But they never found Sanang Noïane; only the ghastly marks of his poisoned claws on the body of the sickened nation--only minds diseased by the Red Plague and bodies dying of the Black Death--civil and social centres disorganized, disrupted, depraved, dying. When the blizzard burst upon New York, struggling in the throes of the plague, and paralysed the metropolis for a week, John Recklow sent out a special alarm, and New York swarmed with Secret Service men searching the snow-buried city for a graceful, slender, dark young man whose eyes slanted a trifle in his amber-tinted face; who dressed fashionably, lived fastidiously, and spoke English perfectly in a delightfully modulated voice. And to New York, thrice stricken by anarchy, by plague, and now by God, hurried, from all parts of the nation, thousands of secret agents who had been hunting Sanang in distant cities or who had been raiding the traitorous and secret gatherings of his mental dupes. Agent ZB-303, who was volunteer agent James Benton, came from Boston with his new bride who had just arrived by way of England--a young girl named Yulun who landed swathed in sables, and stretched out both lovely little hands to Benton the instant she caught sight of him on the pier. Whereupon he took the slim figure in furs into his arms, which was interesting because they had never before met in the flesh. So,--their honeymoon scarce begun, Benton and Yulun came from Boston in answer to Recklow's emergency call. And all the way across from San Francisco came volunteer agent XLY-371, otherwise Alek Selden, bringing with him a girl named Sansa whom he had gone to the coast to meet, and whom he had immediately married after she had landed from the Japanese steamer _Nan-yang Maru_. Which, also, was remarkable, because, although they recognised each other instantly, and their hands and lips clung as they met, neither had ever before beheld the living body of the other. The third man who came to New York at Recklow's summons was volunteer agent 53-6-26, otherwise Victor Cleves. His young wife, suffering from nervous shock after the deaths of Togrul Khan and of the Baroulass girl, Aoula, had been convalescing in a private sanitarium in Westchester. Until the summons came to her husband from Recklow, she had seen him only for a few moments every day. But the call to duty seemed to have effected a miraculous cure in the slender, blue-eyed girl who had lain all day long, day after day, in her still, sunny room scarcely unclosing her eyes at all save only when her husband was permitted to enter for the few minutes allowed them every day. The physician had just left, after admitting that Mrs. Cleves seemed to be well enough to travel if she insisted; and she and her maid had already begun to pack when her husband came into her room. She looked around over her shoulder, then rose from her knees, flung an armful of clothing into the trunk before which she had been kneeling, and came across the room to him. Then she dismissed her maid from the room. And when the girl had gone: "I am well, Victor," she said in a low voice. "Why are you troubled?" "I can't bear to have you drawn into this horrible affair once more." "Who else is there to discover and overcome Sanang?" she asked calmly. He remained silent. So, for a few moments they stood confronting each other there in the still, sunny chamber--husband and wife who had never even exchanged the first kiss--two young creatures more vitally and intimately bound together than any two on earth--yet utterly separated body and soul from each other--two solitary spirits which had never merged; two bodies virginal and inviolate. Tressa spoke first: "I must go. That was our bargain." The word made him wince as though it had been a sudden blow. Then his face flushed red. "Bargain or no bargain," he said, "I don't want you to go because I'm afraid you can not endure another shock like the last one.... And every time you have thrown your own mind and body between this Nation and destruction you have nearly died of it." "And if I die?" she said in a low voice. What answer she awaited--perhaps hoped for--was not the one he made. He said: "If you die in what you believe to be your line of duty, then it will be I who have killed you." "That would not be true. It is you who have saved me." "I have not. I have done nothing except to lead you into danger of death since I first met you. If you mean spiritually, that also is untrue. You have saved yourself--if that indeed were necessary. You have redeemed yourself--if it is true you needed redemption--which I never believed----" "Oh," she sighed swiftly, "Sanang surprised my soul when it was free of my body--followed my soul into the Wood of the White Moth--caught it there all alone--and--slew it!" His lips and throat had gone dry as he watched the pallid terror grow in her face. Presently he recovered his voice: "You call that Yezidee the Slayer of Souls," he said, "but I tell you there is no such creature, no such power! "I suppose I--I know what you mean--having seen what we call souls dissociated from their physical bodies--but that this Yezidee could do you any spiritual damage I do not for one instant believe. The idea is monstrous, I tell you----" "I--I fought him--soul battling against soul----" she stammered, breathing faster and irregularly. "I struggled with Sanang there in the Wood of the White Moth. I called on God! I called on my two great dogs, Bars and Alaga! I recited the Fatha with all my strength--fighting convulsively whenever his soul seized mine; I cried out the name of Khidr, begging for wisdom! I called on the Ten Imaums, on Ali the Lion, on the Blessed Companions. Then I tore my spirit out of the grasp of his soul--but there was no escape!--no escape," she wailed. "For on every side I saw the cloud-topped rampart of Gog and Magog, and the woods rang with Erlik's laughter--the dissonant mirth of hell----" She began to shudder and sway a little, then with an effort she controlled herself in a measure. "There never has been," she began again with lips that quivered in spite of her--"there never has been one moment in our married lives when my soul dared forget the Wood of the White Moth--dared seek yours.... God lives. But so does Erlik. There are angels; but there are as many demons.... My soul is ashamed.... And very lonely ... very lonely ... but no fit companion--for yours----" Her hands dropped listlessly beside her and her chin sank. "So you believe that Yezidee devil caught your soul when it was wandering somewhere out of your body, and destroyed it," he said. She did not answer, did not even lift her eyes until he had stepped close to her--closer than he had ever come. Then she looked up at him, but closed her eyes as he swept her into his arms and crushed her face and body against his own. Now her red lips were on his; now her face and heart and limbs and breast melted into his--her breath, her pulse, her strength flowed into his and became part of their single being and single pulse and breath. And she felt their two souls flame and fuse together, and burn together in one heavenly blaze--felt the swift conflagration mount, overwhelm, and sweep her clean of the last lingering taint; felt her soul, unafraid, clasp her husband's spirit in its white embrace--clung to him, uplifted out of hell, rising into the blinding light of Paradise. Far--far away she heard her own voice in singing whispers--heard her lips pronounce _The Name_--"Ata--Ata! Allahou----" Her blue eyes unclosed; through a mist, in which she saw her husband's face, grew a vast metallic clamour in her ears. Her husband kissed her, long, silently; then, retaining her hand, he turned and lifted the receiver from the clamouring telephone. "Yes! Yes, this is 53-6-26. Yes, V-69 is with me.... When?... To-day?... Very well.... Yes, we'll come at once.... Yes, we can get a train in a few minutes.... All right. Good-bye." He took his wife into his arms again. "Dearest of all in the world," he said, "Sanang is cornered in a row of houses near the East River, and Recklow has flung a cordon around the entire block. Good God! I _can't_ take you there!" Then Tressa smiled, drew his head down, looked into his face till the clear blue splendour of her gaze stilled the tumult in his brain. "I alone know how to deal with Prince Sanang," she said quietly. "And if John Recklow, or you, or Mr. Benton or Mr. Selden should kill him with your pistols, it would be only his body you slay, not the evil thing that would escape you and return to Erlik." "_Must_ you do this thing, Tressa?" "Yes, I must do it." "But--if our pistols cannot kill this sorcerer, how are you going to deal with him?" "I know how." "Have you the strength?" "Yes--the bodily and the spiritual. Don't you know that I am already part of you?" "We shall be nearer still," he murmured. She flushed but met his gaze. "Yes.... We shall be but one being.... Utterly.... For already our hearts and souls are one. And we shall become of one mind and one body. "I am no longer afraid of Sanang Noïane!" "No longer afraid to slay him?" he asked quietly. A blue light flashed in her eyes and her face grew still and white and terrible. "Death to the body? That is nothing, my lord!" she said, in a hard, sweet voice. "It is written that we belong to God and that we return to Him. All living things must die, Heart of the World! It is only the death of souls that matters. And it has arrived at a time in the history of mankind, I think, when the Slayer of Souls shall slay no more." She looked at him, flushed, withdrew her hand and went slowly across the room to the big bay window where potted flowers were in bloom. From a window-box she took a pinch of dry soil and dropped it into the bosom of her gown. Then, facing the East, with lowered arms and palms turned outward: "There is no god but God," she whispered--"the merciful, the long-suffering, the compassionate, the just. "For it is written that when the heavens are rolled together like a scroll, every soul shall know what it hath wrought. "And those souls that are dead in Jehannum shall arise from the dead, and shall have their day in court. Nor shall Erlik stay them till all has been said. "And on that day the soul of a girl that hath been put to death shall ask for what reason it was slain. "Thus it has been written." Then Tressa dropped to her knees, touched the carpet with her forehead, straightened her lithe body and, looking over her shoulder, clapped her hands together sharply. Her maid opened the door. "Hasten with my lord's luggage!" she cried happily; and, still kneeling, lifted her head to her husband and laughed up into his eyes. "You should call the porter for we are nearly ready. Shall we go to the station in a sleigh? Oh, wonderful!" She leaped to her feet, extended her hand and caught his. "Horses for the lord of the Yiort!" she cried, laughingly. "Kosh! Take me out into this new white world that has been born to-day of the ten purities and the ten thousand felicities! It has been made anew for you and me who also have been born this day!" He scarcely knew this sparkling, laughing girl with her quick grace and her thousand swift little moods and gaieties. Porters came to take his luggage from his own room; and then her trunk and bags were ready, and were taken away. The baggage sleigh drove off. Their own jingling sleigh followed; and Tressa, buried in furs, looked out upon a dazzling, unblemished world, lying silvery white under a sky as azure as her eyes. "Keuke Mongol--Heavenly Azure," he whispered close to her crimsoned cheek, "do you know how I have loved you--always--always?" "No, I did not know that," she said. "Nor I, in the beginning. Yet it happened, also, from the beginning when I first saw you." "That is a delicious thing to be told. Within me a most heavenly glow is spreading.... Unglove your hand." She slipped the glove from her own white fingers and felt for his under the furs. "Aie," she sighed, "you are more beautiful than Ali; more wonderful than the Flaming Pearl. Out of ice and fire a new world has been made for us." "Heavenly Azure--my darling!" "Oh-h," she sighed, "your words are sweeter than the breeze in Yian! I shall be a bride to you such as there never has been since the days of the Blessed Companions--may their names be perfumed and sweet-scented!... Shall I truly be one with you, my lord?" "Mind, soul, and body, one being, you and I, little Heavenly Azure." "Between your two hands you hold me like a burning rose, my lord." "Your sweetness and fire penetrate my soul." "We shall burn together then till the sky-carpet be rolled up. Kosh! We shall be one, and on that day I shall not be afraid." The sleigh came to a clashing, jingling halt; the train plowed into the depot buried in vast clouds of snowy steam. But when they had taken the places reserved for them, and the train was moving swifter and more swiftly toward New York, fear suddenly overwhelmed Victor Cleves, and his face grew grey with the menacing tumult of his thoughts. The girl seemed to comprehend him, too, and her own features became still and serious as she leaned forward in her chair. "It is in God's hands, Heart of the World," she said in a low voice. "We are one, thou and I,--or nearly so. Nothing can harm my soul." "No.... But the danger--to your life----" "I fear no Yezidee." "The beast will surely try to kill you. And what can I do? You say my pistol is useless." "Yes.... But I want you near me." "Do you imagine I'd leave you for a second? Good God," he added in a strangled voice, "isn't there any way I can kill this wild beast? With my naked hands----?" "You must leave him to me, Victor." "And you believe you can slay him? _Do_ you?" She remained silent for a long while, bent forward in her armchair, and her hands clasped tightly on her knees. "My husband," she said at last, "what your astronomers have but just begun to suspect is true, and has long, long been known to the Sheiks-el-Djebel. "For, near to this world we live in, are other worlds--planets that do not reflect light. And there is a dark world called Yrimid, close to the earth--a planet wrapped in darkness--a black star.... And upon it Erlik dwells.... And it is peopled by demons.... And from it comes sickness and evil----" She moistened her lips; sat for a while gazing vaguely straight before her. "From this black planet comes all evil upon earth," she resumed in a hushed voice. "For it is very near to the earth. It is not a hundred miles away. All strange phenomena for which our scientists can not account are due to this invisible planet,--all new and sudden pestilences; all convulsions of nature; the newly noticed radio disturbances; the new, so-called inter-planetary signals--all--all have their hidden causes within that black and demon-haunted planet long known to the Yezidees, and by them called Yrimid, or Erlik's World. And--it is to this black planet that I shall send Sanang, Slayer of Souls. I shall tear him from this earth, though he cling to it with every claw; and I shall fling his soul into darkness--out across the gulf--drive his soul forth--hurl it toward Erlik like a swift rocket charred and falling from the sky into endless night. "So shall I strive to deal with Prince Sanang, Sorcerer of Mount Alamout, the last of the Assassins, Sheik-el-Djebel, and Slayer of Souls.... May God remember him in hell." * * * * * Already their train was rolling into the great terminal. Recklow was awaiting them. He took Tressa's hands in his and gazed earnestly into her face. "Have you come to show us how to conclude this murderous business?" he asked grimly. "I shall try," she said calmly. "Where have you cornered Sanang?" "Could you and Victor come at once?" "Yes." She turned and looked at her husband, who had become quite pale. Recklow saw the look they exchanged. There could be no misunderstanding what had happened to these two. Their tragedy had ended. They were united at last. He understood it instantly,--realised how terrible was this new and tragic situation for them both. Yet, he knew also that the salvation of civilisation itself now depended upon this girl. She must face Sanang. There was nothing else possible. "The streets are choked with snow," he said, "but I have a coupé and two strong horses waiting." He nodded to one of his men standing near. Cleves gave him the hand luggage and checks. "All right," he said in a low voice to Recklow; and passed one arm through Tressa's. * * * * * The coupé was waiting on Forty-second Street, guarded by a policeman. When they had entered and were seated, two mounted policemen rode ahead of the lurching vehicle, picking a way amid the monstrous snow-drifts, and headed for the East River. "We've got him somewhere in a wretched row of empty houses not far from East River Park. I'm taking you there. I've drawn a cordon of my men around the entire block. He can't get away. But I dared take no chances with this Yezidee sorcerer--dared not let one of my men go in to look for him--go anywhere near him,--until I could lay the situation before you, Mrs. Cleves." "Yes," she said calmly, "it was the only way, Mr. Recklow. There would have been no use shooting him--no use taking him prisoner. A prisoner, he remains as deadly as ever; dead, his mind still lives and breeds evil. You are quite right; it is for me to deal with Sanang." Recklow shuddered in spite of himself. "Can you tear his claws from the vitals of the world, and free the sick brains of a million people from the slavery of this monster's mind?" The girl said seriously: "Even Satan was stoned. It is so written. And was cast out. And dwells forever and ever in Abaddon. No star lights that Pit. None lights the Black Planet, Yrimid. It is where evil dwells. And there Sanang Noïane belongs." And now, beyond the dirty edges of the snow-smothered city, under an icy mist they caught sight of the river where ships lay blockaded by frozen floes. Gulls circled over it; ghostly factory chimneys on the further shore loomed up gigantic, ranged like minarettes. The coupé, jolting along behind the mounted policemen, struggled up toward the sidewalk and stopped. The two horses stood steaming, knee deep in snow. Recklow sprang out; Tressa gave him one hand and stepped lithely to the sidewalk. Then Cleves got out and came and took hold of his wife's arm again. "Well," he said harshly to Recklow, "where is this damned Yezidee hidden?" Recklow pointed in silence, but he and Tressa had already lifted their gaze to the stark, shabby row of abandoned three-story houses where every dirty blind was closed. "They're to be demolished and model tenements built," he said briefly. A man muffled in a fur overcoat came up and took Tressa's hand and kissed it. She smiled palely at Benton, spoke of Yulun, wished him happiness. While she was yet speaking Selden approached and bent over her gloved hand. She spoke to him very sweetly of Sansa, expressing pleasure at the prospect of seeing her again in the body. "The Seldens and ourselves have adjoining apartments at the Ritz," said Benton. "We have reserved a third suite for you and Victor." She inclined her lovely head, gravely, then turned to Recklow, saying that she was ready. "It makes no difference which front door I unlock," he said. "All these tenements are connected by human rat-holes and hidden runways leading from one house to another.... How many men do you want?" "I want you four men,--nobody else." Recklow led the way up a snow-covered stoop, drew a key from his pocket, fitted it, and pulled open the door. A musty chill struck their faces as they entered the darkened and empty hallway. Involuntarily every man drew his pistol. "I must ask you to do exactly what I tell you to do," she said calmly. "Certainly," said Recklow, caressing his white moustache and striving to pierce the gloom with his keen eyes. Then Tressa took her husband's hand. "Come," she said. They mounted the stairway together; and the three others followed with pistols lifted. There was a vague grey light on the second floor; the broken rear shutters let it in. As though she seemed to know her way, the girl led them forward, opened a door in the wall, and disclosed a bare, dusty room in the next house. Through this she stepped; the others crept after her with weapons ready. She opened a second door, turned to the four men. "Wait here for me. Come only when I call," she whispered. "For God's sake take me with you," burst out Cleves. "In God's name stay where you are till you hear me call your name!" she said almost breathlessly. Then, suddenly she turned, swiftly retracing her steps; and they saw her pass through the first door and disappear into the first house they had entered. A terrible silence fell among them. The sound of her steps on the bare boards had died away. There was not a sound in the chilly dusk. Minute after minute dragged by. One by one the men peered fearfully at Cleves. His visage was ghastly and they could see his pistol-hand trembling. Twice Recklow looked at his wrist watch. The third time he said, unsteadily: "She has been gone three-quarters of an hour." Then, far away, they heard a heavy tread on the stairs. Nearer and nearer came the footsteps. Every pistol was levelled at the first door as a man's bulky form darkened it. "It's one of my men," said Recklow in a voice like a low groan. "Where on earth is Mrs. Cleves?" "I came to tell you," said the agent, "Mrs. Cleves came out of the first house nearly an hour ago. She got into the coupé and told the driver to go to the Ritz." "What!" gasped Recklow. "She's gone to the Ritz," repeated the agent. "No one else has come out. And I began to worry--hearing nothing of you, Mr. Recklow. So I stepped in to see----" "You say that Mrs. Cleves went out of the house we entered, got into the coupé, and told the driver to go to the Ritz?" demanded Cleves, astounded. "Yes, sir." "Where is that coupé? Did it return?" "It had not returned when I came in here." "Go back and look for it. Look in the other street," said Recklow sharply. The agent hurried away over the creaking boards. The four men gazed at one another. "The thing to do is to obey her and stay where we are," said Recklow grimly. "Who knows what peril we may cause her if we move from----" His words froze on his lips as Tressa's voice rang out from the darkness beyond the door they were guarding: "Victor I I--I need you! Come to me, my husband!" As Cleves sprang through the door into the darkness beyond, Benton smashed a window sash with all the force of his shoulder, and, reaching out through the shattered glass, tore the rotting blinds from their hinges, letting in a flood of sickly light. Against the bare wall stood Tressa, both arms extended, her hands flat against the plaster, and each hand transfixed and pinned to the wall by a knife. A white sheet lay at her feet. On it rested a third knife. And, bending on one knee to pick it up, they caught a glimpse of a slender young man in fashionable afternoon attire, who, as they entered with the crash of the shattered window in their ears, sprang to his nimble feet and stood confronting them, knife in hand. Instantly every man fired at him and the bullets whipped the plaster to a smoke behind him, but the slender, dark skinned young man stood motionless, looking at them out of brilliant eyes that slanted a trifle. Again the racket of the fusillade swept him and filled the room with plaster dust. Cleves, frantic with horror, laid hold of the knives that pinned his wife's hands to the wall, and dragged them out. But there was no blood, no wound to be seen on her soft palms. She took the murderous looking blades from him, threw one terrible look at Sanang, kicked the shroud across the floor toward him, and flung both knives upon it. The place was still dim with plaster dust and pistol fumes as she stepped forward through the acrid mist, motioning the four men aside. "Sanang!" she cried in a clear voice, "may God remember you in hell, for my feet have spurned your shroud, and your knives, which could not scar my palms, shall never pierce my heart! Look out for yourself, Prince Sanang!" "Tokhta!" he said, calmly. "My soul be ransom for yours!" "That is a lie! My soul is already ransomed! My mind is the more powerful. It has already halted yours. It is conquering yours. It is seizing your mind and enslaving it. It is mastering your will, Sanang! Your mind bends before mine. You know it! You know it is bending. You feel it is breaking down!" Sanang's eyes began to glitter but his pale brown face had grown almost white. "I slew you once--in the Wood of the White Moth," he said huskily. "There is no resurrection from such a death, little Heavenly Azure. Look upon me! My soul and yours are one!" "You are looking upon my soul," she said. "A lie! You are in your body!" The girl laughed. "My body lies asleep in the Ritz upon my husband's bed," she said. "My body is his, my mind belongs to him, my soul is already one with his. Do you not know it, dog of a Yezidee? Look upon me, Sanang Noïane! Look upon my unwounded hands! My shroud lies at your feet. And there lie the knives that could not pierce my heart! I am thrice clean! Listen to my words, Sanang! There is no other god but God!" The young man's visage grew pasty and loose and horrible; his lips became flaccid like dewlaps; but out of these sagging folds of livid skin his voice burst whistling, screaming, as though wrenched from his very belly: "May Erlik strangle you! May you rot where you stand! May your face become a writhing mass of maggots and your body a corruption of living worms! "For what you are doing to me this day may every demon in hell torment you! "Have a care what you are about!" he screeched. "You are slaying my mind, you sorceress! You have seized my mind and are crushing it! You are putting out its light, you Yezidee witch!--you are quenching the last spark--of reason--in--me----" "Sanang!" His knife fell clattering to the floor. But he stood stock still, his hands clutching his head--stood motionless, while scream on scream tore through the loose and gaping lips, blowing them into ghastly, distorted folds. "Sanang Noïane!" she cried in her clear voice, "the Eight Towers are darkened! The Rampart of Gog and Magog is fallen! On Mount Alamout nothing is living. The minds of mankind are free again!" She stepped forward, slowly, and stood near him chanting in a low voice the Prayers for the Dead She bent down and unrolled the shroud, laid it on his shoulders and drew it up and across his face, covering his dying eyes, and swathed him so, slowly, from head to foot. Then she gathered up the three knives, cast them upward into the air. They did not fall again. They disappeared. And all the while, under her breath, the girl was chanting the Prayers for the Dead as she moved silently about her business. Shrouded to the forehead in its white cerements, the muffled figure of Sanang stood upright, motionless as a swathed and frozen corpse. Outside, the daylight had become greyer. It had begun to snow again, and a few flakes blew in through the shattered windows and clung to the winding sheet of Sanang. And now Tressa drew close to the shrouded shape and stood before it, gazing intently upon the outlined features of the last of the Yezidees. "Sanang," she said very softly, "I hear your soul bidding your body farewell. Tokhta!" Then, under the strained gaze of the four men gathered there, the shroud fell to the floor in a loose heap of white folds. There was nobody under it; no trace of Sanang. The human shape of the Yezidee had disappeared; but a greyish mist had filled the room, wavering up like smoke from the shroud, and, like smoke, blowing in a long streamer toward the window where the draught drew it out through the falling snow and scattered the last shred of it against the greying sky. In the room the mist thinned swiftly; the four men could now see one another. But Tressa was no longer in the room. And in place of the white shroud a piece of filthy tattered carpet lay on the floor. And a dead rat, flattened out, dry and dusty, lay upon it. "For God's sake," whispered Recklow hoarsely, "let us get out of this!" Cleves, his pistol clutched convulsively, stared at him in terror. But Recklow took him by the arm and drew him away, muttering that Tressa was waiting for him, and might be ill, and that there was nothing further to expect in this ghastly spot. * * * * * They went with Cleves to the Ritz. At the desk the clerk said that Mrs. Cleves had the keys and was in her apartment. The three men entered the corridor with him; watched him try the door; saw him open it; lingered a moment after it had closed; heard the key turn. At the sound of the door closing the maid came. "Madame is asleep in her room," she whispered. "When did she come in?" "More than two hours ago, sir. I have drawn her bath, but when I opened the door a few moments ago, Madame was still asleep." He nodded; he was trembling when he put off his overcoat and dropped hat and gloves on the carpet. From the little rose and ivory reception room he could see the closed door of his wife's chamber. And for a while he stood staring at it. Then, slowly, he crossed this room, opened the door; entered. In her bedroom the tinted twilight was like ashes of roses. He went to the bed and looked down at her shadowy face; gazed intently; listened; then, in sudden terror, bent and laid his hand on her heart. It was beating as tranquilly as a child's; but as she stirred, turned her head, and unclosed her eyes, under his hand her heart leaped like a wild thing caught unawares and the snowy skin glowed with an exquisite and deepening tint as she lifted her arms and clasped them around her husband's, neck, drawing his quivering face against her own. THE END 56602 ---- [Illustration: KATY O'GRADY'S VICTORY.] FRANK HUNTER'S PERIL BY HORATIO ALGER, JR. AUTHOR OF "RAGGED DICK SERIES," "LUCK AND PLUCK SERIES," "TATTERED TOM SERIES," ETC. PHILADELPHIA HENRY T. COATES & CO. COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY HENRY T. COATES & CO. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. FRANK AND BEN, 5 II. MR. CRAVEN'S COURTSHIP, 15 III. UNWELCOME NEWS, 21 IV. MR. CRAVEN'S FOUR-LEGGED ENEMY, 30 V. MR. CRAVEN'S RETURN, 40 VI. THE DIFFICULTY OF KILLING A DOG, 50 VII. MISS O'GRADY'S VICTORY, 59 VIII. FRANK IS OBSTINATE, 69 IX. A STRANGER APPEARS ON THE SCENE, 79 X. A CONSPIRACY AGAINST FRANK, 84 XI. TRAPPED, 96 XII. TWO BOY FRIENDS, 105 XIII. JONATHAN TARBOX, OF SQUASHBORO', 114 XIV. THE LONDON CLERK, 123 XV. MR. TARBOX IS OBSTINATE, 133 XVI. AN ADVENTURE IN LONDON, 142 XVII. COLONEL SHARPLEY'S RUSE, 152 XVIII. MR. TARBOX AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION, 162 XIX. FRANK ASSERTS HIS RIGHTS, 172 XX. FRANK LEAVES PARIS, 182 XXI. THE HOTEL DU GLACIER, 192 XXII. OVER THE BRINK, 202 XXIII. GIVING THE ALARM, 208 XXIV. SHARPLEY DISSEMBLES, 212 XXV. A USELESS SEARCH, 217 XXVI. MR. TARBOX ON THE TRAIL, 222 XXVII. TARBOX TO THE RESCUE, 232 XXVIII. SAVED AS BY A MIRACLE, 237 XXIX. FRANK'S PEDESTRIAN TOUR, 242 XXX. NEW FRIENDS, 252 XXXI. HOW THE NEWS WENT HOME, 261 XXXII. BEN BRINGS GOOD NEWS, 269 XXXIII. ALPINE EXPLORATIONS OF MR. TARBOX, 279 XXXIV. THE PLOW IS A SUCCESS, 287 XXXV. MR. CRAVEN MEETS WITH UNEXPECTED DIFFICULTIES, 296 XXXVI. SHARPLEY'S RETURN, 306 XXXVII. MRS. CRAVEN'S FIXED IDEA, 315 XXXVIII. RETRIBUTION, 325 FRANK HUNTER'S PERIL. CHAPTER I. FRANK AND BEN. "Is your mother at home, Frank?" asked a soft voice. Frank Hunter was stretched on the lawn in a careless posture, but looked up quickly as the question fell upon his ear. A man of middle height and middle age was looking at him from the other side of the gate. Frank rose from his grassy couch and answered coldly: "Yes, sir; I believe so. I will go in and see." "Oh, don't trouble yourself, my young friend," said Mr. Craven, opening the gate and advancing toward the door with a brisk step. "I will ring the bell; I want to see your mother on a little business." "Seems to me he has a good deal of business with mother," Frank said to himself. "There's something about the man I don't like, though he always treats me well enough. Perhaps it's his looks." "How are you, Frank?" Frank looked around, and saw his particular friend, Ben Cameron, just entering the gate. "Tip-top, Ben," he answered, cordially. "I'm glad you've come." "I'm glad to hear it; I thought you might be engaged." "Engaged? What do you mean, Ben?" asked Frank, with a puzzled expression. "Engaged in entertaining your future step-father," said Ben, laughing. "My future step-father!" returned Frank, quickly; "you are speaking in riddles, Ben." "Oh! well, if I must speak out, I saw Mr. Craven ahead of me." "Mr. Craven! Well, what if you did?" "Why, Frank, you must know the cause of his attentions to your mother." "Ben," said Frank, his face flushing with anger, "you are my friend, but I don't want even you to hint at such a thing as that." "Have I displeased you, Frank?" "No, no; I won't think of it any more." "I am afraid, Frank, you will have to think of it more," said his companion, gravely. "You surely don't mean, Ben, that you have the least idea that my mother would marry such a man as that?" exclaimed Frank, pronouncing the last words contemptuously. "It's what all the village is talking about," said Ben, significantly. "Then I wish all the village would mind its own business," said Frank, hotly. "I hope they are wrong, I am sure. Craven's a mean, sneaking sort of man, in my opinion. I should be sorry to have him your step-father." "It's a hateful idea that such a man should take the place of my dear, noble father," exclaimed Frank, with excitement. "My mother wouldn't think of it." But even as he spoke, there was a fear in his heart that there might be something in the rumor after all. He could not be blind to the frequent visits which Mr. Craven had made at the house of late. He knew that his mother had come to depend on him greatly in matters of business. He had heard her even consult him about her plans for himself, and this had annoyed him. Once he had intimated his dislike of Mr. Craven, but his mother had reproved him, saying that she considered him a true friend, and did not know how to do without him. But he stifled this apprehension, and assured Ben, in the most positive terms, that there was nothing whatever in the report. Whether there was or not, we shall be able to judge better by entering the house and being present at the interview. Mrs. Hunter was sitting in a rocking-chair, with a piece of needle-work in her hand. She was a small, delicate-looking woman, still pretty, though nearer forty than thirty, and with the look of one who would never depend on herself, if she could find some one to lean upon for counsel and guidance. Frank, who was strong and resolute, had inherited these characteristics not from her but from his father, who had died two years previous, his strong and vigorous constitution succumbing to a sudden fever, which in his sturdy frame found plenty to prey upon. And who was Mr. Craven? He was, or professed to be, a lawyer, who six months before had come to the town of Shelby. He had learned that Mrs. Hunter was possessed of a handsome competence, and had managed an early introduction. He succeeded in getting her to employ him in some business matters, and under cover of this had called very often at her house. From the first he meant to marry her if he could, as his professional income was next to nothing, and with the money of the late Mr. Hunter he knew that he would be comfortably provided for for life. This very afternoon he had selected to make his proposal, and he knew so well the character and the weakness of the lady that he felt a tolerable assurance of success. He knew very well that Frank did not like him, and he in turn liked our young hero no better, but he always treated him with the utmost graciousness and suavity from motives of policy. The room in which they were seated was very neatly and tastefully furnished. He looked, to employ a common phrase, "as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth," and his voice was soft and full of suavity. They had evidently been talking on business, for he is saying, "Now that our business interview is over, there is another subject, my dear Mrs. Hunter, on which I wish to speak to you." She looked up, not suspecting what was coming, and said, "What is it, Mr. Craven?" "It's a very delicate matter. I hardly know how to introduce it." Something in his look led her to suspect now, and she said, a little nervously, "Go on, Mr. Craven." "My dear Mrs. Hunter, the frequent visits I have made here have given me such a view of your many amiable qualities, that almost without knowing it, I have come to love you." Mrs. Hunter dropped her work nervously, and seemed agitated. "I esteem you, Mr. Craven," she said, in a low voice, "but I have never thought of marrying again." "Then think of it now, I entreat you. My happiness depends upon it--think of that. When I first discovered that I loved you, I tried hard to bury the secret in my own breast, but--but it became too strong for me, and now I place my fate in your hands." By this time he had edged round to her side, and lifted her hand gently in his, and pressed it to his lips. "Do not drive me to despair," he murmured softly. "I--I never thought you loved me so much, Mr. Craven," said Mrs. Hunter, in agitation. "Because I tried to hide it." "Can you not still be my friend and give up such thoughts?" "Never, never!" he answered, shaking his head. "If you deny my suit, I shall at once leave this village, and bury my sorrow and desolation of heart in some wild prairie scene, far from the haunts of men, where I shall linger out the remnant of my wretched life." "Don't--pray don't, Mr. Craven," she said, in a tone of distress. But, feeling that surrender was at hand, he determined to carry the fortress at once. He sank down on his knees, and, lifting his eyes, said: "Say yes, I entreat you, dear Mrs. Hunter, or I shall be miserable for life." "Pray get up, Mr. Craven." "Never, till I hear the sweet word, 'yes.'" "Yes, then," she answered, hastily, scarcely knowing what she said. At this moment, while Mr. Craven was yet on his knees, the door opened suddenly, and Katy, the Irish maid-of-all-work, entered: "Holy St. Pathrick!" she exclaimed, as she witnessed the tableau. Mrs. Hunter blushed crimson, but Mr. Craven was master of the situation. Cleverly taking advantage of it to fix the hasty consent he had obtained, he turned to Katy with his habitual smirk. "Katy, my good girl," he said, "you must not be too much startled. Shall I explain to her, dear Mrs. Hunter?" The widow, with scarlet face, was about to utter a feeble remonstrance, but he did not wait for it. "Your mistress and I are engaged, Katy," he said, briskly. "You shall be the first to congratulate us." "Indade, sir!" exclaimed Katy. "Is it goin' to be married, ye are?" "Yes, Katy." "I congratulate you, sir," she said, significantly. "Plague take her!" thought Mr. Craven; "so she has the impudence to object, has she? I'll soon set her packing when I come into possession." But he only said, with his usual suavity: "You are quite right, Katy. I feel that I am indeed fortunate." "Indade, mum, I didn't think you wud marry ag'in," said Katy, bluntly. "I--I didn't intend to, Katy, but--" "I couldn't be happy without her," said Mr. Craven, playfully. "But, Katy, you had something to say to Mrs. Hunter." "What will I get for supper, mum?" "Anything you like, Katy," said Mrs. Hunter, who felt too much flustered to give orders. "Will you stay to supper, Mr. Craven?" "Not to-night, dear Mrs. Hunter. I am sure you will want to think over the new plans of happiness we have formed. I will stay a few minutes yet, and then bid you farewell till to-morrow." "That's the worst news Katy O'Grady's heard yet," said Katy, as she left the room and returned to her own department. "How can my mistress, that's a rale lady, if ever there was one, take up wid such a mane apology for a man. Shure I wouldn't take him meself, not if he'd go down on forty knees to me--no, I wouldn't," and Katy tossed her head. CHAPTER II. MR. CRAVEN'S COURTSHIP. When Katy left the room, Mr. Craven still kept his place at the side of the widow. "I hope," he said softly, "you were not very much annoyed at Katy's sudden entrance?" "It was awkward," said Mrs. Hunter. "True, but, after all, is there anything to be ashamed of in our love?" "I am afraid, Mr. Craven, I do not love you." "Not yet, but you will. I am sure you will when you see how completely I am devoted to you." "It seems so sudden," faltered Mrs. Hunter. "But, setting aside my affection, think how much it will relieve you of care. Dear Mrs. Hunter, the care of your property and the responsibility of educating and training your son is too much for a woman." "Frank never gives me any trouble," said Mrs. Hunter. "He is a good boy." "He is a disagreeable young scamp, in my opinion," thought Mr. Craven, but he said, unwittingly speaking the truth: "He is indeed a noble boy, with excellent qualities, but you will soon be called upon to form plans for his future, and here you will need the assistance of a man." "I don't know but what you are right, Mr. Craven. I should have consulted you." "Only one who fills a father's place, dear Mrs. Hunter, can do him justice." "I am afraid Frank won't like the idea of my marrying again," said Mrs. Hunter, anxiously. "He may not like it at first, but he will be amenable to reason. Tell him that it is for your happiness." "But I don't know. I can't feel sure that it is." "I am having more trouble than I expected," thought Mr. Craven. "I must hurry up the marriage or I may lose her, and, what is of more importance, the money she represents. By the way, I had better speak on that subject." "There are some who will tell you that I have only sought you because you are rich in this world's goods--that I am a base and mercenary man, who desires to improve his circumstances by marriage, but you, I hope, dear Mrs. Hunter--may I say, dear Mary--will never do me that injustice." "I do not suspect you of it," said Mrs. Hunter, who was never ready to suspect the motives of others, though in this case Mr. Craven had truly represented his object in seeking her. "I knew you would not, but others may try to misrepresent me, and therefore I feel it necessary to explain to you that my wealth, though not equal to your own, is still considerable." "I have never thought whether you were rich or poor," said Mrs. Hunter. "It would not influence my decision." While she spoke, however, it did excite in her a momentary surprise to learn that since Mr. Craven was rich, he should settle down in so small and unimportant a place as Shelby, where he could expect little business of a professional nature. "I know your generous, disinterested character," he said; "but still I wish to explain to you frankly my position, to prove to you that I am no fortune-hunter. I have twenty thousand dollars invested in Lake Superior mining stocks, and I own a small house in New York City, worth about fifteen thousand dollars. It is not much," he added, modestly, "but is enough to support me comfortably, and will make it clear that I need not marry from mercenary motives. I shall ask the privilege of assisting to carry out your plans for Frank, in whom I feel a warm interest." "You are very generous and kind, Mr. Craven," said Mrs. Hunter, "but his father amply provided for him. Two-thirds of his property was left to Frank, and will go to him on his twenty-first birth-day." "Drat the boy," thought Mr. Craven, "he stands between me and a fortune." But this thought was not suffered to appear in his face. "I am almost sorry," he said, with consummate hypocrisy, "that he is so well provided for, since now he does not stand in need of my help, that is, in a pecuniary way. But my experience of the world can at least be of service to him, and I will do my best to make up to him for the loss of his dear father." These last words were feelingly spoken. She realized how much she was wanting in the ability to guide and direct a boy of Frank's age. Mr. Craven was a lawyer, and a man of the world. He would be able, as he said, to relieve her from all care about his future, and it was for Frank that she now lived. Her feelings were not enlisted in this marriage with Mr. Craven. Indeed, on some accounts it would be a sacrifice. The result was, that twenty minutes later, when he started homeward, Mrs. Hunter had ratified her promise, and consented to an early marriage. Mr. Craven felt that he had, indeed, achieved a victory, and left the house with a heart exulting in his coming prosperity. Frank Hunter and Ben Cameron were on the lawn, conversing, when the lawyer passed them. "Good afternoon, Frank," he said with suavity. "Good afternoon, sir," answered Frank, gravely. "The old fellow is very familiar," said Ben, when Mr. Craven had passed out of the gate. "He is more familiar than I like," answered Frank. "I don't know why it is, Ben, but I can't help disliking him." He had reason to dislike Mr. Craven, and he was destined to have still further cause, though he did not know it at the time. CHAPTER III. UNWELCOME NEWS. Shortly after Mr. Craven's departure, Ben announced that he must be going. Left alone, Frank went into the house. He felt rather sober, for though he did not believe that his mother was in any danger of marrying again--least of all, Mr. Craven--the mere possibility disturbed him. "Is mother up stairs, Katy?" he asked. "Yes," said Katy, looking very knowing. "She went up as soon as Mr. Craven went away." "He staid a long time. He seems to come here pretty often." "May be he'll come oftener and stay longer, soon," said Katy, nodding her head vigorously. "What do you mean, Katy? What makes you say such things?" "What do I mane? Why do I say such things? You'll know pretty soon, I'm thinking." "I wish you'd tell me at once what you mean?" said Frank, impatiently. "Mr. Craven doesn't come here for nothing, bad 'cess to him," said Katy, oracularly. "You don't mean, Katy--" exclaimed Frank, in excitement. "I mean that you're goin' to have a step-father, Master Frank, and a mighty mane one, too; but if your mother's satisfied, it ain't for Katy O'Grady to say a word, though he isn't fit for her to wipe her shoes on him." "Who told you such a ridiculous story?" demanded Frank, angrily. "He told me himself shure," said Katy. "Didn't I pop in when he was on his knees at your mother's feet, and didn't he ask me to congratulate him, and your mother said never a word? What do you say to that Master Frank, now?" "I think there must be some mistake, Katy," said Frank, turning pale. "I will go and ask my mother." "No wonder the child can't abide havin' such a mane step-father as that," soliloquized Katy. "He looks like a sneakin' hyppercrite, that he does, and I'd like to tell him so." Mrs. Hunter was an amiable woman, but rather weak of will, and easily controlled by a stronger spirit. She had yielded to Mr. Craven's persuasions because she had not the power to resist for any length of time. That she did not feel a spark of affection for him, it is hardly necessary to say, but she had already begun to feel a little reconciled to an arrangement which would relieve her from so large a share of care and responsibility. She was placidly thinking it all over when Frank entered the room hastily. "Have you wiped your feet, Frank?" she asked, for she had a passion for neatness. "I am afraid you will track dirt into the room." "Yes--no--I don't know," answered Frank, whose thoughts were on another subject. "Has Mr. Craven been here?" "Yes," replied his mother, blushing a little. "He seemed to stay pretty long." "He was here about an hour." "He comes pretty often, too." "I consult him about my business affairs, Frank." "Look here, mother, what do you think Ben Cameron told me to-day?" "I don't know, I am sure, Frank." "He said it was all over the village that you were going to marry him." "I--I didn't think it had got round so soon," said the widow, nervously. "So soon! Why, you don't mean to say there's anything in it, mother?" said Frank, impetuously. "I hope it won't displease you very much, Frank," said Mrs. Hunter, in embarrassment. "Is it true? Are you really going to marry that man?" "He didn't ask me till this afternoon, and, of course, it took me by surprise, and I said so, but he urged me so much that I finally consented." "You don't love him, mother? I am sure you can't love such a man as that." "I never shall love any one again in that way, Frank--never any one like your poor father." "Then why do you marry him?" "He doesn't ask me to love him. But he can relieve me of a great many cares and look after you." "I don't want anybody to look after me, mother--that is, anybody but you. I hate Mr. Craven!" "Now that is wrong, Frank. He speaks very kindly of you--very kindly indeed. He says he takes a great interest in you." "I am sorry I cannot return the interest he professes. I dislike him, and I always have. I hope you won't be angry, mother, if I tell you just what I think of him. I think he's after your property, and that is what made him offer himself. He is poor as poverty, though I don't care half so much for that as I do for other things." "No, Frank; you are mistaken there," said credulous Mrs. Hunter, eagerly. "He is not poor." "How do you know?" "He told me that he had twenty thousand dollars' worth of mining stock out West somewhere, besides owning a house in New York." Frank looked astonished. "If he has as much property as that," he said, "I don't see what makes him come here. I don't believe his business brings him in three hundred dollars a year." "That's the very reason, Frank. He has money enough, and doesn't mind if business is dull. He generously offered to pay--or was it help pay?--the expenses of your education; but I told him that you didn't need it." "If I did, I wouldn't take it from him. But what you tell me surprises me, mother. He doesn't look as if he was worth five hundred dollars in the world. What made him tell you all this?" "He said that some people would accuse him of being a fortune-hunter, and he wanted to convince me that he was not one." "It may be a true story, and it may not," said Frank. "You are really very unjust, Frank," said his mother. "I don't pretend to love Mr. Craven, and he doesn't expect it, but I am sure he has been very kind, and he takes a great deal of interest in you, and you will learn to know him better." "When you are married to him?" "Yes." "Mother," exclaimed Frank, impetuously, "don't marry this man! Let us live alone, as we have done. We don't want any third person to come in, no matter who he is. I'll take care of you." "You are only a boy, Frank." "But I am already fifteen. I shall soon be a man at any rate, and I am sure we can get along as well as we have done." Mrs. Hunter was not a strong or a resolute woman, but even women of her type can be obstinate at times. She had convinced herself, chiefly through Mr. Craven's suggestion, that the step she was about to take was for Frank's interest, and the thought pleased her that she was sacrificing herself for him. The fact that she didn't fancy Mr. Craven, of course heightened the sacrifice, and so Frank found her far more difficult of persuasion than he anticipated. She considered that he was but a boy and did not understand his own interests, but would realize in future the wisdom of her conduct. "I have given my promise, Frank," she said. "But you can recall it." "It would not be right. My dear Frank, why can you not see this matter as I do? I marry for your sake." "Then, mother, I have the right to ask you not to do it. It will make me unhappy." "Frank, you do not know what is best. You are too young." "Then you are quite determined, mother?" asked Frank, sadly. "I cannot draw back now, Frank. I--I hope you won't make me unhappy by opposing it." "I won't say another word, mother, since you have made up your mind," said Frank, slowly. "When is it going to be?" "I do not know yet. Mr. Craven wants it to be soon." "You will let me know when it is decided, mother?" "Certainly, Frank." He left the room sad at heart. He felt that for him home would soon lose its charms, and that he would never get over the repugnance which he felt against his future step-father. CHAPTER IV. MR. CRAVEN'S FOUR-LEGGED ENEMY. Mr. Craven sought his office in a self-complacent mood. "By Jove!" he said to himself, "I'm in luck. It's lucky I thought to tell her that I was rich. I wish somebody would come along and buy that Lake Superior mining stock at five cents on a dollar," he soliloquized, laughing softly; "and if he'd be good enough to let me know whereabouts that house in New York is, I should feel very much obliged. However, she believes it, and that's enough. No, on the whole, it isn't quite enough, for I must have some ready money to buy a wedding suit, as well as to pay for my wedding tour. I can't very well call upon Mrs. Craven that is to be for that. Once married, I'm all right." The result of these cogitations was that having first secured Mrs. Hunter's consent to a marriage at the end of two months, he went to New York to see how he could solve the financial problem. He went straightway to a dingy room in Nassau Street, occupied by an old man as shabby as the apartment he occupied. Yet this old man was a capitalist, who had for thirty years lent money at usurious interest, taking advantage of a tight money market and the needs of embarrassed men, and there are always plenty of the latter class in a great city like New York. In this way he had accumulated a large fortune, without altering his style of living. He slept in a small room connected with his office, and took his meals at some one of the cheap restaurants in the neighborhood. He was an old man, of nearly seventy, with bent form, long white beard, face seamed with wrinkles, and thick, bushy eyebrows, beneath which peered a pair of sharp, keen eyes. Such was Job Green, the money-lender. "Good morning," said Mr. Craven, entering his office. "Good morning, Mr. Craven," answered the old man. He had not met his visitor for a long time, but he seldom forgot a face. "I haven't seen you for years." "No, I'm living in the country now." "In the country?" "Yes, in the town of Shelby, fifty miles from the city." "Aha! you have retired on a fortune?" inquired the old man, waggishly. "Not yet, but I shall soon, I hope." "Indeed!" returned Job, lifting his eyebrows as he emphasized the word. "Then you find business better in the country than in the city?" "Business doesn't amount to much." "Then how will you retire on the fortune, Mr. Craven? I really should like to know. Perhaps I might move out there myself." "I don't think, Mr. Green," said Craven, with his soft smile, "you would take the same course to step into a fortune." "And why not?" inquired the old man, innocently. "Because I am to marry a rich widow," said Mr. Craven. "Aha! that is very good," said Job, laughing. "Marrying isn't exactly in my line, to be sure. Who is the lucky woman?" "I will tell you, Mr. Green, for I want you to help me in the matter." "How can I help you? You don't want money if you are going to marry a fortune," said Job, beginning to be suspicious that this was a story trumped up to deceive him. "Yes, I do, and I will tell you why. She thinks I am rich." "And marries you for your money? Aha! that is very good," and the man laughed. "I told her I owned twenty thousand dollars' worth of stock in a Lake Superior mine." "Very good." "And a fifteen-thousand-dollar house in this city." "Oh, you droll dog! You'll kill me with laughing, Mr. Craven; I shall certainly choke," and old Job, struck with the drollness of regarding the man before him as a capitalist, laughed till he was seized with a coughing spell. "Well, well, Craven, you're a genius," said Job, recovering himself. "You wouldn't--ha! ha!--like to have me advance you a few thousand on the mines, would you now, or take a mortgage on the house?" "Yes, I would." "I'll give you a check on the bank of Patagonia, shall I?" "I see you will have your joke, Mr. Green. But I do want some money, and I'll tell you why. You see I am to be married in two months, and I must have a new suit of clothes, and go on a wedding tour. That'll cost me two or three hundred dollars." "Ask Mrs. Craven for the money." "I would, if she were Mrs. Craven, but it won't do to undeceive her too soon." "You don't expect me to furnish the money, Craven, do you?" "Yes, I do." "What security have you to offer?" "The security of my marriage." "Are you sure there is to be a marriage?" demanded Job, keenly. "Tell me, now, is the rich widow a humbug to swindle me out of my money? Aha! Craven, I have you." "No, you haven't, Mr. Green," said Craven, earnestly. "It's a real thing; it's a Mrs. Hunter of Shelby; her husband died two years ago." "How much money has she got?" "Sixty thousand dollars." "What, in her own right?" "Why, there's a son--a boy of fifteen," said Mr. Craven, reluctantly. "Aha! Well how much has he got of this money?" "I'll tell you the plain truth, Mr. Green. He is to have two-thirds when he comes of age. His mother has the balance, and enjoys the income of the whole, of course providing for him till that time." "That's good," said Job, thoughtfully. "Of course, what she has I shall have," added Craven. "To tell the truth," he continued, smiling softly, "I shan't spoil the young gentleman by indulgence when he is my step-son. I shan't waste much of his income on him." "Perhaps the mother will raise a fuss," suggested Job. "No, she won't. She's a weak, yielding woman. I can turn her round my finger." "Well, what do you want then?" "I want three hundred and fifty dollars for ninety days." "And suppose I let you have it?" "I will pay you five hundred. That will allow fifty dollars a month for the loan." "But you see, Craven, she might give you the slip. There's a risk about it." "Come to Shelby yourself, and make all the inquiries you see fit. Then you will see that I have spoken the truth, and there is no risk at all." "Well, well, perhaps I will. If all is right, I may let you have the money." Two days afterward the old man came to Shelby, stipulating that his traveling expenses should be paid by Craven. He inquired around cautiously, and was convinced that the story was correct. Finally he agreed to lend the money, but drove a harder bargain than first proposed--exacting six hundred dollars in return for his loan of three hundred and fifty. It was outrageous, of course, but he knew how important it was to Mr. Craven, and that he must consent. Frank, according to his determination, said not a word further to his mother about the marriage. He avoided mentioning Mr. Craven's name even. But an incident about this time, though Frank was quite innocent in the matter, served to increase Mr. Craven's dislike for him. He had spent the evening with Mrs. Hunter, and was about to leave the house when a watch-dog, which Frank had just purchased, sprang upon him, and, seizing him by the coat-tails, shook him fiercely. Mr. Craven disliked dogs, and was thoroughly frightened. He gave a loud shriek, and tried to escape, but the dog held on grimly. "Help, help!" he shrieked, at the top of his voice. Frank heard the cry from the house, and ran out. At this juncture he managed to break away from the dog, and made a rush for the garden wall. "Down, Pompey! Ain't you ashamed of yourself?" said Frank, sternly, seizing the dog by the collar. "I am very sorry, Mr. Craven," he added. Mr. Craven turned wild with rage, and his soft voice trembled as he said: "Really, Frank, it is hardly fair to your visitors to keep such a fierce animal about." "He didn't know you, sir. To-morrow I will make you acquainted, and then there will be no danger of this occurring again." "I really hope not," said Craven, laughing rather discordantly. "I hope he hasn't bitten you, sir." "No, but he has torn my coat badly. However, it's of no consequence. Accidents will happen." "He takes it very well," thought Frank, as Mr. Craven said good-night. But it was by a strong effort that his future step-father had done so. "Curse the dog!" he said to himself, with suppressed passion. "After I am married and fairly settled down, I will shoot him. Thus I will spite the boy and revenge myself on the brute at the same time." CHAPTER V. MR. CRAVEN'S RETURN. Mr. Craven called the next day, as usual. Frank apologized again for Pompey's rude treatment of the evening previous, and, as far as he could, established friendly relations between the parties. Pompey, who had nothing vicious about him, and was only anxious to do his duty, looked meek and contrite, and Mr. Craven, to all appearance, had quite forgiven him. "Good dog!" he exclaimed, patting Pompey's head. "Say no more about it, Frank," he said, in his usual soft voice; "it was only an accident. I foresee that Pompey and I will be excellent friends in future." "I hope your coat isn't much torn, sir." "It can easily be repaired. It isn't worth mentioning. Is your mother at home." "Yes, sir. Walk in." "He behaves very well about it," thought Frank. "He may be a better man than I thought. I wish I could like him, as he is to be my step-father; but I think there are some persons it is impossible to like." So the time passed, and the wedding-day drew near. Frank did not consider it honorable to make any further objection to the marriage, though he often sighed as he thought of the stranger who was about to be introduced into their small circle. "Mother will seem different to me when she is that man's wife," he said to himself. "I shall love her as much, but she won't seem to belong to me as much as she did." In due time the wedding was celebrated. Mrs. Hunter wished it to be quiet, and Mr. Craven interposed no objection. Quiet or not, he felt that the substantial advantages of the union would be his all the same. Mrs. Hunter looked a little nervous during the ceremony, but Mr. Craven was smiling and suave as ever. When he kissed his wife, saluting her as Mrs. Craven, she shuddered a little, and with difficulty restrained her tears, for it reminded her of her first marriage, so different from this, in which she wedded a man to whom she was devoted in heart and soul. The ceremony took place at eleven o'clock, and the newly-wedded pair started on a tour as previously arranged. So for two weeks Frank and Katy O'Grady were left alone in the house. Katy was a privileged character, having been in the family ever since Frank was a baby, and she had no hesitation in declaring her opinion of Mr. Craven. "What possessed the mistress to marry such a mane specimen of a man, I can't tell," she said. "I don't like him myself," said Frank; "but we must remember that he's my mother's husband now, and make the best of him." "And a mighty poor best it will be," said Katy. "There you go again, Katy!" "I can't help it, shure. It vexes me intirely that my dear mistress should throw herself away on such a man." "What can't be cured must be endured, you know. You mustn't talk that way after Mr. Craven comes back." "And what for will I not. Do you think I'm afraid of him?" asked Katy, defiantly. "If he is a man, I could bate him in a square fight." "I don't know but you could, Katy," said Frank, glancing at the muscular arms and powerful frame of the handmaiden; "but I really hope you won't get into a fight," he added, smiling. "It wouldn't look well, you know." "Then he'd better not interfare wid me," said Katy, shaking her head. "You must remember that he will be master of the house, Katy." "But he sha'n't be master of Katy O'Grady," said that lady, in a very decided tone. "I don't suppose you'll have much to do with him," said Frank. He sympathized with Katy more than he was willing to acknowledge, and wondered how far Mr. Craven would see fit to exercise the authority of a step-father. He meant to treat him with the respect due to his mother's husband, but to regard him as a father was very repugnant to him. But he must be guided by circumstances, and he earnestly hoped that he would be able to live peacefully and harmoniously with Mr. Craven. Days passed, and at length Frank received a dispatch, announcing the return home. "They will be home to-night, Katy," he said. "I'll be glad to see your mother, shure," said Katy, "but I wish that man wasn't comin' wid her." "But we know he is, and we must treat him with respect." "I don't feel no respect for him." "You must not show your feelings, then, for my mother's sake." At five o'clock the stage deposited Mr. and Mrs. Craven at the gate. Frank ran to his mother, and was folded in her embrace. Then he turned to Mr. Craven, who was standing by, with his usual smile, showing his white teeth. "I hope you have had a pleasant journey, sir," he said. "Thank you, Frank, it has been very pleasant, but we are glad to get home, are we not, my dear?" "I am very glad," said Mrs. Craven, thankfully, and she spoke the truth; for though Mr. Craven had been all attention (he had not yet thought it prudent to show himself in his true colors), there being no tie of affection between them, she had grown inexpressibly weary of the soft voice and artificial smile of her new husband, and had yearned for the companionship of Frank, and even her faithful handmaiden, Katy O'Grady, who was standing on the lawn to welcome her, and only waiting till Frank had finished his welcome. "How do you do, Katy," said her mistress. "I'm well, mum, thankin' you for askin', and I'm mighty glad to see you back." "I hope you are glad to see me also, Katy," said Mr. Craven, but his soft voice and insinuating smile didn't melt the hostility of Miss O'Grady. "I'm glad you've brought the mistress home safe," she said, with a low bow; "we've missed her from morning till night, sure; haven't we, Master Frank?" "I see she isn't my friend," thought Mr. Craven. "She'd better change her tune, or she won't stay long in my house." He had already begun to think of himself as the sole proprietor of the establishment, and his wife as an unimportant appendage. "I hope you have some supper for us, Katy," said he, not choosing at present to betray his feelings, "for I am quite sure Mrs. Craven and myself have a good appetite." "Mrs. Craven!" repeated Katy, in pretended ignorance. "Oh, you mean the mistress, sure." "Of course I do," said Mr. Craven, with a frown, for once betraying himself. "Supper is all ready, ma'am," said Katy, turning to Mrs. Craven. "It'll be ready as soon as you've took off your things." When they sat down to the table, Frank made a little mistake. He had always been accustomed to sit at the head of the table, opposite his mother, and on the frequent occasions of Mr. Craven's taking a meal there during the engagement, the latter had taken the visitor's place at the side. So to-night, without thinking of the latter's new relations to him, Frank took his old place. Mr. Craven noticed it, and soft and compliant as he was, he determined to assert his position at once. "I believe that is my place," he said, with an unpleasant smile. "Oh, I beg pardon," said Frank, his face flushing. "You forgot, I suppose," said Mr. Craven, still smiling. "Yes, sir." "You'll soon get used to the change," said his step-father, as he seated himself in the chair Frank had relinquished. Mrs. Craven looked a little uncomfortable. She began to realize that she had introduced a stranger into the family, and that this would interfere to a considerable extent with their old pleasant way of living. No one seemed inclined to talk except Mr. Craven. He seemed disposed to be sociable, and passed from one subject to another, regardless of the brief answers he received. "Well, Frank, and how have you got along since we were away?" he asked. "Very well, sir." "And you haven't missed us then?" "I have missed my mother, and should have missed you," he added politely, "if you had been accustomed to live here." "And how is Pompey?" asked Mr. Craven, again showing his teeth. "The same as usual. I wonder he was not out on the lawn to receive you and my mother." "I hope he wouldn't receive me in the same way as he did once," said Mr. Craven, again displaying his teeth. "No danger, sir. He didn't know you then." "That's true, but I will take care that he knows me now," said Mr. Craven, softly. "I think he will remember you, sir; he is a good dog, and very peaceable unless he thinks there are improper persons about." "I hope he didn't think me an improper person," said Mr. Craven. "No fear, sir." Frank wondered why Mr. Craven should devote so much time to Pompey, but he was destined to be enlightened very soon. CHAPTER VI. THE DIFFICULTY OF KILLING A DOG. If Frank supposed that Mr. Craven had forgotten or forgiven Pompey's attack upon him, he was mistaken. Within a week after Mr. Craven had been established as a permanent member of the household, Katy, looking out of the kitchen window, saw him advancing stealthily to a corner of the back yard with a piece of raw meat in his hand. He dropped it on the ground, and then, with a stealthy look around, he withdrew hastily. "What is he doin', sure?" said the astonished Katy to herself; then, with a flash of intelligence, she exclaimed, "I know what he manes, the dirty villain! The meat is p'isoned, and it's put there to kill the dog. But he shan't do it, not if Katy O'Grady can prevint him." The resolute handmaid rushed to the pantry, cut off a piece of the meat meant for the morrow's breakfast, and carrying it out into the yard, was able, unobserved by Mr. Craven, to substitute it for the piece he had dropped. This she brought into the kitchen, and lifting it to her nose, smelled it. It might have been Katy's imagination, but she thought she detected an uncanny smell. "It's p'isoned, sure!" she said. "I smell it plain; but it shan't harm poor Pomp! I'll put it where it'll never do any harm." She wrapped it in a paper, and carrying it out into the garden, dug a hole in which she deposited it. "Won't the ould villain be surprised when he sees the dog alive and well to morrow morning?" she said to herself, with exultation. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Craven, from an upper window, had the satisfaction of seeing the dog greedily eating what he supposed would be his last meal on earth. "That'll fix him!" he muttered, smiling viciously. "He won't attack me again very soon. Young impudence will never know what hurt the brute. That's the way I mean to dispose of my enemies." Probably Mr. Craven did not mean exactly what might be inferred from his remarks, but he certainly intended to revenge himself on all who were unwise enough to oppose him. Mr. Craven watched Pompey till he had consumed the last morsel of the meat, and then retired from the window, little guessing that his scheme had been detected and baffled. The next morning he got up earlier than usual, on purpose to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his four-footed enemy stretched out stiff and stark. What was his astonishment to see the dog jumping over a stick at the command of his young master. Had he suddenly seen Pompey's ghost (supposing dogs to have ghosts), he could scarcely have been more astonished or dismayed. "Goodness gracious! that dog must have a cast-iron constitution!" he said to himself. "There was enough strychnine on that meat to kill ten men. I don't understand it at all." "He looks as if his grandmother had died and left him nothin' at all in her will," said Katy to herself, slyly watching him out of the window. "The ould villain's disappinted sure, and it's Katy O'Grady he's got to thank for it, if he only knew it." "Good morning, sir," said Frank, for the first time noticing the presence of Mr. Craven. "Good morning, Frank," replied his step-father, opening his mouth with his customary smile. "Pompey seems lively this morning." "Yes, sir. I am teaching him to jump over this stick." "Good dog!" said Mr. Craven, patting him softly. "Oh, the ould hypocrite!" ejaculated Katy, who had slyly opened the window a trifle and heard what he said. "He tries to p'ison the poor creeter, and thin calls him good dog." Mr. Craven meanwhile was surveying Pompey curiously. "I certainly saw him eat the meat," he said to himself, "and I am sure it was tainted with a deadly poison. Yet here the dog is alive and well, after devouring every morsel of it. It is certainly the most curious case I ever heard of." Mr. Craven went into the house, and turned to the article on strychnine in an encyclopædia, but the statements he there found corroborated his previously formed opinion as to the deadly character and great strength of the poison. Pompey must certainly be an extraordinary dog. Mr. Craven was puzzled. Meanwhile Katy said to herself: "Shall I tell Master Frank what Mr. Craven tried to do? Not yit. I'll wait a bit, and while I'm waitin' I'll watch. He don't suspect that Katy O'Grady's eyes are on him, the villain!" It may not be considered suitable generally for a maid-of-all-work to speak of her employer as a villain; but then Katy had some grounds for her use of this term, and being a lady very decided in her language, it is not singular that such should have been her practice. Notwithstanding the apparent superiority of Pompey's constitution to the deadliest poison, Mr. Craven's murderous intent was by no means laid aside. He concluded to try another method of getting him out of the way. He had a pistol in his trunk, and he resolved to see if Pompey was bullet-proof as well as poison-proof. Three days later, therefore, when Frank was at school, and Mrs. Craven was in attendance at the house of a neighbor, at a meeting of the village sewing-circle, Mr. Craven slipped the pistol into his pocket and repaired to the back yard, where Pompey, as he anticipated, was stretched out in the sun, having a comfortable nap. "Pompey," said Mr. Craven, in a low tone, "come here. Good dog." Pompey walked up, and, grateful for attention, began to fawn upon the man who sought to lure him to death. "Good dog! Fine fellow!" repeated Mr. Craven, stroking him. Pompey seemed to be gratefully appreciative of the kindness. Low and soft as were his tones--for he did not wish to attract any attention--Mr. Craven was overheard. Katy O'Grady's ears were sharp, and at the first sound she drew near to the window, where, herself unobserved, she was an eye and ear witness of Mr. Craven's blandishments. "What is the ould villain doin' now?" she said to herself. "Is he going to thry p'isonin' him again?" But no piece of meat was produced. Mr. Craven had other intentions. "Come here, Pompey," said he, soothingly; "follow me, sir." So saying, he rose and beckoned the dog to follow him. Pompey rose, stretching his limbs, and obediently trotted after his deadly foe. "Where's he takin' him to?" thought Katy. "He manes mischief, I'll be bound. The misthress is gone, and Master Frank's gone, and he thinks there ain't nobody to interfere. Katy O'Grady, you must go after him and see what he's up to." Katy was in the midst of her work, but she didn't stop for that. She had in her hand a glass tumbler, which she had been in the act of wiping, but she didn't think to put it down. Throwing her apron over her head, she followed Mr. Craven at a little distance. He made his way into a field in the rear of the house. She went in the same direction, but on the other side of a stone wall which divided it from a neighboring field. From time to time she could catch glimpses, through the loosely laid rocks, of her employer, and she could distinctly hear what he was saying. "My friend Pompey," he said, with a smile full of deadly meaning, "you are going to your death, though you don't know it. That was a bad job for you when you attacked me, my four-footed friend. You won't be likely to trouble me much longer." "What's he going to do to him?" thought Katy; "it's not p'ison, for he hasn't got any meat. May be it's shootin' him he manes." Mr. Craven went on. "Poison doesn't seem to do you any harm, but I fancy you can't stand powder and ball quite so well." "Yes, he's goin' to shoot him. What will I do?" thought Katy. "I'm afraid I can't save the poor creetur's life." By this time Mr. Craven had got so far that he considered it very unlikely that the report of the pistol would be heard at the house. He stopped short, and, with a look of triumphant malice, drew the pistol from his pocket. Pompey stood still, and looked up in his face. "How can he shoot the poor creetur, and him lookin' up at him so innocent?" thought Katy. "What will I do? Oh, I know--I'll astonish him a little." Mr. Craven was just pointing the pistol at Pompey, when Katy flung the tumbler with force against his hat, which rolled off. In his fright at the unexpected attack, the pistol went off, but its contents were lodged in a tree near by, and Pompey was unhurt. Mr. Craven looked around him with startled eyes, but he could not see Katy crouching behind the wall, nor did he understand from what direction the missile had come. CHAPTER VII. MISS O'GRADY'S VICTORY. Crouching behind the stone wall, Katy enjoyed the effect of what she had done. She particularly enjoyed the bewildered look, of Mr. Craven, who, bare-headed, looked on this side and on that, unable to conjecture who had thrown the missile. Pompey, unconscious of the danger he had escaped, walked up to the tumbler and smelt of it. This attracted the attention of Mr. Craven, who stooped and picked it up. His bewilderment increased. If it had been a stone, he would have understood better, but how a tumbler should have found its way here as a missile was incomprehensible. It slowly dawned upon him that the person who threw it must be somewhere near. Then again, on examining it further, he began to suspect that it was one of his wife's tumblers, and he jumped to the conclusion that it was Frank who threw it. "If it is he, I'll wring his neck!" he murmured, revengefully. "I mean to find out." "Pompey," he said, calling the dog, "do you see this tumbler?" Pompey wagged his tail. "Who threw it?" Pompey looked up, as if for instructions. "Go find him!" said Mr. Craven, in a tone of command. The dog seemed to understand, for he put his nose to the ground and began to run along, as if in search. "Oh, murther! What if he finds me?" thought Katy, crouching a little lower. "Won't he be mad, jist?" Katy might have crawled away unobserved, very possibly, if she had started as soon as the missile was thrown. Now, that dog and man were both on the lookout, escape was cut off. "Will he find me?" Katy asked herself, with some anxiety. The question was soon answered. Pompey jumped over the wall, and a joyous bark announced his discovery. He knew Katy, and seemed to fancy that she had concealed herself in joke. He jumped upon her, and wagged his tail intelligently, as if to say: "You see, I've found you out, after all." Mr. Craven hurried to the wall, eagerly expecting to detect Frank in the person concealed. He started back in astonishment as Katy O'Grady rose and faced him. Then he became wrathful, as he realized that his own hired servant had had the audacity to fling a tumbler at his hat. "What brings you out here, Katy?" he demanded, with a frown. "Shure, sir," said Katy, nonchalantly, "I was tired wid stayin' in the hot kitchen, and I thought I'd come out and take the air jist." "And so you neglected the work." "The worruk will be done; niver you mind about that." "Did you fling this tumbler at my head?" demanded Mr. Craven, sternly. "Let me look at it, sir." Katy looked at it scrutinizingly, and made answer: "Very likely, sir." "Don't you know?" "I wouldn't swear it was the same one, sir, but it looks like it." "Then you admit throwing a tumbler at my head, do you?" "No, sir." "Didn't you say you did just now?" "I threw it at your hat." "It is the same thing. How came you to have the cursed impudence to do such a thing?" asked her master, wrathfully. "Because you was goin' to shoot the dog," said Katy, coolly. "Suppose I was, is it any business of yours?" "The dog doesn't belong to you, Mr. Craven. It belongs to Master Frank." "I don't think it expedient for him to keep such an ill-natured brute around." "He calls you a brute, Pomp," said Katy, caressing Pompey--"you that's such a good dog. It's a shame!" "Catherine," said Mr. Craven, with outraged dignity, "your conduct is very improper. You have insulted me." "By the powers, how did I do it?" asked Katy, with an affectation of innocent wonder. "It was an insult to throw that tumbler at my head. I might order the constable to arrest you." "I'd like to see him thry it!" said Katy, putting her arms akimbo in such a resolute fashion that Mr. Craven involuntarily stepped back slightly. "Are you aware that I am your master?" continued Mr. Craven, severely. "No, I'm not," answered Katy, promptly. "You are a servant in my house." "No, I'm not. The house don't belong to you at all, sir. It belongs to my mistress and Master Frank." "That's the same thing. According to the law, I am in control of their property," said Mr. Craven, resolved upon a master-stroke which, he felt confident, would overwhelm his adversary. "After the great impropriety of which you have been guilty this afternoon, I discharge you from my employment." "You discharge me!" exclaimed Katy, with incredulous scorn. "I discharge you, and I desire you to leave the house to-morrow." "You discharge me!" repeated Katy, with a ringing laugh. "That's a good one." Mr. Craven's cadaverous face colored with anger. "If you don't go quietly, I'll help you out," he added, incautiously. "Come on, then," said Katy, assuming a warlike attitude. "Come on, then, and we'll see whether you can put out Katy O'Grady." "Your impudence will not avail you. I am determined to get rid of you." "And do ye think I'm goin' to lave the house, and my ould misthress, and Master Frank, at the orders of such an interloper as you, Mr. Craven?" she cried, angrily. "I don't propose to multiply words about it," said Mr. Craven, with an assumption of dignity. "If you had behaved well, you might have stayed. Now you must go." "Must I?" sniffed Katy, indignantly. "Must I, indade?" "Yes, you must, and the less fuss you make about it the better." Mr. Craven supposed that he had the decided advantage, and that Katy, angry as she was, would eventually succumb to his authority. But he did not know the independent spirit of Catherine O'Grady, whose will was quite as resolute as his own. "And ye think I'm goin' at your word--I that's been in the family since Master Frank was a baby?" "I am sorry for you, Katy," said Mr. Craven, in triumphant magnanimity. "But I cannot permit a servant to remain in my house who is guilty of the gross impropriety of insulting me." "I know why you want to get rid of me," said Katy, nodding her head vigorously. "Why?" asked Craven, with some curiosity. "You want to p'ison the dog." Mr. Craven started. How had his secret leaked out? "What do you mean?" "Mane! I mane that I saw you lavin' the p'isoned mate for the dog three days agone, and if it hadn't been for me he'd have eaten it, and the poor creetur would be stiff in death." "He did eat it. I saw him," said Mr. Craven, hastily. "No, he didn't. It wasn't the same mate!" said Katy, triumphantly. "What was it, then?" "It was a piece I cut off and carried out to him," said Katy. "The other I wrapped up in a piece of paper, and buried it in the field." Mr. Craven's eyes were opened. Pompey's cast-iron constitution was explained. After all, he was not that natural phenomenon which Mr. Craven had supposed him to be. But he was angry at Katy's interference no less. "Say no more," he said. "You must go. You have no right to interfere with my plans." "Say no more? Won't I be tellin' the misthress and Master Frank how you tried to kill the poor dog, first with p'ison, and nixt wid a pistol?" There was something in this speech that made Mr. Craven hesitate and reflect. He knew that Katy's revelation would provoke Frank, and make him an enemy, and he feared the boy's influence on his mother, particularly as he was concocting plans for inducing his wife to place some of her money in his hand under pretext of a new investment. He must be careful not to court hostile influences, and after all, he resolved to bear with Katy, much as he disliked her. "On the whole, Katy," he said, after a pause, "I will accept your apology, and you may stay." "My apology!" said Katy, in astonishment. "Yes, your explanation. I see your motives were good, and I will think no more about it. You had better not mention this matter to Mrs. Craven or Frank, as it might disturb them." "And won't you try to kill Pomp agin?" asked Katy. "No; I dislike dogs, especially as they are apt to run mad, but as Frank is attached to Pompey, I won't interfere. You had better take this tumbler and wash it, as it is uninjured." "All right, sir," said Katy, who felt that she had gained a victory, although Mr. Craven assumed that it was his. "I am very glad you are so devoted to your mistress," said Mr. Craven, who had assumed his old suavity. "I shall propose to her to increase your wages." "He's a mighty quare man!" thought the bewildered Katy, as she hurried back to her work, followed by Pompey. CHAPTER VIII. FRANK IS OBSTINATE. Mr. Craven had as yet gained nothing from his marriage. He was itching to get possession of his wife's property. Then his next step would be Frank's more considerable property. He was beginning to be low in pocket, and in the course of a month or so Mr. Green's note for six hundred dollars would fall due. He knew enough of that estimable gentleman to decide that it must be met, and, of course, out of his wife's money. "My dear," he said one day, after breakfast, Frank being on his way to school, "I believe I told you before our marriage that I had twenty thousand dollars invested in Lake Superior mines." "Yes, Mr. Craven, I remember it." "It is a very profitable investment," continued her husband. "What per cent. do you think it pays me?" "Ten per cent.," guessed Mrs. Craven. "More than that. During the last year it has paid me twenty per cent." "That is a great deal," said his wife, in surprise. "To be sure it is, but not at all uncommon. You, I suppose, have not got more than seven or eight per cent. for your money?" "Only six per cent." Mr. Craven laughed softly, as if to say, "What a simpleton you must be!" "I didn't know about these investments," said his wife. "I don't know much about business." "No, no. I suppose not. Few women do. Well, my dear, the best thing you can do is to empower me to invest your money for you in future." "If you think it best," said Mrs. Craven. "Certainly; it is my business to invest money. And, by the way, the income of Frank's property is paid to you, I believe." "Yes." "He does not come into possession till twenty-one." "That was his father's direction." "And a very proper one. He intended that you should have the benefit of the income, which is, of course, a good deal more than Frank needs till he comes of age." "I thought perhaps I ought to save up the surplus for Frank," said Mrs. Craven, hesitating. "That is not necessary. Frank is amply provided for. He might be spoiled by too much money." "I don't think so. Frank is an excellent boy," said his mother, warmly. "So he is," said Mr. Craven. "He has a noble, generous disposition, and for that very reason is more liable to be led astray." "I hope he won't be led astray. I should feel wretched if I thought anything would befall him," said his mother, shuddering. "We will look after him; we will see that he goes straight," said Mr. Craven, cheerfully. "But I wanted to suggest, my dear, that it would be proper that I should be appointed joint guardian with you." "I am not sure whether Frank will like it," said his mother, who was aware that Frank, though scrupulously polite to his step-father, had no cordial liking or respect for him. "As to that, my dear, I count upon you exerting your influence in the matter. If you recommend it he will yield." "Don't you think it just as well as it is?" said Mrs. Craven, hesitatingly. "Of course, we shall go to you for counsel and advice in anything important." "You don't seem to have confidence in me," said Mr. Craven, with an injured air. "I hope you won't think that, Mr. Craven," said his wife, hastily. "How can I help it? You know my interest in Frank, yet you are unwilling to have me associated in the guardianship." "I didn't say I objected. I said Frank might." "You are not willing to urge him to favor the measure." "You misunderstand me. Yes, I will," said yielding Mrs. Craven. "Thank you, my dear," said Mr. Craven, with one of his most unctuous smiles. "I was quite sure you would do me justice in the end. By the way, what disposition is made of Frank's property if he does not live to come of age?" "You--you don't think he is likely to be taken away?" said Mrs. Craven, in distress. "You are a goose," said her husband, laughing softly. "Of course not. But then we are all mortal. Frank is strong, and will, I hope, live to smooth our dying pillows. But, of course, however improbable, the contingency is to be thought of." "I believe the property comes to me in that case, but I am sure I should not live to enjoy it." "My dear, don't make yourself miserable about nothing. Our boy is strong, and has every prospect of reaching old age. But it is best to understand clearly how matters stand. By the way, you need not say anything about the guardianship to him till I tell you." Mrs. Craven not only complied with this request, but she surrendered to Mr. Craven the entire control of her money within an hour. She raised one or two timid objections, but these were overruled by her husband, and in the end she yielded. Mr. Craven was now in funds to pay the note held by Job Green, and this afforded him no little relief. A few evenings later, Frank was about to take his cap and go out, when Mr. Craven stopped him. "Frank," he said, "if you have no important engagement, your mother and I desire to speak to you on a matter of some consequence." "I was only going to call on one of my friends," said Frank. "I will defer that and hear what you have to say." "Thank you," said Mr. Craven, smiling sweetly. "I wished to speak to you on the subject of your property." "Very well, sir." "Your mother is your guardian, she tells me." "Yes, sir." "The responsibilities of a guardian are very great," proceeded Mr. Craven, leaning back upon his chair. "Naturally there are some of them to which a woman cannot attend as well as a man." Frank began to understand what was coming, and, as it was not to his taste, he determined to declare himself at once. "I couldn't have a better guardian than my mother," he said. "Of course not. (I am afraid I shall find trouble with him, thought Mr. Craven.) Of course not. You couldn't possibly find any one as much interested in your welfare as your mother." "Certainly not, sir." "As your step-father, I naturally feel a strong interest in you, but I do not pretend to have the same interest as your mother." "I never expected you would, sir," said Frank, "and I don't want you to," he added, to himself. "But your mother is not used to business, and, as I said, the responsibilities of a guardian are great." "What do you propose, sir?" asked Frank, gazing at his step-father steadily. "Do you recommend me to change guardians--to give up my mother?" "No, by no means. It is best that your mother should retain the guardianship." "Then, sir, I don't quite understand what you mean." "I mean to suggest that it would be well for another to be associated in the guardianship, who might relieve your mother of a part of her cares and responsibilities." "I suppose you mean yourself, sir," said Frank. "Yes--ahem!" answered Mr. Craven, coughing softly, "as your step-father, it would naturally occur to your mind that I am the most suitable person. Your mother thinks as I do." "Do you want Mr. Craven to be guardian with you, mother?" asked Frank, turning to his mother. "Mr. Craven thinks it best," said his mother, in a little embarrassment. "He knows more about business matters than I do, and I have no doubt he is right." Frank understood that it was entirely Mr. Craven's idea, and something made it very repugnant to him. He did not want to be under the control of that man. Though he knew nothing to his disadvantage, he distrusted him. He had never ceased to regret that his mother married him, and he meant to have as little to do with him as politeness would permit. He answered, therefore: "I hope, Mr. Craven, that you won't be offended if I say that I don't wish any change in the guardianship. If another were to be added, I suppose it would be proper that you should be the one, but I am content with my mother as guardian, and wish no other." "I am afraid," said Mr. Craven, with a softness of tone which by no means accorded with his inward rage, "that you are unmindful of the care the sole guardianship will impose on your mother." "Has it been much care for you, mother?" asked Frank. "Not yet," said Mrs. Craven, hesitating, "but perhaps it may." "I suppose Mr. Craven will always be ready to give you advice if you need it," said Frank, though the suggestion was not altogether to his taste, "but I would rather have you only as my guardian." "Well, let us drop the subject," said Mr. Craven, gayly. "As you say, I shall always be ready to advise, if called upon. Now, my dear Frank, go to your engagement, I won't detain you any longer." But when Mr. Craven was alone, his countenance underwent a change. "That boy is a thorn in my side," he muttered, with compressed lips. "Sooner or later, he must be in my power, and his fortune under my control. Patience, Richard Craven! A dull-witted boy cannot defeat your plans!" CHAPTER IX. A STRANGER APPEARS ON THE SCENE. "How do you like your step-father, Frank," asked Ben Cameron as the two boys were walking home from school together. "You mean Mr. Craven?" "Of course. He is your step-father, isn't he?" "I suppose he is, but I don't like to think of him in that way." "Is he disagreeable, then?" "He treats me well enough," said Frank, slowly; "but, for all that, I dislike him. His appearance, his manners, his soft voice and stealthy ways are all disagreeable to me. As he is my mother's husband, I wish I could like him, but I can't." "I don't wonder at it, Frank. I don't fancy him myself." "Somehow, everything seems changed since he came. He seems to separate my mother from me." "Well, Frank, I suppose you must make the best of it. If he doesn't interfere with you, that is one good thing. Some step-fathers would, you know." "He hasn't, so far; but sometimes I fear that he will in the future." "Have you any reason for thinking so?" "A day or two since he called me, just as I was leaving the house to come and see you, and asked if I were willing to have him join with my mother as my guardian." "What did you say?" "That I didn't want any change. He said the responsibility was too great for a woman." "What answer did you make?" "That my mother could get as much help and advice as she needed, even if she were sole guardian." "Did he seem angry?" "Not at all. He turned it off very pleasantly, and said he would not detain me any longer." "Then why should you feel uneasy?" "I think there's something underhand about him. He seems to me like a cat that purrs and rubs herself against you, but has claws concealed, and is open to scratch when she gets ready." Ben laughed. "The comparison does you credit, Frank," said he. "There's something in it, too. Mr. Craven is like a cat--that is, in his ways; but I hope he won't show his claws." "When he does I shall be ready for him," said Frank, stoutly. "I am not afraid of him, but I don't like the idea of having such a person in the family." They had arrived at this point in the conversation when they were met by a tall man, of dark complexion, who was evidently a stranger in the village. In a small town of two thousand inhabitants, where every person is known to every other, a strange face attracts attention, and the boys regarded this man with curiosity. He paused as they neared him, and, looking from one to the other, inquired: "Can you direct me to Mr. Craven's office?" The two boys exchanged glances. Frank answered: "It is that small building on the left-hand side of the street, but I am not sure whether he is there yet." Curious to know how the boy came to know so much of Mr. Craven's movements, the stranger said: "Do you know him?" "Yes, sir; he is my step-father." It was the first time he had ever made the statement, and, true as he knew it to be, he made it with rising color and a strange reluctance. "Oh, indeed!" returned the stranger, looking very much surprised. "He is your step-father?" "Yes; he married my mother," said Frank, hurriedly. "Then you think he may not have come to the office yet?" "There he is, just opening the door," said Ben, pointing to Mr. Craven, who, unaware of the interest his appearance excited, was just opening the door of the office, in which he was really beginning to do a little business. His marriage to a woman of property, and the reports which had leaked out that he had a competence of his own, had inspired a degree of confidence in him which before had not existed. "Thank you," said the stranger. "As he is in, I will call upon him." CHAPTER X. A CONSPIRACY AGAINST FRANK. "So he's married again, the sly villain!" muttered the stranger, as, after leaving the boys, he proceeded on his way to Mr. Craven's office. "That will be good news for my sister, won't it? And so that's his step-son? A nice-looking, well-dressed boy. Likely Craven has feathered his nest, and married a fortune. If so, all the better. I may get a few feathers for my own nest, if I work my cards right." Meanwhile Mr. Craven had seated himself at an office table, and was looking over a paper of instructions, having been commissioned to write a will for one of the town's people. He had drawn out a printed form, and had just dipped his pen in the ink, when a knock was heard at the outer door that opened upon the street. "I suppose it's Mr. Negley, come for the will. He'll have to wait," thought Craven, and as the thought passed through his mind, he said, "Come in!" The door opened. He mechanically raised his eyes, and his glance rested upon the man whom we have introduced in the last chapter. A remarkable change came over Mr. Craven's face. First surprise, then palpable dismay, drove the color from his cheeks, and he stood up in silent consternation. The other appeared to enjoy the sensation caused by his arrival, and laughed. "Why, man, you look as if I were a ghost. No such thing. I'm alive and well, and delighted to see you again," he added, significantly. "By Jove, I've had hard work finding you, but here I am, you see." "How--did--you--find--me?" asked Craven, huskily. "How did I find you? Well, I got upon your tracks in New York. Never mind how, as long as I have found you. Well, have you no welcome for me?" "What do you want of me?" asked Mr. Craven, sullenly. "What do I want of you?" echoed the other, with a laugh. "Why, considering the relationship between us--" Mr. Craven's pallor increased, and he shifted his position uneasily. "Considering the relationship between us, it is only natural that I should want to see you." He paused, but Mr. Craven did not offer any reply. "By the way, your wife is very uneasy at your long absence," continued the newcomer, fixing his eyes steadily upon the shrinking Craven. "For Heaven's sake stop, or speak lower!" exclaimed Craven, exhibiting the greatest alarm. "Come, now, Craven, is any allusion to your wife so disagreeable? Considering that she is my sister, it strikes me that I shall have something to say on that subject." "Don't allude to her, Sharpley," said the other, doggedly. "I shall never see her again. We--we didn't live happily, and are better apart." "You may think so, but do you think I am going to have my sister treated in this way--deserted and scorned?" "I can't help it," was the dogged reply. "You can't? Why not?" And the man addressed as Sharpley fixed his eyes upon his brother-in-law. "Why do you come here to torment me?" said Craven, fiercely, brought to bay. "Why can't you leave me alone? Your sister is better off without me. I never was a model husband." "That is where you are right, Craven; but, hark you!" he added, bending forward, "do you think we are going to stand by and do nothing while you are in the enjoyment of wealth and the good things of life?" "Wealth? What do you mean?" stammered Craven. The other laughed slightly. "Do you take me for a mole? Did you suppose I wouldn't discover that you are married again, and that your marriage has brought you money?" "So you have found it out?" said Mr. Craven, whose worst apprehensions were now confirmed. "I met your step-son a few minutes ago, and he directed me here." "Did you tell him?" asked Craven, in dismay. "Tell him? No, not yet. I wanted to see you first." "I'm glad you didn't. He doesn't like me. It would be all up with me if you had." "Don't be frightened, Craven. It may not be so bad as you think. We may be able to make some friendly arrangement. Tell me about it, and then we'll consult together. Only don't leave anything untold. Situated as we are, I demand your entire confidence." Here the door opened, and Mr. Negley appeared. "Have you finished that 'ere dokkyment, Mr. Craven?" asked the old-fashioned farmer, to whom the name belonged. "No, Mr. Negley," said Mr. Craven, with his customary suavity, "not yet, I am sorry to say. I've had a great deal to do, and I am even now consulting with a client on an important matter. Could you wait till to-morrow?" "Sartain, Mr. Craven. I ain't in no hurry. Only, as I was passing, I thought I'd just inquire. Good mornin', squire." "Good morning, Mr. Negley." "So you are in the lawyer's line again, Craven?" said Sharpley. "You are turning to good account that eight months you spent in a law office in the old country?" "Yes, I do a little in that line." "Now, tell me all about this affair of yours. I don't want to ruin you. May be we can make an arrangement that will be mutually satisfactory." Thus adjured, and incited from time to time by questions from his visitor, Mr. Craven unfolded the particulars of his situation. "Well, the upshot of it is, Craven, that you've feathered your nest, and made yourself comfortable. That's all very well; but it seems to me, that your English wife has some rights in the matter." "You need not tell her," said Craven, hastily. "What good will it do?" "It won't do you any good, but it may benefit her and me." "How can it benefit 'her and me?' How can it benefit either of you, if I am found out, and obliged to flee from this place into penury?" "Why, not exactly in that way. In fact, I may feel disposed to let you alone, if you'll come down handsomely. The fact is, Craven, my circumstances are not over prosperous, and of course I don't forget that I have a rich brother-in-law." "You call me rich. You are mistaken. I get a living, but the money is my wife's." "If it is hers, you can easily get possession of it." "Only one-third of it belongs to her. Two-thirds belong to that boy you met--my step-son." "Suppose he dies?" "It goes to my wife." "Then you have some chance of it." "Not much; he is a stout, healthy boy." "Look here, Craven, you must make up your mind to do something for me. Give me a thousand dollars down." "I couldn't without my wife finding out. Besides you would be coming back for more." "Well, perhaps I might," said the other, coolly. "You would ruin me," exclaimed Craven, sullenly. "Do you think I am made of money?" "I know this--that it will be better for you to share your prosperity with me, and so insure not being disturbed. Half a loaf is better than no bread." Mr. Craven fixed his eyes upon the table, seriously disturbed. "How much is the boy worth?" asked Sharpley, after a pause. "Forty thousand dollars." "Forty thousand dollars!" exclaimed Sharpley, his eyes sparkling with greed. "That's splendid." "For him, yes. It doesn't do me any good." "Didn't you say, that in the event of his death the money would go to your wife?" "Yes." "He may die." "So may we. That's more likely. He's a stout boy, as you must have observed, since you have met him." "Life is uncertain. Suppose he should have a fever, or meet with an accident." "Suppose he shouldn't." "My dear Craven," said Sharpley, drawing his chair nearer that of his brother-in-law, "it strikes me that you are slightly obtuse, and you a lawyer, too. Fie upon you! My meaning is plain enough, it strikes me." "What do you mean?" inquired Craven, coloring, and shifting uneasily in his chair. "You wouldn't have me murder him, would you?" "Don't name such a thing. I only mean, that if we got a good opportunity to expose him to some sickness, and he happened to die of it, it would be money in our pockets." Craven looked startled, and his sallow face betrayed by its pallor his inward disturbance. "That is absurd," he said. "There is no chance of that here. If the boy should die I shouldn't mourn much, but he may live to eighty. There's not much chance of any pestilence reaching this town." "Perhaps so," said the other, shrugging his shoulders, "but then this little village isn't the whole world." "You seem to have some plan to propose," said Mr. Craven, eagerly. "What is it?" "I propose," said Sharpley, "that you send the boy to Europe with me." "To Europe?" "Yes; on a traveling tour, for his education, improvement, anything. Only send him under my paternal care, and--possibly he might never come back." Mr. Craven was not a scrupulous man, and this proposal didn't shock him as it should have done, but he was a timid man, and he could not suppress a tremor of alarm. "But isn't there danger in it?" he faltered. "Not if it is rightly managed," said Sharpley. "And how do you mean to manage it?" "Can't tell yet," answered the other, carelessly. "The thought has just occurred to me, and I have had no time to think it over. But that needn't trouble you. You can safely leave all that to me." Mr. Craven leaned his head on his hand and reflected. Here was a way out of two embarrassments. This plan offered him present safety and a continuance of his good fortune, with the chance of soon obtaining control of Frank's fortune. "Well, what do you say?" asked Sharpley. "I should like it well enough, but I don't know what my wife and the boy will say." "Has Mrs. Craven the--second--a will of her own?" "No, she is very yielding." "Doesn't trouble you, eh? By the way, what did she see in you, Craven, or my sister either, for that matter, to attract her? There's no accounting for tastes, surely." "That is not to the point," said Craven, impatiently. "You are right. That is not to the point. Suppose we come to the point, then. If your wife is not strong-minded she can be brought over, and the boy, if he is like most boys, will be eager to embrace the chance of visiting Europe, say for three months. It will be best, I suppose, that the offer should come from me. I'll tell you what you must do. Invite me to supper to-night and offer me a bed, and I'll lay the train. Shall it be so?" "Agreed," said Craven, and thus the iniquitous compact was made. CHAPTER XI. TRAPPED. "Mrs. Craven, I have pleasure in introducing to you one of my oldest friends, Colonel Sharpley." As this was the first friend of her husband who had come in her way, his wife regarded the stranger with some curiosity, which, however, was veiled by her quiet manner. "I am glad to meet a friend of yours, Mr. Craven," she said, offering her hand. "I have invited the colonel to supper, and pass the night with us, Mary." "I am glad you did so. I will see that a chamber is got ready." After she had left the room, Sharpley looked about him approvingly. "On my life, Craven, you are well provided for. This house is decidedly comfortable." "It is the best in the village," said Craven, complacently. "Evidently, your predecessor had taste as well as money. It is a pity that there is a little legal impediment in the way of your permanent enjoyment of all this luxury." "Hush, hush, Sharpley!" said Mr. Craven, nervously. "You might be heard." "So I might, and as that would interfere with my plans as well as yours, I will be careful. By the way, that's a good idea making me a colonel. It sounds well--Colonel Sharpley, eh? Let me see. I'll call myself an officer in the English service--served for a while in the East Indies, and for a short period in Canada." "Whatever you like. But here's my step-son coming in." "The young man I'm to take charge of. I must ingratiate myself with him." Here Frank entered the room. He paused when he saw the stranger. "Frank," said Mr. Craven, "this is my friend, Colonel Sharpley. I believe you have already made his acquaintance." "Yes, sir, I saw him this morning." "I didn't suspect when I first spoke to you that you were related to my old friend, Craven," said Sharpley, smiling. Mr. Sharpley was a man not overburdened--in fact, not burdened at all--with principle, but he could make himself personally more agreeable than Mr. Craven, nor did Frank feel for him the instinctive aversion which he entertained for his step-father. The stranger had drifted about the world, and, being naturally intelligent and observing, he had accumulated a fund of information which enabled him to make himself agreeable to those who were unacquainted with his real character. He laid himself out now to entertain Frank. "Ah, my young friend," he said, "how I envy you your youth and hope. I am an old, battered man of the world, who has been everywhere, seen a great deal, and yet, in all the wide world, I am without a home." "Have you traveled much, sir," asked Frank. "I have been in Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia," answered Sharpley. "Yes, Botany Bay," thought Craven, but it was not his cue to insinuate suspicions of his friend. "How much you must have seen!" said Frank, interested. "You're right; I've seen a great deal." "Have you ever been in Switzerland?" "Yes, I've clambered about among the Alps. I tried to ascend Mont Blanc, but had not endurance enough." Frank was interested. He had read books of travels, and he had dreamed of visiting foreign lands. He had thought more than once how much he should enjoy roaming about in countries beyond the sea, but he had never, in his quiet country home, even met one who had made this journey, and he eagerly listened to what Colonel Sharpley had to tell him about these distant lands. Here supper was announced, and the four sat down. "Do you take your tea strong, Colonel Sharpley?" asked Mrs. Craven. "As strong as you can make it. Tea is a favorite drink of mine. I have drunk it in its native land--in fact, everywhere." "Have you been in China, Colonel Sharpley?" "Yes, madam. I spent three months there--learned to talk broken China a little," he added, with a laugh. "Yes, Mrs. Craven, I have been a rover." "He has been telling me about Switzerland, mother," said Frank, eagerly. "How splendid it must be to travel there." "I am going back to Europe in three or four weeks," said Sharpley, ready now to spring his trap. "Were you ever there, Mrs. Craven?" "No, sir; I am timid about traveling." "I was going to ask why you and my friend Craven didn't pull up stakes and go abroad for a time?" "I am afraid I am getting too old to travel, Colonel Sharpley." "Old! my dear madam? Why you're in the prime of life. If you are getting old, what shall I say about myself?" "I suppose I am not quite venerable," said Mrs. Craven, smiling, "but I should shrink from the voyage." "I may persuade her to go some time," said Mr. Craven, with a glance at his wife, "Just now it would be a little inconvenient for me to leave my business." "I fancy this young man would like to go," said Sharpley, turning to Frank. "Indeed I should," said Frank, eagerly. "There is nothing in the world I should like better." "Come, I have an idea to propose," said Sharpley, as if it had struck him; "if you'll let him go with me, I will look after him, and at the end of three months, or any other period you may name, I will put him on board a steamer bound for New York. It will do him an immense deal of good." Mrs. Craven was startled by the suddenness of the proposal. "How could he come home alone?" she said. "He couldn't leave the steamer till it reached New York, and I am sure he could find his way home from there, or you could meet him at the steamer." "Oh, mother, let me go!" said Frank, all on fire with the idea. "It would seem lonely without you, Frank." "I would write twice--three times a week, and I should have ever so much to tell you after I got home." "What do you think, Mr. Craven?" asked his wife, hesitatingly. "I think it a very good plan, Mary, but, as you know, I don't wish to interfere with your management of Frank. If you say yes, I have no sort of objection." Just at that moment Frank felt more kindly toward Mr. Craven than he had ever done before. He could not, of course, penetrate the treachery which he meditated. "I hardly know what to say. Do you think there would be any danger?" "I have great confidence in my friend, Colonel Sharpley. He is an experienced traveler--has been everywhere, as he has told you. I really wish I could go myself in the party." This Frank did not wish, though he would prefer to go with Mr. Craven rather than stay at home. "Would it not interrupt his studies?" asked his mother, as a final objection. "Summer is near at hand, and he would have a vacation at any rate. He will probably study all the better after he returns." "That I will," said Frank. "Then, if you really think it best, I will consent," said Mrs. Craven. Frank was so overjoyed that he jumped from his chair and threw his arms around his mother's neck. A flush of pleasure came to her cheek, and she felt repaid for the sacrifice she must make of Frank's society. She knew beforehand that her husband's company would not go far toward compensating that. "I congratulate you, my young friend," said Colonel Sharpley (for we may as well address him by his stolen title), "upon the pleasure before you." "I am very much obliged to you, sir, for being willing to take so much trouble on my account." "No need of thanks on that score. The fact is, I shall enjoy the trip all the more in watching your enjoyment. I am rather _blase_ myself, but it will be a treat to me to see what impressions foreign scenes make on you." "How soon do you go, sir?" asked Frank, eagerly. "Let me see; this is the fifth. I will engage passage for the nineteenth--that is, if you can get ready at such short notice." "No fear of that," said Frank, confidently. "He'll be on hand promptly, you may be sure," said Mr. Craven, smiling. "Really, Frank, we shall miss you very much." "Thank you, sir," said Frank, feeling almost cordial to his step-father; "but it won't be long, and I shall write home regularly." During the evening Frank kept Sharpley busy telling him about foreign parts. Mr. Craven listened, with a crafty smile, watching him as a spider does an entangled fly. "He's trapped!" he said to himself Poor Frank! How little could he read of the future! CHAPTER XII. TWO BOY FRIENDS. "Going to Europe, Frank!" repeated his friend, Ben Cameron, in unbounded astonishment. "I can hardly believe it." "I can hardly believe it myself; but it's true." "How did it come about?" "Colonel Sharpley, Mr. Craven's friend, is going, and offered to take me." "Didn't Mr. Craven object?" "No; why should he? He thought it was a good plan." "And your mother?" "She was a little afraid at first that something might happen to me; but, as Colonel Sharpley and Mr. Craven were in favor of it, she yielded." "Well, Frank, all I can say is, that I wish I were in your shoes." "I wish you were going with me, Ben. Wouldn't it be jolly?" "Unfortunately, Frank, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, like you. You are the son of rich parents, while my father is a poor carpenter, working by the day." "I like you as much as if you were worth half a million, Ben." "I know you do, Frank; but that doesn't give me the half-million. I must postpone going to Europe till I have earned money enough with my own hands." "Don't be too sure of that, Ben." "What do you mean, Frank?" "I mean this, that when I am twenty-one I come into possession of about forty thousand dollars. Now, the interest on that is two thousand four hundred. I'll invite you to go abroad with me, and spend a year there. If the interest isn't enough to pay our expenses, I will take a few hundred dollars of the principal." "That's a generous offer, Frank," said Ben; "but you don't consider that at that time I shall be a journeyman carpenter, very likely, while you will be a young gentleman, just graduated from college. You may not want such company then." "My dear Ben," said Frank, laying his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder, "if you think I'm a snob or likely to become one, say so at once; but I hope you think better of me than to believe that I will ever be ashamed of my dearest friend, even if he is a journeyman carpenter. I should despise myself if I thought such a thing possible." "Then I won't think so, Frank." "That's right, Ben. We'll be friends for life, or, if we are not, it shall be your fault, not mine. But there's one favor I am going to ask of you." "What is it?" "That while I am gone you will call round often and see mother. She will miss me a great deal, for I have always been with her, and it will be a pleasure to her to see you, whom she knows to be my dearest friend, and talk with you about me. Will you go?" "Certainly I will, Frank, if you think she would like to have me." "I know she would. You see, Ben, though Mr. Craven and my mother get along well enough, I am sure she doesn't love him. He may be a fair sort of man, and I am bound to say that I have no fault to find with him, but I don't think she finds a great deal of pleasure in his society. Of course, Ben, you won't repeat this?" "Certainly not." "And you will call often?" "Yes, Frank." "I will tell mother so. Then I shall leave home with a light heart. Just think of it, Ben--it's now the sixth of the month, and on the nineteenth I sail. I wish it were to-morrow." "It will soon be here, Frank." "Yes, I know it. I am afraid I can't fix my mind on my studies much for the next week or so. I shall be thinking of Europe all the time." Meanwhile, Mr. Craven and Colonel Sharpley, in the office of the former, were discussing the same subject. "So we have succeeded, Craven," said Sharpley, taking out a cigar and beginning to smoke. "Yes, you managed it quite cleverly." "Neither Mrs. Craven nor the boy will suspect that you are particularly interested in getting him out of the country." "No," said Craven, complacently; "I believe I scored a point in my favor with the boy by favoring the project. Had I opposed it, his mother would not have consented, and he knows it." "Yes, that is well. It will avert suspicion hereafter. Now there is an important point to be considered. What funds are you going to place in my hands to start with?" "How much shall you need?" "Well, you must supply me with money at once to pay for tickets--say two hundred and fifty dollars, and a bill of exchange for a thousand dollars, to begin with. More can be sent afterward." "I hope you won't be too extravagant, Sharpley," said Mr. Craven, a little uneasily. "Extravagant! Why, zounds, man, two persons can't travel for nothing. Besides, the money doesn't come out of your purse; it comes out of the boy's fortune." "If I draw too much, his mother, who is his guardian, will be startled." "Then draw part from her funds. You have the control of those." "I don't know as I have a right to." "Pooh, man, get over your ridiculous scruples. I know your real reason. You look upon her money as yours, and don't like to part with any of it. But just consider, if things turn out as we expect, you will shortly get possession of the boy's forty thousand dollars, and can then pay yourself. Don't you see it?" "Perhaps the boy may return in safety," suggested Craven. "In that case our plans are all dished." "Don't be afraid of that," said Sharpley, with wicked significance. "I will take care of that." "It shall be as you say, then," said Craven. "You shall have two hundred dollars for the purchase of tickets and a bill of exchange for a thousand." "You may as well say three hundred, Craven, as there will be some extra preliminary expenses, and you had better give me the money now, as I am going up to the city this morning to procure tickets." "Very well, three hundred let it be." "And there's another point to be settled, a very important one, and we may as well settle it now." "What is it?" "How much am I to receive in case our plans work well?" "How much?" repeated Craven, hesitatingly. "Yes, how much?" "Well, say two thousand dollars." "Two thousand devils!" exclaimed Sharpley, indignantly. "Why, Craven, you must take me for a fool." Mr. Craven hastily disclaimed this imputation. "You expect me to do your dirty work for any such paltry sum as that! No! I don't sell myself so cheap." "Two thousand dollars is a good deal of money." "Not for such services as that, especially as it leaves you nineteen times as much. Craven, it won't do!" "Say five thousand dollars, then!" said Craven, reluctantly. "That's a little more like the figure, but it isn't enough." "What will satisfy you, then?" "Ten thousand." "Ten thousand!" repeated Craven, in dismay. "Yes, ten thousand," said Sharpley, firmly. "Not a cent less." Mr. Craven expostulated, but his expostulations were all in vain. His companion felt that he had him in his power, and was not disposed to abate his demands. Finally the agreement was made. "Shall it be in writing, Craven?" asked Sharpley, jocosely. "No, no." "I didn't know but you might want to bind me. When does the train leave for New York?" "In an hour." "Then I'll trouble you to look up three hundred dollars for me, and I'll take it." By the ten o'clock train Colonel Sharpley was a passenger. Mr. Craven saw him off, and then returned thoughtfully to his office. "It's a bold plan," thus he soliloquized; "but I think it will succeed. If it does, I shall no longer be dependent upon the will or caprice of my wife. I shall be my own master, and possessed of an abundant fortune. "If only Sharpley and the boy could die together, it would be a great relief. While that man lives I shall not feel wholly safe. However, one at a time. Let the boy be got out of the way, and I will see what can be done for the other. The cards are in my favor, and if I play a crafty game, I shall win in the end." CHAPTER XIII. JONATHAN TARBOX, OF SQUASHBORO'. A great steamer was plowing its way through the Atlantic waves. Fifteen hundred miles were traversed, and nearly the same remained to be crossed. The sea had been rough in consequence of a storm, and even now there was considerable motion. A few passengers were on deck, among them our young hero, who felt better in the open air than in the closer atmosphere below; besides, he admired the grandeur of the sea, spreading out on all sides of him, farther than his eyes could reach. He had got over his first sadness at parting with his mother, and he was now looking forward with the most eager anticipation to setting foot upon European soil. He shared a state-room with Sharpley, but the latter spent little time in the boy's company. He had discovered some congenial company among the other passengers, and spent most of the time smoking with them or playing cards below. Frank did not miss him much, as he found plenty to engage his attention on board. As he stood looking out on the wild waste of waters, trying to see if anywhere he could discover another vessel, he was aroused by the salutation: "I say, you boy!" Looking around, he saw a tall, thin man, dressed in a blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons, a high standing dickey, and pants three or four inches too short in the legs. He was an admirable specimen of the Yankee--as he is represented on the stage--an exceptional specimen, though some of our foreign friends may regard him as the rule. It was not the first time Frank had seen him. Two or three times he had appeared at the table; but he had been stricken with seasickness, and for the greater part of the voyage thus far had remained in his state-room. "Good morning, sir," said Frank, politely. "You have been seasick, haven't you?" "Seasick! I guess I have," returned the other, energetically. "I thought I was goin' to kick the bucket more'n once." "It is not a very agreeable feeling," said Frank. "I guess not. If I'd known what kind of a time I was a-goin' to have, I wouldn't have left Squashboro', you bet!" "Are you from Squashboro'?" asked Frank, amused. "Yes, I'm from Squashboro', State of Maine, and I wish I was there just now, I tell you." "You won't feel so when you get on the other side," said Frank, consolingly. "Well, may be not; but I tell you, boy, it feels kinder risky bein' out here on the mill-pond with nothin' but a plank between you and drownin'. I guess I wouldn't make a very good sailor." "Are you going to travel much?" asked Frank. "Wal, you see, I go mostly on business. My name's Jonathan Tarbox. My father's name is Elnathan Tarbox. He's got a nice farm in Squashboro', next to old Deacon Perkins'. Was you ever in Squashboro'?" "No; I think not." "It's a thrivin' place, is Squashboro'. Wal, now, I guess you are wonderin' what sets me out to go to Europe, ain't you?" "I suppose you want to see the country, Mr. Tarbox." "Ef that was all, you wouldn't catch me goin' over and spendin' a heap of money, all for nothin'. That ain't business." "Then I suppose you go on business?" "I guess I do. You see I've invented a new plow, that, I guess, is goin' to take the shine off of any other that's in use, and it kinder struck me that ef I should take it to the Paris Exhibition, I might, may be, make somethin' out of it. I've heerd that they're a good deal behind in farm tools in the old European countries, and I guess I'll open their eyes a little with my plow." "I hope you'll succeed, Mr. Tarbox," said Frank, politely. "I guess I shall. You see, I've risked considerable money onto it--that is, in travelin' expenses and such like. You see, my Uncle Abner--he wasn't my real uncle, that is, by blood, but he was the husband of my Aunt Matilda, my mother's oldest sister--didn't have no children of his own, so he left me two thousand dollars in his will." Mr. Tarbox paused in order to see what effect the mention of this great inheritance would have upon his auditor. "Indeed you were lucky, Mr. Tarbox," said Frank. "I guess I felt tickled when I heard of it. I jist kicked like a two-year-old colt. Wal, now, dad wanted me to buy a thirty-acre farm that was for sale about half a mile from his'n, but I wouldn't. I'd about fetched my plow out right, and I wa'n't goin' to settle down on no two-thousand-dollar farm. Catch me! No; I heerd of this Paris Exhibition, and I vowed I'd come out here and see what could be did. So here I am. I ain't sorry I cum, though I was about sick enough to die. Thought I should a-turned inside out one night when the vessel was goin' every which way." "I was sick myself that night," said Frank. Mr. Tarbox having now communicated all his own business, naturally felt a degree of curiosity about that of his young companion. "Are you goin' to the Paris Exhibition?" he asked. "I suppose so. It depends upon Colonel Sharpley." "The man you're travelin' with? Yes; I saw him at the table--tall man, black hair, and slim, ain't he?" "Yes, sir." "So he's a colonel, is he?" "Yes." "Did he fight in any of our wars?" "No, he's an Englishman." "Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Tarbox, with a slight contempt in his voice. "He wouldn't be no match for an American officer." "I don't know," said Frank. "Wal, I do--the Yankees always could whip any other nation, not but the colonel seems a respectable man, though he's a foreigner." "It is we who will be foreigners when we get to England," said Frank. This aroused the controversial spirit of Mr. Tarbox. "Do you mean to say that you and me will turn to furriners?" he asked, indignantly. "We shall be foreigners in England." "No, we won't," said Jonathan, energetically. "At any rate, I won't. I shall always be a free-born American citizen, and a free-born American citizen can't be a furriner." "Not in America, Mr. Tarbox, but in England, I am saying." "A free-born American citizen ain't a furriner anywhere," said Mr. Tarbox, emphatically. Frank was amused, but felt it wise to discontinue the discussion. "Are you goin' to Europe on business?" inquired the other. "No, only for pleasure." "Sho! I guess you must have a considerable pile of money!" suggested Mr. Tarbox, inquiringly. "I have a little money," said Frank, modestly. "Left you?" "Yes, by my father." "Wal, so you're in luck, too. Is the colonel related to you?" "No. He is a friend of my step-father." "Sho! So your mother married again. How long are you going to stay on the other side?" "Only three or four months, I think." "Do you know how much they ask for board in Paris?" asked Jonathan, with considerable interest. "No, Mr. Tarbox, I have no idea. I suppose it's according to what kind of rooms and board you take." "Wal, you see, Mr.--what did you say your name was?" "Hunter." "I once knowed a Hunter--I think he was took up for stealing." "I don't think he was any relation of mine, Mr. Tarbox." "Likely not. What was I a-goin' to say? Oh, Mr. Hunter, I ain't very particular about my fodder. I don't mind havin' baked beans half the time--pork and beans--and you know them are cheap." "So I've heard." "And as to a room, I don't mind it's bein' fixed up with fiddle-de-dee work and sich. Ef it's only comfortable--that'll suit me." "Then I think you'll be able to get along cheap, Mr. Tarbox." "That's what I calc'late. Likely I'll see you over there. What's that bell for?" "Lunch." "Let's go down. Fact is, I've been so tarnal sea-sick I'm empty as a well-bucket dried in the sun. I guess I can eat to-day." They went down to the saloon, and Mr. Tarbox's prophecy was verified. He shoveled in the food with great energy, and did considerable toward making up for past deficiencies. Frank looked on amused. He was rather inclined to like his countryman, though he acknowledged him to be very deficient in polish and refinements. CHAPTER XIV. THE LONDON CLERK. Jonathan Tarbox seemed to have taken a fancy to our hero, for immediately after lunch he followed him on deck. "I want to show you a drawin' of my plow, Mr. Hunter," he said. "I should like to see it, Mr. Tarbox, but I am no judge of such things." Mr. Tarbox drew a paper from his coat-pocket containing a sketch of his invention. He entered into a voluble explanation of it, to which Frank listened good-naturedly, though without much comprehension. "Do you think it'll work?" asked the inventor. "I should think it might. Mr. Tarbox, but then I don't know much about such things." "I don't believe they've got anything in Europe that'll come up to it," said Mr. Tarbox, complacently. "Ef I can get it introduced into England and France, it'll pay me handsome." "Have you shown it to any Englishman yet?" "No, I haven't. I don't know any." "There are some on board this steamer." "Are there? Where?" "There's one." Frank pointed out a young man with weak eyes and auburn hair, a London clerk, who visited the United States on a business errand, and was now returning. He was at this moment standing on deck, with his arms folded, looking out to sea. "I guess I'll go and speak to him," said Mr. Tarbox. "May be he can help me introduce my plow in London." Frank watched with some amusement the interview between Mr. Tarbox and the London clerk, which he shrewdly suspected was not likely to lead to any satisfactory results. Mr. Tarbox approached the Englishman from behind, and unceremoniously slapped him on the back. The clerk whirled round suddenly and surveyed Mr. Tarbox with mingled surprise and indignation. "What did you say?" he inquired. "How are you, old hoss?" "Do you mean to call me a 'oss?" "No, I call you a hoss. How do you feel?" "I don't feel any better for your hitting me on the back, sir," said the clerk, angrily. "Sho! your back must be weak. Been sea-sick?" "I have suffered some from sea-sickness," returned the person addressed, with an air of restraint. "So have I. I tell you I thought something was goin' to cave in." "Of what earthly interest does he suppose that is to me?" thought the clerk, superciliously. "Fact is," continued Mr. Tarbox, "I'd a good deal rather be to home in Squashboro', livin' on baked beans, than be here livin' on all their chicken fixin's. I suppose you've heard of Squashboro' hain't you?" "I can't say I have," said the clerk, coldly, adjusting his eye-glasses, and turning away from his uncongenial companion. "Squashboro', State o' Maine. It's a pooty smart place--got three stores, a blacksmith's shop, a grist mill, and two meetin'-houses." "Really, my friend," said the Englishman, "Squashboro' may be as smart a place as you say, but it doesn't interest me." "Don't it? That's because you haven't been there. We've got some smart men in Squashboro'." "You don't say so?" said the other, in a sarcastic tone. "There's Squire Perkins, selectman, town clerk and auctioneer. You'd ought to hear his tongue go when he auctioneers. Then there's Parson Pratt--knows a sight of Latin, Greek and Hebrew." "Are you one of the smart men of Squashboro'?" asked the clerk, in the same tone. "Wal, that ain't for me to say," answered Mr. Tarbox, modestly. "You never can tell what may happen, as the hen said when she hatched a lot of geese. But I'll tell you what, Mr. Englishman--" "My name is Robinson," interrupted the other, stiffly. "Why, howdy do, Mr. Robinson!" exclaimed Jonathan, seizing the unwilling hand of the other and shaking it vigorously. "My name is Tarbox--Jonathan Tarbox, named after my grandfather. His name was Jonathan, too." "Really, your family history is very interesting." "Glad you think so. But as I was sayin', when you spoke about me bein' smart, I've got up a new plow that's goin' to take the shine off all that's goin'," and he plunged his hand into his pocket. "You don't carry a plow round in your pocket, do you?" asked Mr. Robinson, arching his eyebrows. "Come, now, Mr. Robinson, that's a good joke for you. I've got a plan of it here on this piece of paper. If you'll squat down somewhere, I'll explain it to you." "I prefer standing, Mr.--Mr. Tarbarrel." "Tarbox is my name." "Ah--Tarbox, then. No great difference." "You see, Mr. Robberson--" "Robinson, sir." "Ah--is it?" said Jonathan, innocently. "No great difference." Mr. Robinson looked suspicious, but the expression of his companion's face was unchanged, and betrayed no malice prepense. "I don't know anything about plows," said the clerk, coldly. "You'd better show it to somebody else--I never saw a plow in my life." "Never saw a plow!" ejaculated Jonathan, in the utmost surprise. "Why, where have you been livin' all your life?" "In London." "And don't they have plows in the stores?" "I suppose they may, but they're not in my line." "Why, I knowed a plow as soon as I could walk," said Mr. Tarbox. "I leave such things to laborers," said Mr. Robinson, superciliously. "I feel no interest in them." "Ain't you a laborer yourself?" asked Jonathan. "I--a laborer!" exclaimed Mr. Robinson, with natural indignation. "Do you mean to insult me?" "I never insult nobody. But don't you work for a livin'? That's what I mean." "I am engaged in trade," answered the clerk, haughtily. "Then you do work for a livin', and so, of course, you're a laborer." "Sir, men in my business are not laborers--they are merchants." "What's the difference?" "I perceive, sir, that you are not accustomed to society. I excuse you on account of your ignorance." "Ignorance! What do you mean by that?" demanded Mr. Tarbox, in his turn indignant. Jonathan looked threatening, and as he was physically the Englishman's superior, the latter answered hastily: "I only meant to say that you were not versed in the requirements and conventionalities of society." "Is that English?" asked Jonathan, with a puzzled look. "I believe so." "Well, I never heard sich jawbreakers before, but, if it's an apology, it's all right. Won't you look at the plow, then?" "It would be of no use, Mr. Tarbox--I don't know about such things, I assure you. You had better show it to somebody else. My life has been passed in London, and I really am profoundly ignorant of agricultural implements." As he spoke, he turned away and walked down stairs. Mr. Tarbox followed him with his eyes, ejaculating: "That's a queer critter. He's over thirty years old, I guess, and he's never sot eyes on a plow! He'd ought to be ashamed of his ignorance." "Well, Mr. Tarbox," said Frank, when his new friend rejoined him, "did you explain your new invention to the Englishman?" "I was goin' to, but he said he never seed one in the whole course of his life, and didn't take no interest in them. What do you think of that?" "He can't have been in the country much, I should think." "He keeps store in London, he says; but he's a poor, ignorant creetur, and he don't want to learn. I wanted to explain all about my invention, but he wouldn't look at it." "There are other Englishmen who will take more interest in it, Mr. Tarbox--men who live in the country and cultivate the land." "I hope so. I hope they ain't all as ignorant as that creetur. Do you think that colonel that you're travelin' with would like to look at it?" "I don't believe he would, Mr. Tarbox. I don't know much about him, but he seems to me like a man that has always lived in the city." "Just as you say. I'd just as lief explain it to him." "Are you going to put it in the exhibition?" "Yes; I've got it packed in my trunk in pieces. I'm going to put it together on the other side, and take it along with me." This was not the last conversation Frank had with Mr. Tarbox. He always listened with sympathy to the recital of the other's plans and purposes, and Jonathan showed a marked predilection for the society of our young hero. Without knowing it, Frank was making a friend who would be of value in the future. CHAPTER XV. MR. TARBOX IS OBSTINATE. Early on Wednesday morning, eleven days from the date of sailing, the good steamer which bore our hero as passenger, steamed into the harbor of Liverpool. As may readily be supposed, Frank was on deck, gazing with eager expectation at the great city before him, with its solid docks, and the indications of its wide-spreading commerce. "Well, Frank, we are almost there," said Colonel Sharpley. "Yes, sir. Isn't it glorious!" exclaimed our hero, with enthusiasm. "I don't see anything glorious," said a voice at his side. The speaker was Mr. Tarbox, of Squashboro', State o' Maine. "Don't you like it, Mr. Tarbox?" asked Frank. "Liverpool ain't a circumstance to New York," said the Yankee, with patriotic pride. "New York's bigger and finer than this town ever will see." "I don't care whether it's bigger or not," said Frank. "It's jolly being here. What a splendid time I mean to have." "Enjoy yourself while you may," said Sharpley to himself. "Your time is short." "What tavern are you goin' to put up at?" asked Mr. Tarbox. "I don't know," said Frank. "Perhaps Colonel Sharpley can tell you." Sharpley turned around, and looked at the Yankee superciliously. "I really have not decided," he said. "I thought I'd like to put up at the same," said Mr. Tarbox, "seein' as I know you. May be we might ride in the same carriage to the tavern." "I prefer not to add to my party, sir," said Colonel Sharpley, frigidly. "Oh, you needn't flare up," said Jonathan Tarbox, coolly. "I'm willin' to pay my share of the bill." "I must decline making any arrangement with you, sir," said Sharpley as he moved away. "Kinder offish, ain't he?" said Mr. Tarbox, addressing Frank. "He seems a little so," said Frank; "but I hope, Mr. Tarbox, you won't think I am unwilling to be in your company." "No, I don't," said the Yankee, cordially. "You ain't a bit stuck up. I'd like to let that chap know that I'm as good as he is, if he does call himself colonel." "No doubt of it." "And if I can only make my plow go, I'll be rich some day." "I hope you will, Mr. Tarbox." "So do I. Do you know what I'll do then?" "What?" "You see, there's a gal in our town; her name is Sally Sprague, and she's about the nicest gal I ever sot eyes on. Ef things goes well with me, that gal will have a chance to be Mrs. Tarbox," said Jonathan, energetically. "I hope she will," said Frank, in amused sympathy. "I like you--I do!" said Mr. Tarbox. "Ef ever I git a chance to do you a good turn, I'll do it." "Thank you, Mr. Tarbox. I am sorry Colonel Sharpley was rude to you." "I can stand it," said Jonathan; "and I mean to go to the same tavern, too." The custom-house officials came on board and examined the luggage. This over, the passengers were permitted to land. On shore they encountered a crowd of hackmen. "To the St. George Hotel," said Colonel Sharpley, selecting one of the number. "Here, Frank, get in." Just behind was Mr. Tarbox, standing guard over a dilapidated trunk and a green chest, the latter of which contained his precious plow. "Have a cab, sir?" asked a short, stout hackman. "What are you goin' to charge?" asked Jonathan. "Where do you want me to drive, sir?" "St. George Tavern. Oh, stop a minute. Do they pile up the prices steep there?" "It's reasonable, sir." "That's all I want. I ain't goin' to pay no fancy prices. How much are you goin' to charge for carryin' me there?" "Half a crown, sir." "What in thunder's half a crown?" "Ain't he precious green?" thought cabby. But he answered, respectfully: "It's two-and-six, sir." "Two dollars and six cents?" "No, sir; two shillin's and sixpence." "It's too much." "Reg'lar price." "I don't believe it. Here, you other chap," beckoning to another cabman, "what'll you charge to take me to the St. George Tavern?" This brought the first cabby to terms. "Jump in, sir. I'll take you round for two shillin's," he said. "All right," said Jonathan. "I'll help you with that chist. Now put her over the road. I'm hungry, and want some vittles." Five minutes after Frank arrived at the St. George with his guardian, Mr. Tarbox drove up, bag and baggage. "You see I'm here most as soon as you," said Tarbox, nodding. "We ain't separated yet. It's a pooty nice tavern, Mr. Sharpley," accosting Frank's guardian with easy forgetfulness of the latter's repellant manner. "What is your object in following us, sir?" asked Sharpley, frigidly. "You haven't engaged this tavern all to yourself, have you?" demanded Jonathan. "Ain't it free to other travelers?" Sharpley saw the other had him at advantage. "Didn't you come here because we were here?" he asked. "May be I did, and then again may be I didn't," the other replied. "There ain't any law ag'in it, is there?" "I should hardly suppose you would wish to thrust yourself into the society of those who don't want you." "I won't run up no bills on your account," said Mr. Tarbox; "but I'm goin' just where I please, even if you are there already. Frank here ain't no way troubled about it." "Frank, as you call him, is under my guardianship," said Mr. Sharpley, with a sneer. "I don't wish him to associate with improper persons." "Do you call me an improper person?" demanded Mr. Tarbox, offended. "You can draw your own inferences, Mr.--I really don't know who." "Tarbox, of Squashboro', State o' Maine." "Then, Mr. Tarbox, of Squashboro', State o' Maine, I have already wasted as much time as I choose to do on you, and must close the conversation." "All right, sir. You'd better shut up Frank in a glass case, if you don't want him to associate with any improper persons." But Colonel Sharpley had turned on his heel and moved away. "I can't have that fellow following us everywhere," he said to himself. "The task I have before me is one which demands secrecy, in order to avert all suspicion in case anything happens. This inquisitive, prying Yankee may spoil all. He won't take a hint, and I suspect it would be dangerous to try a kick. The trouble with these Yankees is that they are afraid of nothing, and are bent on carrying out their own purposes, however disagreeable to others. I must ask Frank about this fellow and his plans." "Frank," he commenced, when they were alone, "I must congratulate you on this Yankee friend of yours. He has fastened on us like a leech." "He is a good-natured fellow," said Frank. "He is an impudent scoundrel!" said Sharpley, impatiently. "Not so bad as that. He is not used to the ways of the world, and he seems to have taken a fancy to me." "He ought to see that his company's not wanted." "He is not disagreeable to me. I am rather amused by his odd ways and talk." "I am not. He is confoundedly disagreeable to me. We must shake him off. We can't have him following us all over Europe." "He won't do that. He is going to the Paris Exposition." "What's he going to do there--exhibit himself?" "Not exactly," said Frank, good humoredly. "He's invented a plow that will take the shine off all others, so he says. So he will be detained there for some time." "I am glad to hear that; but I mean to get rid of him beforehand. When we leave here we mustn't tell where we are going." "I can't," answered Frank; "for I don't know, unless it is to London." "Then I won't tell you, or you might let it out accidentally." Meanwhile, Jonathan, who had ordered a couple of chops, was sitting in the coffee-room, making a vigorous onslaught upon them. "I wonder what makes that Sharpley so skittish about me and Frank bein' together?" he thought. "He needn't think I want to stick near him. I wouldn't give half a cent for his company. But that boy's a good sort of a chap and a gentleman. I'll keep him in sight if I can." CHAPTER XVI. AN ADVENTURE IN LONDON. The next day Sharpley took advantage of Mr. Tarbox's temporary absence from the hotel to hurry Frank off to the London train. "I hope we have seen the last of that intrusive Yankee," said Sharpley to our hero, when they were fairly installed in the railway carriage. "I should like to have bidden him good-by," said Frank. "You can associate with him as much as you like after we have parted company," said Sharpley. "But, for my part, I don't want to see anything of him." "I wonder what makes him so prejudiced," thought Frank. "It can't be because he is a Yankee, for I am a Yankee, myself, and yet he takes the trouble of looking after me." Sharpley was not very social. He bought a paper, and spent most of the time in reading. But Frank did not find the time hang heavily upon his hands. He was in England, that was his glad thought. On either side, as the train sped along, was spread out a beautiful English landscape, and his eyes were never tired of watching it. To Sharpley there was no novelty in the scene. He had enough to think of in his past life--enough to occupy his mind in planning how to carry out his present wicked designs upon the life of the innocent boy at his side. At last they reached London, and drove in a hansom to a quiet hotel, located in one of the streets leading from the Strand, a business thoroughfare well known to all who have ever visited the great metropolis. "How long are we going to stay in London, Colonel Sharpley?" asked Frank. "Two or three days. I can't tell exactly how long." "That will be rather a short time to see so large a city," returned Frank, considerably disappointed. "I am in a hurry to go to the continent," was the reply. "We can stop here longer on our return." With this Frank was forced to be content, though he would have preferred to remain in London long enough now to see the principal objects of interest. There was, he could not help remarking, a considerable difference in Colonel Sharpley's manner from that which he exhibited when he first called upon his step-father. Then he was very social and agreeable; now he was taciturn, and at times sullen and irritable. Whatever the reason might be, the change was very marked. "Perhaps he has some business that annoys him," thought Frank, charitably. "I will give him as little trouble as possible. But for his kind offer, I should not have my present chance of seeing foreign countries." The next morning Sharpley said: "Frank, you must wander around by yourself, as I have business to attend to." "All right, sir," said Frank. In fact, he was rather pleased with the idea of finding his own way in the great city of which he had heard so much, and which he had just entered as a stranger. He felt a little like the celebrated explorer, Dr. Livingstone, as he set out to explore a region as new and blind to him as the mysterious tracts of Central Africa to the older traveler. But he had this advantage over the eminent doctor, that, whereas the latter had no maps or charts to guide him, he was able for the small sum of an English shilling, or about twenty-five cents, to obtain a map of London. When his eye glanced for the first time over the labyrinth, he felt bewildered and lost, but after a short time he made up his mind what course to take, and found his way to Charing Cross, and from thence to Piccadilly, Rupert Street, and the parks. Time flew by, and in the delight of the ever-recurring novelty, he found that it was two o'clock. He stepped into a pastry-cook's to get some lunch. Then he hailed a passing stage, and rode a long distance, but whether he was near or far from his hotel he could not tell. He decided to leave the stage, and inquire in some shop near by where he was, and then, by examining his map, ascertain the most direct course to his hotel. As he reached the sidewalk, a little girl of ten years, apparently, with a thin, sad face, fixed her eyes upon him. She said nothing, but there was a mute appeal in her look which Frank, who was by nature compassionate, could not resist. "What is the matter, little girl?" he asked. "Mother is sick, and we have nothing to eat," answered the little girl, sorrowfully. "Have you no father?" "He has gone away." "Where?" "I don't know." "Has your mother been sick long?" "She made herself sick working so hard to buy us bread." "Then you are not the only child," inquired Frank. "I have a little sister, four years old." "How old are you?" "I am ten." "What is your name?" "Alice Craven." The announcement of her name made Frank start. "What!" he exclaimed, for, except his step-father, he had never till now met anyone by that name. "Alice Craven," answered the little girl, supposing he had not understood aright. "Where does your mother live?" asked Frank. "In Hurst court." "Is it far from here?" "Only about five minutes' walk." "I will go with you," said Frank, with sudden resolution, "and if I find your mother is as badly off as you say, I will give you something." "Come, then, sir; I will show you the way." Frank followed the little girl till he found himself in a miserable court, shut in by wretched tenements. Alice entered one of the dirtiest of these, and Frank followed her up a rickety staircase to the fourth floor. Here, his guide opened a door and led the way into a dark room, almost bare of furniture, where, upon a bed in the corner, lay a wan, attenuated woman. Beside her sat the little girl of four to whom Alice had referred. "Mother," said Alice, "here is a kind young gentleman, who has come to help us." "Heaven bless him!" said the woman, feebly. "We are in dire want of help." "How long have you been sick?" asked Frank, compassionately. "It is long since I have been well," answered the invalid, "but I have been able to work till two weeks since. For two weeks I have earned nothing, and, but for the neighbors, I and my two poor children would have starved." "Is your husband dead?" "I do not know. He left me three years ago, and I have never seen him since." "Did he desert you?" asked Frank, indignantly. "Did he leave you to shift for yourself?" "He promised to come back, but he has never come," said the woman, sighing. "Your little girl tells me your name is Craven." "Yes, sir. That is my husband's name." "I know a gentleman by that name." "Where?" asked the invalid, eagerly. "In America. But it cannot be your husband," he added, quickly, not caring to excite hope in the poor woman's breast, only to be succeeded by disappointment, "for he has a wife there. I didn't know but it might be your husband's brother." "My husband had no brother," said the woman, sinking back, her momentary hope extinguished. "Oh, if he only knew how hard it has been for me to struggle for food for these poor children, he would surely come back." Frank's heart was filled with pity. He drew from his pocket two gold sovereigns, and placed them in the hands of Alice. "It won't last you long," he said, "but it will give you some relief." "Bless you, bless you!" said the invalid, gratefully. "It will keep us till I am well again and can work for my children. What is your name, generous, noble boy?" "Frank Hunter," said our hero, modestly; "but don't think too much of what I have done. I shall fare no worse for parting with this money." "I will remember you in my prayers," said Mrs. Craven. "So young and so generous!" "Give me your address, Mrs. Craven, and when I am in London again I will come and see you." "No. 10 Hurst Court," said the invalid. "I will put it down." Frank now left the court, and, as it was late, hailed a cab, and was soon set down in front of his hotel. "Where have you been so long," asked Sharpley. "It is past three o'clock." "I went about seeing the sights," said Frank. "I saw the parks, and Buckingham Palace, and Regent Street; but I have just left a poor woman who was very destitute, whom I visited in her miserable room. Oddly enough, her name was Craven." "Craven," repeated Sharpley, his attention at once roused. "Yes; she had two children, the oldest, Alice, a girl of ten." "Great Heaven!" ejaculated Sharpley. Frank looked at him in surprise. "I daresay they were humbugs," said Sharpley. "Did you give them any money?" "Two sovereigns; but I am sure they were not humbugs." "'A fool and his money are soon parted,'" sneered Sharpley. "Where did you find them?" "No. 10 Hurst Court." "I advise you not to be so ready to part with your money the next time. I'll wager they are imposters." "What cursed chance brought him in contact with these people?" said Sharpley to himself after Frank had left him to arrange his toilet. "He little dreams that the woman he has relieved is the true wife of the man who has married his mother." CHAPTER XVII. COLONEL SHARPLEY'S RUSE. Later in the day Mr. Sharpley found his way to Hurst Court, and paused before Number 10. Though a selfish man, he was not without feeling, and the miserable quarters in which he found his sister excited his pity. He made inquiry of some of the lower tenants, and soon stood at his sister's door. Without waiting to knock, he opened the door and stepped in. The sick woman looked up mechanically, supposing it to be a neighbor who had been kind to her. But when she recognized her brother, she uttered a feeble cry of joy. "Oh, Robert, have you come back?" she cried. "How long it is since I have seen you!" He was shocked at her wan and wasted appearance. "Helen," he said, taking a seat beside the bed, "you look very sick." "No, Robert, not very sick. It is only the effect of overwork and scanty food." "That is enough. How long have you been sick?" "A fortnight. Things looked very dark for me. I feared my poor children would starve, but this morning a noble boy, whom Providence must have sent to me in my extremity, gave me two sovereigns, and they will last me till I am well. But where have you been, Robert?" "I have been to America." "And did you--did you see anything of my husband?" she asked, fixing her eyes anxiously upon him. "Do you think of him still? He does not deserve it. He has treated you like a scoundrel." "I know he has not treated me right, Robert, but he is the father of my children. Then you did not find him?" "I obtained a clew," said Sharpley, evasively. "It may or may not lead to anything. I am about to leave London now on a journey connected with that clew. If it results in anything, I will let you know." "Where are you going?" "On the Continent. I cannot say precisely where, but you will hear from me. But what a hole you are living in," and he looked around him in disgust at the bare walls and naked condition of the miserable room. "I don't mind it, Robert. I feel glad to have the shelter of any roof." "Have you been so poor?" "So poor that I could not well be poorer." "Come, this must be remedied. I am not rich, but I can do something for you. To-morrow morning I will move you to a better room. Do you think you can bear to be moved?" "Yes, brother. You are very kind," murmured the sick woman, not aware that her brother's motives were complex, and that his chief reason for the removal was not dictated by sympathy or pity. "Then I shall be here to-morrow at ten, with a cab. You must all of you be ready. By the way, do you know any of the people in the house?" "Yes; they are poor, but some of them have been kind to me." "Don't let them know where you are moving to?" said Sharpley. "Not let them know!" repeated Mrs. Craven, in surprise. "Why not?" "I have a reason, but I don't want to tell you." "I don't understand it, Robert. What harm can it do?" Sharpley bit his lip. He was annoyed by her persistency, but he was not prepared to give the real reason. Fortunately, a plausible explanation occurred to him. "Listen, sister," he said. "You have an enemy." "An enemy!" "Yes, who is trying to find you out. He has a clew, and if you remain here he may succeed." "But how can I have an enemy, and what could he do to me?" "Suppose he should kidnap one of your children?" The suggestion was made on the spur of the moment, but the effect was immediate. The poor woman turned pale--paler even than before--and trembled. "Say no more, Robert," she answered. "I will promise." "You promise to let no one of your neighbors know where you are going?" "Yes. But, Robert, is it my husband--is it Mr. Craven who is in search of me?" "Ask no more," said Sharpley. "You may know some time, but I have told you all I wish you at present to know. But I must be going. To-morrow, at ten, remember." "I will be ready." "Cleverly managed!" said Sharpley to himself. "I must take care that that boy does not meet my sister again. The name has already struck him. If he sees her again he may come to suspect the truth, and suspicion once aroused, he may suspect me." He didn't at once return to the hotel, but going to a part of London two miles distant, engaged a somewhat better lodging for his sister. The next morning he went to Hurst Court, and, finding her ready, moved her at once to her new home. "How kind you are, Robert!" she said. "I would do more if I had the means. I may be richer soon. I have a good prospect before me, but it requires me to go away for a time." "How long will you be gone?" "I cannot tell. It may be a month; it may be two or three. I have paid the rent of this lodging for three months in advance. There is the receipt." She looked at it mechanically, then handed it back. "This is not the receipt," she said. "The name is wrong." "How is it wrong?" "It is made out to Mrs. Chipman." "It is the right paper." "But my name is not Mrs. Chipman." "Yes, it is." "What do you mean, Robert?" asked his sister, lifting her eyes in surprise. "Just what I say. I want you to be Mrs. Chipman." "But why should I give up my name?" "Do you remember what I told you yesterday--about the man who was on your track?" "You didn't say it was a man." "Well, I say so now." "Well, Robert?" "He will find it harder to trace you if you change your name." "If you think it right, Robert, I will be guided by your advice." "I do think it best for reasons which I cannot fully explain. You must tell your children, also." "I will do so." "Have you any of the money that boy gave you?" "I have nearly all." "Here are three sovereigns more. With your rent paid for three months, if you use it economically, you will not again be reduced to destitution." "I shall feel rich with so much money," said Mrs. Craven, smiling faintly. "Take care that you are not robbed." "I will be careful. But it seems strange to me that I should have occasion for any fears." "Before the three months are over, I shall probably be back in London. I will come to you at once, and let you know if I have heard anything." "Thank you, Robert. Good-by, then, for the present." "Good-by. I hope you will soon be well." "I shall. It was anxiety for my children that was wearing upon me. Now, thanks to your kindness, I am easy in mind. But, brother, there is one question I forgot to ask. How came you to know that I lived at Hurst Court?" Sharpley was posed for a moment, and knew not what to say. He could not, of course, tell the truth; but he was a man fertile in suggestions, and he was silent for a moment only. "I employed a detective," he answered. "These London detectives are wonderfully sharp. He soon found you out." "And you took all this trouble about me," said Mrs. Craven, gratefully, not for a moment doubting the accuracy of the story. "Is it strange that I should take the trouble to find my only sister? But I cannot delay longer. Good-by, Helen." He stooped and lightly touched her cheek with his lips, and hurried from the room. "There," he said to himself, after reaching the street; "I have cut off all possibility of a second meeting between Frank and my sister during the brief remainder of our stay in London. When I come back it will be alone!" Four days afterward they left London for Paris. The day before, Frank made his way again to Hurst Court, meaning to leave a little more money with Mrs. Craven, questioning her at the same time about her husband, whom he could not help connecting in some way with his step-father. But his visit was made in vain. Mrs. Craven had disappeared, and not one of the tenants could say where she had gone: but all agreed that she had been taken away in a cab by a tall gentleman. It seemed mysterious, but no suspicion as to the identity of the gentleman entered Frank's mind. "I hope she has found a friend able to help her," he said to himself, and then dismissed the subject from his mind. CHAPTER XVIII. MR. TARBOX AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION. "So this is Paris," said Frank to himself, as he rode into the court-yard of the Hotel de Rivoli, situated on the fine street of the same name. He had already, from the carriage window, obtained a good view of the palace of the Tuileries, occupied at that time by Louis Napoleon, in the plentitude of his power, and of the large garden which it faces. The sun was shining brightly, and as he glanced at the signs on either side of the streets through which he passed, he realized, even more clearly than on English soil, that he was in a foreign country. "What a beautiful city!" he exclaimed, turning to his companion. "Humph! so, so," said Sharpley, in a tone quite devoid of enthusiasm. "I suppose you have been here before, Colonel Sharpley?" "Often." "But it is new to me; so I suppose it strikes me more." "It is always enjoyed best the first time. Can you speak French?" "A little. I can read the language pretty well. Shall we stay here long?" "I can't tell yet." The exhibition was open, and the city was full to overflowing. They were compelled to take rooms high up, the most desirable being already occupied. But for this Frank cared little. He was in Paris; he was going to see its wonders, and this thought filled him with happiness. The next day they went to the exhibition together, but Colonel Sharpley soon tired of it. After an hour, he turned to Frank, saying: "Do you want to stay longer?" "Yes; I have scarcely seen anything yet." "I suppose you can find your way back to the hotel?" "Oh, yes." "Then I will go out. I don't care much for this sort of thing." So Frank wandered on alone--alone, but surrounded by a crowd of all nationalities, visitors like himself to the great exhibition. On all sides he was surrounded by triumphs of art and skill gathered from all parts of the world. "I wish I had some friend with me," he thought. "It's a splendid sight, but I should enjoy it better if I had somebody I liked to talk to. Wouldn't it be jolly if Ben Cameron were here! How he would enjoy it! Poor fellow! he's got his own way to make in the world--though I don't know as that is much of a misfortune, after all. I don't think I would mind it, though, of course, it's pleasant to have money." As these thoughts passed through our hero's mind, he suddenly heard his name called in a loud voice, whose nasal twang could not be mistaken. Turning in the direction from which it came, his face lighted up with pleasure as he recognized his fellow-passenger, Jonathan Tarbox. The Yankee, looking as countrified as ever in the midst of the brilliant scene, was standing guard over his plow, which had been put together, and was occupying a place assigned it by the Committee of Arrangements. "Why, Mr. Tarbox, I'm glad to see you!" said Frank, heartily, hurrying through the crowd and offering his hand, which was seized in a tight grip. "How long have you been here?" "Three days," said Jonathan, "and I'm eenamost tired to death, standin' here, with nobody to talk to." "I should think you would be lonely. I have only just come. Where are you staying?" "I put up over to the Latin Quarter," said Mr. Tarbox; "though why they call it Latin, when they don't talk Latin there, I don't know. It's cheap livin' there, and I don't want to spend too much. There was a feller on the cars took me in when I jest come. As I heard him talk English, I asked him if he could recommend a good, cheap tavern for me to stop at. He told me the best he knew for a cheap one was the Hotel de Villy. So I hired a boy to lead me there. It was a big walk, and when I got there I found the scamp had sent me to the town hall of Paris. I'd like to give him a lickin'! But I met another chap that was more polite, and he directed me to where I am. He lives there himself. He is a poor artist, and I've took the room jest opposite to his. Where are you stoppin'?" "At the Hotel Rivoli." "That's a hotel where the big-bugs stop, ain't it--near Lewis Napoleon's house." "Yes, I believe so," said Frank, smiling; "but I don't claim to be a big-bug." "That colonel you're traveling with sets up for one. Is he here?" "He is in the city. He came to the exhibition with me, but he didn't stop long. How do you like Paris, Mr. Tarbox?" "I really don't know, Frank. The streets and buildin's are pooty handsome, but they do talk the most outlandish stuff I ever heerd. They rattle off jest like parrots, and I can't understand a word." [Illustration: JONATHAN TARBOX GREETS AN OLD FRIEND.] "I suppose you have not studied the French language," said Frank, smiling. "No, and I don't want to. I'd be ashamed o' myself to talk like them. Why in thunder don't they talk English?" asked Jonathan, with an expression of disgust. "I suppose they wonder that Americans don't speak French." "Why, they do say that young ones call their mothers a mare," continued Mr. Tarbox. "That's what I call sassy. Ef I'd called my mother a mare when I was a youngster, she'd have keeled me over quicker'n a wink. Then a gal is called a filly. That's most as bad. And what do you think I saw on the programme at the restorant where I go to get dinner?" "What was it?" asked Frank, amused. "It was poison, only it wasn't spelled right. The ignorant critters spelled it with a double s. I say they'd ought to be indicted for keepin' p'ison among their vittles." "You have made a little mistake, Mr. Tarbox. The word you refer to--_poisson_--is the French word for fish." "By gracious!" ejaculated Jonathan; "you don't say so! Then it's a mighty queer language, that's all I've got to say. But speakin' of eatin', I ain't had a decent meal of vittles since I came here." "I am surprised to hear you say that, Mr. Tarbox. The French have a high reputation for their cookery." "I can't help that. I haven't lived so mean since I was born." "Perhaps it is because you don't know the names of the dishes you want." "Wall, there may be somethin' in that. Why, the first day I p'inted to the first thing in the programme. It was among the pottages. They brought me some thin, watery stuff that would turn a pig sick. Somebody told me it was meant for soup. When my mother made soup, she put potatoes and meat in it, and carrots and turnips. Her soup was satisfying and would stay a feller's stummick. It wa'n't like this thin stuff. It would take a hogshead of it to keep a baby alive till night." "What else did you get, Mr. Tarbox," asked Frank. "I looked all through the programme for baked beans, and, would you believe it, they didn't have it at all." "I believe it is not a French dish." "Then the French don't know what's good, I can tell 'em that. Folks say they eat frogs, and it stands to reason if they like frogs, and don't like baked beans, they must be an ignorant set. I didn't understand any of the darned names, but I come across pommy de terry, and I thought that might be somethin' solid, so I told the gossoon to bring it. What do you think he brought?" "Potatoes." "Yes; I was so wild I come near flinging 'em in his face, but I concluded to keep 'em, and happened to see some mutton put down on the bill, though they didn't spell it right, so I pointed it out to the gossoon, and he brought it. It was pretty fair, but I tell you my mother can beat all the French cooks that's goin'. I jest wish she was here." "We must go together some time, Mr. Tarbox. I know some French, and I can tell you the names of some things you like, though I am afraid you will have to do without baked beans." "I wish you would go with me, Frank. May be I can get along better with you." "How about your invention, Mr. Tarbox? Is it attracting attention?" "Nobody looks at it," said Jonathan, a little depressed. "The ladies turn up their noses, as if it wa'n't worth lookin' at. One old Frenchman come up and began to ask me about it, but I couldn't make head or tail of what he said. Then he offered me a pinch of snuff. I saw he meant to be polite, so I took a good dose, and 'most sneezed my head off. But about the plow; I've been thinkin' whether Lewis Napoleon would let me plow a few furrers in his garden, jest to let the French see how it works. Do you think he would?" "I hardly think he would." "You see, folks can't get much idea about it, jest lookin' at it here." "You don't have to stay by it all the time, do you?" "No." "Then suppose you take a little walk with me round the buildings." Being socially disposed, Mr. Tarbox accepted the proposal, and the two sauntered about together, Frank being continually amused by the unconsciously droll remarks of his countryman. CHAPTER XIX. FRANK ASSERTS HIS RIGHTS. "Who was that you were walking with yesterday, Frank?" asked Sharpley. "Mr. Tarbox." "What, that confounded Yankee?" ejaculated Sharpley, roughly. "What harm is there in him?" asked Frank, quietly. "He is an ignorant barbarian. Mr. Craven wouldn't like to have you associate with such a man." "I care very little what Mr. Craven would like," said Frank. "He is your step-father." "If he is, I can't help it. I am only responsible to my mother for my conduct, and she would not object to my keeping company with a countryman." "I shouldn't want to own it," sneered Sharpley. "Why not?" "This Tarbox, if that is his name, is as green as his native hills, and an ignorant boor." "I don't agree with you, Colonel Sharpley," said Frank, undaunted. "He is not well educated, but he has brains enough to have invented a plow of an improved pattern, which he is exhibiting here. He is young yet, and if he succeeds he will get rid of his awkwardness, and may in time occupy a prominent position in the community." "I don't approve of elevating the rabble," said Sharpley; "and as you are my ward, I desire you not to associate with this Tarbox." "If you had any good reason to offer, Colonel Sharpley, or if Mr. Tarbox were an improper person, I would obey; but, under the present circumstances, I must decline." "What! You dare to defy me!" exclaimed Sharpley, who was in a worse temper than usual, having lost money at cards the evening before. "I don't wish to defy you, sir, but I must beg you to be reasonable." "Do you dare insinuate that I am unreasonable?" said Sharpley, advancing as if to strike him. Frank looked calmly in his face and didn't shrink. There was something in his eye which prevented the blow from falling. Sharpley bethought himself of another way of "coming up with" his rebellious charge. "If you are going to act in this way," he said, "I shall send you home." "I don't propose to go home, Colonel Sharpley," said Frank, firmly. "Now that I am here, I shall stay through the summer." "Do you think you can compel me to keep charge of you?" "No, sir; but since it is a trouble to you, I will place myself under the charge of Mr. Tarbox, though I feel quite competent to travel alone. If you will place in his hands what funds you have of mine, this will relieve you of all trouble." "The deuce it will!" thought Sharpley, who knew that such a course would leave him absolutely helpless and penniless. He began to see that he had overshot the mark. He would risk the utter failure of all his plans if a separation should take place between them. So, though it went against his grain, he resolved to make up with Frank. Forcing a smile, therefore, he said: "Are you really anxious to leave me, Frank?" Our hero was bewildered by the unexpected change of manner. "I thought you were tired of me, sir," he said. "I am afraid I give you trouble and interfere with your plans." "Not at all. I am sorry if I have given you such an impression. The fact is, I am vexed and irritated at some news I have heard, and that made me disposed to vent my irritation on you." "I am sorry, sir, if you have had bad news. Is it anything serious?" "Not very serious," said Sharpley; "but," he added, with ready invention, "it is vexatious to hear that I have lost a thousand pounds." "Yes; that is a serious loss," said Frank, with sympathy. "It was invested, as I thought, safely; but the concern proves to be rotten, and my loss is total." "I hope it won't seriously inconvenience you, Colonel Sharpley?" "Oh, no; it is fortunately but a small part of my fortune," said Sharpley, with barefaced falsehood. "Still, it is annoying. But let it pass. To-morrow I shall feel all right. Meanwhile, if you really care to associate with this Tarbox, do so by all means. I confess he is not to my taste." "He is not a countryman of yours, sir; he reminds me of home." "Just so. By the way, I have letters for you from home." "Oh, give them to me!" said Frank, eagerly. "I am longing to hear." He eagerly opened the letters. One, a long one, crossed and recrossed, was from his mother. I will only quote one paragraph: "I need hardly tell you, my dear son, how much I miss you. The house seems very dull and lonely without you. But I am glad you are enjoying yourself amid new scenes, and look forward with great interest to hear your accounts of what you have seen. I send a great deal of love, and hope to hear from you often. "Your affectionate mother, "MARY CRAVEN. "P.S.--Mr. Craven has written a note to you, which will go by the same mail as this." The other letter, written in a masculine hand, Frank opened with some curiosity. He had not expected to hear from Mr. Craven, and wondered what he would have to say. His letter being short, will be given entire: "MY DEAR FRANK: As your mother is writing you, I cannot resist the temptation of sending a line also. We both miss you very much, but are consoled for your absence by the knowledge that you are enjoying and improving yourself in the Old World. Had circumstances been favorable, how pleasant it would have been if your mother and myself could have accompanied you. Let us hope that sometime such a plan may be carried out. Meanwhile, I feel truly happy to think that you are under the care of my friend, Colonel Sharpley, whom I know to be a gentleman every way qualified for such a responsible trust. We are hoping to receive letters from you describing your travels. I will not write more now, but subscribe myself "Your affectionate step-father, "SAMUEL CRAVEN." There was nothing to complain of in this letter. It was kind and cordial, and exhibited a strong and affectionate interest in our hero. Yet Frank read it without any special feeling of gratitude; nor was he drawn by it any nearer to the writer. He blamed himself for his coldness. "Why can't I like him?" he said to himself. "He seems very kind, and wants me to enjoy myself. I suppose he was partly the means of my coming out on this tour. Yet that doesn't make me like him." Frank could not tell why he felt so, but it was an instinctive perception of Mr. Craven's insincerity, and the falseness of his character and professions that influenced him. He folded the letters, first reading his mother's a second time, and went out, Colonel Sharpley having already departed. He bent his steps to the exhibition building, and made his way to Mr. Tarbox. "Good morning, Mr. Tarbox," he said. "How do you feel to-day?" "Pooty smart. You look as if you've heerd good news." "I have had two letters from home." "So have I." "Any news?" "Yes," said Jonathan; "the brindle cow's got a calf." Frank smiled. "That's my cow," said Mr. Tarbox, seriously; "she's a stunner for givin' milk; she gives a pailful in the mornin', and two pailfuls at night. I'm goin' to make money out of that cow." "And out of that plow, too, I hope." "I don't know," said Mr. Tarbox, shaking his head. "These ignorant furriners don't seem to care nothin' about plows. They care more about silks and laces, and sich like." "Was that all the news you got--about the cow, I mean?" "No," said Jonathan, chuckling a little, and lowering his voice; "I got a letter from her." "From her?" "Yes, from my gal." "Oh, I understand," said Frank, laughing. "How glad you must be." "Yes, sir-ee. I feel like a fly in a molasses keg--all over sweetness." "Then she hasn't forgotten you?" "I guess not. How do you think she ended her letter?" "I can't tell." "Wait a minute, and I'll read you the endin' off. Here it is: 'If you love me as I love you, No knife can cut our love in two.' "Arn't that scrumptious?" "I should think it was. I hope you'll introduce me some day, when she's Mrs. Tarbox." "Yes, I will. You must come up to the farm, and stay a week in the summer." "By that time you'll have made your fortune out of the plow." "I hope so. Where are you goin'?" "I am going to visit the French department of the exhibition." "Wal, I'll go along with you. I want to see if they've got any plow here to compare with mine. I don't believe they know enough to make anything useful." Mr. Tarbox certainly did the French injustice, but he was under the sway of prejudice, and was quite disposed to exalt the useful at the expense of the beautiful. CHAPTER XX. FRANK LEAVES PARIS. There was a letter from Mr. Craven to Sharpley, which came by the same mail as those mentioned in the preceding chapter. It contained the following paragraph: "I suppose you will travel to Switzerland with Frank. I suppose so, because in the summer it is very attractive to the tourist. As accidents are very apt to happen to careless travelers, let me request you to keep a good lookout for him, and not let him approach too near the edge of precipices, or clefts in the mountains. He might easily fall over, and I shudder, not only to think of his fate in that case, but of the grief which would overwhelm his mother and myself. I beg you will keep us apprised of his health, and should any accident happen, write at once." Sharpley read over this passage with attention. Then he folded the letter, and muttered to himself: "What a consummate hypocrite that villain Craven is! Any one, to read this letter, would suppose that he was actuated by the warmest attachment for his step-son; and all the while he is planning his death, and coolly suggesting to me an easy way of bringing it about. I am bad enough, or I would not lend myself to carry out his plans, but I'm not such a miserable hypocrite as he is. However, I've seen too much of the world to be shocked at anybody's depravity, having a fair share of wickedness myself. As to the suggestion, I must confess that it's a good one, and relieves me from a good deal of anxious thought. I've been considering how best I could get rid of the young incumbrance. It occurred to me that I could lock him up, and set some charcoal to burning in his room; but, heating the room--it's too hot already. Then, again, I thought of poison. But there's a chance of a post-mortem examination. That won't do. But Craven's plan is best. As far as I can see it will be effectual, and free from danger also. As soon as I can decently get away from Paris, I'll take the boy to Switzerland. I must stay here a week at least, especially as the exhibition is open, or it might draw suspicion upon me. When I'm rid of the boy I shall breathe freer. Then for America, and a final reckoning with Craven. With ten thousand dollars--and more, if I can extort it from him--I will set up for respectability, and develop into a substantial citizen. Good-by, then, to the gambling table. It has been my bane, but, with a fair competence, I will try to resist its fascinations." Sharpley and our hero met at the _table d'hôte_ dinner and at breakfast. For the remainder of the day Frank was left to his own devices; but for this he cared little. Either alone, or in company with Mr. Tarbox, he went about the city, often as an outside passenger on the street stages which ply from one end of Paris to the other, and in this way he came to have a very good idea of the plan of the brilliant capital. On the sixth day, while they were at dinner, Sharpley said: "Well, Frank, have you seen considerable of Paris?" "Oh, yes, sir; I am getting to know my way around pretty well." "I am sorry I have not been able to go about with you more." "That is of no consequence, sir. I have got on very well alone." "Have you written home?" "Yes, sir." "I am afraid you will be disappointed at what I am going to say." "What is it, sir?" "I have arranged for our leaving Paris to-morrow evening." "Not to go back to England?" asked Frank, hastily. "No. I propose to go to Switzerland." "I should like that," said our hero, brightening up. "I have always wanted to see Switzerland." "I didn't know but you would be sorry to leave Paris." "So I should be if I thought we were not coming back this way. We shall, sha'n't we?" "Yes." "And we shall have time to stay here a little while then?" "No doubt." "Then I can defer the rest of my sight-seeing till then. What route shall we take?" "As to that, there is a variety of routes. It doesn't matter much to me. I will leave the choice to you." "Will you?" said Frank, eagerly. "Then I will get out my map after dinner and pick it out." "Very well. You can tell me to-morrow morning." The next morning Sharpley put the question to Frank: "Well, have you decided by what route you would like to travel?" "Can't we go east to the Rhine, and go up that river to Mayence, and thence to Geneva by rail?" "Certainly, if you like. It will be quite a pleasant route." "I always thought I should like to go up the Rhine. I have been up the Hudson, which I have often heard compared to the Rhine." "There is no comparison between them," said Sharpley, who, not being an American, was not influenced by a patriotic prejudice in favor of the Hudson. "The Rhine has ruined castles and vine-clad hills, and is far more interesting." "Very likely," said Frank. "At any rate, I want to see it." "We will start to-morrow night, then. Morning will bring us across the frontier. You will be ready, of course?" "Yes, sir." The next morning Frank went to the exposition to acquaint Mr. Tarbox with his approaching departure. "Are you goin'? I'm real sorry, Frank," said the Yankee. "I shall kinder hanker arter you, boy. You seem like home. As to them chatterin', frog-eatin' furriners, I can't understand a word they say, and ef I could I wouldn't want to." "I am afraid you are prejudiced, Mr. Tarbox. I have met some very agreeable French people." "I haven't," said Mr. Tarbox. "They don't suit me. There ain't nothin' solid or substantial about 'em." "You may get acquainted with some English people. You can understand them." "I don't like 'em," said Jonathan. "They think they can whip all creation. We gave 'em a lesson, I guess, at Bunker Hill." "Let by-gones be by-gones, Mr. Tarbox; or, as Longfellow says: "'Let the dead Past bury its dead.'" "Did Longfellow write that?" "Yes." "Then he ain't so smart as I thought he was. How can anybody that's dead bury himself, I'd like to know? It's ridiculous." "I suppose it's figurative." "It ain't sense. But that aint to the point. Where-abouts in Switzerland are you goin', Frank?" "I don't know, except that we go to Geneva." "Can you write me a letter from there?" "Certainly. I will do so with pleasure, and shall be glad to hear from you." "All right. I ain't much on scribblin'. I can hold a plow better'n a pen. But I guess I can write a few pot-hooks, jest to let yer know I'm alive an' kickin'." "It's a bargain, then." "Jest give me your name on a piece of paper, so I shall know where to write." "All right. I happen to know where we are going to stop there. Mr. Sharpley mentioned that we should stop at the Hotel des Bergues. I haven't got a card with me, but I'll put the address on an old envelope." Frank took from his pocket what he supposed to be Mr. Craven's letter to him, and on the reverse side wrote: FRANK HUNTER, _Hotel des Bergues_, Geneva, Switzerland. Mr. Tarbox took it and surveyed it critically; then read it as follows: "'Frank Hunter, Hotel dese Bugs.' Wal, that's a queer name for a tavern," he said. "I s'pose that's French for bugs?" "It means that the big bugs stop there," said Frank, jocosely. "Some of the big bugs are humbugs," said Jonathan, laughing grimly at his own wit. When, after leaving Mr. Tarbox, Frank happened to examine his pockets, he drew out the two letters he had received. This puzzled him. What letter was that which he had given his Yankee friend, then? He could not tell. We are wiser. Sharpley had incautiously left on the table Craven's letter to him, and Frank had put it into his pocket, supposing it to be his. This it was which had passed into the possession of Mr. Tarbox. Three days later Mr. Tarbox discovered the letter, and curiosity made him unscrupulous. He read it through, including the paragraph already quoted. "By hokey!" he muttered. "That's queer. 'Should any accident happen, write at once.' He seems to expect an accident will happen. I'll bet that man is a snake in the grass. He's Frank's guardian, and he's got up some plot ag'in him. I always disliked that Sharpley. He's a skunk. I'll start for Switzerland to-morrow, and let the old plow go to thunder. I'm bound to look out for Frank." Mr. Tarbox was energetic. He went to his lodgings, packed his carpet-bag, and early next morning started in pursuit of Frank and Sharpley. CHAPTER XXI. THE HOTEL DU GLACIER. High up among the Bernese Alps stands the Hotel du Glacier. It is a small hotel, of limited accommodations, but during the season it is generally full of visitors. The advantage is, that a comparatively short walk carries one to a point where he has a fine view of that mountain scenery which is the glory of Switzerland, and draws thither thousands of pilgrims annually. In rustic chairs outside sat at eight o'clock in the morning our young hero, Frank Hunter, and his temporary guardian, Colonel Sharpley. In front a beautiful prospect spread out before the two travelers. Snowy peaks, their rough surface softened by distance, abounding in beetling cliffs and fearful gorges, but overlooking smiling valleys, were plainly visible. "Isn't it magnificent?" exclaimed Frank, with the enthusiasm of youth. "Yes, I dare say," said Sharpley, yawning, "but I'm not romantic; I've outlived all that." "I don't believe I shall ever outlive my admiration for such scenery as this," thought Frank. "Don't you enjoy it?" he asked. "Oh, so so; but the fact is, I came here chiefly because I thought you would like it. I've been the regular Swiss tour more than once." "You are very kind to take so much trouble on my account," said Frank. "Oh, I might as well be here as anywhere," said Sharpley. "Just at present there is nothing in particular to take up my attention. Did you order breakfast?" "Yes, Colonel Sharpley." "Go and ask if it isn't ready, will you?" Frank entered the inn, and soon returned with the information that breakfast was ready. They entered a small dining-room, where they found the simple meal awaiting them. The regular Swiss breakfast consists of coffee, bread and butter, and honey, and costs, let me add, for the gratification of my reader's curiosity, thirty cents in gold. Dinner comprises soup, three courses of meat, and a pudding or fruit, and costs from sixty cents to a dollar, according to the pretensions of the hotel. In fact, so far as hotel expenses go, two dollars a day in gold will be quite sufficient in the majority of cases. If meat is required for breakfast, that is additional. "How good the coffee is," said Frank. "I never tasted it as good in America." "They know how to make it here, but why didn't you order breakfast?" "I thought they would supply meat without an order." "I always want meat; I have got beyond my bread-and-butter days," said Sharpley, with a dash of sarcasm. "I have not," said Frank, "especially when both are so good. What are your plans for the day, Colonel Sharpley?" "I think we'll take a climb after breakfast," said Sharpley. "What do you say?" "I should like nothing better," said Frank, eagerly. "But," he added, "I am afraid you are going entirely on my account." "How well the boy has guessed it," thought Sharpley. "It is on his account I am going, but he must not know that." "Oh, no," he said; "I feel like taking a ramble among the hills. It would be stupid staying at the inn." "Then," said Frank, with satisfaction, "I shall be glad to go. Shall we take a guide?" "Not this morning," said Sharpley. "Let us have the pleasure of exploring independently. To-morrow we will arrange a long excursion with guides." "I suppose it is quite safe?" "Oh, yes, if we don't wander too far. I shall be ready in about half an hour." "I will be ready," said Frank. "And I'll smoke a cigar." Just then a gentleman came up, whose acquaintance they had made the previous day. It was a Mr. Abercrombie, an American gentleman, from Chicago, who was accompanied by his son Henry, a boy about Frank's age. "What are your plans for to-day, Mr. Sharpley?" he asked. "I hope he isn't going to thrust himself upon us," thought Sharpley, savagely, for he was impatient of anything that was likely to interfere with his wicked design. "I have none in particular," he answered. "You are not going to remain at the inn, are you? That would be dull." "Confound the man's curiosity!" muttered Sharpley, to himself. "I may wander about a little, but I shall make no excursion worth speaking of till to-morrow." "Why can't we join company?" said Mr. Abercrombie, in a friendly manner. "Our young people are well acquainted, and we can keep each other company. Enlarge your plan a little, and take a guide." "I wish the man was back in America," thought Sharpley. "Why won't he see that he's a bore?" "Really," he said, stiffly, "you must excuse me; I don't feel equal to any sort of an excursion to-day." "Then," said the other, still in a friendly way, "let your boy come with us. I will look after him, and my son will like his company." Frank heard this application, and as he had taken a fancy to Henry and his father, he hoped that Sharpley would reply favorably. He felt that he should enjoy their company better than his guardian's. Sharpley was greatly irritated, but obliged to keep within the bounds of politeness to avoid suspicion, when something had happened, as he meant something should happen before the sun set. "I hope you won't think me impolite," he said, "but I mean, by and by, to walk a little, and would like Frank's company. To-morrow I shall be very happy to join you." Nothing more could be said, of course, but Henry Abercrombie whispered to Frank: "I'm sorry we're not going to be together to-day." "So am I," answered Frank; "but we'll have a bully time to-morrow. I suppose I ought to stay with Colonel Sharpley." "He isn't any relation of yours, is he?" "Oh, no; I am only traveling in his company." "So I thought. You don't look much alike." "No; I suppose not." Half an hour passed, but the Abercrombies were still there. "Shall we go?" asked Frank. "Not, yet," said Sharpley, shortly. He did not mean to start till the other travelers were gone, lest he should be followed. For he had screwed his courage to the sticking point, and made up his mind that he would that day do the deed which he had covenanted with Mr. Craven to do. The sooner the better, he thought, for it would bring him nearer the large sum of money which he expected to realize as the price of our hero's murder. Twenty minutes afterward the Abercrombies, equipped for a mountain walk, swinging their alpenstocks, started off, accompanied by a guide. "Won't you reconsider your determination and go?" asked the father. Sharpley shook his head. "I don't feel equal to the exertion," he answered. "I hope you'll have a pleasant excursion, Henry," said Frank, looking wistfully after his young friend. "It would be pleasanter if you were going along," said Henry. "Thank you." Frank said no more, but waited till Sharpley had smoked another cigar. By this time twenty minutes had elapsed. "I think we'll go now, Frank," said Sharpley. At the welcome intimation Frank jumped up briskly. "Shall I order some lunch to be packed for us?" he asked. "No; we sha'n't need it," said Sharpley. Frank laughed. "I think I'll get some for myself," said Frank, laughing, as he added: "I've got a healthy appetite, Colonel Sharpley, and I am sure the exertion of climbing these hills will make me fearfully hungry." "I don't want to be delayed," said Sharpley, frowning. "We sha'n't be gone long enough to need lunch." "It won't take me a minute," said Frank, running into the inn. "It is strange he is so much in a hurry all at once," thought our young hero, "when he has been lounging about for an hour without appearing in the least haste." However, he did not spend much thought on Sharpley's wayward humor, which he was beginning to see was regulated by no rules. Less than five minutes afterward he appeared, provided with a tourist's lunch-box. "I've got enough for you, Colonel Sharpley," he said, "in case we stay out longer than we anticipate." The landlord closely followed him, and addressed himself to Sharpley: "Will not monsieur have a guide?" he asked. "No," said Sharpley. "My son, Baptiste, is an experienced guide, and can show monsieur and his young friend the finest prospects." "I shall need no guide," said Sharpley, impatiently. "Frank, come along." "It will only be six francs," persisted the landlord, "and Baptiste--" "I don't want Baptiste," said Sharpley, gruffly. "Plague take the man!" he muttered to himself. "He is making himself a regular nuisance." "I wish he would take a guide," thought Frank, no suspicion of the importance to himself of having one entering his mind. CHAPTER XXII. OVER THE BRINK. They started on their walk provided with alpenstocks, for just above them was the snow-line, and they could not go far without encountering ice also. The Hotel du Glacier stood thousands of feet above the sea-level, and was a favorite resort with those who enjoyed the sublimity of mountain scenery. Though Sharpley was by no means the companion he would have best liked, Frank was in high spirits, as he realized that he was really four thousand miles from home, surrounded by the famous mountains of which he had so often read. "Have you ever been up this mountain before, Colonel Sharpley?" asked Frank. "Not up this mountain. I have ascended others, however. I once crossed over Mount Cenis to Italy." "How? Did you walk?" "No. I went in a diligence." "It must have been fine. Shall we go into Italy?" "Perhaps so." "I should like it very much. I have read so much about Italy." "How I wish Ben Cameron were here!" said Frank, after a pause. He did not so much mean to say this to Sharpley, but the thought entered his mind, and he unconsciously uttered it aloud. "Who is Ben Cameron?" "He is a friend of mine at home. We were a great deal together." "Was he the boy that was with you when I first met you?" "Yes, sir." "Humph! I have no desire for his company," thought Sharpley. "Have you a glass with you, Colonel Sharpley?" asked Frank. "Yes. Would you like to use it?" "If you please." It was a small spy-glass, not powerful, but serviceable. Frank adjusted it to his eye, and looked earnestly in a certain direction. "What do you see?" asked his companion. "Wait a minute. I am not certain. Yes, it is they." "Who?" demanded Sharpley, impatiently. "The Abercrombies. They are higher up than we, over there, but not very much out of our way. Shall we join them?" asked Frank, hopefully. "Where are they? Let me see," said Sharpley, seizing the glass. He thought Frank might be mistaken, but a glance through the glass satisfied him that he was right. There was Mr. Abercrombie, toiling up a steep ascent, with his son following, the latter assisted by the guide. "Do you see them?" "Yes." "Don't you think we can overtake them?" "Perhaps we might, but I for one don't intend to try." Frank looked at him inquiringly. "Why not?" "I thought you heard me decline to join them at the hotel. I have no fancy for company to-day." "Excuse me," said Frank, politely. "I might have remembered it." "You can join them to-morrow if you feel like it," said Sharpley, emphasizing the last clause. Frank noticed the emphasis, and wondered at it a little. It seemed to imply that he might not choose to do it, and that did not seem very likely. However, possibly the emphasis was unconscious, and his mind did not dwell upon it. They were now walking along a ledge scarcely more than six feet wide, terminating in a sheer precipice. "I wonder if accidents often happen here?" suggested Frank. "Such as what?" sharply interrogated his companion. "I mean such as slipping over these cliffs." "Not often, I presume," said Sharpley. "No one who exercises common prudence need fear slipping." His heart began to beat quicker, for he saw that the moment was approaching in which his fearful work was to be done. "The dangers of the Alps are very greatly exaggerated," he said, indifferently. "It looks dangerous," said Frank. "Yes, I presume so. Suppose we approach the edge cautiously and look down." There is a fatal fascination about danger. Just as the moth hovers persistently about the flame, to which in the end he falls a victim, so we are disposed to draw near dangers at which we shudder. We like to see it for ourselves, and, shuddering, to say: "Suppose I should fall in." Our young hero was of a daring disposition. He had never been timid or nervous, inheriting his father's physical traits, not his mother's. So Sharpley's proposal struck him favorably, being an appeal to his courage. "I should like to look over," he said. As he spoke he drew near the fatal brink, not observing that his companion was not at his side, but just behind him. "Now for it!" thought Sharpley, his breath coming thick and fast. One push from behind, and Frank was over the ledge, falling--falling--falling. There was one scream of terror, and Sharpley found himself alone upon the cliff. CHAPTER XXIII. GIVING THE ALARM. There are not many men who can commit a crime of violence without an inward shudder and a thrill of horror. Sharpley was not a professional murderer. He had never before taken life. His offences against law had been many, but none had stained his soul with blood till now. He felt faint as he saw the disappearance of his young ward, sped by his own hand to a death so fearful. "It is done and can't be undone," he muttered. "He will never know what hurt him. I am glad it's over. It was a dirty job, but I had to do it. Craven forced me to this. He must pay well for it." "Shall I look over the cliff?" he asked himself. [Illustration: OVER THE LEDGE.] He advanced a step, but drew back with a shudder. "No, I can't do it," he said to himself. "It will make me dizzy. I shall run the risk of falling over myself." He retraced his steps for a few rods, and then sat down to think. It was necessary that he should concoct some plausible account of the accident, in order to avoid suspicion, though that was not likely to fall upon him. Who could dream of any motive that would impel him to such a deed? Yet there was such a motive, as he well knew, but the only one who shared the knowledge was in America, and he was criminally connected with the crime. Sharpley soon determined upon his course and his explanation. The latter would necessitate a search for the boy, and this made him pause. "But, pshaw!" he said, "the boy is dead. He must have been killed at once; and the dead tell no tales. I must get back to the hotel and give the alarm." An hour later Sharpley approached the inn. He had walked quietly till then, but now he had a part to play. He rushed into the inn in breathless haste, nearly knocking over the portly landlord, whom he encountered in the passage. "What is the matter, monsieur?" asked the landlord, with eyes distended. "The boy!" gasped Sharpley. "What of the boy, monsieur?" "He has fallen over a precipice," he exclaimed. "_Oh, ciel!_" exclaimed the landlord. "How did it happen?" "We were walking on a narrow ledge," explained Sharpley. "On one side there was a steep descent. I don't know how many hundreds of feet deep. The boy approached the edge. I warned him to be careful, but he was very rash. He did not obey me. He leaned too far, lost his balance, and fell over. I sprang forward to save him, but it was too late." "It is horrible!" said the landlord. "Was he your son?" "No, but he was the son of a dear friend. Oh, how shall I break the sad tidings to his father and mother? Is there no hope of his life being saved?" "I fear not," said the landlord, gravely. "You should have taken Baptiste with you, as I advised." "Oh, my friend, I wish I had!" said the hypocrite, fervently. "Where is Baptiste? Let us go and see if we can find the poor boy?" "Here I am at your service, monsieur," said Baptiste. "I will take a comrade with me. We will save him if we can, but I fear there is no hope." Ten minutes later Sharpley, accompanied by two guides, and some of the guests of the hotel, who had been struck with horror on hearing the news, were wending their way up the mountain in quest of our hero. CHAPTER XXIV. SHARPLEY DISSEMBLES. There was some delay about starting, but at length the party got under way. Very little conversation took place, and that little related only to the accident. The spell of the awful tragedy was upon them, and their faces were grave and their spirits depressed. And what shall we say of the guilty man, who alone could unlock the mystery?--who alone could account for the boy's tragic end? His mind was in a tumult of contradictory emotions. He was glad that it was all over--that the fearful task which in America he had agreed to execute, which had haunted him for these many days and nights, was no longer before him to do, that it was already done. He saw before him, mercenary wretch that he was, the promised reward, in a sum of money which would be to him a competence, and which, carefully husbanded, would relieve all his money anxieties for the future. But, on the other hand, there came the shuddering thought that he had wrought the death of an unoffending boy, who had looked up to him as a guide and protector, but whom he had only lured to his ruin. "Are accidents frequent among the mountains?" asked one of the guests, addressing Baptiste, the guide. "No, monsieur; not in this part. When travelers are hurt or killed, it is because they are careless or go without guides." "As I did," said Sharpley, who felt it would be polite to take upon himself this blame, and so skilfully evade suspicion of a graver fault. "You are right, and I am much to blame; but I did not expect to go so far, nor did I think Frank would be so imprudent. But it is not for me to blame the poor boy, who has been so fearfully punished for his boldness. You would not have let him go so near the edge of the cliff?" "No, monsieur; or, if he went, I would have held him while he looked down." "It is what I should have done. Oh, how horrible it was to see him fall over the cliff!" And Sharpley shuddered, a genuine shudder; for, guilty as he was, the picture was one to appall him. "Oh, how shall I tell his poor mother?" he continued, acting wonderfully well. The rest were silent, respecting what they thought to be his grief. They had, perhaps, half achieved the ascent, when they fell in with the Abercrombies, who were just returning from their excursion. They regarded the ascending party with surprise. "What!" said Mr. Abercrombie to Sharpley, "are you just going up the mountain? You are very late." "Where is Frank?" asked Henry Abercrombie, looking in vain among the party for our hero, to whom, as already said, he had taken a fancy. There was silence at first, each of those in the secret regarding the rest. But it was to Sharpley that Mr. Abercrombie looked for a reply. The delay surprised him. "What is the matter?" he asked, at length. "Has anything happened?" "Somebody tell him," said Sharpley, in pretended emotion. Baptiste was the one to respond. "Monsieur," he said, gravely, "a terrible thing has happened. The poor boy has fallen into a ravine." "What!" exclaimed father and son, in horror. "Frank fallen? Why I saw him only this morning. I asked him to go with us. Is this true?" said Henry. "It is only too true, my boy," said Sharpley, covering his face. And he repeated his version of the accident with well-counterfeited emotion. "Is there no hope?" asked Henry, with pale face. Baptiste shook his head. "I am afraid not," he said; "but I can tell better when I see the place." "How can there be any hope?" asked Mr. Abercrombie. "He might have fallen on the deep snow, or on some intermediate ledge, and so saved his life." "Good Heaven!" thought Sharpley, in dismay. "Suppose it should be so? Suppose he is alive, and should expose me? I should be ruined. But no! It cannot be. There is not one chance in a hundred. Yet that one chance disturbs me. I must find out as soon as possible, in order that my mind may be at ease." "Come on!" he said, aloud. "While we are lingering here the boy may die. Let us make haste." "I will go with you," said Mr. Abercrombie. "And I," said Henry. CHAPTER XXV. A USELESS SEARCH. "Is this the place?" asked Baptiste, as, half an hour later, they stood on the fatal cliff. "This is the place," said Sharpley. "Let me look over," said Henry, advancing to the edge. "Are you mad?" exclaimed his father, drawing him back hastily. "I will look, gentlemen," said the guide. "It will be safest for me." He threw himself flat upon his stomach, and thus in safety peeped into the chasm. "Do you see anything?" asked Sharpley, agitated. "Wait till I look earnestly," and after a breathless pause, he answered slowly: "No, I see nothing; but the cliff is not so steep or so high as I thought. There are some bushes growing in parts. He might be stopped by these." "You can't see any traces of him, can you?" Another pause. "No. The snow seems disturbed in one place, but if he had fallen there, he would be there still." "Might he not have fallen there and rolled to the bottom?" "Perhaps so. I cannot tell." "Let me look," said Sharpley. The suggestion of the possibility that Frank might have escaped was fraught to him with danger. All his hopes of safety and success depended upon the boy's death. He wanted to see for himself. The guide rose, and Sharpley, imitating his posture, threw himself on the ground and looked over, borrowing the glass. But such a sense of horror, brought on by his own criminality, overcame him as he lay there that his vision was blurred, and he came near dropping the glass. He rose, trembling. "I can see nothing of him," he said. "He is certainly dead. Poor boy! He could not possibly have escaped." "Let me look," said Abercrombie. But he also could see no trace of the body. "I think," he said, rising, "that our best course will be to descend and explore at the bottom of the cliff." "It will be of no use," said Sharpley. "We can at least find the body and give it decent burial. Baptiste, is there no way of descending?" "Yes," said Baptiste, "but we shall need to go a long distance around." "How long will it take?" "An hour; perhaps more." "I am ready to go, for one," said Mr. Abercrombie. "Will you go, Mr. Sharpley?" "I do not feel equal to the exertion. I am too agitated." Glances of pity were directed toward him. "Baptiste," said Abercrombie, "if you will guide me, and any one else who chooses to join the expedition, I will pay you double price." "Monsieur," said Baptiste, who had feelings, though not indifferent to money, "I will guide you for nothing, out of regard for the poor boy." "You are an honest fellow," said Mr. Abercrombie, grasping his hand warmly. "You shall not lose by it." "May I go, father?" asked Henry. "No, my son. The exertion will be too great for you. Go home with the rest of the party." In silence the party returned to the Hotel du Glacier. Most were appalled by the sad fate of Frank Hunter, but Sharpley was moved by another feeling. There was not much chance of Frank's being found alive, or in a condition to expose his murderous attempt, but, of course, there was a slight possibility. While that existed he felt ill at ease. He would gladly have left the place at once, but this he could not do without exciting suspicion. He must wait till the return of the party. It was not till nightfall that the party were seen returning. Sharpley waited for their report in great suspense. "Have you found him?" he demanded, pale with excitement. Baptiste shook his head. He gave a sigh of quiet relief, which was interpreted to be a sigh of sorrow. "I thought you would not," he said. The next day he left the hotel. "I must go to America," he said, "to tell Frank's mother the terrible truth. I cannot trust it to a letter." "But suppose the body is found," said Baptiste. "Bury it decently and write instantly to me, and I will transmit the necessary sum. Or, hold, here are a hundred and fifty francs. If he is not found, keep them yourself." An hour later he was on his way to Paris. CHAPTER XXVI. MR. TARBOX ON THE TRAIL. "So this is the Hotel de Bugs," said Jonathan Tarbox, as, carpet-bag in hand, he approached, with long strides, the well-known Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. "It looks like a nice sort of a hotel. I wonder if Frank and that rascally humbug are stoppin' here. I'd give twenty-five cents to see that boy's face. Strange what a fancy I've took to him. He's a reg'lar gentleman; as quick and sharp as a steel-trap." Mr. Tarbox had walked from the railway station. He was naturally economical, and, having all his life been accustomed to walk, thought it a waste and extravagance to take a carriage. He had inquired his way by simply pronouncing the name of the hotel as above. The similarity in sound was sufficient to insure a correction. He entered the hotel and found the landlord. "I say, captain, I want to put up here to-night." "Will monsieur have a room?" asked the host, politely. "If you mean me, that's what I want; but I ain't a monseer at all. I'm a Yankee." "Monsieur Yang-kee?" said the landlord, a little puzzled. "Look here, captain, I ain't a monseer--I don't eat frogs. Do I look like it. No, I'm a straight-down, dyed-in-the-wool Yankee, from Squashboro', State o' Maine." "Will you have a room?" asked the landlord, avoiding the word monsieur, which he perceived the other disclaimed, for some reason which he could not very well comprehend. "Yes, I will, if I can get one cheap. I don't want none of your big apartments, that cost like blazes. I want a little room, with a bed in it, and a chair." "We have _petits apartements_--very small price." "Give me one, then. Oh, hold on; is there a boy named Frank Hunter stoppin' here, with a man named Sharpley?" "_Non_, monsieur. He has been here, but he is gone." "Gone? When did he go?" "Three days ago." "Three days!" repeated Mr. Tarbox, thoughtfully. "He didn't stay long, then?" "Only one night." "Seems to me he was in a hurry. Isn't there nothin' worth seein' round here?" "Oh, yes, monsieur," said the landlord, with animation. "_Geneve_ is a very interesting city. Would you not like to see how they make the watches, and the boxes of _musique_? There are many places here that strangers do visit. There is the cathedral and the _Musee_. Monsieur should stay here one--two weeks." "And put up at your tavern?" "Eh?" "And stop up at your hotel?" "_Certainement_, monsieur." "That's what I thought. Anyhow, I'll stay here till to-morrow. But about this old rascal--" "Monsieur?" "I mean this Sharpley, and the boy--where did they go?" "I know not, monsieur. They went to see the mountains." "Well, captain, as mountains in this neighborhood are about as thick as huckleberry bushes in a pastur', I ain't none the wiser for that. Couldn't you tell me a little plainer?" But this the landlord, or captain, as Mr. Tarbox insisted upon calling him, was unable to do. As there was nothing else to be done, our Yankee friend selected a room on the top floor, which, by reason of its elevation, he was enabled to get for two francs a day. In European hotels the rooms become cheaper the higher up they are, and thus various prices are paid at the same hotel. It is not necessarily expensive, therefore, sojourning at a first-class hotel abroad; and, indeed, it is better than to take lower rooms in an inferior inn, supposing the traveler's means to be limited. "Well," said Mr. Tarbox, looking about him, when he was fairly installed in his room, "my journey ain't going to cost me so much, after all. I come third class to Geneva for less'n ten dollars, and I can live here pretty cheap. But that ain't the question. Where-abouts among these hills is Frank? That's what I'd like to know. I wonder what that step-father of his meant by his talk about accidents? If anything happens to Frank, and I find it out, I'll stir 'em up, as sure as my name's Jonathan Tarbox. But I'm getting hungry; I'll go down and see what kind of fodder they can give me. I guess I'd better clean up first, for I'm as dirty as ef I'd been out in the field plowin'." Mr. Tarbox made a satisfactory supper at moderate expense. He didn't go to the _table d'hôte_, for, as he said, "They bring you a mouthful of this, and a mouthful of that, and when you're through ten or eleven courses, you have to pay a dollar, more or less, and are as hungry as when you began. I'd rather order something _a la carte_, as they call it, though what it has to do with a cart is more than I can tell, and then I can get enough, and don't have so much to pay neither." Mr. Tarbox made further inquiries the next day, but could not ascertain definitely in what direction the travelers had gone. There were several possible routes, and they were as likely to have gone by one as by another. Under the circumstances it seemed to him that it was better to remain where he was. There was a chance of the two returning by way of Geneva, and they would be likely to come to the same hotel; while if he started off in one direction, it would very probably turn out that they had gone by another. One circumstance certainly favored his decision--it was cheaper remaining in Geneva than in journeying off at random in search of Frank, and Mr. Tarbox, therefore, decided to patronize the Hotel des Bergues for a short time at least, trying, meanwhile, to get some clew to the whereabouts of the travelers. He improved the time by visiting the objects of interest in Geneva, bewildering the natives by his singular remarks, and amusing strangers with whom he came in contact. Some were disposed to regard him as a specimen of the average American. Indeed, he bore a striking resemblance to the typical American introduced by our English friends in their books of travel and in their dramatic productions. He did indeed possess some national characteristics. He was independent, fearless, self-reliant, hating injustice and oppression, but he was without the polish, or culture, or refinement which are to be found in the traveling Americans quite as commonly as in the traveling Englishman or German. He is presented here as a type of a class which does exist, but not as an average American. It struck Mr. Tarbox that he might obtain some information of those whom he sought by inquiring of the travelers who came daily to the hotel, whether they had met with such a party. No diffidence held him back from questioning closely all who came. Some treated him with hauteur, and tried to abash him by impressing him with the unwarrantable liberty he was taking in intruding himself upon their notice. In general, however, these were snobs, of some wealth, but doubtful social position, who felt it necessary to assert themselves upon all occasions. But Mr. Tarbox was not one to be daunted by coldness, or abashed by a repellant manner. He persisted in his questions until he learned what he wanted. But his questions were without a satisfactory answer until one day he saw a gentleman and his son, whom by their appearance he took to be fellow-countrymen. They were, in fact, Henry Abercrombie and his father, fresh from the scene of the accident. Mr. Tarbox introduced himself and propounded his question. Father and son exchanged a look of sadness. "He means poor Frank, father," said Henry. "Poor Frank!" repeated Mr. Tarbox, eagerly. "What makes you say that?" "Were you a friend of the boy?" asked Mr. Abercrombie. "Yes, and I am still. He's a tip-top fellow, Frank is." "I am sorry, then, to be the bearer of sad tidings." "What do you mean?" asked Jonathan, quickly. "Don't say anything has happened to the boy." "But there has. He fell over a cliff, and though his body has not been found, he was probably killed instantly." "Who was with him when he fell?" asked Mr. Tarbox, excited. "His guardian, Mr. Sharpley. The two had wandered off by themselves, without a guide. Frank approached too near the edge of the cliff, lost his balance, and fell." "That confounded skunk pushed him over!" exclaimed Mr. Tarbox, in high excitement. "You don't mean Colonel Sharpley?" exclaimed Mr. Abercrombie, in surprise. "Yes, I do. I followed them from Paris, because I was afraid of it." "But it is incredible. I assure you Colonel Sharpley showed great sorrow for the accident." "Then he's a hypocrite! If you want proof of what I say, just read that letter." CHAPTER XXVII. TARBOX TO THE RESCUE. Thus invited, Mr. Abercrombie read the letter of Mr. Craven, in which he referred to the possibility of an accident befalling Frank. "What does this prove?" asked the reader, looking up. "It proves that Sharpley pushed Frank over the cliff," said Mr. Tarbox, excitedly. "I don't see that it does." "Don't you see how he speaks of what is to be done if an accident happens?" "Yes, but--" "Doesn't that show that he expects it?" "But we must establish a motive. What reason could Mr. Craven have for the murder of his step-son?" "I'll tell you, for Frank told me all about it. Frank's got money, and so has his mother, but Frank's got the most. If he dies, his property goes to his mother. His loss will kill her, for she's delicate, so Frank says, and then this Craven will step into the whole of it. Don't you see?" "There is something in that," said Mr. Abercrombie, thoughtfully. "Indeed, it would explain a part of Colonel Sharpley's conduct on the day of the accident." "What did he do?" asked Mr. Tarbox, eagerly. "I invited him to accompany my son and myself on an excursion. He refused, saying that he didn't feel like the exertion of an ascent. Then I invited Frank to accompany us, but he refused to let him go. He said he might take a short tramp, and wanted his company." "The skunk!" "Again, though urged afterward to take a guide, he refused to do so, but took a long walk--he and the boy being alone." "I'd like to wring his neck!" ejaculated Jonathan. "Besides, Frank could not have fallen unless he was very imprudent. Now, he never struck me as a rash or heedless boy." "He wasn't." "It doesn't seem at all like him voluntarily to place himself in such peril, yet Colonel Sharpley says he did." "He lies, the murderous skunk!" "It did not strike me at first, but I fear that you are right, and that the poor boy has been foully dealt with." "Isn't there any hope?" asked Mr. Tarbox, blowing his nose violently in order to get a chance to wipe away the tears which the supposed sad fate of our hero called forth. "How high was the hill?" "I fear there is no hope. We searched for the body, but did not find it." "Then he may be living," said Mr. Tarbox, brightening up. "There is hardly a chance of it, I should say," returned Mr. Abercrombie, gravely. "The descent was deep and precipitous." "Where is the villain Sharpley?" "He left the next day. He said he should hurry back to America to carry the sad news to the parents of the poor boy." "And get his pay from Craven." "I hope, Mr. Tarbox, that your suspicions are groundless. I should be very unwilling to believe in such wickedness." "I hope so, too. If it was an accident I should think it was the will of God; but if that villain has murdered him I know it ain't. I wish I could overhaul Sharpley." "What do you propose to do, Mr. Tarbox?" "I'll tell you, Mr. Abercrombie. Fust and foremost, I'm going to that place where the accident happened, and I mean to find Frank dead or alive. If he's dead, I'll try to find out if he was murdered or not. If he's alive, I'll take care of him, and he'll tell me all about it." "Mr. Tarbox," said the other, taking his hand, "I respect you for the strength of your attachment to the poor lad. I saw but little of him, but enough to be assured that he was a bold, manly boy, of a noble nature and a kind disposition. Pardon me for the offer I am about to make, but I hope you will allow me to pay the expenses of this investigation. You give your time; let me give my money, which is of less value." "Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie," said Mr. Tarbox. "You're a gentleman; but I've got a little money, and I'd just as lief use it for Frank. I'll pay my own expenses." "At any rate, I will give you my address, and if you get short of money I hope you will apply to me without fail." "I will, squire," said Jonathan. So they parted. Mr. Tarbox set out immediately for the Hotel du Glacier. CHAPTER XXVIII. SAVED AS BY A MIRACLE. But where all this while was Frank? Had he really fallen a victim to the murderous designs of his treacherous guardian? My readers have been kept too long in suspense as to his fate. At the moment of falling he was fully conscious, but too late, of his companion's treachery. In that terrible moment there flashed upon him a full knowledge of the plot of which he was a victim, and he had time to connect with it his step-father as the prime author and instigator of the deed. It was indeed a terrible experience. In the full flush of youthful life and strength the gates of death swung open before him, and he gave himself up for lost, resigning himself to his fearful fate as well as he could. But there was one thought of anguish--his mother! How would she grieve over his untimely death! And the wretch who had instigated his murder, would he stop short, content, or would he next assail her? In times of danger the mind acts quickly. All these thoughts passed through the mind of our hero as he fell, but all at once there was a violent shock. He had stopped falling, yet he was not dead, only stunned. There was a ledge part way down, a hollow filled with soft snow--making a natural bed, and it was upon this that he had fallen. Yet, soft as it was, the shock was sufficient to deprive him of consciousness. When he became sensible of surrounding objects--that is, when his consciousness returned--he looked about him in bewilderment. Where was he? Not surely on the ledge, for, looking around him, he saw the walls of a small and humble apartment, scantily provided with needful furniture. He was lying upon a bed, a poor wooden bedstead. There was another person in the room--a woman, so humbly attired that he knew she was a Swiss peasant. "Where am I?" he asked, bewildered. The woman turned quickly, and her homely, sun-browned face glowed with pleasure. "You are awake, monsieur?" she said, in the French language. I have already said that Frank was a French scholar, and could understand the language to a limited extent, as well as speak it somewhat. He understood her, and answered in French: "Yes, madame, I am awake. Will you kindly tell me where I am?" "You met with an accident, monsieur. My husband and my brother were upon the mountain, and found you on a ledge covered with snow." "I remember," said Frank, shuddering. "When was that?" "Yesterday. You have slept since then. How do you feel?" "I feel sore and bruised. Are any of my limbs broken?" He moved his arms and legs, but, to his great joy, ascertained that though sore, no bones were broken. "It was a wonderful escape," said the woman. "You must have fallen from the cliff above." "I did." "But for falling on the ledge, you would have been killed." "Yes," answered Frank, "but Heaven be thanked, I have escaped." "How did you fall?" asked the woman. "That was what my husband and my brother, Antoine, could not understand. You must have been leaning over." Frank paused. "I cannot tell you now," he answered. "Perhaps I will soon." "When you please, monsieur, but you must be hungry." "I am indeed hungry, madame. I suppose it is more than twenty-four hours since I have tasted anything." "Poor boy!" said the woman, compassionately. "I will at once get you something to eat. We are poor people, monsieur, and you may not like our plain fare." "Don't speak of it, madame. You are only too kind to me. I can eat anything." Frank had only spoken the truth. He was almost famished; and when the food was set before him, plain as it was, he ate with eager satisfaction, to the evident pleasure of his kindly hostess. But in sitting up, he realized by the soreness of his limbs and the aching of his back, that though no bones were broken, he was far from being in a condition to get up. It was with a feeling of relief that he sank back upon the bed, and with listless eyes watched the movements of his hostess. He was not equal to the exertion of forming plans for the future. CHAPTER XXIX. FRANK'S PEDESTRIAN TOUR. Although Frank was pretty well bruised by his fall, his youth and the vigor of his constitution enabled him to recover rapidly from the effects of the shock. On the third day he got up and took a short walk. On the fifth day he felt well enough to leave his hospitable entertainers. But where should he go? Should he return to the Hotel du Glacier and place himself again in the clutches of his treacherous guardian? He felt that to be out of the question. Besides, he rightly conjectured that Sharpley had already left the hotel. No, he must detach himself wholly from his enemy. He must rely upon himself. He must get home the best way he could, and then expose the conspirators, for he was convinced that Mr. Craven was involved in it. But a serious difficulty presented itself. He was about four thousand miles from home, and to return, as well as to stay where he was, required money. This led him to an examination of his finances. He never carried much money with him. Sharpley being treasurer. Opening his pocket-book, he found he had sixty francs only, or about twelve dollars in gold. Now, as my readers will readily judge, twelve dollars is hardly adequate for a return journey from Switzerland to America. Had Frank been dismayed at this situation it would hardly have created surprise, but, on the contrary, he felt in very good spirits. "I don't believe I shall starve," he said to himself. "If I can only get to Paris, I will seek out Mr. Tarbox, and I am sure he will lend me money enough to get home." But had he enough to get to Paris? Barely enough to travel third class; but then he must remember the good people who had found and taken care of him. For this alone, twelve dollars was inadequate. But he could take their names, and promise to send them more from America. His difficulty would have been far less great had he known that at that very moment Mr. Tarbox had just arrived at the Hotel du Glacier in search of him, prepared to help him to the best of his ability. But of this he knew nothing. So, on the morning of the fifth day, Frank announced to his humble friends that he must leave them. "But are you strong enough, monsieur?" asked the peasant's wife. "Oh, yes, madame; thanks to your kind care, I am quite recovered." "And monsieur will go to his friends?" "I have no friends in Europe." "What! so young and alone?" "I did not come alone. I came in charge of a man whom I thought friendly, but it was he who threw me over the cliff and nearly killed me." "Surely, monsieur is mistaken!" exclaimed the woman, astonished. "No," answered Frank. "He is my enemy. It is a long story; but at home I am rich, and I think he is employed by my step-father to kill me." In answer to questions, Frank gave a general account of the circumstances to the worthy people, and closed by saying: "When I have returned to America, I shall send you suitable compensation for your kindness. Now, I can only give you enough to pay what you have expended for me." He drew from his pocket two Napoleons (two-thirds of his available means), and insisted upon their acceptance. They at first refused to take the money, but finally accepted it. Had they known that Frank would be left with but twenty francs himself, they would have taken nothing, but Americans abroad are popularly supposed to be even richer than they are, and it never occurred to them to suspect our hero's present poverty. They stood in the doorway, watching him as he started off with a firm step, and a heart almost as light as his purse, and heartily joined in the wish, "Bon voyage, monsieur." Frank waved his hat, smiling, and set out on his way. Had our hero been well provided with money, nothing could have been more agreeable than a pedestrian journey amid the beautiful scenery of the Alps. Even as it was, Frank felt the exhilarating influences of the fresh morning air and the grand scenery, visible on all sides, for he was hemmed in by mountains. His proposed terminus being Paris, he kept a general northwesterly course, making inquiries when at all at a loss as to the road. At midday he found himself in a little village. By this time he was hungry. He did not go to a hotel. He felt that his slender store of money would not justify it. He stopped, instead, at a cottage, and for a few cents obtained a pint of milk and a small loaf. This fare was plain enough, but appetite is the best sauce, and his hunger made it taste delicious. He rested for three hours, then, when the sun's rays were less powerful, he resumed his journey. At seven o'clock in the evening he had accomplished about twenty-five miles, and was foot-sore and weary. He selected another cottage, and made application for supper and a bed. "Monsieur will do better to go to the hotel," said the peasant. "We are poor people, and our accommodations are too humble for a gentleman like monsieur." Frank smiled. He saw that they judged of his means by his clothing, which was of fine texture and fashionable cut, for he had purchased a traveling suit in London. "I have been robbed of nearly all my money," he explained (this was true, for it was in Sharpley's possession), "and I cannot afford to go to the hotel. If you will let me stay here, I will gladly accept what accommodations you have to offer." "Oh, in that case, monsieur," said the peasant's wife, cheerfully, "you are quite welcome. Come right in." Frank entered. He soon had set before him a supper of bread, milk and honey, to which he did ample justice. Then he asked permission to bathe his feet, which were sore. At nine o'clock he went to bed, and, as might have been expected, enjoyed a sound sleep, which refreshed him not a little. I have described this one day as a specimen of the manner in which Frank traveled. The charges were so small that he made his money go a long way. But the stock was so small that it steadily became less with formidable rapidity, and our young hero found himself with poverty staring him in the face. He had traveled over a hundred miles, nearly a hundred and fifty, when, on counting his money, he found that he had but forty cents (or two francs) left. This was a serious state of things. "What shall I do?" thought Frank, as he sat down by the wayside to reflect on his situation. "To-morrow I shall be penniless, and I must be six or seven hundred miles from Paris, more or less. One thing is certain, I can't travel for nothing. What shall I do?" Frank reflected that if he were in America he would seek for a job at sawing wood, or any other kind of unskilled labor for which he was competent. He could hire himself out for a month, till he could obtain money enough to prosecute his journey. But it was evident that there was very little chance of this resource here. The peasants at whose cottages he stopped were poor in money; they had none to spare, and they did their own work. Besides, it was not likely that his services would be worth much to them. There was one thing he might do. He might remain over a few days somewhere, and write meanwhile to Jonathan Tarbox, in Paris, asking him to send him fifty francs or so. But, somehow, Frank did not like to do this. As we know, it would have done no good, as Mr. Tarbox was now in Switzerland seeking him. He felt that he would like to make his way to Paris unaided if possible. But how to do it was a difficult problem. He was plunged in deep reflection on this point when his attention was called to a boy of seven, who came running past crying and sobbing. "_Qu' avez vous?_" asked Frank; or, "What is the matter with you?" "Oh, I can't understand French," said the boy. "What is the matter?" asked our hero, in English. "I am lost," was the reply. "I don't know where papa or sister is." "Don't cry. I will help you to find them. But, first, tell me what is your name, and how you happened to get lost." "My name is Herbert Grosvenor," answered the little fellow. He went on to say that his father was a London merchant, who was traveling with himself and his sister Beatrice. He had walked out in charge of a servant, but the latter had stopped at an inn and became drunk. Then he became so violent that Herbert was afraid and ran away. But he was too young to know the road, and had lost his way. "I shall never see my papa again," he sobbed. "Oh, yes, you will," said Frank, encouragingly. "I will take you to him. Do you remember where he is stopping?" The boy was luckily able to answer correctly that his father was stopping at the Hotel de la Couronne, in a large town, which Frank knew to be only two miles distant. "Come, Herbert," he said, cheerfully, "I will carry you back to your father. Take my hand, and we will set out at once, if you are not tired." "Oh, no, I am not tired. I can walk," said the little boy, brightening up, and putting his hand with confidence in that of his young protector. CHAPTER XXX. NEW FRIENDS. When Frank arrived at the hotel with his young charge he found the Grosvenor family in great dismay. The servant had returned, evidently under the influence of liquor, quite unable to give any account of the little boy. A party, headed by Mr. Grosvenor, was about starting out in search of him, when he made his appearance, clinging trustfully to the hand of our hero. "Oh, you naughty runaway!" said his sister Beatrice, a lovely girl of twelve, folding Herbert in a sisterly embrace. "How you have frightened us!" "I couldn't help it, sister," said Herbert. "What made you run away from Thomas, my boy?" asked his father. "I was afraid of him," said Herbert. "He was so strange." The cause of the strange conduct was evident enough to any one who saw the servant's present condition, for he was too stupefied even to defend himself. [Illustration: THE LITTLE RUNAWAY.] "It's a shame, father," said Beatrice. "Only think, our darling little Herbie might have been lost. I hope you will never trust him again with Thomas." "I shall not," said the father, decidedly. "Thomas has forfeited my confidence, and he must leave my service. I shall pay his passage back to London, and there he must shift for himself." "You have not thanked the young gentleman who brought him back, father," said Beatrice, in a low voice. Mr. Grosvenor turned to Frank. "Accept my warmest thanks, young gentleman," he said, "for your kindness to my little son." "It was only a trifle, sir," said our hero, modestly. "It was no trifle to us. How did you happen to meet him?" "I was resting by the road-side, when he came along, crying. I asked him what was the matter, and he told me. Then I offered to guide him to you." "And thereby relieved our deep anxiety. We were very much frightened when Thomas returned without him." "I don't wonder, sir." "You are English, I infer," said Mr. Grosvenor. "No, sir; I am an American." "You are not traveling alone--at your age?" said the merchant, in surprise. "I was not--that is, I came from America with another person, but I parted from him in Switzerland." Frank refrained from explaining under what circumstances he parted from Sharpley, partly from a natural reluctance to revive so unpleasant a subject, partly because he did not like to trouble the Grosvenors with his affairs. "It must be lonely traveling without friends," said Mr. Grosvenor. "My daughter and I would feel glad to have you join our party." "Oh, yes, papa!" said Beatrice. Frank turned towards the beautiful girl who spoke so impulsively, and he could not help feeling that it would indeed be a pleasure to travel in her society. I don't mean to represent him as in love, for at his age that would be foolish; but he had never had a sister, and it seemed to him that he would have been glad to have such a sister as Beatrice. But how could he, with less than forty sous to defray his traveling expenses, join the party of a wealthy London merchant? Had he the money that rightfully belonged to him, now in Sharpley's hands, there would have been no difficulty. "You hesitate," said Mr. Grosvenor. "Perhaps it would interfere with your plans to go with us." "No, sir; it is not that," and Frank hesitated again. It was an embarrassing moment, but he decided quickly to make the merchant acquainted with his circumstances. "If you will favor me with five minutes' private conversation," he said, "I will tell you why I hesitate." "Certainly," said Mr. Grosvenor, politely, and led the way into the hotel. The nature of Frank's explanation is, of course, anticipated by the reader. He related, as briefly as possible, the particulars of Sharpley's plot. The merchant listened with surprise. "This is certainly a singular story," he said, "and you have been treated with the blackest treachery. Do you know, or do you guess, what has become of this man?" "I don't know. I think he has started to return to America, or will do so soon." "And what are your plans?" "I mean to go to Paris. There I have a friend who I think will help me--an American with whom I became acquainted on the voyage over." "I suppose you are poorly provided with money?" "I have less than two francs left," Frank acknowledged. The merchant looked amazed. "You were actually reduced to that?" he exclaimed. "Yes, sir." "How did you expect to get to Paris?" Frank smiled. "That is what puzzled me," he owned. "I was sitting by the road-side thinking how I should accomplish it when your little boy came along." Now it was Mr. Grosvenor's turn to smile. "He solved it," he said. "Who, sir?" asked Frank. "My little boy," said Mr. Grosvenor, still smiling. "I don't understand," said our hero, puzzled. "I mean that Herbert shall act as your banker. That is, on account of your kindness to him, I propose to add you to my party, and advance you such sums as you may require." "You are very kind, sir," said Frank, relieved and grateful. "I really don't know what I should have done without some such assistance." "Then it is arranged, and you will join us at dinner, which is already ordered. I will order a room to be made ready for you." "I hope, sir, you will excuse my dress," said Frank, who, it must be confessed, might have looked neater. He had walked for several days, and was in consequence very dusty. Then again, his shirt and collar had been worn ever since his accident, and were decidedly dirty. "I am ashamed of my appearance, sir," continued our hero; "but Colonel Sharpley's treachery compelled me to travel without my trunk, and I have not even a change of linen." Mr. Grosvenor could not forbear smiling. "You are certainly in an awkward condition," he said. "I will apologize for you to Beatrice, the only lady of our party, and we will see after dinner if we cannot repair your loss." Frank used a brush diligently, and succeeded in making his outer clothes presentable; but, alas! no brush could restore the original whiteness of his dingy linen; and he flushed crimson as he entered the dining-room, and by direction of Mr. Grosvenor took a seat next to Beatrice, who looked so fresh and rosy and clean as to make the contrast even more glaring. But her cordial greeting soon put him at ease. "Papa has been telling me of that horrid man who tried to kill you," she commenced. "What a wretch he must be!" "I think he is one," said Frank; "but until the accident happened--that is, till he pushed me over the cliff--I had no idea of his design." "And he left you without any money, didn't he?" "With very little--just what I happened to have about me. I paid most of that to the peasant who found me and took care of me." "Didn't you almost starve?" "No; but my meals were very plain. I didn't dare to eat as much as I would have liked." "And I suppose that horrid man has gone off with your money?" said Beatrice, indignantly. "Yes, miss." "Her name isn't miss," said little Herbert. "It's Beatrice." "Herbert is right," said Beatrice, smiling. "I am not a young lady yet--I am only twelve." "Then," said our hero, who was fast getting to feel at home in his new surroundings, "as I am not a young gentleman yet, I suppose you will call me Frank." "I will call you Frank," said Herbert. "Then I suppose I must do so to be in fashion," said Beatrice, laughing. "I certainly don't look like a young gentleman in these dirty clothes," said our hero. "Perhaps Herbert will lend me a suit?" "I think," said Mr. Grosvenor, "we shall be able to refit you without drawing from Herbert's wardrobe." So the conversation went on, and our hero, before the dinner closed, found himself entirely at his ease in spite of his soiled clothes. CHAPTER XXXI. HOW THE NEWS WENT HOME. Frank had one source of anxiety and embarrassment connected with his recent adventure which had occupied a considerable space of his thoughts. It was this. How could he let his mother know that he was still alive without its coming to the knowledge of Mr. Craven? Convinced, as he was, that his step-father was at the bottom of the treacherous plot to which he had nearly fallen a victim, he wished him to suppose that it had succeeded in order to see what course he would pursue in consequence. His subsequent course would confirm his share in the plot or relieve him from any complicity, and Frank wanted to know, once for all, whether he was to regard his step-father as a disguised and dangerous foe or not. But he was not willing that his mother should rest long under the impression that he had perished among the Alps. In her delicate state of health he feared that it would prove too much for her, and that it might bring on a fit of sickness. He wished, therefore, in some way, to communicate to her secretly the knowledge that he had escaped. But if he wrote Mr. Craven would see the letter or know that one had been received. Evidently, therefore, he could not write directly to her. After some perplexity, he saw a way out of the difficulty. He had recently received a letter from his old friend and school companion, Ben Cameron, stating that the latter had gone to Wakefield, ten miles distant, to spend two months with an uncle, and asking Frank to direct his next letter there. It flashed upon our hero that he could write to Ben, giving him an account of what had happened, and asking him to acquaint his mother secretly, saying nothing of this letter in case he should hear that he, Frank, was dead. The day after he joined the Grosvenor party he carried out this plan, writing a long letter to Ben, which terminated as follows: "I feel sure that Mr. Craven is at the bottom of this attempt upon my life, and I think that his plan is to get possession of my money. He knows that mother's health would be very much affected by the news of any fatal accident to me, and that she would easily be induced to put all business into his hands. He would find it very easy to cheat a woman. You may ask why Colonel Sharpley should be induced to join in such a plot. That I can't tell, but I think he is not very rich, and that Mr. Craven has offered to divide with him in case they succeed. Otherwise, I can think of no motive he could have for attempting to kill me. We have always been on good terms so far as I know. "I may be wrong in all this, but I don't think I am. I suppose Colonel Sharpley has written home that I am dead, and I think that he will soon go to America to receive his pay for the deed. Now, Ben, as you are my friend, I want you to manage to see my mother privately, and tell her that I am well--perfectly well--that I have escaped almost by a miracle, and that though without money, I have found friends who will supply all my needs and give me money to return to America. She is not to let anybody know that she has heard from me, but to wait till I come home, as I shall soon. Especially if Mr. Craven tries to get hold of my property, tell mother to resist and refuse utterly to allow it. I advise her also to take care how she trusts Mr. Craven with her own money. "I shall not write you again, Ben, for fear my letters might be seen. But some day I shall come home unexpectedly. Let mother see this letter and then destroy it. "Your affectionate friend, "FRANK HUNTER." It was fortunate that Frank wrote this letter; but we must precede it, and, after a long interval, look in upon the home he had left. One day Mr. Craven took from the village post-office a letter. He opened it eagerly, and, as he read it, his face showed the gratification which he felt. But lest this should be noticed, he immediately smoothed his face and assumed a look of grave and hypocritical sadness. This was the letter: "DEAR MR CRAVEN:--It is with great sorrow that I sit down to write you this letter. I would, if I could, commit to another hand the task of communicating the terrible news which I have to impart. Not to keep you longer in suspense, your step-son, Frank Hunter, met with a fatal accident yesterday, while ascending the Alps with me. He approached too near the edge of a precipice, though I warned him of his danger, and insisted on looking over. Whether he became dizzy or slipped I cannot explain, but, to my horror, a moment later I saw the unfortunate boy slip over the edge and fall into the terrible abyss. I sprang forward, hoping to catch him, but was too late. I nearly fell over myself in the vain attempt to save him. I almost wish I had done so; for, though the act was the result of his own imprudence, I cannot help feeling responsible. I ought to have exercised my authority and forcibly restrained him from drawing near the fatal brink. Yet I did not like to be too strict with a boy of his age; I feared he would dislike me. But I wish I had run that risk. Anything would have been better than to feel that I might have saved him and neglected to do it. "I sympathize deeply with you and his mother in your sorrow at this bereavement. I shall sail for America in two or three weeks, in order to give Mrs. Craven and yourself a detailed account of this calamity. I will bring home what things I have of Frank's, thinking that it may be a sad satisfaction to his mother to have them. "I cannot write further. I have a terrible head-ache, and am completely used up by the sad scene through which I have passed. "Yours truly, "SHARPLEY." Mr. Craven took out this letter and read it a second time on his way home. "That's a good letter," he said to himself, sardonically, "so full of sympathy, regret, and that sort of thing. I couldn't have done it better myself, and I have rather a talent for such things. Egad! Sharpley has surpassed himself. I didn't give the fellow credit for so much hypocrisy. So he's coming to America to give us a detailed account of this calamity, is he? I know why he's coming. It's to get pay for his share of the plot. Well, if all goes well, I can afford to pay him well, though I really think his price was too high. Now that the young one is out of the way, I must manage his mother, so as to get his property into my hands. Forty thousand dollars! It will relieve me from all money cares for the rest of my life." As Mr. Craven approached the house, his face assumed a grave and sorrowful expression. He was preparing to inflict a crushing blow upon the devoted mother, who was even then counting the days to the probable return of her beloved boy. Entering the house, he met Katy in the hall. "Is your mistress in?" he asked. "Yes, sir; she's up stairs. Have you heard from Frank, sir?" "Yes, Katy," he answered in a significantly doleful tone. "Is anything the matter of him, sir?" asked Katy, taking the hint. "Oh, Katy, I've heard bad news," said Mr. Craven, pulling out his white handkerchief, and elaborately wiping his eyes. "Bad news! What is it, sir?" demanded Katy. "I can't tell it," wailed Mr. Craven. "Spit it out like a man!" exclaimed Katy, impatiently. "Is the dear boy sick?" "Worse." "He ain't dead!" ejaculated Katy, horror-struck. "Yes, he is; he fell over a precipice in the Alps, and was instantly killed." "What's a precipice, sir?" "He was on a steep hill and he slipped over the edge." Katy uttered a loud shriek, and sank on the lower stair, and throwing her apron over her face, began to utter what can only be designated as howls of grief. Mrs. Craven from above was drawn to the head of the landing by what she heard. "What's the matter?" she asked, in affright. "Oh! it's Master Frank, mum. He's kilt dead, he is!" "Is this true?" ejaculated Mrs. Craven, looking toward her husband with pale face. "Yes, my dear." There was a low shriek, and the poor mother sank to the floor in a dead faint. CHAPTER XXXII. BEN BRINGS GOOD NEWS. The news of Frank's death--or supposed death--was a terrible shock to Mrs. Craven. She was of a nervous organization, and her attachment to her son was the greater because he was her only child. She felt that after his death she would have nothing left worth living for. All her future plans and prospects of happiness were connected with him. Her husband, as we know, was nothing to her. She had married him partly because she thought he might be useful to Frank. "I wish I could die, Katy," she wailed, addressing her faithful attendant. In this hour of her affliction, Katy was nearer to her than Mr. Craven. "Don't say that, missis," said Katy, sobbing herself the while. "What have I to live for, now that my poor boy is dead?" And she indulged in a fresh outburst of grief. "My heart is broken, Katy." "So is mine, mum--broke right in two!" answered Katy, sympathetically. "To think that my poor boy should have met with such a terrible death." "He never knew what hurt him, mum. That's one comfort." "But I shall never see him again, Katy," said the poor mother, sobbing. "Yes, you will, mum--in heaven." "Then I hope I shall go there soon. Oh, I wish I had never let him go." "So do I, mum. He was so bright when he went away, poor lad. He little thought what was coming." It was a comfort to Mrs. Craven in her distress to speak to Katy, whose devotion she knew. To Mr. Craven she did not feel like speaking much. She knew that Frank had never liked him, and this closed her lips. She even, poor woman, accused herself for marrying again, since, had she not done so, Frank would not have gone abroad, and would still be spared to her. Mr. Craven wisely kept out of the way for a time. He wanted to introduce business matters, and so carry out the concluding portion of his arrangement, but he felt that it would be impolitic to do it at once. Mrs. Craven was in no frame of mind to give attention to such things. He could wait, though it was irksome to do so. Several days passed. Mrs. Craven's sharp sorrow had given way to a dull feeling of utter despondency. She kept to her room the greater part of the time, looking as if she had just emerged from a lengthened sickness. Mr. Craven wandered about the village, suppressing his good spirits with difficulty when he was at home, and assuming an expression of sympathetic sadness. But, when by himself, he would rub his hands and congratulate himself on the near accomplishment of his plans. One day, when matters were in this state of depression, Ben Cameron knocked at the door. He had received Frank's letter, and had come over at once to deliver his message. The door was opened by Katy, who knew Ben well as the most intimate friend of our hero. "Oh, Ben, we've had bad news," said Katy, wiping her eyes. "Yes, I've heard it," said Ben. "How is Mrs. Craven?" "Poor lady! she's struck down wid grief. It's killin' her. She doted on that boy." "Can I see her?" asked Ben. "She don't feel like seein' anybody." "I think she'll see me, because I was Frank's friend." "May be she will. She know'd you was always intimate friends." "Is Mr. Craven at home?" "No. Did you want to see him?" "No. I wanted to see Mrs. Craven alone." "You don't like him no better'n I do," said Katy. "I hate him!" exclaimed Ben, energetically, bearing in mind Frank's suspicions that Mr. Craven was concerned in the attack upon him. "Good on your head!" said Katy, whose manners and education did not preclude her making occasional use of the slang of the day. "I'll go up and see if my missis will see you." She returned almost immediately. "Come right up," she said. "She'll be glad to see Frank's friend." When Ben entered the room where Mrs. Craven, pale and wasted, sat in a rocking-chair, she burst into tears. The sight of Ben brought her boy more vividly to mind. "How do you do, Mrs. Craven?" said Ben. "My heart is broken, Benjamin," she answered, sadly. "You have heard of my poor boy's death?" "Yes, I have heard of it." "You were his friend. You know how good he was." "Yes, Frank is the best fellow I know," said Ben, warmly. "You say is. Alas! you forget that he is no more." Katy had descended to the kitchen. Ben looked cautiously around him. "Mrs. Craven," he said, "can you keep a secret?" She looked surprised. "Yes," she answered, faintly. "I am going to tell you something which must be kept secret for awhile. Can you bear good news? Frank is alive!" "Alive!" exclaimed the mother, jumping from her chair, and fixing her eyes imploringly, almost incredulously, on her visitor. "Yes. Don't be agitated, Mrs. Craven. I have received a letter from him." "Is it true? Oh, tell me quickly. Didn't he fall over the precipice?" "Yes, he fell, but it was on a soft spot, and he was saved." "Heaven be praised! Bless you for bringing such news. Tell me all about it." Ben told the story in a few words, and then showed the letter. How it eased and comforted the poor mother's heart I need not say. She felt as if life had been restored to her once more. "You see, Mrs. Craven, that there is need of silence and secrecy. We cannot tell whether Frank's suspicions have any foundation or not. We must wait and see." "Do you think Mr. Craven could have had anything to do with the wicked plot?" exclaimed Mrs. Craven, indignantly. "Frank thinks so." "I will tax him with it. If he framed such a plot he shall answer for it." "Hush, Mrs. Craven. Remember Frank's wish. It will defeat his plans." "It is true. I forgot. But how can I live in the same house with a man who sought the life of my poor boy?" "We are not sure of it." "Do not fear. I will do as my boy wishes. But I may tell him that I do not think he is dead?" "Yes, if you give no reason." "And I should like to tell Katy. She, poor girl, loves Frank almost as much as I do." "Do you think Katy can keep it secret?" "Yes, if I ask her to, and tell her it is Frank's wish." "Then I think you can venture. I will take the letter and destroy it, as Frank wanted me to." "Don't destroy it. You can keep it where no one will see it." When Ben went out he told Katy that her mistress wished to see her. She went up, and to her surprise found that Mrs. Craven had thrown open the blind of the hitherto darkened chamber, and actually received her with a smile. Katy looked bewildered. "Come here, Katy," said her mistress. Then she whispered in Katy's ear, "Katy, he's alive!" "What!" exclaimed the handmaiden, incredulously. "Yes, it's true. He's written to Ben. But you must keep it secret. Sit down, and I'll tell you all about it." "Oh, the ould villain!" was Katy's comment upon the story. "I'd like to wring his neck," meaning Mr. Craven's. "You must be careful, Katy. He isn't to know we've heard anything." "But he'll guess from your lavin' off mournin'." "I'll tell him I have dreamed that my boy escaped." "That'll do, mum. When will Master Frank be comin' home?" "Soon, I hope, but now I can wait patiently since Heaven has spared him to me." When Mr. Craven returned home at the close of the afternoon, he was astonished to hear Katy singing at her work, and to find Mrs. Craven dressed and down stairs, quite self-controlled, though grave. In the morning she was in the depths of despondency, and Katy was gloomy and sad. "What's up?" he thought. "My dear," he said, "I am glad that you are bearing your affliction better. It is a terrible loss, but we should be resigned to the will of the Almighty." "I don't think Frank is dead," answered Mrs. Craven. "Not think he is dead? I wish there were any chance of your being right, but I cannot encourage you in such a delusion. There is, unhappily, no chance of the poor boy surviving such a fearful accident." "You may call it foolish, if you will, Mr. Craven, but I have a presentiment that he is alive." "But, my dear, it is impossible." "Katy thinks so, too." Mr. Craven shrugged his shoulders. "I wish it were true, but there is no hope. You saw my friend's letter?" "Yes." "He said there was no hope." "He thought so. I am firmly convinced that Frank is alive." Mr. Craven tried to undermine her confidence, but, of course, without avail. He was troubled, for if she continued to cherish this belief she would not take possession of Frank's fortune, and thus he would be cut off from it. CHAPTER XXXIII. ALPINE EXPLORATIONS OF MR. TARBOX. Arrived at the Hotel du Glacier, Mr. Tarbox immediately instituted inquiries about the fate of Frank, and soon learned all that was known by the people at the inn. Being a decidedly straightforward person, he did not fail to insinuate, or rather to make direct charges, against Sharpley, but these found no credence. Sharpley's hypocritical sorrow, and his plausible explanation, had imposed upon them, and they informed Mr. Tarbox that Colonel Sharpley was an excellent gentleman, and was deeply affected by the accident which had befallen Monsieur Frank. "Deeply affected--in a horn!" returned the disgusted Jonathan. "In a horn!" repeated the landlord, with a perplexed expression. "What is it to be deeply affected in a horn?" "Over the left, then," amended Mr. Tarbox, impatiently. "I do not understand over the left," said the other. "Look here, my friend. Where was you raised?" demanded Mr. Tarbox. "Raised?" "Yes; brought up--born." "I was born here, among these mountains, monsieur." "Did you ever go to school?" "To school--_a l'cole? Certainement._ I am not one ignorant person," said the landlord, beginning to get angry. "And you never learned 'in a horn,' or 'over the left?'" "_Non_, monsieur." "Then," said Mr. Tarbox, "it is high time the schools in Switzerland were reorganized. I should like to speak to your school committee." "School committee?" "Yes. You have a school committee, haven't you?" "_Non_, monsieur." "That accounts for it. You need a smart school committee to see that the right things are taught in your schools. But about Frank--has his body been found?" "_Non_, monsieur." "Not been found! Why not?" "We have looked for it, but we cannot find it." "Poor boy!" said Mr. Tarbox, wiping away a tear. "So he has been left all the time lying dead in some hole in the mountains." "We have looked for him." "Then you didn't look sharp. I'll look for him myself, and when I've found the poor boy I'll give him decent burial. I'd rather bury that skunk Sharpley a darned sight. I'd bury him with pleasure, and I wouldn't grudge the expense of the coffin. Now tell me where the poor boy fell." "My son Baptiste shall go and show monsieur the way." "All right. It don't make any difference to me if he is a Baptist. I'm a Methodist myself, and there ain't much difference, I guess. So just tell the Baptist to hurry up and we'll set out. What's his name?" "My son's name?" "Yes." "Did I not say it was Baptiste?" "Oh, that's his name, is it? I thought it was his religion. Funny name, ain't it? But that makes no difference." Baptiste was soon ready, and the two set out together. The guide found it rather difficult to follow Mr. Tarbox in his eccentric remarks, but they got on very well together, and after a time stood on the fatal ledge. "Here it was the poor boy fell off," said Baptiste. "I don't believe it," said Mr. Tarbox. "The boy wasn't a fool, and he couldn't have fell unless he was--it was that skunk, Sharpley, that pushed him off." "Monsieur Sharpley was deeply grieved. How could he push him off?" It will be remembered that Sharpley left a sum of money in the hands of the guide to defray the burial expenses in case Frank's body was found. This naturally made an impression in his favor on Baptiste's mind, particularly as the money had not been required, and the probability was that he would be free to convert it to his own use. Accordingly, both he and his father were ready to defend the absent Sharpley against the accusations of Mr. Tarbox. "How could he push him off? Jest as easy as winking," replied Jonathan. "Jest as easy as I could push you off," and Mr. Tarbox placed his hand on the guide's shoulder. Baptiste jumped back in affright. "Why, you didn't think I was goin' to do it, you jackass!" said the Yankee. "You're scared before you're hurt. I only wanted to show you how it could be done. Now, jest hold on to my coat-tail while I look over." "Monsieur had better lie down and look over. It is more safe." "I don't know but you're right, Baptiste," and Mr. Tarbox proceeded to follow his advice. "It's a pesky ways to fall," he said, after a pause. "Poor Frank! it don't seem as if there was much chance of his bein' alive." "No, monsieur. He is doubtless dead!" "Then, where is his body? It is strange that it is not found." "Yes, it is strange." "I mean to look for it myself. Is there any way to get down here?" "Yes, but it is a long way." "Never mind that. We will try it. I've got a good pair of legs, and I can hold out if you can." "Very well, monsieur." They accordingly descended and explored the chasm beneath, climbing part way up, looking everywhere for the remains of our hero, but, as we know, there was a very good reason why they were not found. Frank was, at that very moment, eating a hearty breakfast with his friends, the Grosvenors, in Coblentz, preparatory to crossing the river and ascending the heights of Ehrenbreitstein. He little dreamed that his Yankee friend was at that moment looking for his body. Had Mr. Tarbox been able to see the said body, he would have been relieved from all apprehensions. After continuing his search for the greater part of a day, Mr. Tarbox was obliged to give it up. Though possessed of a considerable share of physical strength, obtained by working on his father's farm from the age of ten, he was obliged to own that he was about "tuckered out." He was surprised to find that the guide appeared comparatively fresh. "Ain't you tired, Baptiste?" he asked. "_Non_, monsieur." "Well, that's strange. You're a little feller, compared with me. I could swaller you almost, and I'm as tired as a dog--clean tuckered out." "I was born among these mountains, monsieur. I have always been accustomed to climbing among them; and that is the reason." "I guess you're right, Baptiste. I don't think I shall take up the business of an Alpine guide jest yet. What sort of plows do you have in Switzerland, Baptiste?" "I will show monsieur when we go back." "All right. You see, Baptiste, I've invented a plow that goes ahead of all your old-fashioned concerns, and I'd like to introduce it into Switzerland." "You can speak to my father, monsieur, I have nothing to do with the plowing." Mr. Tarbox did speak to the landlord, after first expressing his disgust at the manner in which agricultural operations were carried on in Switzerland; but he soon found that the Swiss mind is not one that yearns for new inventions, and that the prospect of selling his patent in Switzerland for a good round sum was very small. As he had failed in his search for Frank, and as there seemed no business inducements for remaining, he decided to leave the Hotel du Glacier and return at once to Paris. He did so with a heavy heart, for he really felt attached to Frank, and was grieved by his unhappy fate. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE PLOW IS A SUCCESS. The Grosvenors traveled in a leisurely manner, stopping at places of interest on the way, so that they did not reach Paris for a fortnight. Mr. Tarbox had been back over a week before Frank arrived at the Hotel du Louvre. Our hero had by this time got very well acquainted with his party, and the favorable impression which he at first made was considerably strengthened. Little Herbert took a great fancy to him, and Frank allowed the little boy to accompany him in many of his walks. Frequently, also, Beatrice was of the party. She, too, was much pleased with our hero, and treated him in a frank, sisterly way, which Frank found agreeable. Mr. Grosvenor noticed the intimacy established between his children and Frank, but he saw that our hero was well brought up, and very polite and gentlemanly, and therefore was not displeased by it. In fact he was gratified, for he saw that it added considerably to the pleasure which they derived from the journey. On the morning after their arrival in Paris Frank prepared to go out. "Where are you going, Frank?" asked little Herbert. Beatrice also looked up, inquiringly. "To see a friend of mine, Herbert." "What is his name?" "It seems to me that you are inquisitive, Herbert," said his father. "Oh, it is no secret," said Frank, laughing. "It is Jonathan Tarbox, of Squashboro', State o' Maine." "What a funny name!" "Yes, it is a queer name, and its owner is a little queer, also, but he is a good fellow for all that. He is a genuine specimen of the Yankee, Mr. Grosvenor." "I should like to see him," said Mr. Grosvenor, smiling. "Invite him to call." "I will, sir, thank you. Though he is unpolished, I believe you will find that he has something in him." Mr. Tarbox was back in his place in the exposition building. He had not ceased to mourn for Frank. Still he felt in better spirits than usual, for he had had an interview with a wealthy American capitalist, who had looked into the merits of his plow, and half-promised that he would pay him ten thousand dollars for a half ownership of the patent. This would make Mr. Tarbox a man of great wealth in his native place (Squashboro', State o' Maine), and enable him to triumph over his friends and relations, who had thought him a fool for going to the expense of a trip to Europe, when he might have invested the same sum in a small farm at home. He was busily engaged in thinking over his prospects, when he was startled by a familiar voice. "How do you do, Mr. Tarbox?" said Frank, saluting him. "What!" gasped Mr. Tarbox, fixing his eyes upon our hero in a strange mixture of incredulity, wonder, bewilderment and joy. "Why, Mr. Tarbox, you don't seem glad to see me," said Frank. "You haven't forgotten me, have you?" "Are you alive?" asked Mr. Tarbox, cautiously, eying him askance. "Alive? I rather think I am. Just give me your hand." The Yankee mechanically extended his hand, and Frank gave him a grip which convinced him that he was flesh and blood. "But I thought you were dead!" "You see I am not." "I saw the cliff where you tumbled off, and broke your neck." "I got it mended again," said Frank, laughing. "But you say you saw the cliff. Have you been to Switzerland?" "Yes. I mistrusted something was goin' to happen to you." "How could you mistrust? What led to your suspicions?" "A letter that your step-father wrote to that skunk, Sharpley, in which he talks about your meeting with an accident." "But," inquired Frank, in surprise, "how did you get hold of such a letter? I knew nothing about it." "You left it here one day by accident." "Where is it? Let me read it." "First, let me ask you a question. Didn't that skunk push you off the cliff?" "Yes," said Frank, gravely. "And how did you escape?" "Some peasants found me on a snow-covered ledge on which I had fallen. They took me home, and nursed me till I was well enough to travel." "Are you with that skunk now?" "No; I never would travel with him again," said Frank, shuddering. "Where is he?" "I don't know. But let me have the letter." He read in silence the paragraph which has been quoted in an earlier chapter. When he had finished he looked up. "I am afraid," he said, gravely, "there is no doubt that Mr. Craven employed Colonel Sharpley to make away with me." "Then he is a skunk, too!" "Mr. Tarbox, I would not mind it so much but for one thing." "What is that, Frank?" "He is married to my mother. If he lays this plot for me, what will he do against her?" "He will try to get hold of her money." "I fear so, and if she resists I am afraid he will try to injure her." "May be you're right, Frank." "I think I ought to go home at once; don't you think so?" "I don't know but you're right, Frank. I'm almost ready to go too." "Oh, I forgot to ask you what luck you had met with." "I expect I'll do first-rate. There's a gentleman that's talkin' of buyin' one-half my plow for ten thousand dollars." "I congratulate you, Mr. Tarbox," said Frank, heartily; "I hope he'll do it." "I guess he won't back out. He's been inquirin' about it pretty close. He thinks it's a big thing." "I've no doubt he's right, Mr. Tarbox." "It'll take the shine off all the plows that's goin'." "Perhaps business will detain you, then, Mr. Tarbox." "No, Mr. Peterson--that's his name--is goin' back to America in a week or two, and if he strikes a bargain I'll go too. Won't dad open his eyes when his son comes home with ten thousand dollars in his pocket? May be he won't think me quite such a fool as he thought when I started off for Europe, and wouldn't buy a farm, as he wanted me to, with that money I got as a legacy." "But you will have half your patent also." "Of course I will, and if that don't bring me in a fortun' it's because folks can't tell a good plow when they see it. But there's one thing I can't understand, Frank." "What's that?" "Where did you get all your money to travel after you got pitched over the precipice by that skunk?" "Oh, I didn't tell you that. Well, after I was able to travel I examined my purse, and found I had only twelve dollars." "That wa'n't much." "No, particularly as I had to pay ten dollars to the good people who picked me up. I shall send them more as soon as I have it." "Jest draw on me, Frank. I ain't rich, but ef you want a hundred dollars or more, jest say so." "Thank you, Mr. Tarbox," said Frank, gratefully. "I wouldn't hesitate to accept your very kind offer, but I do not now need it." He then proceeded to explain his meeting with the Grosvenors just when he stood in most need of assistance. He dwelt upon the kindness they had shown him, and the pleasure he had experienced in their society. "I'm glad you've been so lucky. Grosvenor is a brick, but it ain't surprisin' he should take a fancy to you." "I suppose that is a compliment, Mr. Tarbox," said Frank, smiling. "Perhaps it is. I don't know much about compliments, but I know I felt awful bad when I thought you was dead. I wanted to thrash that skunk within an inch of his life." "I guess you could do it," said Frank, surveying the athletic form of his Yankee friend. "I'll do it now if I ever come across him. Where do you think he is?" "I think he has gone to America to ask pay for disposing of me." "I guess so, too. They told me at that Hotel du Glacier (the last word Mr. Tarbox pronounced in two syllables) that he was goin' home to break the news to your folks. I guess your step-father won't break his heart badly." "I must follow him," said Frank. "I shall feel uneasy till I reach home and unmask their villany." "I hope we'll go together." "I'll let you know, Mr. Tarbox, when I take passage. Then, if your business is concluded, we will be fellow-passengers once more." CHAPTER XXXV. MR. CRAVEN MEETS WITH UNEXPECTED DIFFICULTIES. Mrs. Craven was placed in a difficult position. At the special request of Frank, as conveyed in his letter, she had agreed to keep secret her knowledge of his safety. Of course, she could no longer indulge in her sorrow, which at first overwhelmed her. Her only course was to affirm her belief in his deliverance, though she was not at liberty to name the grounds upon which her belief was based. This must necessarily seem strange, as a "presentiment" was a very slender reason for the change in her manner. Had she been willing to play a part, Mrs. Craven might still have counterfeited grief, but this, again, was not in accordance with her nature. She preferred to be misunderstood, and to excite surprise in those who were ignorant of the facts. But this was not her only perplexity. There was the haunting suspicion that the man whom, unhappily for herself, she called husband, had instigated the wicked plot against the life of her only son. Frank believed it. It might not be true; yet, while there was a possibility of its truth, how could she continue to treat him with her usual courtesy? She sought to do it, but she could not. Though studiously polite, her manner became very cold--almost repellent. When Mr. Craven approached her she could hardly avoid shuddering. Of course, this change became perceptible to him, and he was puzzled and disturbed. It upset all his calculations. He thought she would accept the fact of Frank's death--of which, by the way, he had no doubt himself--and would be so overcome by sorrow that he could readily obtain her consent to those business steps which would place the entire control of Frank's fortune in his hands. Yet here she was, declining to believe that he was dead, and evidently her confidence in him was, for some reason, chilled and impaired. Mr. Craven was impatient to broach the subject, and finding his wife's manner still the same, and with no prospect of alteration, he devised a plausible mode of approaching the subject which was so near his heart. One evening, after the supper dishes were removed, just as Mrs. Craven was leaving the room, he called her back. "My dear," he said, "will you sit down a few minutes? I have a few words to say to you." She complied with his request. "Ahem!" he commenced. "I have taken a step to-day of which I wish to apprize you." "Indeed." "Yes, my dear. Sensible of the uncertainty of life, I have to-day made my will." "Indeed!" she said again, exhibiting no particular interest in Mr. Craven's communication. "You do not ask me in what way I have left my money!" "I do not suppose it concerns me." "But it does, materially. I have no near relatives--at least, none that I care for. I have bequeathed all my property to you." As Mr. Craven possessed nothing whatever apart from the money which his wife permitted him to control, this magnanimous liberality did not require any great self-denial or evince any special affection on his part. However, his wife did not know that, and upon her ignorance he relied. He expected her to thank him, but her manner continued cold. "I am obliged to you for your intention," she said, "but I am not likely to survive you." "We cannot tell, my dear. Should you live to be my widow, I should wish you to inherit all I left behind me." "Thank you, but I should prefer that you would leave all you possess to the relatives you refer to." "I have none that I care for." "I suppose we must sometimes leave property to those we do not particularly like." Mr. Craven was very much disappointed by the coldness with which his liberality was received. He wanted to suggest that his wife should follow his example and leave him her fortune, increased as it was by Frank's, of which she was the legal heir. But this proposal was not so easy to make. Nevertheless, he determined, at any rate, to try for the control of Frank's estate. "There's but one thing more I want to mention," he said. "But first let me say, that my will must stand without alteration. Of course, you can make such disposition of my property as you like when it falls to you, but to you it must go. Now, for the other matter. I beg you will excuse me from saying anything to grieve you, but it must be said. It is necessary for us to take some measures about poor Frank's property." "Why is it necessary?" "Since he is dead--" "But he is not dead," said Mrs. Craven, quickly. "Not dead? Have we not Colonel Sharpley's testimony? He saw the poor boy fall over the cliff." Mr. Craven drew out his handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes, but his wife displayed no emotion. "Then I don't believe Colonel Sharpley," said Mrs. Craven. "Don't believe him!" exclaimed Mr. Craven. "What possible motive can he have for stating what is not true?" "It may be that Frank fell, but that would not necessarily kill him." Still she shuddered, as fancy conjured up the terrible scene. Mr. Craven shook his head. "My dear," he said, "I regret to destroy your hopes. If such a fancy could be indulged without interfering with what ought to be done, I would say nothing to disturb your dream, wild and improbable as it is. But Frank left property. The law requires that it should be legally administered." "Let it accumulate till my boy returns." "That would be foolish and idle. The poor boy will never need it more;" and again Mr. Craven buried his emotion in the depth of his handkerchief. "His bright and promising career is over for this world. He has gone where worldly riches will never benefit him more." But for her private knowledge of Frank's safety, Mrs. Craven would have been moved by his pathetic reference; but, as it was, she stood it without manifesting any emotion, thus plunging her husband into deeper and more angry bewilderment. "As I said before," returned his wife, "I firmly believe that Frank is still alive." "What proof--what reason can you offer?" demanded Mr. Craven, impatiently. "None, except my fixed conviction." "Based upon nothing at all, and contradicted by the most convincing testimony of eye-witnesses." "That is your view." "It is the view of common sense." "There is no need of doing anything about the property at present, is there? I am the legal heir, am I not?" "Ahem! Yes." "Then it is for me to say what shall be done. I am in no hurry to assume possession of my boy's fortune." Mr. Craven bit his lip. Here was an impracticable woman. Apparently, nothing could be done with her--at least as long as she shared this delusion. "I shall soon be able to convince you," he said, "that you are laboring under a happy but an untenable delusion. I expect Colonel Sharpley in the next steamer." Mrs. Craven looked up now. "Is he coming here?" she asked. "Yes; so he writes. He wishes to tell you all about the accident--how it happened, and some details of poor Frank's last experiences in Europe. He felt that it would be a satisfaction to you to hear them from his own lips. He has, therefore, made this journey expressly on your account." Mrs. Craven looked upon Sharpley as the murderer of her boy. It was his hand, she believed, that thrust him from the cliff and meant to compass his death. Could she receive such a man as a guest? "Mr. Craven," she said, abruptly, "if Colonel Sharpley comes here, I have one request to make." "What is it, my dear?" "That you do not invite him to stay in this house." "Why, my dear? I thought you would like to see the last companion of poor Frank," returned Mr. Craven, surprised. "I cannot bear the sight of that man. But for him, Frank would not have incurred such peril." "But Sharpley is not to blame for an accident. He could not help it. I regret that you should be so unreasonably prejudiced." "Call it prejudice if you will. I could not endure the thought of entertaining him as a guest." "This is very strange, my dear. What will he think?" "I cannot say, but you must not invite him here." Mrs. Craven left the room, leaving her husband angry and perplexed. "Surely she can't suspect anything!" he thought, startled at the suggestion. "But no, it is impossible. We have covered our tracks too carefully for that. On my soul, I don't know what to do. This obstinate woman threatens to upset all my plans. I will consult Sharpley when he comes." CHAPTER XXXVI. SHARPLEY'S RETURN. A few days later, as Mr. Craven sat in his office smoking a cigar, while meditating upon the best method of overcoming his wife's opposition to his plans, the outer door opened, and Sharpley entered. "Well, Craven," he said, coolly, "you appear to be taking it easy." "When did you arrive?" asked Mr. Craven. "Yesterday. You ought to feel complimented by my first call. You see I've lost no time in waiting upon you." "I received your letter," said Craven. "Both of them?" "Yes." "Then you know that your apprehensions were verified," said Sharpley, significantly. "The boy was as imprudent as you anticipated. He actually leaned over too far, in looking over an Alpine precipice, and tumbled. Singular coincidence, wasn't it?" "Then he is really dead?" said Mr. Craven, anxiously. "Dead? I should think so. A boy couldn't fall three or four hundred feet, more or less, without breaking his neck. Unless he was made of India rubber, he'd be apt to smash something." "Did you find his body?" "No; I didn't stop long enough. I came away the next day. But, fearing that I might seem indifferent, and that might arouse, suspicion, I left some money with a guide, the son of the landlord of the Hotel du Glacier, to find him and bury him." "I would rather you had yourself seen the body interred. It would have been more satisfactory." "Oh, well, I'll swear that he is dead. That will be sufficient for all purposes. But how does your wife take it?" "In a very singular way," answered Mr. Craven. "In a singular way? I suppose she is overwhelmed with grief, but I shouldn't call that singular--under the circumstances." "But you are mistaken. She is not overwhelmed with grief." Sharpley started. "You don't mean to say she doesn't mind it?" he asked. "No, it isn't that." "What is it, then?" "She won't believe the boy's dead." "Won't believe he is dead? Did you show her my letter?" "Yes." "That ought to have been convincing." "Of course it ought. Nothing could be more direct or straightforward. At first it did seem to have the proper effect. She fainted away, and for days kept her room, refusing to see any one, even me." "Well, that must have been a sacrifice," said Sharpley, ironically; "not to see her devoted husband." "But all at once there was a change. One day I came home at the close of the afternoon, supposing, as usual, that my wife was in her room, but, to my surprise, she was below. She had ceased weeping and seemed even cheerful--though cold in her manner. On complimenting her upon her resignation, she astonished me by saying that she was convinced that Frank was still alive." "Did she assign any reason for this belief?" asked Sharpley, thoughtfully. "Only that she had a presentiment that he had escaped." "Nothing more than this?" "Nothing more." "Pooh! She is only hoping to the last." "It seems to be something more than that. If it was only hope, she would have fear also, and would show all the suspicion and anxiety of such a state of mind. But she is calm and cheerful, and appears to suffer no anxiety." "That is singular to be sure," said Sharpley; "but I suppose it will not interfere with our designs?" "But it will. When I ventured delicately to insinuate that Frank's property ought, according to law, to be administered upon, she absolutely declined, saying that there would be time enough for that when he was proved to be dead." "I can remove that difficulty," said Sharpley. "She will hardly need more than my oral testimony." Mr. Craven shook his head. "I forgot to say that she has taken an unaccountable prejudice against you. She doesn't want me to invite you to the house. She insists that she is not willing to meet you as her guest." "What does this mean?" asked Sharpley, abruptly. "Do you think," he continued, in a lower tone, "that she has any suspicions?" "I don't see how she can," answered Craven. "Then why should she take such a prejudice against me?" "She says, that but for you, Frank would never have gone abroad." "And so, of course, not have met with this accident?" "Yes." "Then, it's all right. It's a woman's unreasonable whim," said Sharpley, apparently relieved by this explanation. "That may be; but it is equally inconvenient. She won't believe your testimony, and will still insist that Frank is alive." A new suspicion entered Sharpley's mind--this time, a suspicion of the good faith of his confederate, of whom, truth to tell, he had very little reason to form a good opinion. "Look here, Craven," he said, his countenance changing. "I believe you are at the bottom of this." "At the bottom of what?" exclaimed Mr. Craven, in genuine astonishment. "I believe you've put your wife up to this." "What should I do that for? Why should I bite my own nose off--in other words frustrate my own plans?" "I am not sure that you would," returned Sharpley, suspiciously. "How could it be otherwise?" "You want to cheat me out of the sum I was to receive for this service." "How?" "By pretending you can't get possession of the boy's property. Then you can plead inability, and keep it all yourself." "On my honor, you do me injustice," said Craven, earnestly. "Your honor!" sneered Sharpley. "The least said about that the better." "Be it so; but you must see that my interests are identified with yours. I will prove to you that all I have said is true." "How will you prove it?" "By bringing you face to face with Mrs. Craven. By asking you to come home with me." "She said she did not want to receive me." "You shall learn that from her manner. After you are convinced of it, after you find she won't credit your tale of Frank's death, we will consult as to what shall be done.' "Very well. It will be strange if, after what has already been accomplished, we cannot circumvent an obstinate woman." "I think we can, with your help." "Very well. When shall we try the experiment?" "At once." Mr. Craven took his hat and led the way out of his office, followed by Sharpley. They walked at a good pace to the handsome dwelling already referred to, and entered. "Katy," said Mr. Craven, "go up stairs and tell your mistress that Colonel Sharpley is here. He has just returned from Europe." "Yes, sir," said Katy, looking askance at Sharpley, whom, in common with her mistress, she regarded as a would-be murderer. "Ma'am," said she, a moment later, in Mrs. Craven's chamber, "he's here." "Who's here?" "That murderin' villain, ma'am." "What! Colonel Sharpley?" said Mrs. Craven, dropping her work in agitation. "Yes, ma'am; and Mr. Craven wants you to come down and see him." "How can I see that man, who tried to take the life of my dear boy?" said Mrs. Craven, in continued agitation. "What shall I do, Katy?" "I'll tell you what I'd do, ma'am. I'd go down and see what I can find out about it. Jest ax him questions, and see what he's got to say for himself." Mrs. Craven hesitated, but she wanted to learn something of her absent boy, and followed Katy's advice. As she entered the room, Sharpley advanced to meet her, with extended hand. She did not seem to see it, but passed him coldly and sank into a rocking chair. He bit his lip with vexation, but otherwise did not show his chagrin. CHAPTER XXXVII. MRS. CRAVEN'S FIXED IDEA. "You will probably wish to ask Colonel Sharpley about the circumstances attending poor Frank's loss," said Craven, in a soft voice. "I am ready to hear what Colonel Sharpley has to say," returned Mrs. Craven, coldly. "I see you are displeased with me, madame," said Sharpley. "I can understand your feelings. You associate me with the loss of your son." "I do!" said Mrs. Craven, with emphasis. "But that is not just, my dear," said Mr. Craven. "Accidents may happen at any time--they are beyond human foresight or control. It is my friend Sharpley's misfortune that our Frank came to his sad end while in his company." "While in his company?" repeated Mrs. Craven, looking keenly at Sharpley. "You think I should have prevented it, Mrs. Craven. Gladly would I have done so, but Frank was too quick for me. With a boy's curiosity he leaned over the precipice, lost his balance and fell." "When did this happen--what day of the month?" "It was the eighteenth of August." Mrs. Craven remembered with joy that the letter which she had read, addressed to Ben Cameron, was dated a week later; it was a convincing proof of Frank's safety. "You are sure that it was the eighteenth?" "Yes, perfectly so," answered Sharpley, not, of course, seeing the drift of her question. "Did you find Frank's body?" asked Mrs. Craven, with less emotion than Sharpley expected from the nature of the question. "No," he answered, and immediately afterward wished he had said yes. "Then," said Mrs. Craven, "Frank may be alive." "Impossible!" exclaimed Mr. Craven and Sharpley in unison. "Why impossible?" "The precipice was too high; it was absolutely impossible that any one could have fallen from such a height and not lose his life." "But you did not find the body?" "Because I started for home the very next day to let you know what had happened. I left directions with a guide to search for and bury the body when found. He has doubtless done it. A letter from him may be on the way to me now announcing his success." "When you receive the letter you can show it to me," said Mrs. Craven, quietly. "Certainly," said Sharpley. Then he regretted that he had not, while in Europe, forged such a letter, or, failing this, that he had not positively declared that he had personally witnessed Frank's burial. This would have removed all difficulty. "I have not expressed my sympathy in your loss," said Sharpley; "but that is hardly necessary." "It is not at all necessary," said Mrs. Craven, "for I believe Frank to be alive." "How can you believe it," asked Sharpley, with difficulty repressing his irritation, "in the face of my testimony?" "You are not sure of Frank's death." "I am as sure as I can be." "I am not," said Mrs. Craven, quietly. "But, permit me to ask, how could he possibly escape from the consequences of such a fall?" "That I cannot explain; but there have been escapes quite as wonderful. I have a presentiment that Frank is alive." "I did not think you were so superstitious, my dear," said Mr. Craven. "Call it superstition if you please. With me it is conviction." Involuntarily the eyes of the two--Craven and Sharpley--met. There were irritation and perplexity in the expression of each. What could be done with such a perverse woman, so wholly inaccessible to reason? "Confound it!" thought Sharpley. "If I had foreseen all this trouble, I would have stayed and seen the brat under ground. Of all the unreasonable women I ever met, Mrs. Craven takes the palm." "I have not yet told the circumstances," he said, aloud. "Let me do so. You will then, probably, understand that your hopes have nothing to rest upon." He gave a detailed account, exaggerating the dangerous character of the cliff purposely. "What do you think now, my dear?" asked Mr. Craven. "I believe that Frank escaped. If he has, he will come home, sooner or later. I shall wait patiently. I must now beg to be excused." She rose from her chair, and left the room. "What do you think of that, Sharpley?" demanded Craven, when she was out of ear-shot. "Did I not tell you the truth?" "Yes, your wife is the most perverse, unreasonable woman it was ever my lot to encounter." "You see the difficulty of our position, don't you?" "As to the property?" "Yes. Of course, that's all I care for. Believing, as she does, that Frank is alive, she won't have his property touched." "It is a pity you are not the guardian, instead of your wife." "It is a thousand pities. But what can we do? I want your advice." Sharpley sat in silent thought for five minutes. "Will it answer if I show your wife a certificate from the guide that he has found and buried Frank?" "Where will you get such a certificate?" "Write it myself if necessary." "That's a good plan," said Craven, nodding. "Do you think she will resist the weight of such a document as that?" "I don't see how she can." "Then it shall be tried." Three days later, as soon as it was deemed prudent, Sharpley called again at the house. He had boarded meanwhile at the hotel in the village, comprehending very clearly that Mr. Craven was not at liberty to receive him as a guest. Mrs. Craven descended, at her husband's request, to meet the man whom she detested. She had received a second call from Ben, who, with all secrecy, showed her a line from Frank, to the effect that he was well, had found good friends, and should very shortly embark for America. It was an effort for the mother to conceal her joy, but she did so for the sake of expediency. "When I was last here, Mrs. Craven," said Sharpley, "you expressed doubt as to your son's death." "I did." "I wish you had had good reason for your doubt, but I knew only too well that there was no chance for his safety." "Well?" "I am now prepared to prove to you that he is dead." "How will you prove it?" "Read that, madame," he said, extending a paper. She took the paper extended to her, and read as follows: "HONORED SIR:--As you requested, I searched for the body of the poor boy who fell over the cliff. I found it concealed among some bushes at the bottom of the cliff. It was very much bruised and disfigured, but the face was less harmed than the body, so that we knew it at once. As you directed, I had it buried in our little cemetery. I will point out the grave to you when you come this way. "I hope what I have done will meet your approval, and I remain, honored sir, your servant, "BAPTISTE LAMOUREUX, "Alpine Guide." "That removes every doubt," said Mr. Craven, applying his handkerchief to his eyes. "Poor Frank!" "When did you receive this letter, Colonel Sharpley?" asked Mrs. Craven. "Yesterday." "It was written by a Swiss guide?" "Yes, madame." "He shows an astonishing knowledge of the English language," she said, with quiet meaning. "He probably got some one to write it for him," said Sharpley, hastily. "So I thought," she said, significantly. "What difference can that make, my dear?" demanded Mr. Craven. "It seems to me of no importance whether he wrote it himself, or some traveler for him. You can't doubt Frank's death now?" "I do." "Good heavens! What do you mean?" "I mean that I am confident that my boy is alive. No one can convince me to the contrary," and she rose and left the room. "The woman is mad!" muttered Sharpley. "So she is," said Craven, rubbing his hands, as an evil thought entered his mind. "She is the subject of a mad delusion. Now I see my way clear." "What do you mean?" "I mean this. I will obtain a certificate of her madness from two physicians, and have her confined in an asylum. Of course, a mad woman cannot control property. Everything will come into my hands, and all will be right." "You've hit it at last, Craven!" said Sharpley, with exultation. "That plan will work. We'll feather our nests, and then she may come out of the asylum, or stay there, it will be all the same to us." CHAPTER XXXVIII. RETRIBUTION. The two rogues lost no time in carrying out their villanous design. They thirsted for the gold, and were impatient to get rid of the only obstacle to its acquisition. Sharpley found two disreputable hangers-on upon the medical profession in the city of New York who, for twenty-five dollars a piece, agreed to pronounce Mrs. Craven insane. They came to the village, and were introduced to Mrs. Craven as business friends. The subject of Frank's loss was cunningly introduced, and she once more affirmed her belief in his safety. This was enough. An hour later, in Mr. Craven's office, the two physicians signed a paper certifying that his wife was insane. They received their money and went back to the city. The next day was fixed upon by the conspirators for taking Mrs. Craven to an insane asylum. Late the day previous a Cunard steamer arrived at its dock. Among the passengers were two of our acquaintances. One was Frank Hunter, our hero, sun-browned and healthy, heavier and taller, and more self-reliant than when, three months before, he sailed from the port of New York bound for Liverpool. The other no one can mistake. The blue coat and brass buttons, the tall and somewhat awkward form, the thin but shrewd and good-humored face, are those of Jonathan Tarbox, of Squashboro', State o' Maine. "Well, Frank, I'm tarnal glad to be here," said Mr. Tarbox. "It seems kind of nat'ral. Wonder what they'll say in Squashboro' when they see me come home a man of fortun'." "Your plow is a great success, Mr. Tarbox. You ought to be proud of it." "I be, Frank. My pardner says he wouldn't take twenty thousand for his half of the invention, but I'm satisfied with the ten thousand he gave me. I didn't never expect to be worth ten thousand dollars." "You'll be worth a hundred thousand before you're through." "Sho! you don't mean it. Any how, I guess Sally Sprague'll be glad she's going to be Mrs. Tarbox. I say, Frank we'll live in style. Sally shall sit in the parlor, and play on the pianner. She wouldn't have done that if she'd took up with Tom North. He's a shiftless, good-for-nothin' feller. But, I say, Frank, what'll your folks say to see you?" "Mother'll be overjoyed, but Mr. Craven won't laugh much. I hope," he added, gravely, "he hain't been playing any of his tricks on mother." "Do you think that skunk, Sharpley, has got back?" "I think he has, and it makes me anxious. Mr. Tarbox, will you do me a favor?" "Sartin, Frank." "Then, come home with me. I may need a friend." "I'll do it, Frank," said Jonathan, grasping our hero's hand. "Ef that skunk's round the neighborhood, I'll give him a piece of my mind." "Thank you," said Frank. "I am not afraid of him, but I am only a boy, and they might be too much for me. With you I have no cause to fear." They reached the village depot, and set out to walk. Frank met two or three friends, who looked upon him as one raised from the dead. He merely spoke and hurried on. When a few rods from the house, their attention was called to a woman, who was running up the street, without any covering upon her head, sobbing like one in distress. "Why, it's our Katy!" exclaimed Frank, in great agitation. "Good heavens! what can have happened?" "Katy!" he cried out. "Oh, Master Frank, is it you?" exclaimed Katy, laughing hysterically. "You're come in time. Run home as fast as ever you can." "Why, what's the matter?" demanded Frank, in great alarm. "Them rascals, Mr. Craven and Sharpley, pretend that your mother is crazy, just because she won't hear to your bein' dead, and they're takin' her to the crazy 'sylum. I couldn't stand it, and I run out to see if I couldn't get help." "The blamed skunk!" exclaimed Mr. Tarbox, swinging his arms threateningly. "Let me get a hold of him and he won't never know what hurt him." Meanwhile, Craven and Sharpley had forced Mrs. Craven into a close carriage, and they were just driving out of the yard when our hero and his friend rushed to the rescue. Mr. Tarbox sprang to the horses' heads and brought them to a stop, while Frank hurried to the door of the coach, which he pulled open. Inside were Mrs. Craven, her husband and Sharpley. They looked angrily to the door, but their dismay may be conceived when they met the angry face of one whom both believed to be dead. "Oh, Frank!" screamed Mrs. Craven. "You are come home at last." "Yes, mother. Let me help you out of the carriage." "You shall not go!" said Mr. Craven, desperately. "Frank, your mother's insane. We are taking her to the asylum. It is for her good." "Save me, Frank!" implored Mrs. Craven. "I will save you, mother," said Frank, firmly. "Drive on!" shouted Sharpley, savagely. "Look a here!" exclaimed a new voice, that of Jonathan Tarbox, who was now peeping into the carriage. "That is the skunk that tried to murder you." "What do you mean, fellow?" demanded Sharpley. "If you don't understand, come out and I'll lick it into you, you skunk! Tell your mother to come out, and let that skunk stop her if he dares!" and Mr. Tarbox coolly drew out a revolver and pointed it at Sharpley. "I'll get out, too," said Mr. Craven, faintly. "No, you won't. I've got a letter of yourn, written to that skunk, advisin' him to pitch Frank over a precipice." "It's a lie!" ejaculated Craven, pallid with fear. "It comes to the same thing," said Mr. Tarbox, coolly. "When he's tried for murder, you'll come in second fiddle." Sharpley saw his danger. Mr. Craven was already out of the carriage. He made a dash for the door, but found himself in Jonathan's powerful grasp. In a moment he was sprawling on his back in the yard. "Jest lie there till I tell you to get up," he said. By this time two neighbors--athletic farmers--entered the yard. Frank briefly explained the matter to them, and Mr. Tarbox asked their assistance to secure Sharpley and Craven. "Let me go, Frank. I'm your step-father," implored Craven. "If that man has attempted your life, I know nothing of it. Blame him; not me." "Oh, that is your game," said Sharpley, "you cowardly hound! You want to sell me and go scot-free yourself. Then, gentlemen, it becomes my duty to say that this man has no business here. At the time he married this boys mother he had a wife living in London." "It's a lie!" faltered Craven. "It's the truth. I saw her two months since, and so did the boy. You remember Mrs. Craven, whom you relieved?" "Yes," said Frank, in astonishment. "She is that man's wife." "Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Frank. "Then my mother is free." "Moreover, he hired me to carry you abroad, with the understanding that you should not return, in order that he might enjoy your fortune." "You miserable snake in the grass!" exclaimed Mr. Tarbox, energetically. Mr. Craven, who was a coward at heart, was thoroughly overwhelmed at the revelations of his baseness, and made no resistance when taken into custody. Sharpley and he were closely confined until indictments could be found against them, and, to anticipate matters a little, were tried, convicted and sentenced to ten years in the State prison. It was found that Mr. Craven had squandered several thousand dollars belonging to his wife, but Frank's fortune was intact, and they indulged in no useless regrets for the money that was gone. Frank went back to school, where he remained until the next summer, when he induced his mother to visit Europe under his guidance. They visited his friends, the Grosvenors, by whom they were cordially received. They went to Switzerland, where Mrs. Hunter (Craven no longer), beheld, with a shudder, the scene of her son's fall and escape. Some years have now elapsed. Frank is a young man, and junior partner in a prosperous New York firm. He is not married, but rumor has it that next fall he is to visit London for the purpose of uniting his fortunes to those of Beatrice Grosvenor, whose early fancy for our hero has ripened into a mature affection. It is probable that Mr. Grosvenor will be induced, after his daughter's marriage, to establish himself in New York, in order to be near her. Frank's mother still lives, happy in the goodness and the prosperity of her son. She has improved in health, and is likely to live many years, an honored member of Frank's household. Our Yankee friend, Jonathan Tarbox, is one of the magnates of Squashboro', State o' Maine. He and his partner have built a large manufactory, from which plows are turned out by hundreds and thousands annually. He is now Squire Tarbox, and Sally Sprague has changed her last name for one beginning with T. I should not be surprised to see him a member of Congress, or Governor of Maine some time. Frank has settled a pension upon the real Mrs. Craven, who will probably never see her husband again, as he is reported in poor health, and not likely to leave the prison alive. Sharpley succeeded in effecting his escape, and it is not known where he has taken refuge. Ben Cameron is a trusted clerk in Frank's employ, and our hero will take care that his old school friend prospers. Though his path lies in sunshine, Frank is not likely to forget the peril from which he so narrowly escaped. THE END. -------------------------------------------- Transcriber's Notes: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Punctuation has been silently corrected. Archaic and variable spelling have been preserved. Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. 41091 ---- The Price of Power Being Chapters from the Secret History of the Imperial Court of Russia By William Le Queux Published by Hurst and Blackett, Ltd. This edition dated 1913. The Price of Power, by William Le Queux. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THE PRICE OF POWER, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX. CHAPTER ONE. THE MADCAP. "M'sieur Colin Trewinnard?" "That is my name, Captain Stoyanovitch," I replied in surprise. "You know it quite well." "The usual formality, _mon cher ami_!" And the tall, handsome equerry in the white uniform of the Imperial Guard laughed lightly, clicked his heels together, and handed me a letter which I saw bore the Imperial cipher upon its black seal. "From His Imperial Majesty the Emperor," he added in Russian. I held my breath. Had the blow fallen? With eager, trembling fingers I tore open the envelope and found therein a note in French, merely the words: "_His Imperial Majesty the Emperor commands Mr Colin Trewinnard to private audience to-day at 3:30 p.m_. "_St Petersburg, June 28th_." "Very well," I managed to reply. "Tell Colonel Polivanoff that--that I shall be there. Have a cigarette?" and I handed him the silver box of Bogdanoffs which were the common property of the staff of the Embassy. Having flung himself into a big easy chair, he stretched out his long legs and lit up. "Well," I said, leaning against the edge of the writing-table, "I suppose the Emperor returned from Odessa early this morning--eh?" "Yes," replied the elegant officer, in English. "Thank Heaven, the journey is at last over. Ah! what a tour of the Empire! At Orel we held the great review, then on to Saratov, where there were more manoeuvres and a review. Afterwards we went down the Volga to Astrakhan to unveil the new statue to Peter the Great; then Kertch, more manoeuvres, and into the Crimea for a week's rest. Afterwards across to Odessa, and then, by a three nights' journey, back here to Petersburg. Faugh! How we all hate that armoured train!" "But it is surely highly necessary, my dear Stoyanovitch," I said. "With this abominable wave of anarchism which has spread over Europe, it behoves the Secret Police to take every precaution for His Majesty's safety!" "Ah! my dear friend," laughed the equerry. "I tell you it is not at all pleasant to travel when one expects every moment that the train will be blown up. One's sleeping-berth, though covered with a down quilt, is but a bed of torture in such conditions." "Yes," I said. "But His Majesty--how does he bear it?" "The Emperor has nerves of iron. He is the least concerned of any of us. But, _mon Dieu_! I would not be in his shoes for the wealth of all the Russias." "What--more conspiracies?" I exclaimed. "Conspiracies!" sighed the Captain. "_Mon Dieu_! A fresh one is discovered by the political police every week. Only the day before the Emperor left for the country he found among the Ministers' daily reports upon the table in his private cabinet an anonymous letter telling him that he will meet with a tragic end on the sixth of the present month. How this letter got there nobody knows. His Majesty is seldom out of temper, but I never saw him so furiously angry before." "It is unfortunate," I said. "Apparently he cannot trust even his immediate _entourage_." "Exactly," answered the dark-haired handsome man. "The constant reports of General Markoff regarding the revolutionists must be most alarming. And yet he preserves an outward calm that is truly remarkable. But, by the way," he added, "His Majesty, before I left the Palace with that letter, summoned me and gave me a message for you--a verbal one." "Oh! What was that?" "He told me to say that he sent to you a word--let me see, I wrote it down lest I should forget," and pulling down his left shirt cuff, he spelt: "B-a-t-h-i-l-d-i-s." "Thank you," I replied briefly. "What does it mean? Is it some password?" Ivan Stoyanovitch asked with considerable curiosity. "That's scarcely a fair question," I said in rebuke. "Ah! of course," he replied, with a touch of sarcasm. "I ought not to have asked you. Pardon me, my friend. I forgot that you enjoy His Majesty's confidence--that--" "Not at all," I protested. "I am but a humble attache of a foreign Embassy. It is not likely that I am entrusted with the secrets of Russia." "Not with those of Russia, but those of the Emperor personally. Dachkoff was discussing you at the Turf Club one night not long ago." "That's interesting," I laughed. "And what had the old man to say?" "Oh, nothing of a very friendly nature. But, you know, he never has a good word to say for anybody." "Gamblers seldom have. I hear he lost ten thousand roubles to Prince Savinski at the Union the night before last." "I heard it was more," and the long-legged equerry leaned back his head and watched the blue rings of cigarette smoke slowly ascend to the ceiling of the room, through the long window of which was a view across the Neva, with the grim Fortress of Peter and Paul opposite. "But," he went on, "we were speaking of these constant conspiracies. Though we have been back in Petersburg only a few hours, Markoff has already reported a desperate plot. The conspirators, it seems, had bored a tunnel and placed a mine under the Nevski, close to the corner of the Pushkinskaya, and it was arranged to explode it as the Emperor's carriage passed early this morning on the way from the Nicholas station. But Markoff--the ever-watchful Markoff--discovered the projected attempt only at eleven o'clock last night--two hours before we passed. There have been thirty-three arrests up to the present, including a number of girl students." "Markoff is really a marvel," I declared. "He scents a conspiracy anywhere." "And his spies are everywhere. Markoff takes a good deal of the credit, but it is his agents who do the real work. He has saved the Emperor's life on at least a dozen occasions." I said nothing. I was thinking over the word--a very significant word-- which the Emperor had sent me by his equerry. To me, that word meant a very great deal. Our Ambassador, Sir Harding Lowe, being at home in England on leave, the Honourable Claude Saunderson, our Councillor of Embassy, was acting as Charge d'Affaires. As far as we knew the political horizon was calm enough, save the dark little war cloud which perpetually hovers over the Balkans and grows darker each winter. The German negotiations with Russia had been concluded, and the foreign outlook appeared more serene than it had been for many months. Yet within the great Winter Palace there was unrest and trouble. Jealousy, hatred and all uncharitableness were rife amid the Tzar's immediate _entourage_, while the spirit of revolution was spreading daily with greater significance. Within the past twelve months the two Prime Ministers, Semenoff and Mouravieff, had been assassinated by bombs, five governors of provinces had met with violent deaths, and eight chiefs of police of various cities had fallen victims of the revolutionists, who had frankly and openly vowed to take the life of the Tzar himself. Was it any wonder, then, that the Emperor lived in bomb-proof rooms both in Petersburg and Tzarskoie-Selo, as well as at Gatchina; that he never slept in the same bed twice, that all food served to him was previously tasted, that he never gave audience without a loaded revolver lying upon the table before him, and that he surrounded himself by hordes of police-agents and spies? Surely none could envy him such a life of constant apprehension and daily terror; for twice in a month had bombs been thrown at his carriage, while five weeks before he had had both horses killed by an explosion in Moscow and only escaped death by a sheer miracle. True, the revolutionists were unusually active at that moment, and the throne of Russia had become seriously menaced. Any other but a man of iron constitution and nerves of steel would surely have been driven to lunacy by the constant terror in which he was forced to exist. Yet, though he took ample precaution, he never betrayed the slightest anxiety, a fact which held everyone amazed. He was a true Russian, an autocrat of dogged courage, quick decision, always forceful and impelling, a faithful friend, but a bitter and revengeful enemy; a born ruler and a manly Emperor in every sense of the word. "The Grand Duchess Natalia has been with the Emperor. Did she return with you this morning?" I inquired. "Yes," drawled the equerry. "She's been admired everywhere, as usual, and half our staff are over head and ears in love with her. She's been flirting outrageously." "Then half your staff are fools," I exclaimed bluntly. "Ah, my dear Trewinnard, she is so sweet, so very charming, so exquisite, so entirely unlike the other girls at Court--so delightfully unconventional." "A little too unconventional to suit some--if all I hear be true," I remarked with a smile. "You know her, of course. She's an intimate friend of yours. I overheard her one day telling the Emperor what an excellent tennis player you were." "Well, I don't fancy His Majesty interests himself very much in tennis," I laughed. "He has other, and far more important, matters to occupy his time--the affairs of his great nation." "Natalia, or Tattie, as they call her in the Imperial circle, is his favourite niece. Nowadays she goes everywhere with him, and does quite a lot of his most private correspondence--that which he does not even trust to Calitzine." "Then the Emperor is more friendly towards Her Imperial Highness than before--eh?" I asked, for truth to tell I was very anxious to satisfy myself upon this point. "Yes. She has been forgiven for that little escapade in Moscow." "What escapade?" I asked, feigning surprise. "What escapade?" my friend echoed. "Why, you know well enough! I've heard it whispered that it was owing to your cleverness as a diplomat that the matter was so successfully hushed up--and an ugly affair it was, too. The suicide of her lover." "That's a confounded lie!" I said quickly. "He did not commit suicide at all. At most, he left Russia with a broken heart, and that is not usually a fatal malady." "Well, you needn't get angry about it, my dear fellow," complained my friend. "The affair is successfully hushed up, and I fancy she's got a lot to thank you for." "Not at all," I declared. "I know that you fellows have coupled my name with hers, just because I've danced with her a few times at the Court balls, and I've been shooting at her father's castle away in Samara. But I assure you my reputation as the little Grand Duchess's intimate friend is entirely a mythical one." Captain Stoyanovitch only smiled incredulously, stretched out his long legs and shrugged his shoulders. "Well," I went on, "has she been very terrified about all these reports of conspiracies?" "Frightened out of her life, poor child! And who would not be?" he asked. "We didn't know from one hour to another that we might not all be blown into the air. Everywhere the railway was lined by Cossacks, of course. Such a demonstration is apt to lend an air of security, but, alas! there is no security with the very Ministry undermined by revolution, as it is." I sighed. What he said was, alas! too true. Russia, at that moment, was in very evil case, and none knew it better than we, the impartial onlookers at the British Embassy. The warm June sun fell across the rather faded carpet of that sombre old-fashioned room with its heavy furniture, which was my own sanctum, and as the smart captain of the Imperial Guard lolled back picturesquely in the big armchair I looked at him reflectively. They were strange thoughts which flooded my brain at that moment-- thoughts concerning that pretty, high-born young lady whom we had just been discussing, the girl to whom, he declared, His Majesty entrusted the greatest secrets of the throne. Stoyanovitch was an extremely elegant and somewhat irresponsible person, and the fact that the Emperor had allowed the Grand Duchess Natalia to write his private letters did not strike me as the actual truth. The Tzar was far too cautious to entrust the secrets of a nation to a mere girl who was certainly known to be greatly addicted to the gentle pastime of flirtation. Whatever the equerry told us, we at the Embassy usually added the proverbial grain of salt. Indeed, the diplomat at any post abroad learns to believe nothing which he hears, and only half he actually sees. But the Emperor had sent me, by the mouth of that smart young officer, the word "Bathildis"--which was an ancient woman's Christian name--and to me it conveyed a secret message, an announcement which held me in surprise and apprehension. What could have happened? I dreaded to think. CHAPTER TWO. AN AUDIENCE OF THE EMPEROR. "You understand, Trewinnard. There must be no scandal. What I have just revealed to you is in strictest confidence--an inviolable secret--a personal secret of my own." "I understand Your Majesty's commands perfectly." "There is already a lot of uncharitable chatter in the Court circle regarding the other matter, I hear. Has anything reached you at the Embassy?" "Not a whisper, as far as I am aware. Indeed, Your Majesty's words have greatly surprised me. I did not believe the affair to be so very serious." "Serious!" echoed the Emperor Alexander, speaking in English, his dark, deep-set eyes fixed upon me. "I tell you it is all too serious, now that I find myself completely isolated--oh! yes, Trewinnard, isolated-- with scarce one single friend. God knows! I have done my best for the nation, but, alas! everyone's hand is raised against me." And his firm mouth hardened behind his full, dark beard, and he drew his hand wearily across his broad, white brow. The room in the Winter Palace in which we sat was cosy and luxuriantly furnished, the two windows looking forth upon a grey, cheerless quadrangle whence came the tramp of soldiers at drill. Where we sat we could hear the sharp words of command in Russian, and the clang of the rifle-butts striking the stones. The room was essentially English in its aspect, with its rich china-blue Axminster carpet, and silk upholstery with curtains to match, while the panelling from floor to ceiling was enamelled dead white, against which the fine water-colour drawings of naval scenes stood out in vivid relief. Upon a buhl table was a great silver bowl filled with Marshal Niel roses--for His Majesty was passionately fond of flowers--and beside it, large framed panel photographs of the Tzarina and his children. And yet those dead white walls and the shape of those square windows struck a curious incongruous note, for if the actual truth be told, those walls were of steel, and that private cabinet of the Emperor had been constructed by the Admiralty Department with armour-plates which were bomb-proof. That apartment in the west angle of the Palace quadrangle was well-known to me, for in it His Majesty had given me private audience many times. That long white door which had been so silently closed upon me by the Cossack sentry when I entered was, I knew, of armour-plate, four inches in thickness, while beside the windows were revolving shutters of chilled steel. There, at that great littered roll-top writing-table, upon which was the reading-lamp with its shade of salmon-pink silk with the loaded revolver beside it, the Emperor worked, attending to affairs of State. And in his padded chair, leaning back easily as he spoke to me, was His Majesty himself, a broad-shouldered, handsome man just past middle-age, dressed in a suit of navy blue serge. He was a big-faced, big-limbed, big-handed man of colossal physique and marvellous intelligence. Though haunted by the terror of violent death, he was yet an autocrat to the finger-tips, whose bearing was ever that of a sovereign; yet his eyes had a calm, sympathetic, kindly look, and those who knew him intimately were well aware that he was not the monster of oppression which his traducers had made him out to be before the eyes of Europe. True, with a stroke of that grey quill pen lying there upon his blotting-pad he had sent many a man and woman without trial to their unrecorded doom, either in the frozen wastes of Northern Siberia, to the terrible mines of Nerchinsk, to the horrors of the penal island of Sakhalin, or to those fearful subterranean _oubliettes_ at Schusselburg, whence no prisoner has ever returned. But, as an autocrat, he dealt with his revolutionary enemies as they would deal with him. They conspired to kill him, and he retaliated by consigning them to a lingering death. On the other hand, I myself knew how constant was his endeavour to ferret out abuses of administration, to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, to give the peasantry education and all the benefits of modern civilisation as we in England know them, and how desperate, alas! were his constant struggles with that unscrupulous camarilla which ever surrounded him, constantly preventing him from learning the truth concerning any particular matter. Thus, though striving to do his best for his subjects and for his nation, yet, surrounded as he was by a corrupt Ministry and a more corrupt Court, this big, striking man in blue serge was, perhaps, next to the Sultan of Turkey, the best-hated man in all Europe. My own position was a somewhat singular one. A few months after my appointment to Petersburg from Brussels I had been able to render His Majesty a slight personal service. In fact, I had, when out one evening with two other attaches of the German Embassy, learned by mere accident of a desperate plot which was to be put into execution on the following day. My informant was a dancer at the Opera, who had taken too much champagne at supper. I sought audience of the Emperor early next day, and was fortunately just in time to prevent him from passing a certain spot near the Michailovski Palace, where six men were stationed with bombs of picric acid, ready to hurl. For that service His Majesty had been graciously pleased to take me into his confidence--a confidence which, I hope, I never abused. From me he was always eager to ascertain what was really happening beyond that high wall of untruth which the camarilla had so cleverly built up and preserved, and more than once had he entrusted me with certain secret missions. I was not in uniform, as that audience was a private one; but as His Majesty, ruler of one hundred and thirty millions of people, passed me his finely-chased golden box full of cigarettes--and we both lit one, as was our habit--his brow clouded, and with a sigh he said: "To tell the truth, Trewinnard, I am also very anxious indeed concerning the second matter--concerning the little rebel." "I know that Your Majesty must be," I replied. "But, after all, Her Imperial Highness is a girl of exceptional beauty and highest spirits; and even if she indulges in--well, in a little harmless flirtation, she surely may be forgiven." "Other girls may be forgiven, but not those of the blood-royal," he said in mild rebuke. "The Empress is quite as concerned about her as I am. Why, even upon this last journey of ours I found her more than once flirting with Stoyanovitch, my equerry. True, he's a good-looking young fellow, and of excellent family, yet she ought to know that such a thing is quite unwarrantable; she ought to know that to those of the blood-royal love is, alas! forbidden." I was surprised at this. I had no idea that she and Ivan Stoyanovitch had become friends. He had never hinted at it. "The fact is, Trewinnard," the Emperor went on, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his lips, "if this continues I shall be reluctantly compelled to banish her to the Caucasus, or somewhere where she will be kept out of mischief." "But permit me, Sire, to query whether flirting is really mischief," I exclaimed with a smile. "Every girl of her age--and she is hardly nineteen--fancies herself in love, mostly with men much older than herself." "Our women, Trewinnard, are, alas! not like women of the people," was the Sovereign's calm reply, his deep, earnest eyes upon mine. "It is their misfortune that they are not. They can never enjoy the same freedom as those fortunate ones of the middle-class; they seldom are permitted to marry the man they love, and though they may live in palaces and move amid the gay society of Court, yet their ideas are warped from birth, and broken hearts, alas! beat beneath their diamonds." "Yes, I suppose what Your Majesty says is, alas! too true. Ladies of the blood-royal are forbidden freedom, love and happiness. And when one of them happens to break the iron bonds of conventionality, then scandal quickly results; the Press overflows with it." "In this case scandal would already have resulted had you not acted as promptly as you did," His Majesty said. "Where is that lad Geoffrey Hamborough now?" asked the autocrat suddenly. "Living on his father's estate in Yorkshire," I replied. "I hope I have been able to put an end to that fatal folly; but with a girl of the Grand Duchess's type one can never be too certain." "Ah! the mischievous little minx!" exclaimed the Emperor with a kindly smile. "I've watched, and seen how cunning she is--and how she has cleverly misled even me. Well, she must alter, Trewinnard, she must alter--or she must be sent away to the Caucasus." "Where she would have her freedom, and probably flirt more outrageously than ever," I ventured to remark. "You seem to regard her as hopeless," he said, looking sharply into my eyes as he leaned back in his chair. "Not entirely hopeless, Sire, only as a most interesting character study." "I have been speaking to her father this morning, and I have suggested sending her to Paris, or, perhaps, to London; there to live _incognito_ under the guardianship of some responsible middle-aged person, until she can settle down. At present she flirts with every man she meets, and I am greatly concerned about her." "Every man is ready to flirt with Her Imperial Highness--first, because of her position, and, secondly, because of her remarkable beauty," I assured him. "You think her beautiful--eh, Trewinnard?" "I merely echo the popular judgment," I replied. "It is said she is one of the most beautiful girls in all Russia." "Ah!" he laughed. "Next we shall have her flirting with you, Trewinnard. You are a bachelor. Do beware of the little dark-eyed witch, I beg of you!" "No fear of such _contretemps_, Sire," I assured him with a smile. "I am double her age, and, moreover, a confirmed bachelor. The Embassy is expensive, and I cannot afford the luxury of a wife--and especially an Imperial Grand Duchess." "Who knows--eh, Trewinnard? Who knows?" exclaimed the Sovereign good-naturedly. "But let's return to the point. Am I to understand that you are ready and willing to execute this secret commission for me? You are well aware how highly I value the confidential services you have already rendered to me. But for you, remember, I should to-day have been a dead man." "No, Sire," I protested. "Please do not speak of that. It was the intervention of Providence for your protection." "Ah, yes!" he said in a low, fervent tone, his brows contracting. "I thank God constantly for sparing me for yet another day from the hands of my unscrupulous enemies, so that I may work for the good of the beloved nation over which I am called to rule." There, in that room, wherein I had so often listened to his words of wisdom, I sat fully recognising that though an Emperor and an autocrat, he was, above all, a Man. With all the heavy burden of affairs of State--and not even a road could be made anywhere in the Russian Empire, or a bridge built, or a gas-pipe laid, without his signature--with all the onus of the autocratic Sovereign-power upon his shoulders, and with that constant wariness which he was compelled to exercise against that cunning camarilla of Ministers, yet one of his chief concerns was with that pretty little madcap Natalia, daughter of his brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas. He wished to suppress her superabundance of high spirits and stamp out her tomboy instincts. "I am reading your thoughts, Trewinnard," the Emperor remarked at last, pressing his cigarette-end slowly into the silver ashtray to extinguish it. "My request has placed you in a rather awkward position--eh?" "What Your Majesty has revealed to me this afternoon has utterly amazed me. I feel bewildered, for I see how dire must be the result if the truth were ever betrayed." "It will never be. You are the only person who has suspicion of it besides myself." "And I shall never speak--never!" I assured him gravely. "I know that you are entirely loyal to me. I am Emperor, it is true, but I am, nevertheless, a man of my word, just as you are," he replied, his intelligent face dark and grave. "Yes. I thought you would realise the seriousness of the present situation, and I know that you alone I can trust. I have not even told the Empress." "Why not?" "For obvious reasons." I was silent. I only then realised the motive of his hesitation. "I admit that Your Majesty's request has placed me in a somewhat awkward position," I said at last, bending forward in my chair. "Truth to tell, I--well, I'm hardly hopeful of success, for the mission with which I am entrusted is so extremely difficult, and so--" "I am fully aware of that," he interrupted. "Yet I feel confident that you, who have saved my life on one occasion, will not hesitate to undertake this service to the best of your ability. Use the utmost discretion, and you may get at the truth. I do not disguise from you the fact that upon certain contingencies, dependent on the success of your mission, depends the throne of Russia--the dynasty. Do you follow?" And he looked me straight in the face with those big, round brown eyes, an open, straight, honest look, as became a man who was fearless--an Emperor. "I regret that I do not exactly understand," I ventured to exclaim, whereat he rose, tall, handsome and muscular, and strode to the window. The band of the Imperial Guard was playing below in the great paved quadrangle, as it always did each day at four o'clock when the Emperor was in residence. For a few seconds he stood peering forth critically at the long lines of soldiers drawn up across the square. Then the man whose word was law turned back to me with a sigh, saying: "No, Trewinnard, I suppose you do not follow me. It is all a mystery to you, of course,"--and he paused--"as mysterious as the sudden disappearance of Madame de Rosen and her daughter Luba from Petersburg." "Disappearance?" I echoed, amazed. "They are still in Petersburg. I dined with them only last night!" "They are not now in Petersburg," replied the Emperor very quietly. "They left at nine o'clock this morning on a long journey--to Siberia." My heart gave a great bound. "To Siberia!" I gasped, staring at him. "Are they exiled? Who has done this?" "I have done it," was his hard reply. "They are revolutionists-- implicated in the attempt that was to be made upon me early this morning as I drove up the Nevski." "Markoff has denounced them?" "He has. See, here is a full list of names of the conspirators," and he took a slip of paper from his desk. "And General Markoff told Your Majesty of my friendliness with Madame and her daughter?" "Certainly." "Markoff lied when he denounced them as revolutionists!" I cried angrily. "They were my friends, and I know them very intimately. Let me here declare, Sire, that no subject of Your Majesty was more loyal than those two ladies. Surely the _agent-provocateur_ has been at work again." "Unfortunately I am bound to believe the word of the head of my political police," he said rather briefly. I knew, alas! how fierce and bitter was the Emperor's hatred of those who plotted against his life. A single word against man or woman was sufficient to cause them to be arrested and sent to the other side of Asia, never again to return. "And where have the ladies been sent?" I inquired. The Emperor consulted a slip of paper, and then replied: "To Parotovsk." "The most far-distant and dreaded of all the Arctic penal settlements!" I cried. "It is cruel and unjust! It is death to send a woman there, where it is winter for nine months in the year, and where darkness reigns five months out of the twelve." "I regret," replied the Emperor, with a slight gesture of the hand. "But they were conspirators." "With all respect to Your Majesty, I beg to express an entirely different opinion. Markoff has long been Madame de Rosen's enemy." His Majesty made a quick imperious gesture of impatience and said: "Please do not let us discuss the matter further--at least, until you are in a position to prove your allegation." "I will," I cried. "I know that your Majesty will never allow such injustice to be done to two innocent, delicate ladies." "If injustice has really been done, then those responsible shall suffer. Discover the truth, and report to me later," he said. "I will do my very utmost," was my reply. "And at the same time, Trewinnard, I trust you will endeavour to carry out the confidential mission which I have entrusted to you," he said. "Recollect that I treat you, not as a foreign diplomat, but as a loyal and true personal friend of myself and my house. Ah!" he sighed again; "Heaven knows, I have but few trustworthy ones about me." "I am profoundly honoured by Your Majesty's confidence," I assured him, bowing low. "I certainly shall respect it, and act exactly as you desire." "The Court dislikes confidence being placed in any foreigner, even though he be an Englishman," the Emperor said in a changed voice; "therefore, remain discreet always, and disclaim that I have ever treated you other than with the formal courtesy which is expected by all diplomats." "I quite understand," I said. "You will see Natalia at the Court ball to-night, and you can speak to her diplomatically, if opportunity occurs. But recollect that she must know nothing of what I have said. I believe you know Hartwig, chief of the criminal detective force." "Quite well," was my reply. "Then I will give him orders. Use him as you wish, but tell him nothing." "I shall remain silent." "And you are entitled to leave of absence--eh? You can return to England without arousing suspicion?" "Yes. I have eight weeks due to me." "Excellent. I can do nothing more--except to thank you, Trewinnard, to thank you most sincerely for assisting me, and to await word from you. Sign it with `Bathildis,' and I shall know." And the great burly, bearded man held out his big, strong hand--the iron hand--as sign that my audience was at an end. I bowed low over it, and next moment the heavy white door of enamelled steel swung open and I backed out of the Imperial presence, the bearer of a secret as strange and grim as it has ever been the lot of any man to lock within his breast. What the Emperor had revealed to me was undreamed of by that gay, reckless and intriguing circle which comprised the Russian Court-- undreamed of by the chancelleries of Europe. The merest whisper of it would, I knew, stagger the world. And yet he had, in sheer desperation, confided in me a most amazing truth. As I descended that broad, handsome flight of thickly-carpeted marble steps, where flunkeys in brilliant grey and purple livery bowed at every turn, and equerries and officials in smart uniforms came and went, my brain was awhirl at the magnitude of the affair, and the terrible scandal which must result if ever the secret were betrayed--the secret of a throne. A thought flashed across my mind--the knowledge of my own personal peril. I had enemies--bitter enemies. My heart sank within me as I stepped into the great gilded hall, for I had given a promise which I much feared I would never be permitted to live and fulfil. CHAPTER THREE. CONTAINS CERTAIN CONFIDENCES. Six hours later, accompanied by Saunderson, our tall, thin Charge d'Affaires, and the Embassy staff, all in our uniforms and decorations, I entered the huge white-and-gold ballroom of the Winter Palace, where the Russian Court, the representatives of exclusive Society, the bureaucracy of the Empire and the _corps diplomatique_ had assembled. The scene was perhaps the most brilliant and picturesque that could be witnessed anywhere in the world. Beneath the myriad lights of those huge cut-glass chandeliers, and reflected by the gigantic mirrors upon the walls, were hundreds of gold-laced uniforms of every shade and every style. Across the breasts of many of the men were gay-coloured scarves of the various orders, with diamond stars, while others wore around their necks parti-coloured ribbons with enamelled crosses at their throat, or rows of decorations across their breasts. And to this phantasmagoria of colour, as all stood in little groups chattering and awaiting Their Majesties, was added that of the splendid long-trained dresses of the women, nearly all of whom wore their diamond tiaras, or diamond ornaments in their corsage. It was indeed, a cosmopolitan gathering, half of Russians and half of the diplomatic set, and around me, as I bowed over the hand of a well-known Baroness, wife of the Minister of War, I heard animated chatter in half a dozen tongues. The Emperor had returned, and there would now be a month of gaiety before he retired for the summer to Gatchina. The spring season in Petersburg had been cut short--first by the indisposition of the Empress, and afterwards by reason of the Emperor's tour to the distant shore of the Caspian. Therefore at this, the delayed Court ball, everybody who was anybody in Russia was present. In one end of the huge Renaissance salon, with its wonderful painted ceiling and gilded cupids, was a great semicircular alcove, with a slightly raised dais, whereon sat the Dowager-Empress, the Grand Duchesses and those of the blood-royal, with their attendant ladies, while the male members of the Court lounged behind. The opposite end of the great ballroom led to another salon with parquet floor, decorated in similar style, and with many mirrors, and almost as large, while beyond was a somewhat smaller room, the whole effect being one of gorgeous grandeur and immensity. I had paused to chat with a stout lady in cream, who wore a beautiful tiara. Princess Lovovski, wife of the Governor-General of Finland, and she had commenced to tell me the latest tit-bit of scandal concerning the wife of a certain War Office official, a matter which did not interest me in the least, when suddenly there came three loud taps--the taps of the Grand Chamberlain--announcing the entrance of His Majesty. As by enchantment a wide door in the side of the ballroom flew open, and the glittering throng, bejewelled and perfumed, flashing colours amid plumes, aigrettes and flowers, laughing and murmuring to the clink of gala swords and sabres, was struck to silence. His Majesty passed--a tall, commanding figure in a white uniform covered with the stars, crosses and many-coloured ribbons of the various European orders. Beneath the thousand lights the bare shoulders of the beautiful women inclined profoundly. Then again the loud chatter recommenced. The Emperor's presence, tall, erect, muscular, was indeed a regal one. He looked every inch a ruler and an autocrat as he advanced to the alcove, where the whole Court had risen to receive him, and with a quick gesture he gave the signal for dancing to commence. I retreated to the wall, being in no humour to dance, and stood gazing at him. He seemed, indeed, a different person to that deep-eyed, earnest man in dark-blue serge who had sat chatting with me so affably six hours ago. He was in that hour a man, but now the centre of that gay patrician throng, he was ruler, the autocrat who by a stroke of the grey quill could banish to the mines or the _oubliettes_ any of those of his subjects who bowed before him--sweep them out of existence as completely as though the grave had claimed them; for every exile lost his identity and became a mere number; his estate was administered as though he were dead, and apportioned, with the usual forfeiture to the State, among his heirs. So that it was impossible for an exile to be traced. I thought of Madame Marya de Rosen and of poor little Luba. Ah! I wondered how many delicate women and handsome, intelligent men who had danced over that polished floor were now dragging out their weary lives in those squalid, filthy Yakut yaurtas of Eastern Siberia. How many, alas! had, in innocence, fallen victims to that corrupt bureaucracy which always concealed the truth from His Majesty. To the camarilla, a dozen or so men who were present there in brilliant uniforms and wearing the Cross of St Andrew, with the pale-blue ribbon, the highest Order of the Empire, bestowed upon them for their "fidelity," that present reign of terror was solely due. It was to the interests of those men that the Emperor should be perpetually terrorised. Half those so-called conspiracies were the work of the Secret Police themselves and their _agents-provocateurs_; and hundreds of innocent persons were being spirited away without trial to the frozen wastes of Northern and Eastern Siberia, upon no other charge than the trivial one that they were "dangerous" persons! Madame de Rosen and her pretty daughter had fallen victims of the bitter unscrupulousness of that short, stout, grey-moustached man, who at that moment was bowing so obsequiously before his Sovereign, the man who was one of the greatest powers in the Empire, General Serge Markoff, Chief of Secret Police. The first dance was in progress. Pretty women, with their smart, good-looking cavaliers, were whirling about me to the slow, tuneful strains of one of the latest of Strauss's waltzes, when Colonel Mellini, the Italian military attache, halted before me to chat. He had just returned from leave, and had much Embassy gossip to relate to me from the Eternal City, where I had served for two years. "I hear," he remarked at last, "that another plot was discovered early this morning--a desperate one in the Nevski. Markoff really seems ubiquitous." I looked into his dark eyes and smiled. "Ah! I see, _caro mio_," he laughed. "Your thoughts are similar to mine--eh? These plots are a little too frequent to be genuine," and, lowering his voice to a whisper, he added: "I can't understand how His Majesty does not see through the transparency of it. They are terrorising him every day--every hour. A man of less robust physique or mental balance would surely be driven out of his mind." "I agree with you entirely, my dear friend. But," I added, "this is not the place to discuss affairs of State. Ah, Madame!" and turning, I bent over the gloved hand of old Madame Neilidoff, one of the leaders of Society in Moscow, with whom I stood chatting for a long time, and who kindly invited me for a week out at her great country estate at Sukova in Tver. Captain Stoyanovitch, gay with decorations, hurried past me on some errand for the Emperor, and gave me a nod as he went on, while young Bertram Tucker, our third secretary, came up and began to chat with the yellow-toothed old lady, who was such a power in the Russian social circle. I suppose it must have been nearly two o'clock, when, after wandering through the _salons_, greeting many men and women I knew, I suddenly heard a voice behind me exclaim in English: "Hulloa, old Uncle Colin! Am I too small to be recognised?" I turned quickly and confronted the pretty laughing girl of nineteen of whom I had been in search all the night--Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia Olga Nicolaievna. Tall, slim, with a perfect figure, she was dressed in cream, a light simple gown which suited her youth and extreme beauty admirably. Across her dark, well-dressed hair she wore a narrow band of forget-me-nots; at her throat was a large single emerald of great value, suspended by a fine chain of platinum, a present from His Majesty, while on the edge of her low-cut corsage she wore a bow of pale-blue ribbon embroidered in silver with a Russian motto, and from it was suspended a medallion set with diamonds and bearing in the centre the enamelled figure of Saint Catherine--the exclusive Order of Saint Catherine bestowed upon the Grand Duchesses. "How miserable you look, Uncle Colin!" exclaimed the dark-eyed girl before I could reply. "Whatever is the matter? Is the British Lion sick--or what?" "I really must apologise to Your Imperial Highness," I said, bowing. "I was quite unaware that I looked miserable. I surely could never look miserable in your presence." We both laughed, while standing erect and defiant, before me she held up a little ivory fan, threatening to chastise me with it. "Well," I said, "and so you are safely back again in Petersburg, after all your travels! Why, it's surely eight weeks since we were at the ball at the Palace of your uncle, the Grand Duke Serge." "Where you danced with me. Do you remember how we laughed? You said some nasty sarcastic things, so I punished you. I told Captain Stoyanovitch and some of the others that you had flirted with me and kissed me. So there!" I looked at her in stern reproach. "Ah!" I said. "So that is the source of all those rumours--eh? You're a very wicked girl," I added, "even though you are a Grand Duchess." "Well, I suppose Grand Duchesses are in no way different to other girls--eh?" she pouted. "Sometimes I wish I were back again at school at Eastbourne. Ah! what grand times I used to have in those days-- hockey and tennis and gym, and I was not compelled to perform all sorts of horrible, irksome etiquette, and be surrounded by this crowd of silly dressed-up apes. Why, Uncle Colin, these are not men--all these tight-uniformed popinjays at Court." "Hush, my child!" I said. "Hush! You will be overheard." "And I don't care if I am. Surely a girl can speak out what she thinks!" "In England, yes, in certain circumstances, but in Russia--and especially at Court--never!" "Oh, you are so horribly old-fashioned, Uncle Colin. When shall I bring you up-to-date?" cried the petted and spoiled young lady, whose two distinctions were that she was one of the most beautiful girls in all Russia, and the favourite niece of the Tzar Alexander. She had nicknamed me "Uncle," on account of my superior age, long ago. "And you are utterly incorrigible," I said, trying to assume an angry look. "Ah! You're going to lecture me!" she exclaimed with another pout. "I suppose I ought never to dance at all--eh? It's wicked in your eyes, isn't it? You are perhaps, one of those exemplary people that I heard so much of when in England--such an expressive name--the Kill-joys!" "No, Your Highness," I protested. "I really don't think I'm a killjoy. If I were, I couldn't very well be a diplomat. I--" "But all diplomats are trained liars," she asserted with abrupt frankness. "The Emperor told me so only the other day. He said they were men one should never trust." "I admit that, without the lie _artistique_, diplomacy would really be non-existent," I said, with a laugh. "But is not the whole political world everywhere in Europe a world of vain promise, intrigue and shame?" "Just as our social world seems to me," she admitted. "Ah! Then you are beginning to realise the hollow unreality of the world about you--eh?" I said. "Dear me!" she exclaimed, "you talk just like a bishop! I really don't know what has come to my dear old Uncle Colin. You must be ill, or something. You never used to be like this," she added, with a sigh and a well-feigned look of regret that was really most amusing, while at the same time she made eyes at me. Truly, she was a most charming little madcap, this Imperial Grand Duchess--the most charming in all Europe, as the diplomatic circle had long ago agreed. So she had taken revenge upon me for uttering words of wisdom by telling people that I had flirted with and kissed her! She herself was responsible for the chatter which had gone round, with many embellishments, concerning myself, and how deeply I was in love with her. I wondered if it had reached the Emperor's ears? I felt annoyed, I here confess. And yet so sweet and irresponsible was she, so intelligent and quick at repartee, that next moment I had forgiven her. And I frankly told her so. "My dear Uncle Colin, it would have been all the same," she declared airily. "You shouldn't have lectured me. I assure you I have had enough of that at home. Ever since I came back from England everybody seems to have conspired to tell me that I'm the most terrible girl in Russia. Father holds up his hands; why, I really don't know." "Because you are so extremely unconventional," I said. "A girl of the people can act just as she likes; but you are a Grand Duchess--and you can't." "Bother my birth. That's my misfortune. I wish I were a shopgirl, or a typist, or something. Then I should be free!" she exclaimed impatiently. "As it is, I can't utter a word or move a little finger without the whole of Russia lifting up their hands in pious horror. I tell you, Uncle Colin," she added, her fine, big, dark eyes fixed upon me, "I'm sick of it all. It is simply unbearable. Ah! how I wish I were back at dear old Southdene College. I hate Russia and all her works!" "Hush!" I cried again. "You really must not say that. Remember your position--the niece of His Majesty." "I repeat it!" she cried in desperation, her well-formed little mouth set firmly. "And I don't care who hears me--even if it's Uncle Alexander himself!" CHAPTER FOUR. CONCERNS MADAME DE ROSEN. At Her Highness's side I had strolled through the smaller salon and along the several great corridors to the splendid winter garden, on the opposite side of the palace. It was one of the smaller courtyards which had been covered in with glass and filled with high palms and tropical flowers ablaze with bloom. There, in that northern latitude, Asiatic and African plants flourished and flowered, with little electric lights cunningly concealed amid the leaves. Several other couples were seated there, away from the whirl and glitter of the Court; but taking no notice, we halted at two wicker chairs set invitingly in a corner. Into one of these she flung herself with a little sigh, and, bowing, I took the other. I sat and watched her. Her beauty was, indeed, exquisite. She had the long, tender, fluent lines of body and limb, the round waist, the deep chest and small bust, the sturdy throat of those ancient virgins that the greatest sculptors of the world worshipped and wrought into imperishable stone. She was not very tall, though she appeared so. It was something in pose and movement that did it. A beautiful soul looked from Her Highness's beautiful eyes whenever she smiled upon me. I found myself examining every line and turn and contour of the prettily-poised head. She was dark, with that lovely complexion like pure alabaster tinted with rose sometimes seen in Russian women. Her eyes, under the sweeping lashes, seemed capable of untold depths of tenderness. Hers was the perfect oval of a young face across whose innocent girlishness experience had written no line, passion cast no shadow. "One thing I've heard to-day has greatly pained me," I said presently to my dainty little companion. "You'll forgive me for speaking quite frankly--won't you?" "Certainly, Uncle Colin," she replied, opening her big eyes in surprise. "But I thought you had brought me here to flirt with me--not to talk seriously." "I must talk seriously for a moment," I said apologetically. "It is in Your Highness's interests. Listen. I heard something to-day at which I know that you yourself will be greatly annoyed. I heard it whispered that Geoffrey Hamborough had killed himself because of you." "Geoffrey dead!" she gasped, starting up and staring at me, her face blanched in an instant. "No. He is not dead," I replied calmly, "for as soon as I heard the report I sent him a wire to Yorkshire and to the Travellers', in London. He replied from the club half an hour before I came here." "But who could have spread such a report?" the girl asked. "It could only be done to cast opprobrium upon me--to show that because--because we parted--he had taken his life. It's really too cruel," she declared, and I saw hot tears welling in her beautiful eyes. "I agree. But you must deny the report." "Who told you?" "I regret that I must not say. It was, however, a friend of yours." "A man?" I nodded in the affirmative. "Ah!" she cried impatiently. "You diplomats are always so full of secrets. Really you must tell me. Uncle Colin." "I can't," was my brief reply. "I only ask you to refute the untruth." "I will--at once. Poor Geoffrey." "Have you heard from him lately?" I asked. "You're very inquisitive. I have not." "I'm very glad of that," I answered her. "You know how greatly the affair annoyed the Emperor. You were awfully injudicious. It's a good job that I chanced to meet you both at the station in Moscow." "Well," she laughed, "I was going to England with him, and we had arranged to be married at a registrar's office in London. Only you stopped us--you nasty old thing!" "And you ought to be very glad that I recognised you just in the nick of time. Ten minutes later and you would have left Moscow. Think of the scandal--the elopement of a young Imperial Grand Duchess of Russia with an English commoner." "Well, and isn't an English commoner as good, and perhaps better, than one of these uniformed and decorated Russian aristocrats? I am Russian," she added frankly, "but I have no love for the Muscovite man." "It was a foolish escapade," I declared; "but it's all over now. The one consolation is that nobody knows the actual truth." "Except His Majesty. I told him everything; how I had met Geoffrey in Hampshire when I went to stay with Lady Hexworthy; how we used to meet in secret, and all that," she said. "Well now," I exclaimed, looking straight into her face, "I want to ask you a plain open question. I have a motive in doing so--one which I will explain to you after you have answered me honestly and truthfully. I--" "At it again!" cried the pretty madcap. "You're really not yourself to-night, Uncle Colin. What is the matter with you?" "Simply I want to know the truth--whether there is still any love between Geoffrey and yourself?" "Ah! no," she sighed, pulling a grimace. "It's all over between us. It broke his heart, poor fellow, but some kind friend, at your Embassy, I think, wrote and told him about Paul Urusoff and--well, he wrote me a hasty letter. Then I replied, a couple of telegrams, and we agreed to be strangers for ever. And so ends the story. Like a novel, isn't it?" she laughed merrily. My eyes were fixed upon her. I was wondering if she were really telling me the truth. As the Emperor had most justly said, she was an artful little minx where her love-affairs were concerned. Colonel Polivanoff, the Grand Chamberlain of the Court, crossed the great palm-garden at that moment, and bowed to my pretty companion. "But," she added, turning back to me, "people ought not to say that he's been foolish enough to do away with himself on my account. It only shows that I must have made some enemies of whom I'm quite unaware." "Everyone has enemies," I answered her. "You are no exception. But, is it really true that Geoffrey is no longer in your thoughts?" I asked her very seriously. "Truth and honour," she declared, with equal gravity. "Then who is the fortunate young man at present--eh?" "That's my own secret. Uncle Colin," she declared, drawing herself up. "I'll ask you the same question. Who is the lady you are in love with at the present moment?" "Shall I tell you?" "Yes. It would be interesting." "I'm in love with you." "Ah?" she cried, nodding her head and laughing. "I thought as much. You've brought me out here to flirt with me. I wonder if you'll kiss me--eh?" she asked mischievously. "I will, if you tempt me too much," I said threateningly. "And then the report you've spread about will be the truth." She laughed merrily and tapped my hand with her fan. "I never can get the better of you, dear old uncle," she declared. "You always have the last word, and you're such a delightfully old-fashioned person. Now let's try and be serious." And she settled herself and, turning to me, added: "Why do you wish to know about Geoffrey Hamborough?" "For several reasons," I said. "First, I think Your Highness knows me quite well enough to be aware that I am your very sincere friend." "My best friend," she declared quickly; her manner changed in an instant from merry irresponsibility to deep earnestness. "That night on the railway platform at Moscow you saved me making a silly fool of myself. It was most generous of the Emperor to forgive me. I know how you pleaded for me. He told me so." "I am your friend," I replied. "Now, as to the future. You tell me that you find all the Court etiquette irksome, and that you are antagonistic to this host of young men about you. You are, in brief, sorry that you are back in Russia. Is that so?" "It is so exactly." "And how about Prince Urusoff--eh?" "I haven't seen him for fully three months, and I don't even know where he is. I believe he's with his regiment, the 21st Dragoons of White Russia, somewhere away in the Urals. I heard that the Emperor sent him there. But he certainly need not have done so. I found him only a foolish young boy." Her Imperial Highness was a young lady of very keen intelligence. After several governesses at home, she had been sent to Paris, and afterwards to a college at Eastbourne--where she was known as Miss Natalia Gottorp, the latter being one of the family names of the Imperial Romanoffs--and there she had completed her education. From her childhood she had always had an English governess, Miss West, consequently, with a Russian's adaptability, she spoke English almost without a trace of accent. Though so full of fun and frolic, and so ready to carry on a violent flirtation, yet she was, on the other hand, very thoughtful and level-headed, with a keen sense of humour, and a nature extremely sympathetic with any person in distress, no matter whom they might be. Hers was a bright, pleasant nature, a smiling face, and ever-twinkling eye full of mischief and merriment. "Well," I said, looking into her face, "I've been thinking about you a good deal since you've been away--and wondering." "Wondering what?" "Whether, as you have no love for Russia, you might not like to go back to England?" I said slowly. "To England!" she cried in delight. "Ah! If I only could! I love England, and especially Eastbourne, with the sea and the promenade, the golf, and the concerts at the Devonshire Park, and all that. Ah! I only wish I could go." "But if you went you'd fall in love with some young fellow, and then we should have another scandal at Court," I said. "I wouldn't. Believe me, I wouldn't, really, Uncle Colin," she pleaded, looking up into my face with almost childish simplicity. I shook my head dubiously. "All I've told you is the real truth," she assured me. "I've only amused myself. Every girl likes men to make love to her. Why should I be so bitterly condemned?" "Because you are not a commoner." "That's just it. But if I went to England and lived again as Miss Natalia Gottorp, nobody would know who I am, and I could have a really splendid time. Here," she cried, "all the glitter and etiquette of Court life stifle me. I've been bored to death on the tour round the Empire, but couldn't you try and induce the Emperor to let me go back to England? Do, Uncle Colin, there's a dear. A word from the Emperor, and father would let me go in a moment. I wish poor mother were alive. She would soon let me go, I know." "And what would you do in England if you went back?" "Why, I'd have my old governess, Miss West--the one I had at Strelna--to live with me, and I'd be ever so happy. I'd take a house on the sea-front at Eastbourne, so as to be near the old college, and see the girls. Try what you can do with Uncle Alexander, won't you? there's a dear old uncle," she added, in her most persuasive tones. "Well," I said, with some show of reluctance, "if I succeed, you will be responsible to me, remember. No flirtations." "I promise," she said. "Here's my hand," and she put her tiny white-gloved hand into mine. "And if I heard of any affectionate meetings I should put down my foot at once." "Yes, that's agreed," she exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "At once." "And I should, perhaps, want you to help me in England," I added slowly, looking into her pretty face the while. "Help you, in what way?" she asked. "At present, I hardly know. But if I wanted assistance might I count on you?" "Count on me, Uncle Colin!" she echoed. "Why, of course, you can! Look at my indebtedness to you, and it will be increased if you can secure me permission to go back to England." "Well," I said, "I'll do what I can. But you have told me no untruths to-night, not one--?" I asked very seriously. "If so, admit it." "Not one. I swear I haven't." "Very well," I said. "Then I'll do my best." "Ah! you are a real dear!" cried the girl enthusiastically. "I almost feel as though I could hug and kiss you!" "Better not," I laughed. "There are some people sitting over there, and they would talk--" "Yes," she said slowly. "I suppose really one ought to be a bit careful, after all. When will you see the Emperor?" "Perhaps to-morrow--if he gives me audience." Then I related to her the story of the attempt in the Nevski on the previous morning, and the intention of assassinating the Emperor as he drove from the Nicholas station to the Palace. "Ah, yes!" she cried. "It is all too dreadful. For seven weeks we have lived in constant terror of explosions. I could not go through it again for all the world. Those days in that stuffy armoured train were simply awful. His Majesty only undertook the journey in order to defy those who declared that some terrible catastrophe would happen. The Empress knew nothing of the danger until we had started." "And yet the only danger lay within half a mile of the Palace on your return," I said. "There have, I hear, been thirty-three arrested to-day, including my friends Madame de Rosen and Luba. You knew them." "Marya de Rosen!" gasped the Grand Duchess, staring at me. "She is not under arrest?" "Alas! she is already on her way, with her daughter, to Eastern Siberia." "But that is impossible. She was no revolutionist. I knew them both very intimately." "General Markoff was her enemy," I said in a whisper. "Ah, yes! I hate that man!" cried Her Highness. "He is a clever liar who has wormed himself completely into the Emperor's confidence, and now, in order to sustain a reputation as a discoverer of plots, he is compelled to first manufacture them. Hundreds of innocent men and women have been exiled by administrative order during the past twelve months for complicity in conspiracies which have never had any existence save in the wicked imagination of that brutal official. I know it--_I can prove it_!" "Hush!" I said. "You may be overheard. You surely do not wish the man to become your enemy. Remember, he is all-powerful here--in Russia." "I will speak the truth when the time comes," she said vehemently. "I will show the Emperor certain papers which have come into my own hands which will prove how His Majesty has been misled, tricked and terrorised by this Markoff, and certain of his bosom friends in the Cabinet." "It is really most unwise to speak so loudly," I declared. "Somebody may overhear." "Let them overhear!" cried the girl angrily. "I do not fear Markoff in the least. I will, before long, open the Emperor's eyes, never fear-- and justice shall be done. These poor wretches shall not be sent to the dungeons beneath the lake at Schusselburg, or to the frozen wastes of Yakutsk, in order that Markoff shall remain in power. Ah! he little dreams how much I know!" she laughed harshly. "It would hardly be wise of you to take any such action. You might fail--and--then--" "I cannot fail to establish at least the innocence of Madame de Rosen and of Luba. The reason why they have been sent to Siberia is simple. Into Madame de Rosen's possession there recently came certain compromising letters concerning General Markoff. He discovered this, and hence her swift exile without trial. But, Uncle Colin," she added, "those letters are in my possession! Madame de Rosen gave them to me the night before I went south with the Emperor, because she feared they might be stolen by some police-spy. And I have kept them in a place of safety until such convenient time when I can place them before His Majesty. The latter will surely see that justice is done, and then the disgraceful career of this arch-enemy of Russian peace and liberty will be at an end." "Hush!" I cried anxiously, for at that moment a tall man, in the bright green uniform of the Lithuanian Hussars, whose face I could not see, passed close by us, with a handsome middle-aged woman upon his arm. "Hush! Do, for heaven's sake, be careful, I beg of you!" I exclaimed. "Such intention should not even be whispered. These Palace walls have ears, for spies are everywhere!" CHAPTER FIVE. THE MAN IN PINCE-NEZ. Next day was Wednesday. At half-past five in the afternoon I was seated in my room at the Embassy, busy copying out the last of my despatches which were to be sent that week by Foreign Office messenger to London. The messenger himself, in the person of my friend Captain Hubert Taylor, a thin, long-limbed, dark-haired cosmopolitan, was stretched lazily in my chair smoking a cigarette, impatient for me to finish, so that the white canvas bag could be sealed and he could get away. The homeward Nord express to Ostend was due to leave at six o'clock; therefore he had not much time to spare. "Do hurry up, old man," he urged, glancing at his watch. "If it isn't important, keep it over until Wednesday week. Despatches are like wine, they improve with keeping." "Shut up!" I exclaimed, for I saw I had a good deal yet to copy--the result of an important inquiry regarding affairs south of the Caspian, which was urgently required at Downing Street. Our Consul in Baku had been travelling for three months in order to supply the information. "Well, if I miss the train I really don't mind, my dear Colin. I can do quite well with a few days' rest. I was down in Rome ten days ago; and, besides, I only got here the night before last." "I do wish you'd be quiet, Taylor," I cried. "I can't write while you chatter." So he lit a fresh cigarette and repossessed himself in patience until at last I had finished my work, stuck down the long envelope with the printed address, and placed it with thirty or forty other letters into the canvas bag; this I carefully sealed with wax with the Embassy seal. "There you are!" I exclaimed at last. "You've plenty of time for the train--and to spare." "I shouldn't have had if I hadn't hurried you up, my dear boy. Everyone seems asleep here. It shows your chief's away on leave. You should put in a day in Paris. They're active there. It would be an eye-opener for you." "Paris isn't Petersburg," I laughed. "And an attache isn't a foreign service messenger," he declared. "Government pays you fellows to look ornamental, while we messengers have to travel in hot haste and live in those rocking sleeping-cars of the wagon-lits." "Horribly hard work to spend one's days travelling from capital to capital," I said, well knowing that this remark to a foreign service messenger is as a red rag to a bull. "Work, my dear fellow. You try it for a month and see," Taylor snapped. "Well," I asked with a laugh, "any particular news in London?" for the messengers are bearers of all the diplomatic gossip from embassy to embassy. "Oh, well--old Petheridge, in the Treaty Department, is retiring this month, and Jack Scrutton is going to be transferred from Rome to Lima. Some old fool in the Commons has, I hear, got wind of that bit of scandal in Madrid--you know the story, Councillor of Embassy and Spanish Countess--and threatens to put down a question concerning it. I hear there's a dickens of a row over it. The Chief is furious. Oh!--and I saw your Chief in the St James's Club the day I left London. He'd just come from Windsor--been kissing hands, or something. Well," he added, "I suppose I may as well have some cigarettes before I go, even though you don't ask me. But they are always _pro bono_, I know. The Embassy at Petersburg is always noted for its hospitality and its cigarettes!" And he emptied the contents of my cigarette-box into the capacious case he took from his pocket. "Here you are," I said, taking from my table another sealed despatch bearing a large blue cross upon it, showing that it was a confidential document in cipher upon affairs of State. "Oh, hang!" he cried. "I didn't know you had one of those." And then, unbuttoning his waistcoat, he fumbled about his waist, and at last placed it carefully in the narrow pocket of the belt he wore beneath his clothes, buttoning the flap over the pocket. "Well," he said at last, putting on his overcoat, "so long, old man. I'll just have time. I wonder what old Ivanoff, in the restaurant-car, will have for dinner to-night? Borstch, of course, and caviare." "You fellows have nothing else to think about but your food," I laughed. "Food--yes, it's railway-food with a vengeance in this God-forgotten country. Lots to drink, but nothing decent to eat." And taking the little canvas bag he shook my hand heartily and strode out. I stood for some time gazing through the open window out upon the sunlit Neva across to the grim fortress on the opposite bank--the prison of many terrible tales. My thoughts were running, just as they had run all day, upon that strange suspicion which the Emperor had confided to me. It seemed too remarkable, too strange, too amazing to be true. And again before my vision there arose the faces of those two refined and innocent ladies, Madame de Rosen and her daughter, who had been so suddenly hurried away to a living tomb in that far-off Arctic region. I remembered what the little Grand Duchess had told me, and wondered whether her allegations were really true. I was wondering if she would permit me to see those incriminating letters which Madame had given to her for safe-keeping, for at all costs I felt that, for the safety of the Emperor and the peace and prosperity of Russia, the country should be rid of General Serge Markoff. And yet the difficulties were, I knew, insurmountable. His Majesty, hearing of these constant plots being discovered and ever listening to highly-coloured stories of the desperate attempts of revolutionists, naturally believed his personal safety to be due to this man whom he had appointed as head of the police of the Empire. To any word said against Serge Markoff he turned a deaf ear, and put it down to jealousy, or to some ingenious plot to withdraw from his person the constant vigilance which his beloved Markoff had established. More than once I had been bold enough to venture to hint that all those plots might not be genuine ones; but I had quickly understood that such suggestion was regarded by the Emperor as a slur cast upon his favourite official and personal friend. The more I reflected, the more unwise seemed that sudden outburst of my pretty little companion in the winter garden on the night before. If anyone had overheard her threat, then no doubt it would reach the ears of that man who daily swept so many innocent persons into the prisons and _etapes_ beyond the Urals. I knew, too well, of those lists of names which he placed before the Emperor, and to which he asked the Imperial signature, without even giving His Majesty an opportunity to glance at them. Truly, those were dark days. Life in Russia at that moment was a most uncertain existence, for anyone incurring the displeasure of General Markoff, or any of his friends, was as quickly and effectively removed as though death's sword had struck them. Much perturbed, and not knowing how to act in face of what the Emperor had revealed to me, I was turning from the window back to my writing-table, when one of the English footmen entered with a card. "Oh, show him up, Green. And bring some cigarettes," I said. My visitor was Ivan Hartwig, the famous chief of the Russian Criminal Detective Service--an entirely distinct department from the Secret Police. A few moments later he was ushered in by Green, and, bowing, took the hand I offered him. A lean, bony-faced man, of average height, alert, clean-shaven, and aged about forty-five. His hair was slightly streaked with grey, and his eyes, small and shrewd, beamed behind a pair of round gold-rimmed pince-nez. I had never seen him in glasses before, but I only supposed that he had suddenly developed myopia for some specific purpose. As he smiled in greeting me, his narrow jaws widened, displaying an even row of white teeth, while the English he spoke was as perfect as my own. At that moment, in his glasses, his black morning-coat and grey trousers, he looked more like a grave family physician than a police officer whose career was world-famous. And yet he was a man of striking appearance. His broad white forehead, his deep-set eyes so full of fire and expression, his high, protruding cheek-bones, and his narrowing chin were all characteristics of a man of remarkable power and intelligence. His, indeed, was a face that would arrest attention anywhere; hence the hundred and one disguises which he so constantly adopted. "I have had private audience of His Majesty this afternoon, Mr Trewinnard," he said, as he took the chair I offered him. "He has sent me to you. You wish to see me." "Yes," I said. "I need your assistance." "So His Majesty has told me, but he explained nothing of the affair. He commanded me to place myself entirely at your disposal," replied the man, who, in himself, was a man of mystery. His nationality was obscure to most people, yet we at the Embassy knew that he was in reality a British subject, and that Ivan Hartwig was merely the Russian equivalent of Evan Hardwicke. I handed him the box of cigarettes which Green had replenished, and took one myself. As he slowly lit his, I recollected what a strange career he had had. Graduating from Scotland Yard, where on account of his knowledge of German and Russian he had been mainly employed in the arrest of alien criminals in England, he had for several years served under Monsieur Goron, Prefet of Police of Paris, and after being attached to the Tzar on one of his visits to the French capital, had been personally invited by the Emperor to become head of the Criminal Investigation Department of Russia. He was a quiet-spoken, alert, elusive, but very conscientious man, who had made a study of crime from a psychological standpoint, his many successes being no doubt due to his marvellously minute examination of motives and his methodical reasoning upon the most abstruse clues. There was nothing of the ordinary blunt official detective about him. He was a man of extreme refinement, an omnivorous reader and a diligent student of men. He was a passionate collector of coins, a bachelor, and an amateur player of the violin. I believe that he had never experienced what fear was, and certainly within my own knowledge, he had had a dozen narrow escapes from the vengeance of the Terrorists. Once a bomb was purposely exploded in a room into which he and his men went to arrest two students in Moscow, and not one present escaped death except Hartwig himself. And as he now sat there before me, so quiet and attentive, blinking at me through those gold-rimmed pince-nez, none would certainly take him for the man whose hairbreadth escapes, constant disguises, exciting adventures and marvellous successes in the tracking of criminals all over Europe had so often amazed the readers of newspapers the world over. "Well, Mr Hartwig," I said in a low voice, after I had risen and satisfied myself that Green had closed the door, "the matter is one of strictest confidence--a suspicion which I may at once tell you is the Emperor's own personal affair. To myself alone he has confided it, and I requested that you might be allowed to assist me in finding a solution of the problem." "I'm much gratified," he said. "As an Englishman, you know, I believe, that I am ever ready to serve an Englishman, especially if I am serving the Emperor at the same time." "The inquiry will take us far afield, I expect--first to England." "To England!" he exclaimed. "For how long do you anticipate?" "Who knows?" I asked. "I can only say that it will be a very difficult and perhaps a long inquiry." "And how will the department proceed here?" "Your next in command will be appointed in your place until your return. The Emperor arranged for this with me yesterday. Therefore, from to-morrow you will be free to place yourself at my service." "I quite understand," he said. "And now, perhaps, you will in confidence explain exactly the situation, and the problem which is presented," and he settled himself in his chair in an attitude of attention. "Ah! that, I regret, is unfortunately impossible. The Emperor has entrusted the affair to me, and to me alone. I must direct the inquiry, and you will, I fear, remain in ignorance--at least, for the present." "In other words, you will direct and I must act blindly--eh?" he said in a rather dubious voice. "That's hardly satisfactory to me, Mr Trewinnard, is it?--hardly fair, I mean." "I openly admit that such an attitude as I am compelled to adopt is not fair to you, Hartwig. But I feel sure you will respect the Emperor's confidence, and view the matter in its true light. The matter is a personal one of His Majesty's, and may not be divulged. He has asked me to tell you this frankly and plainly, and also that he relies upon you to assist him." My words convinced the great detective, and he nodded at last in the affirmative. "The problem I alone know," I went on. "His Majesty has compelled me to swear secrecy. Therefore I am forbidden to tell you. You understand?" "But I am not forbidden to discover it for myself?" replied the keen, wary official. "If you do, I cannot help it," was my reply. "If I do," he said, "I promise you faithfully, Mr Trewinnard, that His Majesty's secret, whatever it is, shall never pass my lips." CHAPTER SIX. RELATES A SENSATION. Ten days had gone by. I had applied to Downing Street for leave of absence, and was awaiting permission. One afternoon I had again been commanded to private audience at the Palace, and in uniform, had spent nearly two hours with the Emperor, listening to certain confidential instructions which he had given me-- instructions for the fulfilment of a somewhat difficult task. Twice during our chat I had referred to the case of my friends Madame and Mademoiselle de Rosen, hoping that he would extend to them the Imperial clemency, and by a stroke of that well-worn quill upon the big writing-table recall them from that long and weary journey upon which they had been sent. But His Majesty, who was wearing the undress uniform of a general with a single cross at his throat, uttered an expression of regret that I had been friendly with them. "In Russia, in these days, a foreigner should exercise the greatest caution in choosing his friends," he said. "Only the day before yesterday Markoff reported it was to those two women that the attempt in the Nevski was entirely due. The others, thirty or so, were merely tools of those clever women." "Forgive me, Your Majesty, when I say that General Markoff lies," I replied boldly. "Enough! Our opinions differ, Trewinnard," he snapped, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. It was on the tip of my tongue to make a direct charge against his favourite official, but what was the use when I held no actual proof. Twice recently I had seen Natalia, but she refused to allow me sight of the letters, telling me that she intended herself to show up the General in her own way--and at her own time. So the subject had dropped, for I saw that mention of it only aroused the Emperor's displeasure. And surely the other matter which we were discussing with closed doors was weighty enough. At last His Majesty tossed his cigarette-end away, and, his jewelled cross glittering at his throat, rose with outstretched hand, as sign that my audience was at an end. That eternal military band was playing in the grey courtyard below, and the Emperor had slammed-to the window impatiently to keep out the sound. He was in no mood for musical comedy that afternoon. Indeed, I knew that the military music often irritated him, but Court etiquette--those iron-bound, unwritten laws which even an Emperor cannot break--demanded it. Those same laws decreed that no Emperor of Russia may travel _incognito_, as do all other European sovereigns; that at dinner at the Winter Palace there must always be eight guests; and that the service of gold plate of Catherine the Great must always be used. At the Russian Court there are a thousand such laws, the breach of a single one being an unpardonable offence, even in the case of the autocratic ruler himself. "Then you understand my wishes--eh, Trewinnard?" His Majesty said at last in English, gripping my hand warmly. "Perfectly, Sire." "I need not impress upon you the need for absolute and entire discretion. I trust you implicitly." "I hope Your Majesty's trust will never be betrayed," I answered fervently, bowing over the strong outstretched hand. And then, backing out of the door, I bowed and withdrew. Through the long corridor with its soft red carpet I went, passing Calitzine, a short, dark man in funereal black, the Emperor's private secretary, to whom I passed the time of day. Then, reaching the grand staircase with its wonderful marble and gold balustrades and great chandeliers of crystal, I descended to the huge hall, where the echoes were constantly aroused by hurrying footsteps of ministers, officials, chamberlains, courtiers and servants--all of them sycophants. The two gigantic sentries at the foot of the stairs held their rifles at the salute as I passed between them, when of a sudden I caught sight of the Grand Duchess Natalia in a pretty summer gown of pale-blue, standing with a tall, full-bearded elderly man in the brilliant uniform of the 15th Regiment of Grenadiers of Tiflis, of which he was chief, and wearing many decorations. It was her father, the Grand Duke Nicholas. "Why, here's old Uncle Colin!" cried my incorrigible little friend in pleased surprise. "Have you been up with the Emperor?" I replied in the affirmative, and, bowing, greeted His Imperial Highness, her father, with whom I had long been on friendly terms. "Where are you going?" asked the vivacious young lady quickly as she rebuttoned her long white glove, for they had, it seemed, been on a visit to the Empress. "I have to go to the opening of the new wing of the Naval Hospital," I said. "And I haven't much time to spare." "We are going there, too. I have to perform the opening ceremony in place of the Emperor," replied the Grand Duke. "So drive with us." "That's it, Uncle Colin!" exclaimed his daughter. "Come out for an airing. It's a beautiful afternoon." So we went forth into the great courtyard, where one of the Imperial state carriages, an open one, was in waiting, drawn by four fine, long-tailed Caucasian horses. Behind it was a troop of mounted Cossacks to act as escort. We entered, and the instant the bare-headed flunkeys had closed the door the horses started off, and we swung out of the handsome gateway into the wide Place, in the centre of which stood the grey column of Peter the Great. Turning to the left we went past the Alexander Gardens, now parched and dusty with summer heat, and skirted the long facade of the War Office. "I wonder what tales you've been telling the Emperor about me, Uncle Colin?" asked the impudent little lady, laughing as we drove along, I being seated opposite the Grand Duke and his daughter. "About you?" I echoed with a smile. "Oh, nothing, I assure you--or, at least, nothing that was not nice." "You're a dear, I know," declared the girl, her father laughing amusedly the while. "But you are so dreadfully proper. You're worse about etiquette than father is--and he's simply horrid. He won't ever let me go out shopping alone, and I'm surely old enough to do that!" "You're quite old enough to get into mischief, Tattie," replied her father, speaking in French. "I love mischief. That's the worst of it," and she pouted prettily. "Yes, quite true--the worst of it, for me," declared His Imperial Highness. "I thought that when you went to school in England they would teach you manners." "Ordinary manners are not Court manners," the girl argued, trying to rebutton one of her gloves which had come unfastened. "Let me do it," I suggested, and quickly fastened it. "Thank you," she laughed with mock dignity. "How charming it is to have such a polished diplomat as Mr Colin Trewinnard to do nice things for one. Now, isn't that a pretty speech? I suppose I ought to study smart things to say, and practise them on the dog--as father does sometimes." "Really, Tattie, you forget yourself, my dear," exclaimed her father, with distinct disapproval. "Well, that's nothing," declared my charming little companion. "Don't parsons practise preaching their sermons, and lawyers and statesmen practise their clever untruths? You can't expect a woman's mouth to be full of sugar-plums of speech, can you?" My eyes met those of the Grand Duke, and we both burst out laughing at the girl's quaint philosophy. "Why, even the Emperor has his speeches composed and written for him by silly old Calitzine," she went on. "And at Astrakhan the other day I composed a most telling and patriotic speech for His Majesty, which he delivered when addressing the officers of the Army of the Volga. I sat on my horse and listened. The old generals and colonels, and all the rest of them, applauded vociferously, and the men threw their caps in the air. I wonder if they would have done this had they known that I had written those well-turned patriotic sentences, I--a mere chit of a girl, as father sometimes tells me!" "And the terror of the Imperial family," I ventured to add. "Thank you for your compliment. Uncle Colin," she laughed. "I know father endorses your sentiments. I see it in his face." "Oh, do try and be serious, Tattie," he urged. "See all those people! Salute them, and don't laugh so vulgarly." And he raised his white-gloved hand to his shining helmet in recognition of the shouts of welcome rising from those assembled along our route. Whereat she bowed gracefully again with that slight and rather frigid smile which she had been taught to assume on public occasions. "If I put up my sunshade they won't see me, and it will avoid such a lot of trouble," she exclaimed suddenly, and she put up her pretty parasol, which matched her gown and softened the light upon her pretty face. "Oh, no, Uncle Colin!" she exclaimed suddenly, as we turned the corner into the Yosnesenskaya, a long, straight street where the throng, becoming greater, was kept back by lines of police in their grey coats, peaked caps and revolvers. "I know what you are thinking. But it isn't so. I'm not in the least afraid of spoiling my complexion." "Then perhaps it is a pity you are not," I replied. "Complexions, like all shining things, tarnish quickly." "Just like reputations, I suppose," she remarked, whereupon her father could not restrain another laugh. Then again, at word in an undertone from the Grand Duke, both he and his daughter saluted the crowd, our horses galloping, as they always do in Russia, and our Cossack-escort clattering behind. There were a good many people just at this point, for it was believed that the Emperor would pass on his way to perform the opening ceremony, and his loyal subjects were waiting to cheer him. On every hand, the people, recognising the popular Grand Duke and his daughter, set up hurrahs, and while His Imperial Highness saluted, his pretty daughter, the most admired girl in Russia, bowed, and I, in accordance with etiquette, made no sign of acknowledgment. As we came to the narrow bridge which spans the canal, the road was flanked on the left by the Alexander Market, and here was another huge crowd. Loud shouts of welcome in Russian broke forth from those assembled, for the Grand Duke and his daughter were everywhere greeted most warmly. But as we passed the market, the police keeping back the crowd, I saw a thin, middle-aged man in dark clothes lift his hand high above his head. Something came in our direction, yet before I had time to realise his action a blood-red flash blinded me, my ears were deafened by a terrific report, a hot, scorching breath swept across my face, and I felt myself hurled far into space amid the mass of falling debris. It all occurred in a single instant, and I knew no more. I had a distinct feeling that some terrific explosion had knocked the breath clean out of my body. I recollect seeing the carriage rent into a thousand fragments just at the same instant that black unconsciousness fell upon me. CHAPTER SEVEN. TELLS TRAGIC TRUTHS. When, with extreme difficulty, I slowly struggled back to a knowledge of things about me, I found myself, to my great surprise, in a narrow hospital-bed, with a holy _ikon_ upon the whitewashed wall before me, and a Red Cross sister bending tenderly over me. Beside her stood two Russian doctors regarding me very gravely, and at their side was Saunderson, our Councillor of Embassy. "Well, how are you feeling now, Colin, old man?" the latter whispered cheerfully. "I--I don't know. Where am I?" I asked. "What's happened?" "My dear fellow, you can thank your lucky stirs that you've escaped from the bomb," he said. "The bomb!" I gasped, and then in a flash all the horrors of that sudden explosion crowded upon me. "What happened?" I inquired, trying to raise myself, and finding my head entirely enveloped in surgical bandages. "What happened to the others?" "The Grand Duke was, alas! killed, but his daughter fortunately escaped only with a scratch on her arm," was his reply. "The carriage was blown to atoms, the two horses and their driver and footman were killed, while three Cossacks of the escort were also killed and two injured." "Then--then she--she is alive!" I managed to gasp, dazed at the tragic truth he had related to me. "Yes--it was a desperate attempt. Fifteen arrests have been made up to the present." And while he was speaking, Captain Stoyanovitch advanced to my bedside, and leaning over, asked in a low voice: "How are you, Trewinnard? The Emperor has sent me to inquire." "Tell His Majesty that I--I thank him. I'm getting round--I--I hope I'll soon be well. I--I--" "That's right. Take great care of yourself, _mon cher_," he urged. And then the doctors ordered my visitors away, and I sank among my pillows into a state of semi-consciousness. How long I lay thus I do not know. I remember seeing soldiers come and go, and at length discovered that I was in the hospital attached to the artillery barracks on the road to Warsaw Station. Beside me always sat a grave-eyed nursing sister, silent and watchful, while ever and anon one or other of the doctors would approach, bend over me, and inquire of her my condition. Saunderson came again some hours later. It was then night. And from him, now that I was completely conscious, I learnt how, after the explosion, the police had in the confusion shot down two men, afterwards proved to be innocent spectators, and made wholesale indiscriminate arrests. It was believed, however, that the man I had seen, the perpetrator of the dastardly act, had escaped scot-free. Dozens of windows in the market-hall opposite where the outrage was committed had been smashed, and many people besides the killed and injured had been thrown down by the terrific force of the explosion. "The poor Grand Duke Nicholas has, alas! been shattered out of recognition," he told me. "His body was taken at once to his palace, where it now lies, while you were brought here together with the Grand Duchess Natalia. But her wound being quite a slight one, was dressed, and she was driven at once to the Winter Palace, at the order of the Emperor. Poor child! I hear that she is utterly prostrated by the fearful sight which her father presented to her eyes." I drew a long breath. "I suppose I was struck on the head by some of the debris and knocked insensible--eh?" I asked. "Yes, probably," he replied. "But the doctors say the wound is only a superficial one, and in a week's time you'll be quite right again. So cheer up, old chap. You'll get the long leave which you put in for the other day, and a bit more added to it, no doubt." "But this state of things is terrible," I declared, shifting myself upon my side so that I could better look into his face. "Surely the revolutionists could have had no antagonism towards the Grand Duke Nicholas! He was most popular everywhere." "My dear fellow, who can gauge the state of the Russian mind at this moment? Plots seem to be of daily occurrence." "If you believe the reports of the Secret Police. But I, for one, don't," I declared frankly. "No, no," he said reprovingly. "Don't excite yourself. Be thankful that you've escaped. You might have shared the same fate as those poor Cossacks." "I know," I said. "I thank God that I was spared. But it will be in the London papers, no doubt. Reuter's man will send it; therefore, will you wire to my mother at once. You know her address--Hayford Manor, near Newquay, Cornwall. Wire in my name, and tell her that the affair is greatly exaggerated, and that I'm all right, will you?" He promised. I knew with what eagerness my aged mother always followed all my movements, for I made it a practice to write to her twice every week with a full report of my doings. I was as devoted to her as she was to me. And perhaps that accounted for the fact that I had never married. My father, the Honourable Colin Trewinnard, had been one of the largest landowners in Cornwall, and my family was probably one of the oldest in the county. But evil times had fallen upon the estate in the last years of my father's life; depreciation in the value of agricultural land, failing crops and foreign competition had ruined farming, and now the income was not one-half that it had been fifty years before. Yet it was sufficient to keep my mother and myself in comfort; and this, in addition to my pay from the Foreign Office, rendered me better off than a great many other men in our Service. Through Stoyanovitch, on the following morning, I received a message from Natalia. He said: "Her Highness, whom I saw in the Palace an hour ago, told me to say that she sent you her best wishes for a speedy recovery. She is greatly grieved over the death of her father, and, of course, the Court has gone into mourning for sixty days. She told me to tell you that as soon as you are able to return to the Embassy she wishes to see you on a very important matter." "Tell her that I am equally anxious to see her, and that she has all my sympathy in her sad bereavement," I replied. "Terrible, wasn't it?" the Imperial equerry exclaimed. "The poor girl looks white, haggard and entirely changed." "No wonder--after such an awful experience." "There were, I hear, twenty more arrests to-day. Markoff had audience with His Majesty at ten o'clock this morning, and eight of the prisoners of yesterday have been sent to Schusselburg." "From which they will never emerge," I said, with a shudder at the thought of that living tomb as full of horrors as was the Bastille itself. "Well, I don't see why they should, my dear friend," the Captain replied. "If I had had such an experience as yours, I shouldn't feel very lenient towards them--as you apparently do." "I am not thinking of the culprit," I said. "He certainly deserves a death-sentence. It is the innocents who, here in Russia, suffer for the guilty, with whom I deeply sympathise. Every day unoffending men and women are arrested wholesale in this drastic, unrelenting sweeping away of prisoners to Siberia. I tell you that half of them are loyal, law-abiding subjects of the Tzar." The elegant equerry-in-waiting only grinned and shrugged his shoulders. He was too good a Russian to adopt such an argument. As personal attendant upon His Majesty, he, of course, supported the Imperial autocracy. "This accursed system of police-spies and _agents-provocateurs_ manufactures criminals. Can a man wrongly arrested and sent to the mines remain a loyal subject?" "The many have to suffer for the few. It is the same in all lands," was his reply. "But really the matter doesn't concern me, my dear Trewinnard." "It will concern you one day when you are blown up as I have been," I exclaimed savagely. Shortly afterwards he left, and for hours I lay thinking, my eyes upon that square gilt holy picture before me, the _ikon_ placed before the eyes of every patient in the hospital. Nurses in grey and soldiers in white cotton tunics passed and repassed through the small ward of which I was the only occupant. The pains in my head were excruciating. I felt as though my skull had been filled with boiling water. Sometimes my thoughts were perfectly normal, yet at others my mind seemed full of strange, almost ridiculous phantasies. My whole career, from the days when I had been a clerk in that sombre old-fashioned room at Downing Street, through my service at Madrid, Brussels, Berlin and Rome to Petersburg--all went before me, like a cinema-picture. I looked upon myself as others saw me--as a man never sees himself in normal circumstances--a mere struggling entity upon the tide of that sea of life called To-day. We are so very apt to think ourselves indispensable to the world. Yet we have only to think again, and remember that the unknown to-morrow may bring, us death, and with it everlasting oblivion, as far as this world is concerned. Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII were the two greatest figures of our time; yet a month after their deaths people had to recall who they were, and what they had actually done to earn distinction. These modern days of rush and hurry are forgetful, irresponsible days, when public opinion is manufactured by those who rule the halfpenny press, and when the worst and most baneful commodities may be foisted upon the public by means of efficient advertisement. The cleverest swindler may by payment become a baronet of England, even a peer of the realm, providing he subscribes sufficient to Somebody's Newspaper Publicity Agency; and any blackguard with money or influence may become a Justice of the Peace and sentence his fellows to fourteen days' imprisonment. But the reader will forgive me. Perhaps remarks such as these ill become a diplomat--one who is supposed to hold no personal opinions. Yet I assert that to-day there is no diplomat serving Great Britain in a foreign country who is not tired and disgusted with his country's antiquated methods and her transparent weaknesses. The papers speak vigorously of Britain's power, but men in my service-- those who know real international truths--smile at the defiant and well-balanced sentences of the modern journalist, whose blissful ignorance of the truth is ofttimes so pathetic. Yes, it is only the diplomat serving at a foreign Court who can view Great Britain from afar, and accurately gauge her position among modern nations. For ten days I remained in that whitewashed ward, many of my friends visiting me, and Stoyanovitch coming daily with a pleasant message from His Majesty. Then one bright morning the doctors declared me to be fit enough to drive back to the Embassy. An hour later, with my head still bandaged, I was seated in my own room, in my own big leather armchair, with the July sun streaming in from across the Neva. Saunderson was sitting with me, describing the great pomp of the funeral of the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the service at the Isaac Church, at which the Tzar, the Court, and all the _corps diplomatique_ had attended. "By the way," he added, "a note came for you this morning," and he handed me a black-edged letter, bearing on the envelope the Imperial arms embossed in black. I tore it open and found it to be a neatly-written little letter from the Grand Duchess Natalia, asking me to allow her to call and see me as soon as ever I returned to the Embassy. "I must see you, Uncle Colin," she wrote. "It is most pressing. So do please let me come. Send me word, and I will come instantly. I cannot write anything here. _I must see you at once_!" CHAPTER EIGHT. DESCRIBES A MYSTERIOUS INCIDENT. Two days later, the ugly bandages having been removed from my head, Natalia was seated in the afternoon in my den. Exquisitely neat in her dead black, with the long crape veil, she presented an altogether different appearance to the radiant girl who had sat before me on that fatal drive. Her sweet face was now pale and drawn, and by the dark rings about her eyes I saw how full of poignant grief her heart had lately been. She had taken off her long, black gloves and settled herself cosily in my big armchair, her tiny patent-leather shoe, encasing a shapely silk-clad ankle, set forth beneath the hem of her black skirt. "I was so terrified. Uncle Colin, that you were also dead!" the girl was saying in a low, sympathetic voice, after I had expressed my deepest regret regarding the unfortunate death of her father, to whom she had been so devoted. "I suppose I had a very narrow escape," I said cheerfully. "You came out best of all." "By an absolute miracle. The Emperor is furious. Twenty of those arrested have already been sent to Schusselburg," she said. "Only yesterday, he told me that he hoped you would be well enough in a day or two to go to the Palace. I was to tell you how extremely anxious he is to see you as soon as possible." "I will obey the command at the earliest moment I am able," I replied. "But how horribly unfortunate all this is," I went on. "I fully expected that you would be in England by this time." "As soon as you are ready, Uncle Colin, I can go. The Emperor has already told me that he has placed me under your guardianship. That you are to be my equerry. Isn't it fun?" she cried, her pretty face suddenly brightening with pleasure. "Fancy you! dear old uncle, being put in charge of me--your naughty niece!" "His Majesty wished it," I said. "He thinks you will be better away from Court for a time. Therefore, I have promised to accept the responsibility. For one year you are to live _incognito_ in England, and I have been appointed your equerry and guardian--and," I added very seriously, "I hope that my naughty niece will really behave herself, and do nothing which will cause me either annoyance or distress." "I'll really try and be very good, Uncle Colin," declared the girl with mock demureness, and laughing mischievously. "Believe me, I will." "It all remains with you," I said. "Remember I do not wish it to be necessary that I should furnish any unfavourable report to the Emperor. I want us to understand each other perfectly from the outset. Recollect one point always. Though you may be known in England as Miss Gottorp, yet remember that you are of the Imperial family of Russia, and niece of the Emperor. Hence, there must be no flirtations, no clandestine meetings or love-letters, and such-like, as in the case of young Hamborough." "Please don't bring up that affair," urged the little madcap. "It is all dead, buried and forgotten long ago." "Very well," I said, looking straight into her big, velvety eyes so full of expression. "But remember that your affection is absolutely forbidden except towards a man of your own birth and station." "I know," she cried, with a quick impatience. "I'm unlike any other girl. I am forbidden to speak to a commoner." "Not in England. Preserve your _incognito_, and nobody will know. At His Majesty's desire, I have obtained leave of absence from the service for twelve months, in order to become your guardian." "Well, dear old Uncle Colin, you are the only person I would have chosen. Isn't that nice of me to say so?" she asked, with a tantalising smile. "But I tell you I shall show you no leniency if you break any of the rules which must, of necessity, be laid down," I declared severely. "As soon as I find myself well enough, you will take Miss West, your old governess, and Davey, your English maid, to England, and I will come and render you assistance in settling down somewhere in comfort." "At Eastbourne?" she cried in enthusiasm. "We'll go there. Do let us go there?" "Probably at Brighton," I said quietly. "It would be gayer for you, and--well, I will be quite frank--I think there are one or two young men whom you know in Eastbourne. Hence it is not quite to your advantage to return there." She pouted prettily in displeasure. "Brighton is within an hour of London, as you know," I went on, extolling the praises of the place. "Oh, yes, I know it. We often went over from Eastbourne, to concerts and things. There's an aquarium there, and a seaside railway, and lots of trippers. I remember the place perfectly. I love to see your English trippers. They are such fun, and they seem to enjoy themselves so much more than we ever do. I wonder how it is--they enjoy their freedom, I suppose, while we have no freedom." "Well," I said cheerfully, "in a week or ten days I hope I shall be quite fit to travel, and then we will set out for England." "Yes. Let us go. The Emperor leaves for Peterhof on Saturday. He will not return to Petersburg until the winter, and the Court moves to Tzarskoie-Selo on Monday." "Then I will see His Majesty before Saturday," I said. "But, tell me, why did Your Highness write to me so urgently three days ago? You said you wished to see me at once." The girl sprang from her chair, crossed to the door, and made certain it was closed. Then, glancing around as though apprehensive of eavesdroppers, she said: "I wanted to tell you, Uncle Colin, of something very, very curious which happened the other evening. About ten o'clock at night I was with Miss West in the blue boudoir--you know the room in our palace, you've been in it." "I remember it perfectly," I said. "Well, I went upstairs to Davey for my smelling-salts as Miss West felt faint, and as I passed along the corridor I saw, in the moonlight, in my own room a dark figure moving by the window. It was a man. I saw him searching the drawers of my little writing-table, examining the contents by means of an electric-torch. I made no sound, but out of curiosity, drew back and watched him. He was reading all my letters--searching for something which he apparently could not find. My first impulse was to ring and give the alarm, for though I could not see the individual's face, I knew he must be a thief. Still, I watched, perhaps rather amused at the methodical examination of my letters which he was making, all unconscious that he was being observed, until suddenly at a noise made by a servant approaching from the other end of the corridor, he started, flung back the letters into the drawer, and mounting to the open window, got out and disappeared. I shouted and rushed after him to the window, but he had gone. He must have dropped about twelve feet on to the roof of the ballroom and thus got away. "Several servants rushed in, and the sentries were alarmed," she went on. "But when I told my story, it was apparent that I was not believed. The drawer in the writing-table had been reclosed, and as far as we could see all was in perfect order. So I believe they all put it down to my imagination." "But you are quite certain that you saw the man there?" I said, much interested in her story. "Quite. He was of middle height, dressed in dark clothes, and wore a cloth peaked cap, like men wear when golfing in England," she replied. "He was evidently in search of something I had in my writing-table, but he did not find it. Nevertheless, he read a quantity of my letters mostly from school-friends." "And your love-letters?" I asked, with a smile. "Well, if the fellow read any of them," she laughed, "I hope he was very much edified. One point is quite plain. He knew English, for my letters were nearly all in English." "Some spy or other, I suppose." "Without a doubt," she said, clasping her white hands before her and raising her wonderful eyes to mine. "And do you know, Uncle Colin, the affair has since troubled me very considerably. I wanted to see you and hear your opinion regarding it." "My opinion is that your window ought not to have been left open." "It had not been. The maid whose duty it is to close the windows on that floor one hour before sunset every day has been closely questioned, and declares that she closed and fastened it at seven o'clock." "Servants are not always truthful," I remarked dubiously. "But the intruder was there with some distinct purpose. Don't you think so?" "Without a doubt. He was endeavouring to learn some secret which Your Highness possesses. Cannot you form any theory what it can be? Try and reflect." "Secret!" she echoed, opening her eyes wide. "I have no secrets. Everybody tells me I am far too outspoken." "Here, in Russia, everyone seems to hold secrets of some character or other, social or political, and spies are everywhere," I said. "Are you quite certain you have never before seen the intruder?" "I could only catch the silhouette of his figure against the moonlight, yet, to tell the truth, it struck me at that moment that I had seen him somewhere before. But where, I could not recollect. He read each letter through, so he must have known English very well, or he could not have read so quickly." "But did you not tell me in the winter garden of the Palace, on the night of the last Court ball, that Marya de Rosen had given you certain letters--letters which reflected upon General Markoff?" I asked. She sat erect, staring at me open-mouthed in sudden recollection. "Why, I never thought of that!" she gasped. "Of course! It was for those letters the fellow must have been searching." "I certainly think so--without the shadow of a doubt." "Madame de Rosen feared lest they should be stolen from her, and she gave them over to me--three of them sealed up in an envelope," declared my dainty little companion. "She expressed apprehension lest a domiciliary visit be made to her house by the police, when the letters in question might be discovered and seized. So she asked me to hold them for her." "And what did you do with them?" "I hid them in a place where they will never be found," she said; "at a spot where nobody would even suspect. But somebody must be aware that she gave them to me for safe-keeping. How could they possibly know?" "I think Your Highness was--well, just a little indiscreet on the night of the Court ball," I said. "Don't you recollect that you spoke aloud when other people were in the winter garden, and that I queried the judiciousness of it?" "Ah! I remember now!" she exclaimed, her face suddenly pale and serious. "I recollect what I said. Somebody must have overheard me." "And that somebody told Serge Markoff himself--the man who was poor Madame de Rosen's enemy, and who has sent both her and Luba to their graves far away in Eastern Siberia." "Then you think that he is anxious to regain possession of those letters?" "I think that is most probable, in face of your statement that you intend placing them before the Emperor. Of course, I do not know their nature, but I feel that they must reflect very seriously upon His Majesty's favourite official--the oppressor of Russia. You still have them in your possession?" I asked. "Yes, Uncle Colin. I feared lest some spy might find them, so I went up to my old nursery on the top floor of the Palace--a room which has not been used for years. In it stands my old doll's house--a big, dusty affair as tall as myself. I opened it and placed the packet in the little wardrobe in one of the doll's bedrooms. It is still there. I saw it only yesterday." "Be very careful that no spy watches you going to that disused room. You cannot exercise too much caution in this affair," I urged seriously. "I am always cautious," she assured me. "I distrust more than one of our servants, for I believe some of them to be in Markoff's pay. All that we do at home is carried at once to the Emperor, while I am watched at every turn." "True; only we foreign diplomats are exempt from this pestilential surveillance and the clever plots of the horde of _agents-provocateurs_ controlled by the all-powerful Markoff." "But what shall I do, Uncle Colin?" asked the girl, her white hands clasped in her lap. "If you think it wise to place the letter before the Emperor, I should certainly lose no time in doing so," I replied. "It may soon be too late. Spies will leave no hole or corner in your father's palace unexamined." "You think there really is urgency?" she asked. I looked my charming companion straight in the face and replied: "I do. If you value your life, then I would urge you at once to get rid of the packet which poor Madame de Rosen entrusted to you." "But I cannot place it before the Emperor just at present," the girl exclaimed. "I promised secrecy to Marya de Rosen." "Then you knew something of the subject to which those letters refer-- eh?" "I know something of it." "Why not pass them on to me? They will be quite secure here in the Embassy safe. Russian spies dire not enter here--upon this bit of British soil." "A good idea," she said quickly. "I will. I'll go home and bring them back to you." And in a few minutes she rose and with a merry laugh left me to descend to her carriage, which was waiting out upon the quay. I stood looking out of the window as she drove away. I was thinking-- thinking seriously over the Emperor's strange apprehension. Two visitors followed her, the French naval attache, and afterwards old Madame Neilidoff, the Society leader of Moscow, who called to congratulate me upon my escape, and to invite me to spend my convalescence at her country estate at Sukova. With the stout, ugly old lady, who spake French with a dreadfully nasal intonation and possessed a distinct moustache, I chatted for nearly an hour, as we sipped our tea with lemon, when almost as soon as she had taken her departure the door was flung open unceremoniously and the Grand Duchess Natalia burst in, her beautiful face blanched to the lips. "Uncle Colin! Something horrible has happened; Those letters have gone!" she gasped in a hoarse whisper, staring at me. "Gone!" I echoed, starting to my feet in dismay. "Yes. _They've been stolen--stolen_!" CHAPTER NINE. THE LITTLE GRAND DUCHESS. In the golden September sunset, the long, wide promenade stretching beside the blue sea from Brighton towards the fashionable suburb of Hove was agog with visitors. A cloudless sky, a glassy sea flecked by the white sails of pleasure yachts, and ashore a crowd of well-dressed promenaders, the majority of whom were Londoners who, stifled in the dusty streets, were now seeking the fresh sea air of the Channel. I had dressed leisurely for dinner in the Hotel Metropole, where I had taken up my abode, and about seven o'clock descended the steps, and, crossing the King's Road to the asphalted promenade, set out to walk westward towards Hove. Many things had happened since that well-remembered afternoon in July when Natalia had discovered the clever theft of Madame de Rosen's letters, and I had, an hour later, ill though I was, sent to His Majesty that single word "Bathildis" and was granted immediate audience. When I told him the facts he appeared interested, paced the room, and then snapped his fingers with a careless gesture. The little madcap had certainly annoyed him greatly, and though feigning indifference, he nevertheless appeared perplexed. Natalia was called at once and questioned closely; she was the soul of honour and would reveal nothing of the secret. Afterwards I returned to the Embassy and summoned Hartwig, to inform him of the Grand Duchess's loss. The renowned police official had since made diligent inquiry; indeed, the whole complicated machinery of the Russian criminal police had been put into motion, but all to no avail. The theft was still an entire mystery. As I approached the Lawns at Hove, those wide, grassy promenades beside the sea, I saw that many people were still lingering, enjoying the warm sunset, although the fashionable hour when women exercise their pet dogs, and idle men lounge and watch the crowd, had passed and the band had finished its performance. My mind was filled by many serious apprehensions, as turning suddenly from the Lawns, I recrossed the road and entered Brunswick Square, that wide quadrangle of big, old-fashioned houses around a large railed-in garden filled with high oaks and beeches. Before a drab, newly-painted house with a basement and art-green blinds, I halted, ascended the steps and rang. A white-whiskered old manservant in funereal black bowed as I entered, and, casting off my overcoat, I followed the old fellow past a man who was seated demurely in the hall, to whom I nodded, and up thickly-carpeted stairs to the big white-enamelled drawing-room, where Natalia sprang up from a couch of daffodil silk and came forward to meet me with glad welcome and outstretched hand. "Well, Uncle Colin!" she cried, "wherever have you been? I called for you at the `Metropole' the day before yesterday, and your superb hall-porter told me that you were in London!" "Yes. I had to go up there on some urgent business," I said. "I only returned to-day at five o'clock and received your kind invitation to dine," and then, turning, I greeted Miss West, the rather thin, elderly woman who for years had acted as English governess to Her Imperial Highness--or Miss Gottorp, as she was now known at Hove. Miss West had been governess in the Emperor's family for six years before she had entered the service of the Grand Duchess Nicholas, so life at Court, with all its stiff etiquette, had perhaps imparted to her a slightly unnatural hauteur. Natalia looked inexpressibly sweet in an evening gown of fine black spotted net, the transparency of which about the chest heightened the almost alabaster whiteness of her skin. She wore a black aigrette in her hair, but no jewellery save a single diamond bangle upon her wrist, an ornament which she always wore. "Sit down and tell me all the news," she urged, throwing herself into an armchair and patting a cushion near by as indication where I should sit. "There is no news," I said. "This morning I was at the Embassy, and they were naturally filled with curiosity regarding you--a curiosity which I did not satisfy." "Young Isvolski is there, isn't he?" she asked. "He used to be attached to my poor father's suite." "Yes," I replied. "He's third secretary. He wanted to know whether you had police protection, and I told him they had sent you another agent from Petersburg. I suppose it is that melancholy man I've just seen sitting in the hall?" "Yes. Isn't it horrid? He sits there all day long and never moves," Miss West exclaimed. "It is as though the bailiffs are in the house." "Bailiffs?" repeated the girl. "What are they?" I explained to her, whereupon she laughed heartily. "Hartwig is due in Brighton to-night or to-morrow morning," I said. "I have received a telegram from him, despatched from Berlin early yesterday morning. But," I added, "I trust that you are finding benefit from the change." "I am," she assured me. "I love this place. I feel so free and so happy here. Miss West and I go for walks and drives every day, and though a lot of people stare at me very hard, I don't think they know who I am. I hope not." "They admire your Highness's good looks," I ventured to remark. But she made a quick gesture of impatience, and declared that I only intended sarcasm. "I suppose Miss West, that all the men turn to look at Her Highness?" I said. "Englishmen at the seaside during the summer are always impressionable, so they must be forgiven." "You are quite right, Mr Trewinnard. It is really something dreadful. Only to-day a young man--quite a respectable young fellow, who was probably a clerk in the City--followed us the whole length of the promenade to the West Pier and kept looking into her Highness's face." "He was really a very nice-looking boy," the girl declared mischievously. "If I'd been alone he would have spoken to me. And, oh, I'd have had such ripping fun." "No doubt you would," I said. "But you know the rule. You are never upon any pretext to go out alone. Besides, you are always under the observation of a police-agent. You would scarcely care to do any love-making before him, would you?" "Why not? Those persons are not men--they're only machines," she declared. "The Emperor told me that long ago." "Well, take my advice," I urged with a laugh, "and don't attempt it." "Oh, of course, Uncle Colin; you're simply dreadful. You're a perfect Saint Anthony. It's too jolly bad," she declared. "Yes. Perhaps I might be a Saint Anthony where you are concerned. Still, you must not become a temptress," I laughed, when at that moment, old Igor, the butler, entered to announce that dinner was served. So we descended the stairs to the big dining-room, where the table at which she took the head was prettily decorated with Marshal Neil roses, and, a merry trio, we ate our meal amid much good-humoured banter and general laughter. As she sat beneath the pink-shaded electric lamp suspended over the table, I thought I had never seen her looking so inexpressibly charming. Little wonder, indeed, that young City men down for a fortnight's leisure at the seaside, the annual relaxation from their weary work-a-day world of office and suburban railway, looked upon her in admiration and followed her in order to feast their eyes upon her marvellous beauty. What would they have thought, had they but known that the girl so quietly and well-dressed in black was of the bluest blood of Europe, a daughter of the Imperial Romanoffs. That big, old-fashioned house which I had arranged for her six weeks ago belonged to the widow of a brewery baronet, a man who had made a great fortune out of mild dinner-ale. The somewhat beefy lady--once a domestic servant--had gone on a voyage around the world and had been pleased to let it furnished for a year. With her consent I had had the whole place repainted and decorated, had caused new carpets to be provided, and in some instances the rooms had been refurnished in modern style, while four of the servants, including Igor, the butler, and Davey, Her Highness's maid, had been brought from her father's palace beside the Neva. For a girl not yet nineteen it was, indeed, quite a unique establishment. Miss West acting as chaperone, companion and housekeeper. Seated at the head of the table, the little Grand Duchess did the honours as, indeed, she had so often done them at the great table in that magnificent salon in Petersburg, for being the only child, it had very often fallen to her lot to help her father to entertain, her mother having died a month after her birth. Dinner over, the ladies rose and left, while I sat to smoke my cigarette alone. Outside in the hall the undersized, insignificant little man in black sat upon a chair reading the evening paper, and as old Igor poured out my glass of port I asked him in French how he liked England. "Ah! m'sieur," he exclaimed in his thin, squeaky voice. "Truly it is most beautiful. We are all so well here--so much better than in Petersburg. Years ago I went to London with my poor master, the Grand Duke. We stayed at Claridge's. M'sieur knows the place--eh?" "Of course," I said. "But tell me, Igor, since you've been in Brighton--over a month now--have you ever met, or seen, anybody you know? I mean anyone you have seen before in Petersburg?" I was anxious to learn whether young Hamborough, Paul Urusoff, or any of the rest, had been in the vicinity. The old fellow reflected a few moments. Then he replied: "Of course I saw M'sieur Hartwig three weeks ago. Also His Excellency the Ambassador when he came down from London to pay his respects to Her Imperial Highness." "Nobody else?" I asked, looking seriously into his grey old face, my wine-glass poised in my hand. "Ah, yes! One evening, three or four days ago, I was walking along King's Road, towards Ship Street, when I passed a tall, thin, clean-shaven man in brown, whose face was quite familiar. I know that I've seen him many times in Petersburg, but I cannot recall who or what he is. He looked inquisitively at me for a moment, and apparently recognising me, passed on and then hurriedly crossed the road." "Was he a gentleman?" I asked with curiosity. "He was dressed like one, M'sieur. He had on a dark grey Homburg hat and a fashionable dark brown suit." "You only saw him on that one occasion?" "Only that once. When I returned home I told Dmitri, the police-agent, and described him. You don't anticipate that he is here with any evil purpose, I suppose?" he added quickly. "I can't tell, Igor. I don't know him. But if I were you I would not mention it to her Highness. She's only a girl, remember, and her nerves have been greatly shaken by that terrible tragedy." "Rely upon me. I shall say no word, M'sieur," he promised. Then I rose and ascended to the drawing-room, where Natalia was seated alone. "Miss West will be here in a few minutes," she said. "Tell me, Uncle Colin, what have you been doing while you've been away--eh?" "I had some business in London, and afterwards went on a flying visit to see my mother down in Cornwall," I said. "Ah! How is she? I hope you told her to come and see me. I would be so very delighted if she will come and stay a week or so." "I gave her Your Highness's kind message, and she is writing to thank you. She'll be most delighted to visit you," I said. "Nothing has been discovered regarding Madame de Rosen's letters, I suppose?" she asked with a sigh, her face suddenly grown grave. "Hartwig arrives to-night, or to-morrow," I replied. "We shall then know what has transpired. From his Majesty he received explicit instructions to spare no effort to solve the mystery of the theft." "I know. He told me so when he was here three weeks ago. He has made every effort. Of all the police administration I consider Hartwig the most honest and straightforward." "Yes," I agreed. "He is alert always, marvellously astute, and, above all, though he has had such an extraordinary career, he is an Englishman." "So I have lately heard," replied my pretty companion. "I know he will do his best on my behalf, because I feel that I have lost the one piece of evidence which might have restored poor Marya de Rosen and her daughter to liberty." "You have lost the letters, it is true," I said, looking into her splendid eyes. "You have lost them because it was plainly in the interests of General Markoff, the Tzar's favourite, that they should be lost. Madame de Rosen herself feared lest they should be stolen, and yet a few days later she and Luba were spirited away to the Unknown. Search was, no doubt, made at her house for that incriminating correspondence. It could not be found; but, alas! you let out the secret when sitting out with me at the Court ball. Somebody must have overheard. Your father's palace was searched very thoroughly, and the packet at last found." "The Emperor appeared to be most concerned about it before I left Russia. When I last saw him at Tzarskoie-Selo he seemed very pale, agitated and upset." "Yes," I said. Then, very slowly, for I confess I was much perturbed, knowing how we were at that moment hemmed in by our enemies, I added: "This theft conveyed more to His Majesty than at present appears to your Highness. It is a startling coup of those opposed to the monarchy--the confirmation of a suspicion which the Emperor believed to be his--and his alone." "A suspicion!" she exclaimed. "What suspicion? Tell me." Next moment Miss West, thin-faced and rather angular, entered the room, and we dropped our confidences. Then, at my invitation, my dainty little hostess went to the piano, and running her white fingers over the keys, commenced to sing in her clear, well-trained contralto "L'Heure Exquise" of Paul Verlaine: La lune blanche Luit dans les bois; De chaque branche Part une voix Sous la ramee... O bien-aimee. CHAPTER TEN. REVEALS TWO FACTS. When I entered my bedroom at the Hotel Metropole it wanted half an hour to midnight. But scarce had I closed the door when a waiter tapped at it and handed me a card. "Show the gentleman up," I said in eager anticipation, and a few minutes later there entered a tall, thin, clean-shaven, rather aristocratic-looking man in a dark brown suit--the same person whom old Igor had evidently recognised walking along King's Road. "Well, Tack? So you are here with your report--eh?" I asked. "Yes, sir," was his reply, as I seated myself on the edge of the bed, and he took a chair near the dressing-table and settled himself to talk. Edward Tack was a man of many adventures. After a good many years at Scotland Yard, where he rose to be the chief of the Extradition Department on account of his knowledge of languages, he had been engaged by the Foreign Office as a member of our Secret Service abroad, mostly in Germany and Russia. During the past two years he had, as a blind to the police, carried on a small insurance agency business in Petersburg; but the information he gathered from time to time and sent to the Embassy was of the greatest assistance to us in our diplomatic dealings with Russia and the Powers. He never came to the Embassy himself, nor did he ever hold any direct communication with any of the staff. He acted as our eyes and ears, exercising the utmost caution in transmitting to us the knowledge of men and matters which he so cleverly gained. He worked with the greatest secrecy, for though he had lived in Petersburg two whole years, he had never once been suspected by that unscrupulous spy-department controlled by General Markoff. "I've been in Brighton several days," my visitor said. "The hotel porter told me here that you were away, so I went to the `Old Ship!' and waited for you." "Well--what have you discovered?" I inquired, handing him my cigarette-case. "Anything of interest?" "Nothing very much, I regret to say," was his reply. "I've worked for a whole month, often night and day, but Markoff's men are wary--very wary birds, sir, as you know." "Have you discovered the real perpetrator of that bomb outrage?" "I believe so. He escaped." "No doubt he did." "There have been in all over forty persons arrested," my visitor said. "About two dozen have been immured in Schusselburg, in those cells under the waters of Lake Ladoga. The rest have been sent by administrative process to the mines." "And all of them innocent?" "Every one of them." "It's outrageous!" I cried. "To think that such things can happen every day in a country whose priests teach Christianity." "Remove a certain dozen or so of Russia's statesmen and corrupt officials, put a stop to the exile system, and give every criminal or suspect a fair trial, and the country would become peaceful to-morrow," declared the secret agent. "I have already reported to the Embassy the actual truth concerning the present unrest." "I know. And we have sent it on to Downing Street, together with the names of those who form the camarilla. The Emperor is, alas! merely their catspaw. They are the real rulers of Russia--they rule it by a Reign of Terror." "Exactly, sir," replied the man Tack. "I've always contended that. In the present case the outrage is not a mystery to the Secret Police." "You think they know all about it--eh?" I asked quickly. "Well, sir. I will put to you certain facts which I have discovered. About two years ago a certain Danilo Danilovitch, an intelligent shoemaker in Kazan, and a member of the revolutionary group in that city, turned police-spy, and gave evidence of a _coup_ which had been prepared to poison the Emperor at a banquet given there after the military manoeuvres last year. As a result, there were over a hundred arrests, and as reprisal the chief of police of Kazan was a week later shot while riding through one of the principal streets. Next I know of Danilovitch is that he was transferred to Petersburg, where, though in the pay of the police, he was known to the Party of the People's Will as an ardent and daring reformer, and foremost in his fiery condemnation of the monarchy. He made many inflammatory speeches at the secret revolutionary meetings in various parts of the city, and was hailed as a strong and intrepid leader. Yet frequently the police made raids upon these meeting-places and arrested all found there. After each attempted outrage they seemed to be provided with lists of everyone who had had the slightest connection with the affair, and hence they experienced no difficulty in securing them and packing them off to Siberia. The police were all-ubiquitous, the Emperor was greatly pleased, and General Markoff was given the highest decorations, promotion and an appointment with rich emoluments. "But one day, about four months ago," Tack went on, "a remarkable but unreported tragedy occurred. Danilovitch, whose wife had long ago been arrested and died on her way to Siberia, fell in love with a pretty young tailoress named Marie Garine, who was a very active member of the revolutionary party, her father and mother having been sent to the mines of Nerchinsk, though entirely innocent. Hence she naturally hated the Secret Police and all their detestable works. More than once she had remarked to her lover the extraordinary fact that the police were being secretly forewarned of every attempt which he suggested, for Danilovitch had by this time become one of the chief leaders of the subterranean revolution, and instigator of all sorts of desperate plots against the Emperor and members of the Imperial Family. One evening, however, she went to his rooms and found him out. Some old shoes were upon a shelf ready for mending, for he still, as a subterfuge, practised his old trade. Among the shoes was a pair of her own. She took them down, but she mistook another pair for hers, and from one of them there fell to her feet a yellow card--the card of identity issued to members of the Secret Police! She took it up. There was no mistake, for her lover's photograph was pasted upon it. Her lover was a police-spy!" "Well, what happened?" I asked, much interested in the facts. "The girl, in a frenzy of madness and anger, was about to rush out to betray the man to her fellow-conspirators, when Danilovitch suddenly entered. She had, at that moment, his yellow card in her hand. In an instant he knew the truth and realised his own peril. She intended to betray him. It meant her life or his! Not a dozen words passed between the pair, for the man, taking up his shoemaker's knife, plunged it deliberately into the girl's heart, snatched the card from her dying grasp, and strode out, locking the door behind him. Then he went straight to the private bureau of General Markoff and told him what he had done. Needless to relate, the police inquiry was a very perfunctory one. It was a love tragedy, they said, and as Danilo Danilovitch was missing, they soon dropped the inquiry. They did not, of course, wish to arrest the assassin, for he was far too useful a person to them." "Then you know the fellow?" "I have met him often. At first I had no idea of his connection with the revolutionists. It is only quite recently through a woman who is in the pay of the Secret Police, and whose son has been treated badly, that I learned the truth. And she also told me one very curious fact. She was present in the crowd when the bomb was thrown at the Grand Duke Nicholas's carriage, and she declares that Danilo Danilovitch--who has not been seen in Petersburg since the tragic death of Marie Garine--was there also." "Then he may have thrown the bomb?" I said, amazed. "Who knows?" "But I saw a man with his arm uplifted," I exclaimed. "He looked respectable, of middle-age, with a grey beard and wore dark clothes." "That does not tally with Danilovitch's description," he replied. "But, of course, the assassin must have been disguised if he had dared to return to Petersburg." "But I suppose his fellow-conspirators still entertain no suspicion that he is a police-spy?" "None whatever. The poor girl lost her life through her untoward discovery. The police themselves knew the truth, but on action being withdrawn, the fellow was perfectly free to continue his nefarious profession of _agent-provocateur_, for the great risk of which he had evidently been well paid." "But does not Hartwig know all this?" I asked quickly, much surprised. "Probably not. General Markoff keeps his own secrets well. Hartwig, being head of the criminal police, would not be informed." "But he might find out, just as you have found out," I suggested. "He might. But my success, sir, was due to the merest chance, remember," Tack said. "Hartwig's work lies in the detection of crime, and not in the frustration of political plots. Markoff knows what an astute official he is, and would therefore strive to keep him apart from his catspaw Danilovitch." "Then, in your opinion, many of these so-called plots against the Emperor are actually the work of the Kazan shoemaker, who arranges the plot, calls the conspirators together and directs the arrangements." "Yes. His brother is a chemist in Moscow and it is he who manufactures picric acid, nitro-glycerine and other explosives for the use of the unfortunate conspirators. Between them, and advised by Markoff, they form a plot, the more desperate the better; and a dozen or so silly enthusiasts, ignorant of their leaders' true calling, swear solemnly to carry it out. They are secretly provided with the means, and their leader has in some cases actually secured facilities from the very police themselves for the _coup_ to be made. Then, when all is quite ready, the astute Danilovitch hands over to his employer, Markoff, a full list of the names of those who have been cleverly enticed into the plot. At night a sudden raid is made. All who are there, or who are even in the vicinity are arrested, and next morning His Excellency presents his report to the Emperor, with Danilovitch's list ready for the Imperial signature which consigns those arrested to a living grave on the Arctic wastes, or in the mines of Eastern Siberia." "And so progresses holy Russia of to-day--eh, Tack?" I remarked with a sigh. The secret agent of British diplomacy, shrugging his shoulders and with a grin, said: "The scoundrels are terrorising the Emperor and the whole Imperial family. The killing of the Grand Duke Nicholas was evidence of that, and you, too, sir, had a very narrow escape." "Do you suspect that, if the story of the woman who recognised Danilovitch be true, it was actually he himself who threw the bomb?" "At present I can offer no opinion," he answered. "The woman might, of course, have been mistaken, and, again, I doubt whether Danilovitch would dare to show himself so quickly in Petersburg. To do so would be to defy the police in the eyes of his fellow-conspirators, and that might have aroused their suspicion. But, sir," Tack added, "I feel certain of two facts--absolutely certain." "And what are they?" I inquired eagerly, for his information was always reliable. "Well, the first is that the outrage was committed with the full connivance and knowledge of the police, and secondly, that it was not the Grand Duke whom they sought to kill, but his daughter, the Grand Duchess Natalia, and you yourself!" "Why do you think that?" I asked. "Because it was known that the young lady held letters given her by Madame de Rosen, and intended to hand them over to the Emperor. There was but one way to prevent her," he went on very slowly, "to kill her! And," he added, "be very careful yourself in the near future, Mr Trewinnard. Another attempt of an entirely different nature may be made." "You mean that Her Highness is still in grave danger--even here--eh?" I exclaimed, looking straight at the clean-shaven man seated before me. "I mean, sir, that Her Highness may be aware of the contents of these letters handed to her by the lady who is now exiled. If so, then she is a source of constant danger to General Markoff's interests. And you are fully well aware of the manner in which His Excellency usually treats his enemies. Only by a miracle was your life saved a few weeks ago. Therefore," he added, "I beg of you, sir, to beware. There may be pitfalls and dangers--even here, in Brighton!" "Do you only suspect something, Tack," I demanded very seriously, "or do you actually know?" He paused for a few seconds, then, his deep-set eyes fixed upon mine, he replied. "I do not suspect, sir, I _know_." CHAPTER ELEVEN. HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL MARKOFF. What Tack had told me naturally increased my apprehension. I informed the two agents of Russian police who in turn guarded the house in Brunswick Square. A whole month went by, bright, delightful autumn days beside the sea, when I often strolled with my charming little companion across the Lawns at Hove, or sat upon the pier at Brighton listening to the band. Sometimes I would dine with her and Miss West, or at others they would take tea with me in that overheated winter garden of the "Metropole"-- where half of the Hebrew portion of the City of London assembles on Sunday afternoons--or they would dine with me in the big restaurant. So frequently was she in and out of the hotel that "Miss Gottorp" soon became known to all the servants, and by sight to most of the visitors on account of the neatness of her mourning and the attractiveness of her pale beauty. Tack had returned to Petersburg to resume his agency business, and Hartwig's whereabouts was unknown. The last-named had been in Brighton three weeks before, but as he had nothing to report he had disappeared as suddenly as he had come. He was ubiquitous--a man of a hundred disguises, and as many subterfuges. He never seemed to sleep, and his journeys backwards and forwards across the face of Europe were amazingly swift and ever-constant. I was seated at tea with Her Highness and Miss West in the winter garden--that place of palms and bird-cages at the back of the "Metropole"--when a waiter handed me a telegram which I found was from the secretary of the Russian Embassy, at Chesham House, in London, asking me to call there at the earliest possible moment. What, I wondered, had occurred? I said nothing to Natalia, but, recollecting that there was an express just after six o'clock which would land me at Victoria at half-past seven, I cut short her visit and duly arrived in London, unaware of the reason why I was so suddenly summoned. I crossed the big, walled-in courtyard of the Embassy, and entering the great sombre hall, where an agent of Secret Police was idling as usual, the flunkey in green livery showed me along to the secretary's room, a big, gloomy, smoke-blackened apartment on the ground floor. The huge house was dark, sombre and ponderous, a house of grim, mysterious shadows, where officials and servants flitted up and down the great, wide staircase which led to His Excellency's room. "His Excellency left for Paris to-day," the footman informed me, opening the door of the secretary's room, and telling me that he would send word at once of my arrival. It was the usual cold and austere embassy room--differing but little from my own den in Petersburg. Count Kourloff, the secretary, was an old friend of mine. He had been secretary in Rome when I had been stationed there, and I had also known him in Vienna--a clever and intelligent diplomat, but a bureaucrat like all Russians. The evening was a warm, oppressive one, and the windows being open, admitted the lively strains of a street piano, played somewhere in the vicinity. Suddenly the door opened, and instead of the Count, whom I had expected, a stout, broad-shouldered, elderly man in black frock-coat and grey trousers entered, and saluted me gaily in French with the words: "Ah, my dear Trewinnard! How are you, my friend--eh? How are you? And how is Her Imperial Highness--eh?" I started as I recognised him. It was none other than Serge Markoff. "I am very well, General," I replied coldly. "I am awaiting Count Kourloff." "He's out. It was I who telegraphed to you. I want to have a chat with you now that you have entered the service of Russia, my dear friend. Pray be seated." "Pardon me," I replied, annoyed, "I have not entered the service of Russia, only the private service of her Sovereign, the Emperor." "The same thing! The same thing!" he declared fussily, stroking his long, grey moustache, and fixing his cunning steel-blue eyes upon mine. "I think not," I said. "But we need not discuss that point." "_Bien_! I suppose Her Highness is perfectly comfortable and happy in her _incognito_ at Brighton--eh? The Emperor was speaking of her to me only the other day." "His Majesty receives my report each week," I said briefly. "I know," replied the brutal remorseless man who was responsible for the great injustice and suffering of thousands of innocent ones throughout the Russian Empire. "I know. But I have asked you to London because I wish to speak to you in strictest confidence. I am here, M'sieur Trewinnard, because of a certain discovery we have recently made--the discovery of a very desperate and ingenious plot!" "Another plot!" I echoed; "here, in London!" "It is formed in London, but the _coup_ is to be made at Brighton," he replied slowly and seriously, "a plot against Her Imperial Highness!" I looked the man straight in the face, and then burst out laughing. "You certainly do not appear to have any regard for the personal safety of your charge," he exclaimed angrily. "I have warned you. Therefore, take every precaution." I paused for a few seconds, then I said: "Forgive me for laughing. General Markoff. But it is really too humorous--all this transparency." "What transparency?" "The transparency of your attempt to terrify me," I said. "I know that the attempt made against the young lady and myself failed--and that His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke was unfortunately killed. But I do not think there will be any second attempt." "You don't think so!" he cried quickly. "Why don't you think so?" "For the simple reason that Danilo Danilovitch--the man who is a police-spy and at the same time responsible for plots--is just now a little too well watched." The man's grey face dropped when I uttered the name of his catspaw. My statement, I saw, held him confounded and confused. "I--I do not understand you," he managed to exclaim. "What do you mean?" "Well, you surely know Danilovitch?" I said. "He is your most trusted and useful _agent-provocateur_. He is at this moment in England. I can take you now to where he is in hiding, if you wish," I added, with a smile of triumph. "Danilovitch," he repeated, as though trying to recall the name. "Yes," I said defiantly, standing with my hands in my trousers pockets and leaning against the table placed in the centre of the room. "Danilovitch--the shoemaker of Kazan and murderer of Marie Garine, the poor little tailoress in Petersburg." His face dropped. He saw that I was aware of the man's identity. "He is now staying with a compatriot in Blurton Road, Lower Clapton," I went on. "I don't see why this person should interest me," he interrupted. "But he is a conspirator. General Markoff; and I am giving you some valuable information," I said, with sarcasm. "You are not a police officer. What can you know?" "I know several facts which, when placed before the Revolutionary Committee--as they probably are by this time--will make matters exceedingly unpleasant for Danilo Danilovitch, and also for certain of those who have been employing him," was my quiet response. "If this man is a dangerous revolutionist, as you allege, he cannot be arrested while in England," remarked the General, his thick grey eyebrows contracting slightly, a sign of apprehension. "This country of yours gives asylum to all the most desperate characters, and half the revolutionary plots in Europe are arranged in London." "I do not dispute that," I said. "But I was discussing the highly interesting career of this Danilo Danilovitch. If there is any attempt upon Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia, as you fear, it will be by that individual. General. Therefore I would advise your department to keep close observation upon him. He is lodging at Number 30B, Blurton Road. And," I added, "if you should require any further particulars concerning him, I daresay I shall be in a position to furnish them." "Why do you suspect him?" "Because of information which has reached me--information which shows that it was his hand which launched the fatal bomb which killed the Grand Duke Nicholas. His Imperial Highness was actually killed by an agent of Secret Police! When that fact reaches the Emperor's ears there will, I expect, be searching inquiry." "Have you actual proof of this?" he asked in a thick, hoarse voice, his cheeks paler than before. "Yes. Or at least my informant has. The traitor was recognised among the crowd; he was seen to throw the bomb." General Markoff remained silent. He saw himself checkmated. His secret was out. He had intended to raise a false scare of a probable attempt at Brighton in order to terrify me, but, to his amazement, I had shown myself conversant with his methods and aware of the truth concerning the mysterious outrage in which the Grand Duke Nicholas had lost his life. From his demeanour and the keen cunning look in his steely eyes I gathered that he was all eagerness to know the exact extent of my knowledge concerning Danilo Danilovitch. Therefore, after some further conversation, I said boldly: "I expect that, ere this, the Central Committee of the People's Will has learned the truth regarding their betrayer--this man to whose initiative more than half of the recent plots have been due--and how he was in the habit of furnishing your department with the lists of suspects and those chosen to carry out the outrage. But, of course, General," I added, with a bitter smile, "you would probably not know of this manufacture of plots by one in the pay of the Police Department." "Of course not," the unscrupulous official assured me. "I surely cannot be held responsible for the action of underlings. I only act upon reports presented to me." I smiled again. "And yet you warn me of an outrage which is to be attempted with your connivance by this fellow Danilovitch--the very man who killed the Grand Duke--eh?" "With my connivance!" he cried fiercely. "What do you insinuate?" "I mean this, General Markoff," I said boldly; "that the yellow card of identity found in Danilovitch's rooms by the girl to whom he was engaged bore your signature. That card is, I believe, already in the hands of the Revolutionary Committee!" "I have all their names. I shall telegraph to-night ordering their immediate arrest," he cried, white with anger. "But that will not save your _agent-provocateur_--the assassin of poor Marie Garine--from his fate. The arm of the revolutionist is a very long one, remember." "But the arm of the Chief of Secret Police is longer--and stronger," he declared in a low, hard tone. "The Emperor, when he learns the truth, will dispense full justice," I said very quietly. "His eyes will, ere long, be opened to the base frauds practised upon him, and the many false plots which have cost hundreds of innocent persons their lives or their liberty." "You speak as though you were censor of the police," he exclaimed with a quick, angry look. "I speak, General Markoff, as the friend of Russia and of her Sovereign the Emperor," I replied. "You warn me of a plot to assassinate the Grand Duchess Natalia. Well, I tell you frankly and openly I don't believe it. But if it be true, then I, in return, warn you that if any attempt be made by any of your dastardly hirelings, I will myself go to the Emperor and place before him proofs of the interesting career of Danilo Danilovitch. Your Excellency may be all-powerful as Chief of Secret Police," I added; "but as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow, justice will one day be done in Russia!" And then I turned upon my heel and passed out of the room, leaving him biting his nether lip in silence at my open defiance. CHAPTER TWELVE. WATCHERS IN THE NIGHT. After Her Highness and Miss West had dined with me at the "Metropole" at Brighton on the following evening, the trusted old companion complained of headache and drove home, leaving us alone together. Therefore we strolled forth into the moonlit night and, crossing the road, walked out along the pier. There were many persons in the hall of the hotel, but though a good many heads were turned to see "Miss Gottorp" pass in her pretty _decollete_ gown of black, trimmed with narrow silver, over which was a black satin evening cloak, probably not one noticed the undersized, insignificant, but rather well-dressed man who rose from one of the easy chairs where he had been smoking to follow us out. Who, indeed, of that crowd would have guessed that the pretty girl by whose side I walked was an Imperial Princess, or that the man who went out so aimlessly was Oleg Lobko, the trusty agent of the Russian Criminal Police charged by the Emperor with her personal protection? With the man following at a respectable distance, we strolled side by side upon the pier, looking back upon the fairy-like scene, the long lines of light along King's Road, and the calm sea shimmering beneath the clear moon. There were many people enjoying the cool, refreshing breezes, as there always are upon an autumn night. A comedy was in progress in the theatre at the pierhead, and it being the _entr'acte_, many were promenading--mostly visitors taking their late vacation by the sea. My charming little companion had been bright and cheerful all the evening, but had more than once, by clever questions, endeavoured to learn what had taken me to the Embassy on the previous night. I, however, did not deem it exactly advisable to alarm her unduly, either by telling her of my defiance of General Markoff, of my discovery of Danilo Danilovitch, or of the attempt to terrify me by the declaration that another plot was in progress. Truth to tell, Tack, before his return to Petersburg, had run Danilovitch to earth in Lower Clapton, and two private detectives, engaged by me, were keeping the closest surveillance upon him. Twice had we circled the theatre at the pierhead, and had twice strolled amid the seated audience around the bandstand where military music was being played in the moonlight, when we passed two young men in Homburg hats, wearing overcoats over their evening clothes. One of them, a tall, slim, dark-haired, good-looking, athletic young fellow, of perhaps twenty-two, raised his hat and smiled at my companion. She nodded him a merry acknowledgment. Then, as we passed on, I exclaimed quickly: "Hulloa! Is that some new friend--eh?" "Oh, it's really all right, Uncle Colin," she assured me. "I've done nothing dreadful, now. You needn't start lecturing me, you know, or be horrified at all." "I'm not lecturing," I laughed. "I'm only consumed by curiosity. That's all." "Ah! You're like all men," she declared. "And suppose I refuse to satisfy your curiosity--eh?" "You won't do that, I think," was my reply, as we halted upon one of the long benches which ran on either side of the pier. "Remember, I am responsible to the Emperor for you, and I'm entitled to know who your friend is." "He's an awfully nice boy," was all she replied. "He looks so. But who is he?" "Somebody--well, somebody I knew at Eastbourne." "And you've met him here? How long ago?" "Oh! nearly a month." "And so it is he whom you've met several times of late--eh?" I said. "Let's see--according to the report furnished to me, you were out for half an hour on the sea-front on Tuesday night; five minutes on Wednesday night; not at all on Thursday night, and one whole hour on Friday night--eh? And with a young man whose name is unknown." "Oh, I'll tell you his name. He's Dick Drury." "And who, pray, is this Mr Richard Drury?" "A friend of mine, I tell you. The man with him is his friend--Lance Ingram, a doctor." "And what is this Mr Drury's profession?" "He does nothing, I suppose," she laughed. "I can't well imagine Dick doing much." "Except flirting--eh?" I said with a smile. "That's a matter of opinion," she replied, as we again rose and circled the bandstand, for I was anxious to get another look at the pair. On the evenings I had referred to, it appeared that Her Highness, after dinner, had twisted a shawl over her head, and ran down to the sea-front--a distance of a hundred yards or so--to get a breath of air, as she had explained to Miss West. But on each occasion the watchful police-agent had seen her meet by appointment this same young man. Therefore some flirtation was certainly in progress--and flirtation had been most distinctly forbidden. My efforts were rewarded, for a few minutes later the two young men repassed us, and this time young Drury did not raise his hat. He only smiled at her in recognition. "Where are they staying?" I asked. "Oh you are so horribly inquisitive, Uncle Colin," she said. "Well, if you really must know, they're staying at the `Royal York.'" "How came you to know this young fellow at Eastbourne?" I asked. "I thought you were kept in strictest seclusion from the outside world. At least, you've always led me to believe that," I said. She laughed heartily. "Well, dear old uncle, surely you don't think that any school could exactly keep a girl a prisoner. We used to get out sometimes alone for an hour of an evening--by judicious bribery. I've had many a pleasant hour's walk up the road towards Beachy Head. And, moreover, I wasn't alone, either. Dick was usually with me." "Really, this is too dreadful!" I exclaimed in pious horror. "Suppose anyone had known who you really were!" "Well, I suppose even if they had the heavens wouldn't have fallen," she laughed. "Ah!" I said, "you are really incorrigible. Here you are flirting with an unsuspected lover." "And why shouldn't I?" she asked in protest. "Dick is better than some chance acquaintance." "If you are only amusing yourself," I said. "But if you love him, then it would be a serious matter." "Oh, horribly serious, I know," she said impatiently. "If I were a typist, or a shopgirl, or a waitress, or any girl who worked for her living, I should be doing quite the correct thing; but for me--born of the great Imperial Family--to merely look at a boy is quite unpardonable." I was silent for a few moments. The little madcap whom the Emperor had placed in my charge, because her presence at Court was a menace to the Imperial family, was surely unconventional and utterly incorrigible. "I fear Your Highness does not fully appreciate the heavy responsibilities of Imperial birth," I said in a tone of dissatisfaction. "Oh, bother! My birth be hanged!" she exclaimed, with more force than politeness. "In these days it really counts for nothing. I was reading it all in a German book last week. Every class seems to have its own social laws, and what is forbidden to me is quite good form with my dressmaker. Isn't it absurdly funny?" "You must study your position." "Why should I, if I strictly preserve my _incognito_? That I do this, even you, Uncle Colin, will admit!" "Are you quite certain that this Mr Drury is unaware who you really are?" I asked. "Quite. He believes me to be Miss Natalia Gottorp, my father German, my mother English, and I was born in Germany. That is the story--does it suit?" "I trust you will take great care not to reveal your true identity," I said. "I have promised you, haven't I?" "You promised me that you would not flirt, and yet here you are, having clandestine meetings with this young man every evening!" "Oh, that's very different. I can't help it if I meet an old friend accidentally, can I?" she protested with a pretty pout. At that moment we were strolling along the western side of the pierhead, where it was comparatively ill-lit, on one side being the theatre, while on the other the sea. The photographer's and other shops were closed at that late hour, and the light being dim at that spot, several flirting couples were passing up and down arm in arm. Suddenly, as we turned the corner behind the theatre, we came face to face with a dark-featured, middle-aged man, with deeply-furrowed brow, narrowly set eyes and small black moustache. He wore a dark suit and a hard felt hat, and had something of the appearance of a middle-class paterfamilias out for his annual vacation. He glanced quickly in our direction, and, I thought, started, as though recognising one or other of us. Then next moment he was lost in the darkness. "Do you know that man?" asked my companion suddenly. "No. Why?" "I don't know," she answered. "I fancy I've seen him somewhere or other before. He looked like a Russian." That was just my own thought at that moment, and I wondered if Oleg, who was lurking near, had noticed him. "Yes," I said. "But I don't recollect ever having seen him before. I wonder who he is? Let's turn back." We did so, but though we hastened our steps, we did not find him. He had, it seemed, already left the pier. Apparently he believed that he had been recognised. Once again we repassed Drury and his friend just as the theatre disgorged its crowd of homeward-bound pleasure-seekers. We were walking in the same direction, Oleg following at a respectable distance, and I was enabled to obtain a good look at him, for, as though in wonder as to whom I could be, he turned several times to eye me, with some little indignation, I thought. I judged him to be about twenty-five, over six feet in height, athletic and wiry, with handsome, clear-cut, clean-shaven features and a pair of sharp, dark, alert eyes, which told of an active outdoor life. His face was a refined one, his gait easy and swinging, and both in dress and manner he betrayed the gentleman. Truth to tell, though I did not admit it to Natalia, I became very favourably impressed by him. By his exterior he seemed to be a well-set-up, sportsmanlike young fellow, who might, perhaps, belong to one of the Sussex county families. His friend the doctor was of quite a different type, a short, fair-haired man in gold-rimmed spectacles, whose face was somewhat unattractive, though it bore an expression of studiousness and professional knowledge. He certainly had the appearance of a doctor. But before I went farther I resolved to make searching inquiry unto the antecedents of this mysterious Dick Drury. The walk in the moonlight along the broad promenade towards Hove was delightful. I begged Her Highness to drive, but she preferred to walk; the autumn night was so perfect, she said. As we strolled along, she suddenly exclaimed: "I can't help recalling that man we saw on the pier. I remember now! I met him about a week ago, when I was shopping in Western Road, and he followed me for quite a distance. He was then much better dressed." "You believe, then, he is a Russian?" I asked quickly. "I feel certain he is." "But you were not alone--Oleg was out with you, I suppose?" "Oh, yes," she laughed. "He never leaves me. I only wish he would sometimes. I hate to be spied upon like this. Either Dmitri or Oleg is always with me." "It is highly necessary," I declared. "Recollect the fate of your poor father." "But why should the revolutionists wish to harm me--a girl?" she asked. "My own idea is that they're not half as black as they're painted." I did not reveal to her the serious facts which I had recently learnt. "Did you make any mention to Oleg of the man following you?" "No, it never occurred to me. But there, I suppose, he only followed me, just as other men seem sometimes to follow me--to look into my face." "You are used to admiration," I said, "and therefore take no notice of it. Pretty women so soon become blase." "Oh! So you denounce me as blase--eh, Uncle Colin?" she cried, just as we arrived before the door in Brunswick Square. "That is the latest! I really don't think it fair to criticise me so constantly," and she pouted. Then she gave me her little gloved hand, and I bent over it as I wished her good-night. I wished to question Oleg regarding the man we had seen, but I could not do so before her. I turned back along the promenade, and was walking leisurely towards the "Metropole," when suddenly from out of the shadow of one of the glass-partitioned shelters the dark figure of a man emerged, and I heard my name pronounced. It was the ubiquitous Hartwig, wearing his gold pince-nez. As was his habit, he sprang from nowhere. I had clapped my hand instinctively upon my revolver, but withdrew it instantly. "Good evening, Mr Trewinnard," he said. "I've met you here as I don't want to be seen at the `Metropole' to-night. I have travelled straight through from Petersburg here. I landed at Dover this afternoon, went up to Victoria, and down here. I arrived at eight o'clock, but learning that Her Highness was dining with you, I waited until you left her. It is perhaps as well that I am here," he added. "Why?" I asked. "Because I've been on the pier with you to-night," was the reply of the chief of the detective department of Russia, "and I have seen how closely you have been watched by a person whom even Oleg Lobko, usually so well-informed, does not suspect--a person who is extremely dangerous. I do not wish to alarm you, Mr Trewinnard," he added in a low voice, "but I heard in Petersburg that something is intended here in Brighton, and the Emperor sent me post-haste to you." "Who is this person who has been watching us?" I asked eagerly. "I noticed him." "Oleg doesn't know him, but I do. I have had certain suspicions, and only five days ago I made a discovery in Petersburg--an amazing discovery--which confirmed my apprehensions. The man who has been watching you with distinctly evil intent is a most notorious and evasive character named Danilo Danilovitch." "Danilovitch!" I cried. "I know him, but I did not recognise him to-night. His appearance has so changed." "Yes, it has. But I have been watching him all the evening. He returned by the midnight train to London." "I can tell you where he is in hiding," I said. "You can!" he cried. "Excellent! Then we will both go and pay him a surprise call to-morrow. There is danger--a grave and imminent danger-- for both Her Highness and yourself; therefore it must be removed. There is peril in the present situation--a distinct peril which I had never suspected. A disaster may happen at any moment if we are not wary and watchful. And there's another important point, Mr Trewinnard," added the great detective; "do you happen to know a tall, thin, sharp-featured young man called Richard Drury?" CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE CATSPAW. Just as the dusk had deepened into grey on the following evening I alighted from a tram in the Lower Clapton Road, and, accompanied by Hartwig, we turned up a long thoroughfare of uniform houses, called Powerscroft Road, until we reached Blurton Road, where, nearly opposite the Mission House, we found the house of which we were in search. Hartwig had altered his appearance wonderfully, and looked more like a Devonshire farmer up in London on holiday than the shrewd, astute head of the Surete of the Russian Empire. As for myself, I had assumed a very old suit and wore a shabby hat. The drab, dismal house, which we passed casually in order to inspect, was dingy and forbidding, with curtains that were faded with smoke and dirt, holland blinds once yellow, but the ends of which were now dark and stained, and windows which had not been cleaned for years, while the front door was faded and blistered and some of the tops of the iron railings in front had been broken off. The steps leading to the front door had not been hearthstoned as were those of its neighbour, while in the area were bits of wastepaper, straw, and the flotsam and jetsam of the noisy, overcrowded street. Unkempt children were romping or playing hopscotch on the pavement, while some were skipping and others playing football in the centre of the road--all pupils of the great County Council Schools in the vicinity. At both the basement window and that of the room above--the front parlour--were short blinds of dirty muslin, so that to see within while passing was impossible. In that particular it differed in no way from some of its neighbours; for in those parts front parlours are often turned into bedrooms, and a separate family occupies every floor. Only one fact was apparent--that it was the dirtiest and most neglected house in the whole of that working-class road, bordering upon the Hackney Marsh. To me that district was as unfamiliar as were the wilds of the Sahara. Indeed, to the average Londoner Lower Clapton is a mere legendary district, the existence of which is only recorded by the name written upon tramcars and omnibuses. Together we strolled to the bottom of Blurton Road, to where Glyn Road crosses it at right angles, and then we stopped to discuss our plans. "I shall ascend the steps, knock, and ask for Danilovitch," the great detective said. "The probability is that the door will be unceremoniously slammed in my face. But you will be behind me. I shall place my foot in the door to prevent premature closing, and at first sign of resistance you, being behind me, will help me to force the door, and so enter. At word from me don't hesitate--use all your might. I intend to give whoever lives there a sudden and sharp surprise." "But if they are refugees, they are desperate. What then?" "I expect they are," he laughed. "This is no doubt the hornets' nest. Therefore it behoves us to be wary, and have our wits well about us. You're not afraid, Mr Trewinnard?" "Not at all," I said. "Where you dare go, there I will follow." "Good. Let's make the attempt then," he said, and together we strolled leisurely back until we came to the flight of unclean front steps, whereupon both of us turned and, ascending, Hartwig gave a sharp postman's knock at the door. An old, grey-whiskered, ill-dressed man, palpably a Polish Jew, opened the door, whereupon Hartwig asked in Russian: "Is our leader Danilo Danilovitch here?" The man looked from him to me inquiringly. "Tell him that Ivan Arapoff, from Petersburg, wishes to speak with him." "I do not know, Gospodin, whether he is at home," replied the man with politeness. "But I will see, if you will wait," and he attempted to close the door in our faces. Hartwig, however, was prepared for such manoeuvre, for he had placed his foot in the door, so that it could not be closed. The Polish Jew was instantly on the alert and shouted some sharp word of warning, evidently a preconcerted signal, to those within, whereat Hartwig and myself made a sudden combined effort and next second were standing within the narrow evil-smelling little hall. I saw the dark figures of several men and women against the stairs, and heard whispered words of alarm in Russian. But Hartwig lost no time, for he shouted boldly: "I wish to see Danilo Danilovitch. Let him come forward. If he does not do so, then it is at his own peril." "If you are police officers you cannot touch us here in England!" shouted a young woman with dark, tousled hair, a revolutionist of the female-student type. "We are here from Petersburg as friends, but you apparently treat us as enemies," said Hartwig. "If you are traitors you will, neither of you, leave this house alive," cried a thick-set man, advancing towards me threateningly. "So you shall see Danilovitch--and he shall decide." I heard somebody bolting the front door heavily to prevent our escape, while a voice from somewhere above, in the gloom of the stairs, shouted: "Comrades, they are police-spies!" A young, black-haired Jewess of a type seen everywhere in Poland, thin-featured and handsome, with a grey shawl over her shoulders, emerged from a door and peered into my face. There seemed fully fifteen persons in that dingy house, all instantly alarmed at our arrival. Here was, no doubt, the London centre of revolutionary activity directed against the Russian Imperial family and Danilo Danilovitch was in hiding there. It was fortunate, indeed, that the ever-vigilant Tack had succeeded in running him to earth. I had told Hartwig of the allegation which Tack had made against Danilovitch, that, though in the service of the Secret Police, he had arranged certain attempts against members of the Imperial family, and how he had deliberately killed his sweetheart, Marie Garine. But Hartwig, being chief of the Surete, had no connection with the political department, and was, therefore, unaware of any agent of Secret Police known as Danilovitch. "I remember quite well the case of Marie Garine," he added. "I thoroughly investigated it and found that she had, no doubt, been killed by her lover. But I put it down to jealousy, and as the culprit had left Russia I closed the inquiry." "Then you could arrest him, even now," I said. "Not without considerable delay. Besides, in Petersburg they are against applying for extradition in England. The newspapers always hint at the horrors of Siberia in store for the person arrested. And," he added, "I agree that it is quite useless to unnecessarily wound the susceptibilities of my own countrymen, the English." It was those words he had spoken as we had come along Blurton Road. Our position at that moment was not a very pleasant one, surrounded as we were by a crowd of desperate refugees. If any one of them recognised Ivan Hartwig, then I knew full well that we should never leave the house alive. Men who were conspiring to kill His Majesty the Emperor would not hesitate to kill a police officer and an intruder in order to preserve their secret, "Where is my good friend Danilovitch?" demanded Hartwig, in Russian. "Why does he not come forward?" "He has not been well, and is in bed," somebody replied. "He is coming in a moment. He lives on the top floor." "Well, I'm in a hurry, comrades," exclaimed the great detective with a show of impatience. "Do not keep me waiting. I am bearer of a message to you all--an important message from our great and beloved Chief, the saviour of Russia, whose real identity is a secret to all, but whom we know as `The One'!" "The One!" echoed two of the men in Russian. "A message from him! What is it? Tell us," they cried eagerly. "No. The message from our Chief is to our comrade Danilovitch. He will afterwards inform you," was Hartwig's response. "Who is it there who wants me?" cried an impatient voice in Russian over the banisters. "I have a message for Danilo Danilovitch," my friend shouted back. "Then come upstairs," he replied. "Come--both of you." And we followed a dark figure up to a back room on the second floor--a shabby bed and sitting-room combined. He struck a match, lit the gas and pulled down the blind. Then as he faced us, a middle-aged man with deeply-furrowed countenance and hair tinged with grey, I at once recognised him--though he no longer wore the small black moustache--as the man I had met on Brighton Pier on the previous night. "Well," he asked roughly in Russian, "what do you want with me?" I was gratified that he had not recognised Ivan Hartwig. For a moment he looked inquiringly at me, and no doubt recognised me as the Grand Duchess's companion of the previous night. His hair was unkempt, his neck was thick, and his unshaven face was broad and coarse. He had the heavy features of a Russian of the lower class, yet his prominent, cunning eyes and high, deeply-furrowed forehead betokened great intelligence. Though of the working-class, yet in his eyes there burned a bright magnetic fire, and one could well imagine how by his inflammatory speeches he led that crowd of ignorant aliens into a belief that by killing His Imperial Majesty they could free Russia of the autocratic yoke. Those men and women, specimens of whom were living in that house at Clapton, never sought to aim at the root of the evil which had gripped the Empire, that brutal camarilla who ruled Russia, but in the madness of their blood-lust and ignorance that they were being betrayed by their leader, and their lives made catspaws by the camarilla itself, they plotted and conspired, and were proud to believe themselves martyrs to what they foolishly termed The Cause! The face of the traitor before us was full of craft and cunning, the countenance of a shrewd and clever man who, it struck me, was haunted hourly by the dread of betrayal and an ignominious end. Even though he might have been a shoemaker, yet from his perfect self-control, and the manner in which he greeted us, I saw that he was no ordinary man. Indeed, few men could have done--would have dared to do--what he had done, if all Tack had related were true. His personal appearance, his unkempt hair, his limp collar and loosely-tied cravat of black and greasy silk, and his rough suit of shabby dark tweed, his whole ensemble, indeed, was that of the political agitator, the revolutionary firebrand. "I am here, Danilo Danilovitch," Hartwig said at last very seriously, looking straight at him, "in order to speak to you quite frankly, to put to you several questions." The man started, and I saw apprehension by the slight movement in the corners of his mouth. "For what reason?" he snapped quickly. "I thought you were here with a message from our Chief in Russia?" "I am here with a message, it is true," said the renowned chief of the Russian Surete. "You had, I think, better lock that door, and also make quite certain that nobody in this house overhears what I am about to say," he added very slowly and meaningly. "Why?" inquired the other with some show of defiance. "If you do not want these comrades of yours to know all your private business, it will be best to lock that door and take care that nobody is listening outside. If they are--well, it will be you, Danilo Danilovitch, who will suffer, not myself," said Hartwig very coolly, his eyes fixed upon the _agent-provocateur_. "I urge you to take precautions of secrecy," he added. "I urge you--for your own sake!" "For my own sake!" cried the other. "What do you mean?" Hartwig paused for a few seconds, and then, in a lower voice, said: "I mean this, Danilo Danilovitch. If a single word of what I am about to say is overheard by anyone in this house you will not go forth again alive. We have been threatened by your comrades down below. But upon you yourself will fall the punishment which is meted out by your comrades to all traitors--_death_!" The man's face changed in an instant. He stood open-mouthed, staring aghast at Hartwig, haggard-eyed and pale to the lips. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. SUCH IS THE LAW. "Now," Hartwig said, assuming a firm, determined attitude, "I hope you entirely understand me. I am well aware of the despicable double game you are playing, therefore if you refuse me the information I seek I shall go downstairs and tell them how you are employed by His Excellency General Markoff." The traitor's face was ashen grey. He was, I could see, in wonder at the identity of his visitor. Of course he knew me, but apparently my companion was quite unknown to him. It was always one of Hartwig's greatest precautions to remain unknown to any except perhaps a dozen or so of the detective police immediately under his direction. From the Secret or Political Police he was always careful to hide his identity, knowing well that by so doing he would gain a free hand in his operations in the detection of serious crime. At his own house, a neat, modest little bachelor abode just outside Petersburg, in the Kulikovo quarter, he was known as Herr Otto Schenk, a German teacher of languages, who, possessing a small income, devoted his leisure to his garden and his poultry. None, not even the agents of Secret Police in the Kulikovo district, who reported upon him regularly each month, even suspected that he was the renowned head of the Surete. Standing there presenting such a bucolic appearance, so typically English, and yet speaking Russian perfectly, he caused Danilovitch much curiosity and apprehension. Suddenly he asked of the spy: "You were at Brighton last night? With what motive? Tell me." The man hesitated a moment and replied: "I went there to visit a friend--a compatriot." "Yes. Quite true," exclaimed the great police official, leaning against the end of the narrow iron bedstead. "You went to Brighton with an evil purpose. Shall I tell you why? Because you were sent there by your employer General Markoff--sent there as a paid assassin!" The fellow started. "What do you mean?" he gasped. "Just this. That you followed a certain lady who accompanied this gentleman here--followed and watched them for two hours." And then, fixing his big, expressive eyes upon the man he was interrogating, he added: "You followed them because your intention was to carry out the plot conceived by your master--the plot to kill them both!" "It's a lie!" cried the traitor. "There is no plot." "Listen," exclaimed Hartwig, in a low, firm voice. "It is your intention to commit an outrage, and having done so, you will denounce to the police certain persons living in this house. Arrests will follow, if any return to Russia, the General will be congratulated by the Emperor upon his astuteness in laying hands so quickly upon the conspirators, and half-a-dozen innocent persons will be sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, if they dare ever go back to their own country. You see," he laughed, "that I am fully aware of the remarkably ingenious programme in progress." The man's face was pale as death. He saw that his secret was out. "And now," Hartwig went on: "when I tell these people who live below-- your comrades and fellow-workers in the revolutionary cause--what will they say--eh? Well, Danilo Danilovitch, I shall, when I've finished with you, leave you to their tender mercies. You remember, perhaps, the fate of Boutakoff, the informer at Kieff, how he was attached to a baulk of timber and placed upon a circular saw, how Raspopoff died of slow starvation in the hands of those whom he had betrayed at Moscow, and how Mirski, in Odessa, was horribly tortured and killed by the three brothers of the unfortunate girl he had given into the hands of the police. No," he laughed, "your friends show neither leniency nor humanity towards those who betray them." "But you will not do this!" gasped the man, his eyes dilated by fear, now that he had been brought to bay. "I have explained my intention," replied Hartwig slowly and firmly. "But you will not!" he cried. "I--I implore you to spare me! You appear to know everything." "Yes," was the reply. "I know how, by your perfidious actions, dozens, nay hundreds, of innocent persons have been sent into exile. To the revolutionists throughout the whole of Russia there is one great leader known as `The One'--the leader whose identity is unknown, but whose word is law among a hundred thousand conspirators. You are that man! Your mandates are obeyed to the letter, but you keep your identity profoundly secret. These poor misguided fools who follow you believe that the secrecy as to the identity of their fearless leader whom they only know as `The Wonder Worker,' or generally `The One,' is due to a fear of arrest. Ah! Danilo Danilovitch," he laughed, "you who lead them so cleverly are a strong man, and a clever man. You hold the fate of all revolutionary Russia in your hand. You form plots, you get your poor, ill-read puppets to carry them out, and afterwards you send them to Siberia in batches of hundreds. A clever game this game of terrorism. But I tell you frankly it is at an end now. What will these comrades of yours say when they are made aware that `The One'--the man believed by so many to be sent providentially to sweep away the dynasty and kill the enemies of freedom--is identical with Danilo Danilovitch, the bootmaker of Kazan and police-spy. Rather a blow to the revolutionary organisation--eh?" "And a blow for you," I added, addressing the unkempt-looking fellow for the first time. Though I confess that I did not recognise him as the man who threw the bomb in Petersburg, I added: "It was you who committed the dastardly outrage upon the Grand Duke Nicholas, and for which many innocent persons are now immured in those terrible cells below the water at Schusselburg--you who intend that His Imperial Highness's daughter and myself shall die!" I cried. He made no reply. He saw that we were in possession of all the facts concerning his disgraceful past. I could see how intensely agitated he had become, and though he was striving to conceal his fear, yet his thin, sinewy hands were visibly trembling. "You admit, by your silence, that you were author of that brutal outrage!" exclaimed Hartwig quickly. "In it, my friend here narrowly escaped with his life. Now, answer me this question," he demanded imperiously. "With what motive did you launch that bomb at the Grand Duke's carriage?" "With the same motive that every attempt is made," was his bold reply. "You lie!" Hartwig said bluntly. "That plot was not yours. Confess it." "No plot is mine. The various revolutionary circles form plots, and I, as the unknown head, approve of them. But," asked the spy suddenly, "who are you that you should question me thus?" "I have already given you my name," he said. "Ivan Arapoff, of Petersburg." "Then, Mr Arapoff, I think we may change the topic of conversation," said the man, suddenly quite calm and collected. I detected that, though an unprincipled scoundrel and without either conscience or remorse, his was yet a strong and impelling personality--a man who, among the enthusiastic students and the younger generation of Russia, which form the bulk of the revolutionists, would no doubt be listened to and obeyed as a leader. "Good. If you wish me to leave you, I will do so. I will go and have a little chat with your interesting and enlightened friends downstairs," exclaimed Hartwig with a triumphant laugh. Then, turning to me, he added: "Come, Mr Trewinnard, let's go." "No!" gasped the spy. "No, stop! I--I want to fully understand what your intentions are--now that you know the truth concerning the identity of `The One' and other recent matters." "Intentions!" echoed the great detective. "I have none. I have merely forewarned you of what you must expect--the fate of the informer, unless--" "Unless what?" he cried. "Unless you confess the object of the outrage upon the Grand Duke." "I tell you I do not know." "But the plot was your own. None of your comrades knew of it." "It was not my own." "You carried it out?" "And if I admit anything you will hand me over to the police--eh?" "Surely you know that is impossible in England. You cannot be arrested here for a political crime," Hartwig said. "I saw you throw the bomb," I added. "You were dressed differently, but I now recognise you. Come, admit it." "I admit nothing," he answered sullenly. "You are both of you entirely welcome to your opinions." "Forty persons are now in prison for your crime," I said. "Have you no remorse--no pity?" "I have nothing to say." "But you shall speak," I cried angrily. "Once I nearly lost my life because of the outrage you committed, and last night you followed me in Brighton with the distinct purpose of killing both Her Highness and myself. But you were frustrated--or perhaps you feared arrest. But I tell you plainly, if ever I catch you in our vicinity again I shall hand you over to the nearest policeman. And at the police-court the truth concerning `The One' will quickly be revealed and seized upon by the halfpenny press." "We need not wait for that, Mr Trewinnard," remarked Hartwig. "We can deal with him this evening--once and for all. When we leave here we shall leave with the knowledge that `The One' no longer exists and the revolutionary party--Terrorists, as they are pleased to call themselves on account of the false bogy which the Secret Police have raised in Russia--will take their own steps towards punishing the man to whom they owe all the great disasters which have befallen their schemes during the past couple of years. Truly, the vengeance of the Terrorist against his betrayer is a terrible vengeance indeed." As he spoke the creak of a footstep was heard on the landing outside the locked door. I raised my finger to command silence, whereupon the man known throughout all revolutionary Russia as "The One" crossed the room swiftly, and unlocking the door, looked out. But he found no one. Yet I feel certain that someone had been lurking there. That slow creak of the bare boards showed that the pressure of a foot had been released. Yet whoever had been listening had escaped swiftly down the stairs, now dark and unlighted. Danilovitch reentered the bedroom, his face white as a sheet. "Somebody has overheard!" he gasped in a low, hoarse voice. "They know the truth!" "Yes," responded my companion in a hard, distinct tone. "They know the truth because of your own failure to be frank with us. I warned you. But you have not heeded." "Your words were overheard," he whispered. "They no doubt suspected you to be officers of police who had found me here in my hiding-place, and were, therefore, listening. I was a fool!" he cried, throwing his hands above his head. "I was an accursed fool!" His lips were grey, his dark eyes seemed to be starting from his head. Well did he know the terrible fate which awaited him as a betrayer and informer. "Why did you throw that bomb?" I cried. "Why did you last night follow the Grand Duchess Natalia with such evil intent? Tell me," I urged. "No!" cried "The One," springing at me fiercely. "I will tell you nothing--nothing!" he shrieked. "You have betrayed me--you have cast me into the hands of my enemies. But, by Heaven! you shall neither of you leave this place alive," he shrieked. "My comrades shall deal with you as you justly deserve. I will see that you are not allowed to speak. Neither of you shall utter a single word against me!" Then with a harsh, triumphant laugh he called loudly for help to those below. In an instant Hartwig and I both realised that the tables had been suddenly and unexpectedly turned upon us, and that we were now placed in most deadly and imminent peril. The object of the informer was to close our mouths at once, for only by so doing could he save himself from that terrible fate which must assuredly befall him. It was his own life--or ours! CHAPTER FIFTEEN. A STATEMENT BY THE INFORMER. Quick as lightning, Hartwig drew a big Browning revolver and thrust it into the informer's face, exclaiming firmly: "Another word and it will be your last!" The fellow started back, unprepared for such defiance. He made a movement to cross the room, where no doubt he had his own weapon concealed, but the police officer was too quick for him and barred his passage. "Look here!" he said firmly. "This is a matter to be settled between us, without any interference by your friends here. At word from me they would instantly turn upon you as an enemy. Think! Reflect well--before it is too late!" And he held the revolver steadily a foot from the man's hard, pale face. Danilovitch hesitated. He controlled the so-called Terrorist movement with amazing ingenuity, playing three _roles_ simultaneously. He was "The One," the mysterious but all-powerful head of the organisation; the ardent worker in the cause known as "the shoemaker of Kazan"; and the base, unscrupulous informer, who manufactured plots, and afterwards consigned to prison all those men and women who became implicated in them. "If I withdraw my cry of alarm will you promise secrecy?" he asked in a low, cringing tone. From the landing outside came sounds of footsteps and fierce demands in Russian from those he had summoned to his assistance. Two of us against twenty desperate characters as they were, would, I well knew, stand but a poor chance. If he made any allegation against us, we should be caught like rats in a trap, and killed, as all police-spies are killed when denounced. The arm of the Russian revolution is indeed a long one--longer than that of the Secret Police itself. "What has happened, Danilo?" demanded a man's rough voice. "Who are those strangers? Let us in!" "Speak!" commanded Hartwig. "Reassure them, and let them go away. I have still much to say to you in private." His arm with the revolver was upraised, his eyes unwavering. The informer saw determination in his gaze. A further word of alarm, and a bullet would pass through his brain. For a few seconds he stood in sullen silence. "All right!" he shouted to them at last. "It is nothing, comrades. I was mistaken. Leave us in peace." We heard a murmuring of discontent outside, and then the footsteps commenced to descend the steep uncarpeted stairs. As they did so, Hartwig dropped his weapon, saying: "Now let us sit down and talk. I have several questions I wish to put to you. If you answer frankly, then I promise that I will not betray you to your comrades." "What do you mean by `frankly'?" "I mean that you must tell me the exact truth." The man's face grew dark; his brows contracted; he bit his finger-nails. "What was the motive of the attempt you made upon the Grand Duke Nicholas and his daughter, and the gentleman here, Mr Trewinnard?" "I don't know," he replied. "But you yourself committed the outrage?" "At the orders of others." "Whose orders?" He did not reply. He was standing against the small, cheap chest of drawers, his drawn face full in the light of the hissing gas-jet. "Come," said Hartwig firmly. "I wish to know this." "I cannot tell you." "Then I will tell you," the detective said in a hard voice. "It was at the orders of your master, General Markoff--the man who, finding that you were a revolutionist, is using you as his tool for the manufacture of bogus plots against the Emperor." Danilovitch shrugged his shoulders, but uttered no word. "And you went again to Brighton last night at his orders. You--" "I went to Brighton, I admit. But not at the General's orders," he interrupted quickly. "Why did you go? Why did you follow Her Imperial Highness and Mr Trewinnard?" "I followed them because I had an object in so doing." "A sinister object?" "No. There you are mistaken. My object was not a sinister one. It was to watch and endeavour to make clear a certain point which is a mystery to me." "A point concerning what?" "Concerning Her Imperial Highness," was his reply. "How does Her Highness concern you?" I asked. "You tried to kill her once. Therefore your intentions must be evil." "I deny that," he protested quickly. "I tell you that I went to Brighton without thought of any evil intent, and without the orders, or even knowledge, of General Markoff." "But he is Her Highness's enemy." "Yes, Excellency--and yours also." "Tell me all that you know," I urged, adopting a more conciliatory tone. "It is outrageous that this oppressor of Russia should conspire to kill an innocent member of the Imperial Family." "I know nothing of the circumstances. Excellency," he said, feigning entire ignorance. "But he gave you orders to throw that bomb," I said. "What were your exact orders?" "I am not likely to betray my employer," he laughed. "If you do not answer these questions, then I shall carry out my threat of exposure," Hartwig said in a hard, determined voice. "Well," said the informer hesitatingly, "my orders were not to throw the bomb unless the Grand Duchess Natalia was in the carriage." "Then the plot was to kill her--but unfortunately her father fell the victim of the dastardly outrage!" I cried. "Yes," the man replied. "It was to kill her--and you, Excellency." "But why?" He shrugged his shoulders, and exhibited his palms in a gesture of complete ignorance. "And your present intention is to effect in Brighton what you failed to do in Petersburg--eh?" "I have no orders, and it certainly is not my intention," responded the man, whom I remembered at that moment had deliberately killed the girl Garine in order to preserve his secret. I turned from him in loathing and disgust. "But you tell me that General Markoff intends that we both shall come to an untimely end," I said a few moments later. "He does, Excellency, and the ingenuity of the plot against you both is certainly one which betrays his devilish cunning," was the fellow's reply. "I have, I assure you, no love for a man who holds my life in the hollow of his hand, and whose word I am compelled to obey on pain of exposure and death." "You mean Markoff," I exclaimed. "Tell me something of this plot against me--so that I may be on my guard," I urged. "I know nothing concerning it. For that very reason I went to Brighton yesterday, to try and discover something," he said. "And what did you discover?" "A very remarkable fact. At present it is only suspicion. I have yet to substantiate it." "Cannot you tell me your suspicion?" "Not until I have had an opportunity of proving it," was his quiet reply. "But I assure you that the observation I kept upon Her Imperial Highness and yourself was with no evil intent." I smiled incredulously. It was hard indeed to believe a man of his subtle and unscrupulous character. All that Tack had told me crowded through my brain. As the catspaw of Markoff, it was not likely that he would tell me the truth. Hartwig was leaning easily against the wooden mantelshelf, watching us keenly. Of a sudden an idea occurred to me, and addressing the informer, I said: "I believe you are acquainted with my friend Madame de Rosen and her daughter. Tell me what you know concerning them." "They were arrested and exiled to Siberia for the attempt in the Nevski on the return of the Emperor from the south," he said promptly. Hartwig interrupted, saying gravely: "And that attempt, Danilo Danilovitch, was conceived by you--conceived in order to strike terror into the Emperor's heart. You formed the plot and handed over the list of the conspirators to your employer, Markoff-- you, the person known to the Party of the People's Will as `The One.'" "I knew of the plot," he admitted. "And though I gave certain names to the police, I certainly did not include the names of Madame de Rosen or of Mademoiselle." "Why was she arrested?" He was silent for a few moments. "Because her presence in Petersburg was dangerous to the General," he said at last sullenly. "You know this--eh? You are certain of it--you have evidence, I mean?" asked Hartwig. "You ask me for the truth," the informer said, "and I tell you. I was extremely sorry for Madame and the young lady, for I knew them when I carried on my trade as bootmaker. An hour after their arrest, at about four o'clock in the morning, the General ordered me to go and search their house for certain letters which he described to me--letters which he was extremely anxious to obtain. I went alone, as he did not wish to alarm the neighbourhood by a domiciliary visit of the police. I searched the house for nearly nine hours, but failed to discover them. While still engaged in the investigation I was recalled to the house where it is my habit to meet the General in secret, when he told me that by a false promise of release he had extracted from Madame a statement that the letters were no longer in her possession, and that Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia held them in safe-keeping. Madame, perfectly innocent as she was of any connection with the conspirators, expected to be released after telling the truth; but the General said that he had only laughed in her face and ordered her and her daughter to be sent off with the next convoy of prisoners--who were leaving for Siberia that same night. By this time the ladies are, I expect, already in the great forwarding-prison at Tomsk." "And the letters?" I demanded, my blood boiling at hearing his story. "I was ordered to search for them." Danilovitch replied. "The General gave me instructions how to enter the palace of the Grand Duke Nicholas and there to investigate the apartments of the Grand Duchess Natalia. I refused at first, knowing that if I were detected as an intruder I should be shot at sight by the sentries. But he insisted," the man added. "He told me that if I persisted in my refusal he would expose me as a spy. So I was compelled to make the attempt, well knowing that discovery meant certain death. The sentries have orders to shoot any intruder in the Grand Ducal palace. On four occasions I went there at imminent risk, and on the fourth I was successful. I found the letters concealed in a room which had once been used as Her Highness's nursery." "And what did you do with them?" "I met the General at our usual meeting-place and handed them to him. He was at first delighted. But a moment later, finding that the seal of the envelope in which were the letters had been broken, he charged me with reading them. I denied it, and--" "Then you did not read them? You do not know what they contained, or who they were from?" "They were from General Markoff himself. I looked at the signatures, but, alas! I had no time to read them. I drove straight to the meeting-place, where the General was awaiting me." "They were from the General!" I echoed. "To whom?" "They bore his signature--one a long letter, closely written," was the informer's reply. "Seeing that the seal had been broken, the General flew into a sudden rage and declared that the Grand Duchess Natalia had learned what they contained. The words he used to me were: `The girl must be silenced--silenced at once, Danilovitch. And you must silence her. She knows the truth!'" "Well?" I asked. "Well," he said, his mouth drawn and hard, "under compulsion and more threats of exposure, I launched the bomb, which, alas! killed her father, while the young lady escaped unhurt." "Then he still intends that Her Highness shall die? His warning the other day was no idle attempt to terrorise me?" "No, Excellency. Take every precaution. The General means mischief, for he is in hourly fear lest Her Highness should expose certain facts contained in those fateful letters which have already cost two ladies their liberty and a Grand Duke and several Cossacks their lives." "Is this the actual truth?" asked Hartwig in a changed voice, looking the informer full in the face. "Yes," he answered solemnly. "I have told you the truth; therefore I believe your solemn word that you will make no exposure to the Party." "If you will disassociate yourself from these dastardly actions," he said. "Ah!" sighed the other in despair, "that is impossible. The General holds me always to the compact I made with him. But I beg of you to be warned," he added. "Her Highness is daily in gravest peril!" CHAPTER SIXTEEN. INCOGNITA! Shortly after eleven o'clock that same evening I was strolling with Hartwig up and down the deserted platform at Victoria Station, my intention being to take the eleven-fifty p.m. train back to Brighton. For a full hour we had pressed the informer to explain the real reason of his visit to Brighton on the previous day. But beyond assuring us that it was not with any evil intent--which I confess we could scarcely believe--he declined to reveal anything. He only repeated his warning that Natalia was in grave personal danger, and entreated me to be careful. The refugees in that house, all of them Russians, seemed filled with intense curiosity regarding us, and especially so, perhaps, because of Hartwig's declaration that he was bearer of a message from that mysterious leader who was believed to live somewhere in Moscow, and was known throughout the Russian Empire as "The ONE." No doubt after our departure Danilovitch had told them of some secret message he had received from the mysterious head of the organisation, who was none other than himself. But his confession had held both of us practically silent ever since we had left that dingy house in Lower Clapton. "Markoff believes that Her Highness is aware of the contents of those letters," Hartwig said as we strolled together in the great, well-lit station. Few people were about just at that hour, for the suburban theatre-goers had not yet arrived. "For that reason it is intended that her mouth shall be closed." "But this is murder!" I cried in hot indignation. "I will go straight to the Emperor, and tell him." "And what benefit would that be? His Majesty would declare it to be an effort by some of the General's enemies to disgrace him," my companion said. "Such damning statements have been made before, but, alas! no heed has been taken of them!" "But His Majesty shall hear--and he shall take notice! I will demand in inquiry into the arrest and exile of Madame de Rosen." "I thought you told me that you had already mentioned her name to His Majesty," Hartwig said quietly. I had forgotten. Yes. His words recalled to me my effort on her behalf, and the futility of my appeal. I sighed, and bit my lip. The two innocent ladies were on their way to that far-off dreaded penal settlement of Yakutsk. From the time which had elapsed since their arrest I calculated that they were already in Siberia, trudging that long, never-ending post road--that wide, deeply-rutted track which runs across those boundless plains between Tobolsk and Tomsk--on the first stage of their terrible journey of over six thousand miles on foot. A sudden suggestion flashed across my mind. Should I follow, overtake them and hear the truth from Marya de Rosen's lips? Yet before doing so I should be compelled to apply for a passport and permits at the Ministry of the Interior at Petersburg. If I did this, Markoff would at once suspect my intention, for travellers do not go to Siberia for pleasure. And if he suspected my intention a way would quickly be found by which, when I arrived at my destination, neither of the ladies would be alive. In Siberia, where there is neither law nor inquiry, it was, I knew, very easy to close the lips of any person whose existence might be prejudicial to the authorities. A word from General Markoff, and an accident would certainly occur. No. I realised that to relax my vigilance over the safety of Natalia at that moment would be most injudicious. Besides, was not Natalia herself aware of the contents of the letters? If not, why had her enemies made the firm determination that she should meet with a sudden and mysterious end? I mentioned to my companion my inclination to travel across Siberia in search of the exiles; but he only shook his head gravely, saying: "You are, no doubt, under very close observation. Even if you went, you might, by so doing, place yourself in grave personal peril. Remember, Markoff is desperate. The contents of those letters, whatever they may be, are evidently so damning that he cannot afford exposure. The pains he took to secure them, and to send Madame de Rosen into exile, plainly show this. No," he added, "the most judicious plan is to remain here, near Her Highness, and watch Markoff's operations." "If Her Highness would only reveal to me the secret of those letters, then we should be in a position to defy Markoff and reveal him before the Emperor in his true light," I said. "She has refused--eh?" "Yes. I have questioned her a dozen times, but always with the same result," was my answer. "But will she refuse, if she knows that her father's tragic end was due to the wild desire of Markoff to close her lips?" "Yes. I have already pointed that out to her. Her reply is that what she learnt was in confidence. It is her friend's secret, and she cannot betray it. She is the very soul of honour. Her word is her bond." "You will tell her now of Danilovitch's confession; how the letters were stolen and handed back to the General by the man whom he holds so completely in his power?" Hartwig said. "I shall. But I fear it will make no difference. She is, of course, eager to expose the General to the Emperor and effect his downfall. She is fully aware of his corrupt and brutal maladministration of the department of Political Police, of the bogus plots, and the wholesale deportment of thousands of innocent persons. But it seems that she gave a pledge of secrecy to poor madame, and that pledge she refuses to break at any cost. `It is Marya's secret,' she told me, `not mine.'" As we were speaking, a tall, straight, good-looking young man in crush-hat and black overcoat over his dinner-clothes had strolled along the platform awaiting the train. My eyes caught his features as he went, when suddenly I recognised in the young man Richard Drury, whom Her Highness had told me she had known in her school-days at Eastbourne. I glanced after him and watched his figure retreating leisurely as he smoked a cigarette until he came beneath a lamp where he halted. Then, producing an evening paper, he commenced to while away the time by reading. He was evidently returning to Brighton by my train. Apparently the young fellow had not recognised me as Miss Gottorp's companion of the previous night, therefore standing near, I had an opportunity of examining him well. He was certainly a typical specimen of the keen, clean-shaven young Englishman, a man who showed good-breeding, and whose easy air was that of the gentleman. Yet I confess that what Her Highness had revealed to me both alarmed and annoyed me. Madcap that she was, I knew not what folly she might commit. Nevertheless, after all, so long as she preserved her _incognito_ no great harm would be done. It was hard upon her to deny her the least suspicion of flirtation, especially with one whom she had known in the days before she had put up her hair and put on her ankle-frocks. Hartwig and I were undecided what our next move should be, and we were discussing it. One fact was plain, that in view of the assertion of Danilovitch, I would now be compelled to keep constant watch over the skittish young lady whom the Emperor had given into my charge. My idea of following and overtaking Madame de Rosen in Siberia was out of all question. "Are you remaining long in London?" I asked the police official, just as I was about to step into the train. "Who knows?" he laughed. "I am at the `Savoy.' The Embassy is unaware I am in England. But I move quickly, as you know. Perhaps to-morrow I may have to return to Petersburg. _Au revoir_." And I wished him adieu, and got into an empty first-class compartment just as the train was moving from the platform. I sat in the corner of the carriage full of grave and apprehensive thoughts. That strange suspicion which the Emperor had revealed to me on the afternoon before the last Court ball recurred to me. I held my breath as a sudden idea flashed across my brain. Had it any connection with this foul but cunningly-conceived plot to kill an innocent girl whose only offence was that she was in possession of certain information which, if revealed, would, I presumed, cause the downfall of that camarilla surrounding the Emperor? The thought held me in wonder. Ah! if only the Emperor would listen to the truth--if only he would view Markoff and his friends in their true character! But I knew, alas! that such development of the situation was impossible. Russia, and with her the Imperial Court, was being terrorised by these desperate attempts to assassinate the Emperor. Hence His Majesty relied upon Markoff for the safety of the dynasty. He looked upon him as a marvel of astuteness and cunning, as indeed he was. But, alas! the burly, grave-eyed man who led a life haunted by the hourly fear of death--an existence in armoured rooms and armoured trains, and surrounded by guards whom he even grew to suspect--was in ignorance that the greater part of the evidence of conspiracies, incriminating correspondence and secret proclamations put before him had been actually manufactured by Markoff himself! At last, after an hour, the express ran slowly into the Brighton terminus, and as it did so, I caught sight of a figure waiting upon the platform, which caused me to quickly draw back. The figure was that of a young girl neatly dressed in black with a small black hat, and though she wore a veil of spotted net I recognised her at once as Natalia! She was smiling and waving her tiny black-gloved hand to someone. In an instant I knew the truth. She was there, even though it were past one o'clock in the morning, to meet her lover, Richard Drury. I saw him spring out, raise his hat and shake her hand warmly, and then, taking care not to be seen, I followed them out as they walked side by side down the hill in the direction of King's Road. This action of hers showed her recklessness and lack of discretion. Apparently she had walked all the way from Hove in order to meet him, and as they strolled together along the dark, deserted road he was evidently explaining something to her, while she listened very attentively. Surely it was unsafe for her to go forth like that! I was surprised that Miss West allowed it. But, in all probability that worthy lady was in bed, and asleep, all unconscious of her charge's escapade. I had not followed very far before I became aware of a footstep behind me, and, turning, I saw a small, insignificant-looking man in dark clothes, who came quickly up to me. It was one of the police-agents employed at the house in Brunswick Square. "Well, Dmitri!" I exclaimed in a low voice in French. "So you are looking after your young mistress--eh?" I asked, with a laugh, pausing to speak with him in order to allow the lovers to get further off. "Yes, m'sieur," replied the man in a tone of distinct annoyance. "This is hardly wise of Her Highness," I said. "This is not the hour to go out for a stroll." "No, m'sieur," replied the shrewd agent of police, who had been for years employed at the palace of the late Grand Duke Nicholas in Petersburg. "I tell you I do not think it either safe or proper. These constant meetings must result in scandal." "Who is that young man?" I asked quickly. "You have made inquiry, no doubt?" "Yes, m'sieur, I have. But I can learn very little. He seems to be a complete mystery--an adventurer, perhaps," declared the suspicious police-agent in a low, hard voice; adding: "The fact is, that man who calls himself Richard Drury is, I feel sure, no fit companion for Her Imperial Highness." "Why not?" I demanded in eager surprise. "Because he is not," was the man's enigmatical reply. "I do hope m'sieur will warn Her Imperial Highness of the danger," he said reflectively, looking in the direction of the retreating figures. "Danger!" I echoed. "What danger?" "There is a grave danger," he asserted firmly. "I have watched, as is my duty, and I know. Her Highness endeavours all she can to evade my vigilance, for naturally it is not pleasant to be watched while carrying on a flirtation. But she does not know what I have discovered concerning this stranger with whom she appears to have fallen so deeply in love. They must be parted, m'sieur--parted at once, before it is too late." "But what have you discovered?" I asked. "One astounding and most startling fact," was his slow, deliberate reply; "a fact which demands their immediate separation." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. HER HIGHNESS IS OUTSPOKEN. "Now, Uncle Colin! It's really too horrid of you to spy upon me like that! I had no idea you were behind us! I knew old Dmitri was there-- he watches me just as a cat watches a mouse. But I never thought you would be so nasty and mean!" And the girl in her fresh white gown stood at the window of the drawing-room drumming impatiently upon the pane with the tips of her long, white fingers, for it was raining outside. "My dear Natalia," I said paternally, standing upon the white goat-skin hearthrug, and looking across at her; "I did not watch you intentionally. I travelled by the same train as your friend, and I saw you meet him. Really," I laughed, "you looked a most interesting pair as you walked together down Queen's Road. I left you at the corner of Western Road and went on to the `Metropole.'" "Oh! you actually did have the decency to do that!" she exclaimed, turning to me her pretty face clouded by displeasure. "Well, I say quite frankly that I think it was absolutely horrid of you. Surely I may meet a friend without being spied upon at every turn!" she added resentfully. "Dmitri only does his duty, remember," I ventured to remark. "Oh, Dmitri's a perfect plague. He shadows me everywhere. His crafty face irritates me whenever I see it." "This constant surveillance is only for your own protection," I said. "Recollect that you are a member of the Imperial family, and that already six of your uncles and cousins, as well as your poor father, have met with violent deaths at the hands of the revolutionists." "I know. But it is perfectly absurd ever to dream that they want to kill me--a girl whose only object is to live quietly and enjoy her life." "And her flirtations," I added, striving to make her laugh. I was successful, for a smile came to her pretty, pouting lips, and she said: "Well, Uncle Colin, other girls may flirt and have men friends. Therefore I can't see why it is so actually sinful for me to do the same." "But think for a moment of your position!" "Position!" she echoed. "I'm only plain Miss Natalia Gottorp here. Why should I study my family?" "Ah!" I sighed. "I know how wayward you are. No amount of argument will, I fear, ever convince you of your error." "Oh, yes," she sighed, in imitation of the sadness of my tone, saying: "I know what a source of trouble and deep anxiety the wicked, wayward child is to you." Then, next moment, she burst out into a merry, mischievous laugh, adding: "It's really too bad of me to tease you, poor old Uncle Colin, isn't it? But there, you're not really old. I looked you up in `Who's Who' only yesterday. You're only thirty-two next Thursday week. And if you are a very good boy I'll give you a nice little present. Shall I work you a pair of slippers--eh?" she asked, with sarcasm, "or a winter waistcoat?" "Thanks. I hate girls' needlework," I replied frankly, amused at her sudden change of demeanour. "Very well. You shall have a new cigarette-case, a solid gold one, with our grand Imperial arms engraved on it and underneath the words `From Tattie.' How will that do--eh?" she laughed. "Ah! now you're only trying to tease me," I said. "I wonder if you tease Mr Drury like that?" "Oh! Dick knows me. He doesn't mind it in the least," she declared, looking at me with those wonderful eyes that were so much admired everywhere. "Have a cigarette," and she handed me a box of Petroffs, and taking one herself, lit it, and then threw herself negligently into an armchair, lazily displaying a pair of neat silk stockinged ankles and patent-leather shoes. "I certainly think that Mr Dick is a very lucky young fellow," I said, "though I tell you openly that I entirely disapprove of these constant meetings. Remember your promise to me before we left Petersburg." "Well, I've been a very wayward child--even an incorrigible child, I suppose--and I've broken my promise. That's all," she said, blowing a cloud of smoke from her red lips. Like all Russian ladies, she enjoyed a cigarette. "I certainly think you ought to have kept your word," I said. "But Dick, I tell you, is an old friend. I couldn't cut him, could I?" "You need not have cut him," I said. "But I consider it unnecessary to steal out of the house after Miss West has gone to bed, and meet him at the station at one o'clock in the morning." "Then upon that point we'll agree to differ. I'm old enough to be my own mistress, and if you continue to lecture me, I shall be very annoyed with you." "My dear Natalia, I do not blame you in the least for falling in love. How can I?" I said in a changed tone, for I knew that the young lady so petted and spoiled by her earlier training must be treated with greatest caution and tact. "Why, shall I confess a truth?" I asked, looking her straight in the face. "Yes, do," she said. "Well, if I were ten years younger I should most certainly fall in love with you myself," I laughed. "Don't be so silly, Uncle Colin!" she exclaimed. "But would that be so very terrible? Why, you're not an old man yet," she added, her cheeks having flushed slightly at my words. "Now you're blushing," I said. "I'm not!" she cried stoutly. "You're simply horrid this morning," she declared vehemently, turning away from me. "Is it horrid of me to pay you a compliment?" I asked. "I merely expressed a devout wish that I were standing in Drury's shoes. Every man likes to be kissed by a pretty girl, whether she be a shopgirl or a Grand Duchess." "Oh, yes. You are quite right there. Most men make fools of themselves over women." "Especially when their beauty is so world-famed as that of the Grand Duchess Natalia!" "Now, there you are again!" she cried. "I do wish you'd change the topic of conversation. You're horrid, I say." And she gave a quick gesture of impatience, blew a great cloud of smoke from her lips and put down her half-consumed cigarette upon the little silver ashtray. "Oh, my!" she exclaimed at last. "What a funny lover you would make, Uncle Colin! You fancy yourself as old as Methuselah, and your hide-bound ideas of etiquette, your straitlaced morality, and your respect of _les convenances_ are those in vogue when your revered Queen Victoria ascended the throne of Great Britain. You're not living with the times, my dear uncle. You're an old-fashioned diplomat. To-day the world is very different to that in which your father was born." "I quite agree. And I regret that it is so," I replied. "These are surely very lax and degenerating days, when girls may go out unchaperoned, and the meeting of a man in the early hours of the morning passes unremarked." "It unfortunately hasn't passed unremarked," she said, with a pretty pout. "You take jolly good care to rub it in every moment! It really isn't fair," she declared. "I'm very fond of you, Uncle Colin, but you are really a little too old-fashioned." "You are comparing me with young Drury, I suppose?" "Oh, Dick isn't a bit old-fashioned, I assure you," she declared. "He's been at Oxford. He doesn't dream and let the world go by. But, Uncle Colin," she went on, "I wonder that you, a diplomat, are so stiff and proper. I suppose it's the approved British diplomatic training. I'm only a girl, and therefore am not supposed to know any of the tremendous secrets of diplomacy. But it always strikes me that, for the most part, you diplomats are exceptionally dull folk. In our Court circle we always declare them to be inflated with a sense of their own importance, and fifty years behind the times." I laughed outright. Her view was certainly a common-sense one. The whole training of British diplomacy is to continue the traditions of Pitt and Beaconsfield. Diplomacy does not, alas! admit a new and modern _regime_ affecting the world; it ignores modern thought, modern conditions and modern methods. "Up-to-date" is an expression unknown in the diplomat's vocabulary. The Foreign Office instil the lazy, do-nothing policy of the past, the traditions of Palmerston, Clarendon and Dudley are still the traditions of to-day in every British Embassy throughout the world; and, unfortunately for Britain, the lesson has yet to be learned by our diplomacy that to be strong is to be acute and subtle, and to be dictatorial is to be entirely up-to-date. The German diplomacy is that of keen progress and anticipation; that of Turkey craft and cunning; of France, tact, with exquisite politeness. But Britain pursues her heavy, blundering "John Bull" programme, which, though effective in the days of Beaconsfield, now only results in the nation's isolation and derision, certain of her ambassadors to the Powers being familiarly known at the Courts to which they are accredited as "The Man with the Gun." "What you say is, in a sense, quite true," I admitted. "But I'm so sorry if I'm really very dull. I don't mean to be." "Oh! You'll improve under my tuition--and Dick's--no doubt," she exclaimed reassuringly. Her Highness was nothing if not outspoken. "The fact is, Uncle Colin," she went on seriously, "you're far too old-fashioned for your age. You are not old, but your ideas are so horribly antiquated. Girls of to-day are allowed a freedom which our grandmothers would have held as perfectly sinful. Girls have become independent. A young fellow takes a girl out to dinner and to the theatre, and even to supper nowadays, and nobody holds up their hands in pious horror--only you! It isn't fair," she declared. "Girls of the people are allowed a great deal of latitude, I admit. And as far as I can see, the world is none the worse for it," I said. "But what other girls may do, you, an Imperial Highness, unfortunately may not." "That's just where we don't agree," she said in a tone meant to be impertinent, her straight nose slightly raised as she spoke. "I intend to do as other girls do--at least, while I'm plain Miss Gottorp. They call me the `Little Alien'--so Miss West heard me called the other day." "No," I said very firmly, looking straight at her as she lolled easily in her chair, her chin resting on her white palm as she gazed at me from beneath her long, dark lashes. "You really must respect the _convenances_. If you take a stroll with young Drury, do so at least in the daylight." "And with Dmitri watching me all the time from across the road. Not quite," she said. "I like the Esplanade when it is quiet and everybody is in bed. It is so pleasant on these warm nights to sit upon a seat and enjoy the moonlight on the sea. Sounds like an extract from a novel, doesn't it?" and she laughed merrily. "I fear you are becoming romantic," I said. "Every girl becomes so at one period of her life." "Do you think so?" she asked, smiling. "Myself, I don't fancy I have any romance in me. The Romanoffs are not a romantic lot as a rule. They are usually too mercenary. I love nice things." "Because you are cultured and possess good taste. That is exactly what leads to romance." "I have the good taste to choose Dick as a friend, I suppose you mean?" she asked, with an intention to irritate me. "Ah, I did not exactly say that." "But you meant it, nevertheless. You know you did, Uncle Colin." I did not reply for a few moments. I was recalling what Dmitri had told me--that strange allegation of his that this young man, Richard Drury, was an enigma, an adventurer. He had told me that he was no fit companion for her, and yet when pressed he apparently could give no plain reason. He had been unable to discover much concerning the young fellow--probably because of his failure it seemed he had become convinced that the object of his inquiry was an adventurer. Suddenly rising, I stood before her, and placing my hand upon her shoulder, said: "I came here this morning to speak to you very seriously, Natalia. Can you really be serious for once?" "I'm always serious," she replied. "Well--another lecture?" "No, not a lecture, you incorrigible little flirt. I want to ask you a plain question. Please answer me, for a great deal--a very great deal-- depends upon it. Are you aware of what was contained in those letters which Madame de Rosen gave you for safe-keeping?" "I have long ago assured you that I am. Why do you ask again?" "Because there is one point which I wish to clear up," I said. "I thought you told me that they were in a sealed envelope?" "So they were. But when I heard of Marya's exile, and that Luba had been sent with her, I broke open the seal and investigated the contents." "And what did you find?" "Ah! That is my business, Uncle Colin. I have already told you that I absolutely refuse to betray the secrets of my poor dear friend. You surely ought not to ask me. You have no right to press me to commit such a breach of trust." "I ask you because so much depends upon the extent of your knowledge," I said. "I have already solved the secret of the disappearance of the letters from the place where you hid them in the palace." "Then you know who stole them!" she gasped, starting to her feet. "Tell me. Who was the thief?" "A man whom you do not know. He has confessed to me. He was not a willing thief, but a wretched assassin, whom General Markoff holds as his catspaw, and compels to perform his dirty work." "Then the General has secured them! My suspicions are confirmed!" she gasped, all the colour dying from her beautiful face. "He has. The theft was committed under compulsion, and at imminent risk to the thief, who most certainly would have been shot by the sentries, if discovered. The letters were handed by him back to General Markoff." My words held her dumbfounded for a few seconds. She did not speak. Then she said in a hard, changed tone: "Ah! Markoff has destroyed them! The proof no longer exists, therefore I am powerless! How I wish I were permitted to speak--to reveal the truth!" Her teeth were set, her face was white and hard, and the fingers of both hands had clenched themselves into the palms. "But you know the truth!" I cried. "Will you not speak? Will you never reveal it? It is surely your duty to do so," I urged. But she only shook her head sadly, saying: "I cannot betray her confidence." "Remember," I said, "by exposing this secret which Markoff has been at such infinite pains to keep, you can perhaps obtain the release of poor Marya and her daughter! Is it not your plain duty?" I urged in a low, earnest voice. But she only again shook her head resolutely. "No, I cannot expose the secrets of my lost friend. It was her secret which I swore to her I would never reveal," she responded in a harsh, strained voice. "Markoff has secured the proofs and destroyed them. I suspected it from the first. That brute is my bitterest enemy, as he is also Marya's. But, alas! he is all-powerful! He has played a clever double game--and he has won--_he has won_!" CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. SHOWS HARTWIG'S ANXIETY. Her Highness's firm refusal to reveal to me the contents of those letters, the knowledge of which had caused Madame de Rosen and her daughter to be sent to Siberia, while the Grand Duke Nicholas, her father, hid lost his life, disappointed me. For a full hour I remained there, trying by all means in my power to persuade her to assist me in the overthrow of the feted Chief of Secret Police. She would have done so, she declared, were it not for the fact that she had given her solemn word of honour to Marya de Rosen not to divulge anything she knew concerning the contents of those mysterious letters. That compact she held sacred. She had given her faithful promise to her friend. I pointed out to her the determination she had expressed to me in Petersburg that she intended to reveal to the Emperor his favourite in his true light, and thus avenge the lives of thousands of innocent persons who had died on their way to exile or in the foetid, overcrowded prisons of Moscow, and Tomsk, and the vermin-infested _etapes_ of the Great Post Road. But in reply she sighed deeply, and, looking straight before her in desperation, declared that she had now no proof; and even if she had, she had not the permission of Marya de Rosen to make the exposure. "It is her secret--her own personal secret," she said. "I vowed not to reveal it." Then for the first time I indicated her own peril. Hitherto I had not wished to alarm her. But I now showed her how it would be to the advantage of the General, cunning, daring and unscrupulous as he was, that some untoward incident should occur by which her life would be sacrificed in his desperate attempt to conceal the truth. In silence she listened to me, her beautiful face pale and graver than I had ever before seen it. At last she realised the peril. "Ah!" she sighed, and then, as though speaking to herself, said: "If only I could obtain Marya's consent to speak--to tell the Emperor the truth! But that is now quite impossible. No letter could ever reach her, and, indeed, we have no idea where she is. She is, alas! as dead to the world as though she were in her grave!" she added sadly. I reflected for a moment. "If it were not that I feared lest misfortune might befall you during my absence, Highness, I would at once follow and overtake her." "Oh, but the long journey to Siberia! Why, it would take you at least six months! That is quite impossible." "Not impossible, Highness," I responded very gravely. "I am prepared to undertake the journey for your sake--and hers--for the sake of the Emperor." "Ah! I know, Uncle Colin, how good you always are to me, but I couldn't ask you to undertake a winter journey such as that, in search of poor Marya." "If I go, will you, on your part, promise me solemnly not to go out on these night escapades? Indeed, it is not judicious of you to walk out at all, unless one or other of the police-agents is in close attendance upon you. One never knows, in these present circumstances, what may happen," I said. "And as soon as Markoff knows that I have set out for Siberia, he will guess the reason, and endeavour to bring disaster upon both of us, as well as upon the exile herself." For some minutes she did not reply. Then she said: "You must not go. It is too dangerous for you--far too dangerous. I will not allow it." "If you refuse to reveal Marya's secret, then I shall go," was my quiet response. "I shall ask the Emperor to send you Hartwig, to be near you. He will watch over your safety until my return." "Ah! his alertness is simply marvellous," she declared. "Did you read in the London papers last week how cleverly he ran to earth the three men who robbed the Volga Kama Bank in Moscow of a quarter of a million roubles?" "Yes. I read the account of it. He was twice shot at by the men before they were arrested. But he seems always to lead a charmed life. While he is at your side, I shall certainly entertain no fear." "Then you have really decided to go?" she said, looking at me with brows slightly knit. "I cannot tell--I cannot--what I read in those letters after giving my word of honour to Marya." "I have decided," I said briefly. "I do not like the thought of your going. Something dreadful may happen to you." "I shall be wary--never fear," I assured her with a laugh. "I intend to secure the release of Madame and Luba--to set right an unjust and outrageous wrong. I admire your firm devotion to your friend, but I will bring back to you, I hope, her written permission to speak and reveal the truth." Five minutes later I rose, and we descended to the hall, where patient Dmitri was idling over his French newspaper. Then the weather being fine again, we passed out together into the autumn sunshine of the Lawns, at that hour of the morning agog with well-dressed promenaders and hundreds of pet dogs. And a few moments later we came face to face with Richard Drury, to whom she introduced me as "Mr Colin Trewinnard, my uncle, Mr Drury." We bowed mutually, and then all three of us strolled on together, though he seemed a little ill at ease in my presence. I had made a firm resolution. In order to learn the secret of those letters and to place Her Highness, who so honourably refused to break her word, in a position to expose the unscrupulous official who was the real Oppressor of Russia, I intended to set out on that long journey in search of the exile, now, alas! unknown by name, but only by number. Drury struck me as a rather good fellow, and no doubt a gentleman. We halted together, and, when near the pier, he raised his hat and left us. Before leaving Brighton I had yet much to do. I was not altogether satisfied concerning the young man, my object being to try and learn for myself something more tangible regarding him. "Well," she asked, when he had gone, "what is your verdict, Uncle Colin?" "Favourable," I replied, whereat she smiled in gratification. An hour later I succeeded in obtaining a short confidential chat with the hall-porter of the Royal York Hotel, whom I found quite ready to assist me. As I had suspected, Dmitri had failed and formed utterly wrong conclusions, because of his lack of fluent English. It is always extremely difficult for a foreigner to obtain confidential information in England. The hall-porter, however, told me that their visitor was well-known to them, and had frequently stayed there for several months at a time. He had, he believed, formerly lived with his invalid mother at Eastbourne. But the lady had died, and he had then gone to live in bachelor chambers in London. From the bureau of the hotel he obtained the address, scribbled on a bit of paper--an address in Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, to which letters were sometimes re-directed. "And he has a friend--a doctor--hasn't he?" I asked the man. "Oh, yes, sir. You mean Doctor Ingram. He was down here with him the other day." Having obtained all the information I could, I telegraphed to Hartwig at the Savoy Hotel, asking him to make inquiries at Albemarle Street and then to come to Brighton immediately, for I dared not leave until I could place my little madcap charge in safe hands. I knew not into what mischief she might get so soon as my back was turned. That afternoon we strolled together across the Lawns, and presently sat down to listen to the military band. She looked extremely neat in her dead-black gown, which, by its cut and material, bore the unmistakable _cachet_ of the Rue de la Paix, and as we passed up and down I saw many a head turned in her direction in admiration of her remarkable beauty. Little did that crowd of seaside idlers dream that this extremely pretty girl in black who was so much of a mystery to everybody was a member of the great Imperial House of Russia. She was believed to be Miss Gottorp, whose father had been German and her mother English, both of whom were recently dead. Seeing her so often walking with me, everyone, of course, put me down as the lucky man to whom she was engaged to be married, and I have little doubt that many a young man envied me. How strange is the world! When in a tantalising mood she often referred to that popular belief, and that afternoon, while we rested upon two of the green chairs set apart from the others on the Lawn, she said: "I'm quite sure that everybody in Hove is convinced that I am to be Mrs Trewinnard;" and then, referring to her English maid, she added: "Davey has heard it half a dozen times already." I laughed merrily, saying: "Well, that's only to be expected, I suppose. But what about Drury-- eh?" "They don't see very much of Dick. We only meet at night," she laughed, poking the grass with her sunshade. "And that you really must not do in future," I said firmly. "Then I can go about with him in the daytime--eh?" she asked, looking up imploringly into my face. "My dear child," I said, "though I do not approve of it, yet how can I debar you from any little flirtation, even though the Emperor would, I know, be extremely angry if it came to his ears?" "But it won't. I'm sure it won't, Uncle Colin, through you. You are such a funny old dear." "Well," I said reluctantly, "for my own part I would much prefer that you invited your gentleman friend to the house, where Miss West could at least play propriety. But only now and then--for recollect one fact always, that you and he can never marry, however fond you may be of each other. It is that one single fact which causes me pain." Her hard gaze was fixed upon the broad expanse of blue sea before her. I saw how grave she had suddenly become, and that in her great dark eyes stood unshed tears. Her chest heaved slowly and fell. She was filled with emotion which she bravely repressed. "Yes," she managed to murmur in a low whisper. "It is too cruel. Because--" "Because what?" I asked, in a sympathetic voice, bending towards her. "Ah, don't ask me, Uncle Colin!" she said bitterly, her welling eyes still fixed blankly upon the sea. "It is cruel because--because I love Dick," she whispered in open confession. "My little friend," I said, "I sympathise with you very deeply. It is, I admit, a very bitter truth which I have been compelled to point out. For that very reason I have been so much against your friendship with young men. Drury is in ignorance of your true identity. He believes you to be plain Miss Gottorp. But when I tell him the truth--" "Ah, no!" she cried. "You will not tell him--you won't--will you? Promise me," she urged. "I must, I know, one day find a way of breaking the bond of love which exists between us. When--when--that--time-- comes--then we must part. But he must never know that I have deceived him--he must never know that the reason we cannot be more than mere friends is on account of my Imperial birth. No," she added bitterly, "even though I love Dick so dearly and he loves me devotedly, I shall be compelled to do something purposely in order that his love for me may die." Then, sighing deeply, my dainty little companion implored: "You will therefore promise me, Uncle Colin, that you will never--never, under any circumstances, breathe a word to him of who I really am?" I took her trembling hand for a second and gave her my promise. I confess I felt the deepest sympathy for her, and told her so frankly and openly as I sat there taking leave of her, for that very evening I intended to leave Brighton and catch the night mail from Charing Cross direct for Moscow. She said but little, but when we had returned to Brunswick Square and I stood with her at the window of the big drawing-room, she was unable to control her emotions further and burst into a flood of bitter tears. In tenderness I placed my hand upon her shoulder, endeavouring to console her. Alas! I fear my words were stilted and very unconvincing. What could I say, when all the world over royal birth is a bar to love and happiness, and marriages in Imperial and Royal circles are, for the most part, loveless, unholy unions. The Grand Duchess or the royal Princess loves just as ardently and devotedly as does the free and flirting work-girl or the tea-and-tennis girl of the middle-classes. Alas! however, the heart of the Highness is not her own, but at the disposal of the family council, which discusses her marriage as a purely business proposition, and sells her, too frequently, to the highest bidder. The poor girl, crushed by the hopeless bitterness of the situation, declared with a sob: "To be born in the purple, as the outside world calls it, is, alas! to be born to unhappiness." I remained there a full half-hour, until she grew calm again. Never in all the years I had known her--ever since she was a girl--had I seen her give way to such a paroxysm of despair. Usually she was so bright, buoyant and light-hearted. But that afternoon she had utterly broken down and been overcome by blank despair. "You are young, Natalia," I said, with deep sympathy. "Enjoy your life to-day, and do not endeavour to meet the troubles of the future. As long as you remain here and are known as Miss Gottorp, so long may your friendship with young Drury be maintained. Live for the present--do not anticipate the future." I said this because I knew that Time is the greatest healer of broken hearts. But she only shook her head very sadly, without replying. The black marble clock on the mantelshelf chimed six, and I recollected that Hartwig had wired that he would meet me at the "Metropole" at that hour. My train was due to leave for London at seven. I had already bidden Miss West adieu. So I took Natalia's hand, and pressing it warmly, wished her farewell, promising to regularly report by telegraph my progress across Siberia, as far as possible. She struggled to her feet with an effort, and looking full into my face said in a voice choked by emotion: "Good-bye, Uncle Colin, I am sorry I cannot betray Marya's secret. You are doing this in order to save two innocent women from the horrors of a living tomb in the Siberian snows--to demand that justice shall be done. Go. And may God in His great mercy take you under His protection." What I replied I can scarcely tell. My heart was too full for words. All I know is that a few moments later I turned out of the great wide square, where the rooks were cawing in the high trees, and hurried along the wide promenade, where the red sun was setting behind me in the sea. Hartwig I found at the "Metropole" awaiting me. He related how he had called at the flat in Albemarle street, and, by a judicious tip to the young valet he found there, had learnt that Mr Richard Drury was the son of old Sir Richard Drury, knight, the great ship-builder of Greenock, who had built a number of cruisers for the Navy. He was a self-made man, who commenced life as a fitter's labourer in a ship-builder's yard up at Craigandoran on the Clyde--a bluff, hearty man whose generosity was well-known throughout the kingdom. "Young Richard, it seems," Hartwig went on, "after leaving Oxford became a director of the company, and though apparently leading a life of leisure, yet he takes quite an active part in the direction of the London office of the firm in Westminster." He expressed the strongest disapproval when I told him of my intention to leave for Siberia and instructed him to remain there and to take the Grand Duchess under his protection until he received definite orders from the Emperor. "I certainly don't like the idea of your going to Siberia alone, Mr Trewinnard," he declared. "Markoff will know the instant you start, and I fear that--well, that something may happen." "It is just as likely to happen here in Brighton, Hartwig, as in Russia," I replied. "Well," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "all I advise is that you exercise the very greatest care. Why not take my assistant, Petrakoff? I will give him secret orders to join you at the frontier at Ekaterinburg--and nobody will know. It will be best for you to have company on that long sledge journey." "If I want him I will telegraph to you from Petersburg," was my reply. "You will want him," he said, "depend upon it. If you go alone to Siberia, Mr Trewinnard," he added very earnestly, "then depend upon it you will go to your grave!" CHAPTER NINETEEN. ORDERS IN CIPHER. "And pray, Trewinnard, why are you so extremely desirous of following this woman into exile and speaking with her?" inquired the Emperor in French, as I sat with him, a week later, in a small, dismal, tapestried room in the old Castle of Berezov, the Imperial hunting-box on the edge of the Pinsk Marshes, in the Government of Minsk. Dressed in a rough shooting-suit of drab Scotch tweed, he sat upon the edge of the table smoking a cigarette after a hard day after wild boar. I had driven since dawn from the wayside station of Olevsk, three hundred miles south of Moscow, where I had arrived tired and famished from my long night and day journey of a week from Brighton. On arrival in Moscow I had learnt that His Majesty was hunting at Berezov, and a telegram prefixed by the word "Bathildis," had at once been replied to by a command to audience. Hence I was there, and had placed my appeal before him. He was much puzzled. In his eyes Madame de Rosen was a dangerous revolutionist who had conspired to kill him, therefore he regarded with entire disfavour my petition to be allowed to see her. There was annoyance written upon his strong features, and by the expression in his eyes I saw that he was entirely averse to granting my request. "I am anxious, Sire, to see her upon a purely private matter. She was a personal friend," I replied. "So you told me some time ago, I recollect," he remarked, twisting his cigarette between his fingers. "But Markoff has reported that both she and her daughter are highly dangerous to the security of the State. He was speaking of them only the other day." I bit my lip fiercely. "Perhaps he may be misinformed," I said coldly. "As far as I am aware-- and I know both the lady and her daughter Luba intimately--they are most loyal subjects of Your Majesty." "Tut," he laughed. "The evidence put before me was that they actually financed the attempt in the Nevski. I had a narrow escape, Trewinnard-- a very narrow one," he added. "And if you were in my place how would you, I wonder, treat those scoundrels who attempted to kill you--eh?" "I have no knowledge of the true facts, Sire," I replied. "All I petition Your Majesty is that I may be granted an Imperial permit for the post-horses, and a personal order from yourself to see and speak with the prisoners." He shrugged his shoulders, and thrust his hands deeply in his breeches pockets. "You do not tell me the reason you wish to see her," he said with a frown of displeasure. "Upon a purely private matter," I said. "To ask her a question concerning a very dear friend. I beg that Your Majesty will not refuse me this request," I added, deeply in earnest. "It is a long journey, Trewinnard. I believe she has been sent beyond Yakutsk," he remarked. "But, tell me, were you a very intimate friend of this woman? What do you actually know of her?" "All I know of her," I replied, "is that she is suffering a great wrong, Your Majesty. She is in possession of certain information which closely concerns a friend. Hence my determination to try, if possible, to amend matters." "What--you yourself desire to make amends--eh?" "Not exactly that, Sire," I replied. "I wish to learn the truth concerning--well, concerning a purely private matter. I think that Your Majesty is convinced of my loyalty." "Of course I am, Trewinnard," was his quick reply. "You have rendered me many important personal services, not the least being your kindness in looking after the welfare of that harebrained little flirt Tattie. By the way, how is she? As much a tomboy as ever, I suppose?" And his big, strong face relaxed into a humorous smile at thought of the girl who, at her own request, had been banished from Court. "She is greatly improving," I assured him, with a laugh. "She and Miss West are quite comfortable, and I believe enjoying themselves immensely. Her Highness loves England." "And so do I," he sighed. "I only wish I could go to London oftener. It is to be regretted that my recent visits there have not exactly found favour with the Council of Ministers." Then, after a long pause, he said: "Well, I suppose I must not refuse this request of yours, Trewinnard. But I fear you will find your winter journey an extremely uncomfortable one. When you are back, come direct to me. I would like to hear the result of your observations. Let me see? Besides the permit to use the post-horses, you will require an order to speak with the prisoner, Marya de Rosen, alone, and an order to the Governor of Tomsk, who has the register which will show to which settlement she has been deported." My heart leaped within me, for at first I had feared refusal. "As Your Majesty pleases," was my reply, and I added my warmest thanks. "I'll write them out now," he said; and, turning, he seated himself at the little escritoire in the corner of the small, old-world room and commenced to scribble those Imperial decrees which no one within the Russian Empire would dare to disobey. While he did so I stood gazing out of the small, deep-set double windows across a flat dismal landscape, brown with the tints of autumn--the wide and weedy moat which surrounded the castle, the stretch of grazing-land and then a belt of dense forest on the skyline--the Imperial game preserves. That silent old room, dull, faded and sombre, was just the same as it had been when Catherine the Great had feted her favourite Potemkin, the man who for years ruled Russia and who fought so valiantly against the Turks. There, in that very room, the Treaty of Jassy, which gave Russia the littoral between the Bug and the Dniester, had been signed by Catherine in 1792, and again in that room the Tzar Alexander the First had received the news of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. At that small buhl table whereat the Emperor was now writing out my permits the Tzar Nicholas had signed the decree taking away the Polish constitution, and, years later, he had written the final orders to his ill-fated army fighting against the British in the Crimea. Somewhere in the stone corridor outside could be heard the measured tramp of the sentry, but that, and the rapid scratching of the Emperor's pen, were the only sounds which broke the quiet. At last he rose and handed me three sheets of foolscap bearing the Imperial arms--the orders which I sought. I took them with thanks, but after a moment's hesitation I ventured to add: "I wonder if I might request of Your Majesty a further favour?" "Well," he asked with a smile, "what is it?" "That my journey to Siberia should be kept a secret from the police?" "Eh--what?" he asked quickly, looking at me strangely. "You do not wish the police to know. Why? There is to be no attempted escape, surely?" "I give Your Majesty my word that Madame de Rosen will not attempt to escape," I said. "I will, indeed, make myself responsible for her. The fact is that I know I have enemies among the Secret Police; hence I wish them to remain in entire ignorance of my journey." "Enemies!" he echoed. "Who are they? Tell me, and I will quickly turn them into your friends," he said. "Alas, Sire, I do not exactly know their identity," was my reply. "Very well," he replied at last, selecting another cigarette from the big golden box upon the table, "I will say nothing--if you so desire. But, remember, you have made yourself responsible for the woman." "I willingly accept the responsibility," I replied. "But, Your Majesty, there is another matter. I would suggest that Hartwig be detailed to remain with Her Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia at Brighton until my return. He is there at present, awaiting Your Majesty's orders." At my words he rang a bell, and Calitzine, his private secretary, appeared, bowing. "Send a telegram at once to Hartwig. Where is he?" he asked, turning to me. "At the Hotel Metropole, Brighton," I said. "Telegraph to him in cipher that I order him to remain with Natalia until further orders." "Very well, Your Majesty," replied the trusted official, bowing. "And another thing," exclaimed the Emperor. "Telegraph, also in cipher, to all Governors of Siberian provinces that Mr Colin Trewinnard, of London, is our guest during his journey across Siberia, and is to be treated as such by all authorities." "But pardon me, Your Majesty," I ventured to interrupt, "would not that make it plain to those persons in Petersburg of whom I spoke a moment ago." "Ah! I forgot," said the Emperor. "Write the telegram, and send a confidential courier with it to Tiumen, across the Siberian frontier. He will despatch it from there, and it will then only go over the Asiatic wires." "I fear, Your Majesty, that a courier could not reach Omsk under six or seven days, travelling incessantly," remarked the secretary. "In seven days will be sufficient time. Both messages are confidential." And he dismissed Calitzine with a wave of his hand, the secretary backing out of the presence of his Imperial master. When the door had closed the tall, muscular man before me placed his hands behind his back and slowly paced the room, saying: "Well, Trewinnard, I must wish you a safe journey. If you find yourself in any difficulty, communicate direct with me. I must admit that I can't quite understand the object of this rather quixotic journey of yours--to see a female prisoner. I strongly suspect that you are in love with her--eh?" and he smiled knowingly. "No, Sire," I replied, "I am not. On my return I hope to be able to show Your Majesty that I have been actuated by motives of humanity and justice--I hope, indeed, perhaps even to receive Your Majesty's commendation." "Ah! you are too mysterious for me," he laughed. "Are you leaving at once? Or will you remain here, in the castle, until to-morrow?" "I am greatly honoured and appreciate Your Majesty's hospitality," I said. "But I have horses ready, and I am driving back to the railway at Olevsk to-night." "Very well, then," he said with a smile. "Good-bye, and be back again in Petersburg as soon as ever you can." And he stretched forth his big sinewy hand and gave me such a hearty grip that I was compelled to wince. I was backing towards the door, when it opened and the chamberlain Polivanoff, standing upon the threshold, announced: "General Markoff begs audience of Your Majesty." "Ah! Let him come in," the Emperor replied, smiling. The next moment I found myself face to face with the man whom I knew to be Natalia's worst enemy and mine--that bloated, grey-faced man in military uniform, through whose instrumentality no fewer than ten thousand persons were annually being exiled to the Siberian wastes. We met just beyond the threshold. "Ah! my dear M'sieur Trewinnard!" he cried, raising his grey brows in evident surprise at meeting me there. "I thought you were in England. And how is your interesting young charge?" "She is very well, I believe," was my cold reply. I passed on, while he, crossing the threshold into the Imperial presence, bowed low, cringing before the monarch whom he daily terrorised, and yet who believed him to be the guardian of the dynasty. "Ah! I am so glad you have come, Markoff!" I heard the Emperor exclaim as he entered. "I have several pressing matters to discuss with you." I passed the two sentries, who presented arms, and followed Colonel Polivanoff along the corridor, full of gravest apprehension. Ill fortune had dogged my footsteps. Markoff had seen me there. He would naturally inquire of the Emperor the reason of my audience. His Majesty might tell him. If so, what then? CHAPTER TWENTY. THE LAND OF NO RETURN. The day had been grey and dispiriting, the open windswept landscape a great limitless expanse of newly-fallen snow of dazzling whiteness--the same cheerless wintry tundra over which I had been travelling by sledge for the past four weary weeks to that everlasting jingle of harness-bells. My companion, the police-agent Petrakoff, a smart, alert young man, wrapped to the tip of his nose in reindeer furs, was asleep by my side; and I, too, had been dozing, worn out by that fifteen hundred miles of road since leaving the railway at Ekaterinburg. Suddenly I was awakened by Vasilli, our yamshick, a burly, bearded, unkempt ruffian in shabby furs, who, pointing with his whip to the grey far-off horizon, shouted: "Tomsk! Tomsk! Look, Excellency!" Straining my tired eyes, I discerned upon the far skyline a quantity of low, snow-covered, wood-built houses from which rose the pointed cupolas of several churches. Yonder was the end of the first stage of my long journey. So I awoke Petrakoff, and for the next half-hour we sat with eyes fixed eagerly upon our goal, where we hoped to revel in the luxury of a hotel after a month of those filthy stancias or povarnias, the vermin-infested rests for travellers on the Great Post Road of Siberia. The first sod of the great Trans-Siberian railway had already been cut by the Tzarevitch at Tcheliabyisk, but no portion of the line was at that time complete. Therefore all traffic across Asia, both travellers and merchandise, including the tea-caravans from China, passed along that great highway, the longest in the world. Six weeks had elapsed since I had left the Emperor's presence, and I had accomplished by rail and road a distance of two thousand four hundred miles. Since I had left the railway at Ekaterinburg I had only rested for a single night on two occasions, at Tiumen and at Tobolsk. At the former place I made my first acquaintance with the inhuman exile system, for moored in the river Obi I saw several of those enormous floating gaols, in which the victims of Russia's true oppressor were transported _en route_ to the penal settlements of the Far East--great double-decked barges, three hundred feet long, with a lower hold below the main deck. Along two-thirds of the barge's length ran an iron cage, reaching from the lower to the upper deck-cover, and having the appearance of a great two-storied tiger's cage. Eight of them were moored alongside the landing-stage. Five of them were crowded by wretched prisoners, each barge containing from four to five hundred persons of both sexes and the Cossack guards--a terrible sight indeed. Provided as I was with an Imperial permit and a doubly-stamped road-passport that directed all keepers of post-stations to provide me with the mail horses, and give me the right of way on the Post Road, I had set forth again after a day's rest towards Tobolsk. The first snow had fallen on the third day after leaving Tiumen, and the country, covered by its white mantle, presented always a dreary aspect, rendered drearier and more dispiriting by the gangs of wretched exiles which we constantly overtook. Men, women, and children in companies from a hundred to three hundred, having left the barges, were marching forward to that far-off bourne whence none would ever return. They, indeed, presented a woeful spectacle, mostly of the criminal classes, all their heads being half, or clean-shaven. The majority of the men were in chains, and many were linked together. Not a few of the women marched among the men as prisoners, while the rest trudged along into voluntary exile, holding the hands of their husbands, brothers, lovers or children. Some of the sick, aged and young were in springless carts, but all the others toiled onward through the snow like droves of cattle, bent to the icy blast, a grey-clad, silent crowd, guarded by a dozen Cossacks, with an officer taking his ease in a tarantass in the rear. Once we met a family of Jews--husband, wife and two children--in a tarantass, with a Cossack with bayonet fixed alongside. We stopped to change horses with them, as we were then midway between post-stations. The man, a bright, intelligent, middle-aged fellow, addressed us in French, and said he had been a wealthy fur merchant in Nijni Novgorod, but was exiled to the Yenisei country simply because he was a Jew. His eyes were clouded with regret at the bitter consciousness of his captivity. Four thousand of his townsmen had, he said, emigrated to England and America, and then pointing to his pretty, delicate wife and two chubby children, the tears rolled down his cheeks, as he faltered out: "Siberie!" Poor fellow! That word had all the import of a hell to many--many more than him. The distance between relays on the Great Post Road was, we found, from sixteen to thirty versts, and the speed of fresh horses about ten versts an hour. Vasilli, the ugly bearded yamshick who had lost one eye, we had engaged in Tiumen, and he had contracted to drive me during the whole of my journey. He was a sullen fellow, who said little, but on finding that I was travelling with an Imperial permit, his chief delight was to hustle up the master of each post-station and threaten to report to the Governor of the province if I, the Excellency, were kept waiting for a single instant. Usually, changing operations at the stations occupied anything from forty minutes to two hours, according to the temper or trickishness of the post-horse keeper and his grooms, for they were about the meanest set of knaves and rogues on the face of Asia. Yet sight of my permit caused them all to tremble and cringe and hustle, and I certainly could not complain of any undue delay. We had set out in a tarantass from Tiumen--the town from which the Imperial courier had despatched the order to the various Governors--but as soon as the snow came I purchased a big sledge, and in this we managed to travel with far greater comfort over the snow than by cart over the deeply-rutted road. None can know the terrible monotony of Siberian travel save those who have endured it. Nowadays one can cover Siberia from the frontier to far Vladivostock in fifteen days in a luxurious drawing-room car, with restaurant and sleeping-berth, a bath-room and a piano, the line running for the most part near the Old Post Road. But leave the railway and strike north or south, and the same terrible greyness and monotony will grip your senses and depress you as perhaps no other journey in the world can do. It was dusk when at last we sped, our runners hissing over the frozen snow, into the wood-built town of Tomsk, and alighted at the Hotel Million, a dismal place with corridors long and dark, and bedroom doors fastened by big iron padlocks and hasps! The full-bearded proprietor wandered along with an enormous bunch of keys, opening the doors and exhibiting his uninviting apartments; and at first I actually believed that Vasilli had mistaken my order and driven to a Siberian prison instead of conducting me to a hotel. Upstairs, however, the rooms were much better. But there were no washing arrangements whatever, or mattresses or bedding; for every traveller in Siberia is expected to carry his own pillows and bedclothes. Here, however, we put up and ate our evening meal in true Siberian style--a single tough beefsteak--simply that and nothing more. Afterwards I drove through the snowy, unlighted streets to the Governor's palace, a long, log-built place, and on giving my name to the Cossack sentry at the door he at once saluted. Apparently he had been warned of my coming. So had the servants, for with much bowing and grave ceremony I was shown along a corridor lit by petroleum lamps to a small reception-room at the farther end. The furniture was of the cheap, gaudy character which in England would speak mutely of the hire-system. But it had, no doubt, come from Petersburg at enormous cost of transit, and was perhaps the best and most luxurious furniture--it was covered with red embossed velvet--in all Siberia. Scarcely was I afforded time to look round the close, overheated place with its treble windows, when General Tschernaieff, a rather short, white-haired, pleasant-featured man in a green uniform, with the Cross of St Anne at his throat, entered, greeting me warmly and expressing a hope that I had had a pleasant journey. "I received word of your coming. Mr Trewinnard, some weeks ago," His Excellency said rather pompously. "I am commanded to treat you as a guest of my Imperial Master. Therefore you will, I hope, be my guest here in the palace." I told him that I already had quarters at the Hotel Million, whereupon he laughed, saying: "I fear that you will find it very rough and uncouth after hotels in Petersburg or in your own London." I replied that as a constant traveller, and one who had knocked about in all corners of the world, I was used to roughing it. Then, after he had offered me a cigarette, and a lean manservant, who, I afterwards learned, was an ex-convict, had brought us each a glass of champagne, I explained to him the object of my visit. "Madame Marya de Rosen and her daughter Luba de Rosen, politicals," repeated His Excellency, as though speaking to himself. "Of course, sir, as you know, all prisoners, both criminal or political, pass through the forwarding-prison here. It is myself who decides to which settlement they shall be sent. But--well, there are so many that the Chief of the Police puts the lists before me and I sign them away to Nerchinsk, to Yakutsk, to Sredne Kolimsk, to Verkhoiansk, to Udinsk, or wherever it may be. Their names, I fear, I never notice. I have sent some politicals recently up to Parotovsk, fifty versts north of Yakutsk. The two prisoners may have been among them." "Here, I suppose, they lose their identity, do they not?" I asked, looking at the white-headed official who governed that great Asiatic province. He was sixty-five, he had told me, and had served twenty-seven years in Siberia. "Yes. Only across the road in the archives of the forwarding-prison are their names kept. When they leave Tomsk they are known in future--until their death, indeed--only by a registered number." Then, rising, the white-headed Governor rang a bell, and on his secretary, a young Cossack captain, entering, he gave him certain instructions to go across to the prison and obtain the registers of prisoners during the previous month. Afterwards, he stretched himself out in his long chair, smoking and asking me questions concerning myself and the object of my journey. As soon as he learned that I was a British diplomat and personal friend of His Majesty, his manner became much more cordial, and he declared himself ready to do everything in his power to bring my mission to a successful issue. Presently the secretary returned, carrying two large registers and accompanied by a tall, dark-bearded man in uniform and wearing a decoration, who I learned was the governor of the prison. He saluted His Excellency on entering the room, and said in Russian: "Your Excellency is, I believe, inquiring regarding the prisoner Marya de Rosen, widow, of Petersburg, deported by administrative order?" "Yes," said the General. "Where has she been sent, and what is her number?" "She was the woman about whom we received special instructions from the Ministry of Police in Petersburg, Your Excellency will remember," replied the prison governor. "Special instructions!" I echoed, interrupting. "What were they?" But His Excellency, after a moment's reflection, said: "Ah! I now remember! Of course. There was a note upon the papers in General Markoff's own handwriting to the effect that she was a dangerous person." "Yes. She was one of those when your Excellency sent to Parotovsk," remarked the prison governor. "To Parotovsk!" I echoed. "That is beyond Yakutsk--two thousand five hundred miles from here--far in the north, and one of the most dreaded of all the settlements!" "All penal settlements are dreaded, I fear," remarked His Excellency, blowing the cigarette smoke from his lips. Then, turning to the prison governor, he inquired under what number the prisoner was registered. On referring to one of the books the officer declared Madame to be now known as "Number 14956" and her daughter as "Number 14957." I took a note of the numbers, protesting to His Excellency: "But to compel delicate ladies to walk that great distance in the winter is surely a sentence of death!" "And if the politicals die, the State has fewer responsibilities," he remarked. "As you see, we have received notification from Petersburg that your lady friend was a dangerous person. Now, of dangerous persons we take very special care." Then, turning to the prison governor, he asked: "How did they go?" "By tarantass. Excellency. They were in too weak a state to walk, especially the elder prisoner. I doubt, indeed, if ever they will reach Parotovsk." "And if they don't it will perhaps be the better for both of them," His Excellency remarked with a sigh, rising and casting his cigarette-end into the pan of the round iron stove. He was a stiff, unbending official and ruled the province with a ruthless hand, but at heart he often evinced sympathy with the female exiles. "Were they very ill?" I inquired quickly of the prison governor. "They were very exhausted and complained to me of ill-treatment by their guards," he answered. "But if we investigated every complaint we should have more than sufficient to do." "How long ago did they leave here?" "About two months," was the man's reply. "The elder prisoner implored to be sent to the Trans-Baikal, where the climate is not so rigorous as in the north, and this would probably have been done had it not been for the special memorandum of His Excellency General Markoff." "Then he suggested her being sent to the Yakutsk settlement--in fact, to her death--eh?" I asked. His Excellency replied: "That seems so. The prisoners have already been on their way two months, at first by tarantass and now, no doubt, by sled. There were fifteen others, nine men and six women--all dangerous politicals, I see," he added, glancing at the order which he had signed and was now produced by the prison governor. "If it is your intention to travel and overtake them, then I fear your journey will be futile." "Why?" I asked. "Because I expect that long before you reach them their dead bodies will have been left upon the road," replied His Excellency. "Politicals who die here in Siberia, and especially those marked as dangerous, are not mourned, I assure you." "There was, if I remember aright, a telegram to Your Excellency from General Markoff regarding prisoners of that name only three days ago," remarked the Cossack captain. "It inquired whether you knew if Madame de Rosen were still alive." "Ah, yes, I remember. And I replied that I had no knowledge," the General said. I was silent. My heart stood still. By the fact of that telegraphic inquiry I knew that Markoff was, as I feared, aware of my journey. He would most certainly prevent my overtaking her--or, if not, he would, no doubt, contrive to seal her lips by death ere I could reach her. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. HOT HASTE ACROSS ASIA. I resolved to push forward in all haste and at all hazards. I lost no time. With only forty-eight hours' stay at the wretched Hotel Million in Tomsk we went forth again, our faces set ever eastward on that wide, straight road which first runs direct for a hundred miles to Marinsk, a poor, log-built place with a dirty verminous post-station and an old postmaster who, when I presented my Imperial permit, sank upon his knees before me. Fortunately the mail was two days behind me, hence, at every stancia I was able to obtain the best horses, though it seemed part of Vasilli's creed to curse and grumble at everything. With the snow falling continuously our journey was not so rapid as it had been to Tomsk. Winter had now set in with a vengeance, although it still wanted a few days to the English Christmas. Yet the journey from Marinsk to Krasnoyarsk, two hundred miles, was one of wondrous beauty. It was cold, horribly cold. Often I sat beside the sleepy Petrakoff cramped and shivering, even in my furs. But those deep, dark woods, with their little glimpses of blue sky; the dashing and jingling along under the low-reaching arms of the evergreen trees, league after league of the forest bowed down to the very earth and in places prostrated with its white weight of snow, the weird ride over hill and mountain, skirting ravine and precipice, the breaks along and across the numerous watercourses, over rude bridges or along deep gullies where rough wooden guards protect the sleds from disaster--with this quick succession of scenery, wild and strange, was I kept constantly awake and charmed. At the stancias we met the travelling merchants from the Far East and from China with their long train of goods hauled in sleds or packed on the backs of horses. Five _pood_, we found, was the regulation load, and all packages were put up in drums bound with raw hide and so strapped that they could easily be transported by the pack-horse, which carried half a load on either side of a saddle-tree prepared for the purpose. But those stancias were filthy, overcrowded, evil-smelling places, wherein one laid in one's sleeping-bags upon a bench amid a crowd of unwashed, vodka-drinking humanity in damp, noxious sheep-skins. Fortunately the moon was at that moment nearly full, and often at night I went forth alone to smoke, sometimes with the snowy plain stretched on every hand about me, and at others with gigantic peaks lifting their hoary heads far into the blue night vault of heaven; silent, frigid, white. Ah! what grandeur! I rejoiced that it was night, when I could smoke and ponder. So cold and still was it that those snowy summits, bathed in the silver radiance of the Siberian moon, filled me with awe such as I had never before experienced. Yes, those were wonderful nights which will live for ever in my memory-- nights when my thoughts wandered far away to the gay promenade at Hove, wondering how fared the little madcap, and whether her peril were real or only imaginary. Ever obsessed by the knowledge that Markoff was aware of my journey, and would endeavour to prevent its successful issue, I existed in constant anxiety and dread lest some prearranged disaster might befall Madame de Rosen ere I could reach her. Siberia is, alas! the country where, as the exiles say: "God is nigh, and the Tzar is far away." Thus, after three weeks more of hard travelling, I passed through the big, straggling, snow-covered town of Krasnoyarsk, and arrived at the wretchedly dirty stancia of Tulunovsk, where the road to Yakutsk-- distant nearly two thousand miles--branches to the north from the Great Post Road, up the desolate valley of the Lena. We arrived in Tulunovsk in the afternoon, and, having sent a telegram to Her Highness from Krasnoyarsk, eight days before, I was delighted to receive a charming little message assuring me that she was quite well and wishing me a continuance of good fortune on my journey. Since I had left Tomsk no traveller had overtaken me. At Tulunovsk we found a party of politicals, about sixty men and women, in the roughly-constructed prison rest-house, being permitted a few days' respite upon their long and weary march. Already they had been six months on the road, and were in a terrible condition, almost in rags, and most of them so weak that death would no doubt have been welcome. And these poor creatures were nearly all of them victims of the bogus plots of His Excellency General Markoff. To the Cossack captain in charge of the convoy I made myself known, and after taking tea with him I was permitted to go among the party and chat with them. One tall, thin-faced man, whose hair was prematurely grey, begged me to send a message back to his wife in Tver. He spoke French well, and told me his name was Epatchieff, and that he had been a doctor in practice in the town of Tver, between Moscow and Petersburg. "I am entirely ignorant of the reason I was arrested, m'sieur," he declared, hitching his ragged coat about him. "I have not committed any crime, or even belonged to any secret society. Perhaps the only offence was my marrying the woman I loved. Who knows?" and the sad-eyed man, whose life held more of sorrow in it than most men, went on to say: "I had been attending the little daughter of the local chief of the police for a week, but she had recovered so far that I did not consider a further visit was necessary. One morning, six months ago, I was surprised to receive a visit from the police officer's Cossack, who demanded my presence at once at the house of his master, as the child had been seized with another attack. I told him I would go after breakfast as the matter was serious. But the Cossack insisted that I should go at once, so I agreed and went forth. Outside, the Cossack told me that I must first go to the police office, and, of course, I went wonderingly, never dreaming for a moment that anything was wrong. So I was ushered into the office, where the chief of police told me that I was a prisoner. `A body of exiles are ready to start for Siberia,' said the heartless brute, `and you will go with them.' I laughed--it was a good joke, but the chief of police assured me that it was a solemn fact. I was completely dumbfounded. I begged for a delay in my transportation. Why was I deprived of my liberty? Who was my accuser? What was the accusation? But I got no answer save `administrative order.' "I begged to be allowed to revisit my house under guard, to procure necessary articles of clothing--to say farewell to my young wife. But the scoundrel denied me everything. I waited in anguish, but they placed me in solitary confinement to await the departure of the convoy, and in six hours I was on my way here--to this living tomb!" Of course the poor fellow was half crazed. What would become of his young wife--what would she think of him? A thousand thoughts and suspicions racked his mind, and he had already lived through an age of torture, as his whitening head plainly showed. At my suggestion he wrote a letter to his wife informing her of his fate, and using my authority as guest of His Imperial Majesty I took it, and, in due course, posted it back to Russia. Not until three years afterwards did I learn the tragic sequel. The poor young lady received my letter, and as quickly as she could set out to join him in his exile. With womanly wit she managed to apprise him of her coming and a light broke in upon his grief. He had been sent to Irkutsk, and daily, hourly he looked and longed for her. Yet just as he knew she must arrive, he was suddenly sent far away to the most northerly Arctic settlement of Sredne Kolimsk. The poor young lady, filled with sweet sympathy and expectation, hoping to find him in Irkutsk, arrived there a fortnight too late. Imagine her anguish when, having travelled over four thousand miles of the worst country on the fact; of the world, she learned the cruel news. Still three thousand miles distant! But she set out to find him. Alas! however, it was too much for her. She lost her reason, raved for a little while under restraint and died at the roadside. Is it any wonder that there were in Russia real revolutionists, revolting not against their Tzar, but against the inhuman system of the camarilla? Petrakoff and I spent a sleepless night in that rat-eaten post-house where the food was bad, and our beds consisted only of a wooden bench. We had as companions half a dozen drivers, who had come with a big tea-caravan from China, ragged, unwashed, uncouth fellows in evil-smelling furs. Indeed the air was so thick and intolerable that at two o'clock in the morning I took my sleeping-bag outside and lay in the sled, in preference to staying in that vermin-infested hut. Next morning, the twenty-second of January, I signed the postmaster's book as soon as it grew light, and with three fresh horses approved of by Vasilli, we were away, leaving the Great Post Road and striking north along the Lena. From that moment we entered an uninhabited country, the snowy dreariness of which was indescribable, and as day succeeded day and we pushed further north the climate became more rigorous, until it was no unusual thing to have great icicles hanging from one's moustache. One day, a week after leaving Tulunovsk, we passed through an entirely deserted village of low-built huts. I asked Vasilli the reason that no one lived there. "This is a bad place, Excellency," was the fellow's reply. "All the people died of smallpox six months ago." And so we went on and on, and ever onward. Sometimes we would travel the whole twenty-four hours rather than rest in those horrible post-houses, and on such journeys we often covered one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty versts, changing horses every twenty to thirty versts. We covered seven hundred and fifty miles to Dubrovsk in sixteen days, and here, at the post-house, we met a party of Cossacks coming south after taking a convoy of prisoners to Olekminsk--half-way between Dubrovsk and Yakutsk--and handing them over to the guard sent south to meet them. While taking our evening tea I chatted with the Cossack captain, a big, muscular giant in knee-boots who sat with his legs outstretched on the dirty floor, leaning his back against the high brick stove. I was making inquiries regarding the prisoners he had recently brought up, whereupon he said: "They were a batch of politicals from Tomsk. Poor devils, they've been sent to Parotovsk--and there's smallpox there. I suppose General Tschernaieff has sent them there on purpose that they shall become infected and die. Politicals are often sent into an infected settlement." "To Parotovsk!" I gasped, for it suddenly occurred to me that the woman of whom I was in search might be of that party! And then I breathlessly inquired if Madame de Rosen, Political Number 14956, had been with them. "She and her daughter were ill, and were allowed a sled," I added. "There were two ladies, Excellency, mother and daughter. One was about forty, and the other about eighteen. They came from Petersburg, and were, I believe, well connected and moved in the best society." "You do not know their names?" I asked anxiously. "Unfortunately, no," was his reply. "Only the numbers. I believe the lady's number was that which you mentioned. She was registered, however, as a dangerous person." "No doubt the same!" I cried. "How is she?" "When they left Olekminsk she was very weak and ill," he replied. "Indeed, I recollect remarking to my lieutenant that I feared she would never reach Yakutsk." "How far are they ahead of us?" I inquired eagerly. The bearded man reflected for some minutes, making mental calculations. "They left Olekminsk a fortnight ago, therefore by this they should be nearing Yakutsk." "And how long will it take me to reach Yakutsk?" I asked. He again made a calculation and at last replied: "By travelling hard, Excellency, you should reach Yakutsk, I think, in twenty-five to twenty-seven days. It would be impossible before, I fear, owing to the heavy snowdrifts and the bad state of the roads." "Twenty-seven days!" I echoed. "And before I can reach there the ladies will already be inmates of that infected settlement of Parotovsk--the place to which they have been sent to sicken and die!" "She was marked as `dangerous,' Excellency. She would therefore be sent north at once, without a doubt. Persons marked as `dangerous' are never permitted to remain in Yakutsk." Could I reach her in time? Could I save her? CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. IN THE NIGHT. From that day and through twenty-two other dark, weary days of the black frosts of mid-winter, we travelled onward, ever onward. Sometimes we crossed the limitless snow-covered tundra, sometimes we went down into the deep valley of the frozen Lena river, changing horses every thirty versts and signing the post-horse keeper's greasy road-book. At every stage I produced my Imperial permit, and at almost every station the ignorant peasant who kept it fell upon his knees in deep obeisance to the guest of the great Tzar. We were now, however, off the main road, for this highway to the far-off Arctic settlements, used almost solely by the convict convoys, ran for a thousand miles through a practically uninhabited country, the only sign of civilisation being the never-ending telegraph-line which we followed, and the lonely post-stations half-buried in the snow. Ah! those long, anxious days of icy blasts and whirling snow blizzards. My companion and I, wrapped to our eyes in furs, sat side by side often dozing for hours, our ears tired of that irritating jingle of the sled-bells, our limbs cramped and benumbed, and often ravenously hungry, for the rough fare at the post-house was very frequently uneatable. For six dark days we met not a single soul upon the road, save a party of Cossacks coming south. But from them I could obtain no news of the last batch of "politicals" who had travelled north, and whom we were following in such hot haste. Again I telegraphed to Hartwig in Brighton, telling him of my whereabouts, and obtaining a reply from him that Her Highness was still well and sent me her best wishes. That in itself was reassuring. Hard travel and bad food told, I think, upon both of us. Petrakoff dearly wished himself back in his beloved Petersburg again. Yet our one-eyed half-Tartar driver seemed quite unconscious of either cold or fatigue. The strain of driving so continuously--sometimes for twenty hours out of the twenty-four--must have been terrible. But he was ever imperious in his dealings at post-stations, ever loud in his commands to the cringing owners of those log-built huts to bring out their best trio of horses, ever yelling to the fur-clad grooms not to keep His Excellency waiting on pain of terrible punishment. Thus through those short, dark winter days, and often through the long, steely nights, ever following those countless telegraph-poles, we went on--ever onward--until we found ourselves in a small wretched little place of log-built houses called Olekminsk. Upon my travelling map, as indeed upon every map of Siberia, it is represented in capitals as an important place. So I expected to find at least a town--perhaps even a hotel. Instead, I discovered it to be a mere wretched hamlet, with a post-house, and a wood-built prison for the reception of "politicals." We arrived at midnight. In the common room of the post-house, around which earth and snow had been banked to keep out the cold, was a high brick stove, and around the walls benches whereon a dozen wayfarers like ourselves were wrapped in their evil-smelling furs, and sleeping. The odour as I entered the place was foetid; the dirt indescribable. One shaggy peasant, in heavy top-boots and fur coat, had imbibed too much vodka, and had become hilarious, whereat one of the sleepers, suddenly awakened, threw a top-boot at him across the room, narrowly missing my head. The post-house keeper, as soon as he saw my permit, sent a man to the local chief of police, a stout, middle-aged man, who appeared on the scene in his hastily-donned uniform and who invited me to his house close by. There I questioned him regarding the political prisoners, "Numbers 14956 and 14957." Having read my permits--at which he was visibly impressed when he saw the signature of the Emperor himself--he hastened to obtain his register. Presently he said: "The two ladies you mention have passed through this prison, Excellency. I see a note that both are dangerous `politicals,' and that the elder lady was rather weak. Judging from the time when they left, they are, I should say, already in Yakutsk--or even beyond." "From what is she suffering?" I asked eagerly. "Ah! Excellency, I cannot tell that," was his reply. "All I know is that the captain of Cossacks who came down from Yakutsk to meet the convoy considered that being a dangerous political, she was sufficiently well to walk with the others. So she has gone on foot the remainder of the journey. She arrived her in a sled." "On foot!" I echoed. "But she is ill--dying, I was told." The chief of police shrugged his shoulders and said with a sigh: "I fear. Excellency, that the lady was somewhat unfortunate. That particular captain is not a very humane person--particularly where a dangerous prisoner is concerned." "Then to be marked as `dangerous' means that the prisoner is to be treated with brutality--eh?" I cried. "Is that Russian justice?" "We do not administer justice here in Siberia, Excellency," was the man's quiet reply. "They do that in Petersburg." "But surely it is a scandal to put a sick woman on the road and compel her to walk four hundred miles in this weather," I cried angrily. "Alas! That is not my affair," replied the man. "I am merely chief of police of this district and governor of the _etape_. The captain of Cossacks has entire charge of the prisoners on their journey." What he had told me maddened me. In all that I heard I could plainly detect the sinister hand of General Markoff. Indeed, when I carefully questioned this official, I felt convinced that the captain in question had received instructions direct from Petersburg regarding Madame de Rosen. The chief of police admitted to me that to the papers concerning the prisoners there had been attached a special memorandum from Petersburg concerning Madame and her daughter. I smoked a cigarette with him and drank a cup of tea--China tea served with lemon. Then I was shown to a rather poorly-furnished but clean bedroom on the ground floor, where I turned in. But no sleep came to my eyes. Such hard travelling through all those weeks had shattered my nerves. While the bright northern moon streamed in through the uncurtained window, I lay on my back, pondering. I reflected upon all the past, the terrible fate of Madame and her daughter, the strange secret she evidently held, and the peril of the Emperor himself, so helpless in the hands of that circle of unscrupulous sycophants, and, further, of my little madcap friend, so prone to flirtation, the irrepressible Grand Duchess Natalia. I reviewed all the exciting events of those many months which had elapsed since the last Court ball of the season at Petersburg--events which I have attempted to set down in the foregoing pages--and I was held in fear that my long journey might be in vain--that ere I could catch up with the poor wretched woman who, though ill, had been compelled to perform that last and most arduous stage of the journey through the snow, she would, alas! be no longer alive. The vengeance of her enemy Markoff would have fallen upon her. A sense of indescribable oppression, combined with the hot closeness of the room, stifled me. For hours I lay awake, the moonlight falling full upon my head. At last, however, I must have dropped off to sleep, fagged out after twenty hours of those jingling bells and hissing of the sled-runners over the frozen snow. A sense of coldness awakened me, and opening my eyes I saw, to my surprise, though the room was practically in darkness with only the reflected light of the snow, that the small treble window stood open. It had certainly been tightly closed when I had entered there. I raised my eyes to peer into the darkness for the atmosphere, which when I had gone to sleep was stifling on account of the iron stove, was now at zero. Suddenly I caught sight of a dark figure moving noiselessly near where I lay. A thief had entered by the window! He seemed to be searching the pockets of my coat, which I had flung carelessly upon a chair. Surely he was a daring thief to thus enter the house of the chief of police! But in Siberia there are many escaped convicts roaming about the woods. They are called "cuckoos," on account of their increase in the spring and their return to the prisons when starved out in winter. A "cuckoo" is always a criminal and always desperate. He must have money and food, and he dare not go near a village, as there is a price on his head. Therefore, he will not hesitate to murder a lonely traveller if by so doing he thinks he can secure a passport which will permit him to leave Siberia and re-enter European Russia, back to freedom. Some Siberian roads are in summer infested with such gentry, but winter always drives them back to the towns, and consequently into prison again. Only a very few manage to survive the rigours of the black frosts of the Siberian winter. Rather more amused than alarmed, I lay watching the dark figure engaged in rifling my pockets. I was contemplating the best method by which to secure him and hand him over to the mercies of my host. A sudden thought struck me. Unfortunately, being guest in the house of the chief of police I had left my revolver in the sled. I never slept at a post-house without it. But that night I was unarmed. Those moments of watching seemed hours. The man, whoever he was, was tall and slim, though of course I could not see his face. I held my breath. He was securing my papers and my money! Yet he did it all so very leisurely that I could not help admiring his pluck and confounded coolness. I hesitated a few seconds and then at last I summoned courage to act. I resolved to suddenly spring up and throw myself upon him, so that he would be prevented from jumping out of the window with my property. But while I was thus making up my mind how to act, the mysterious man suddenly left the chair where my coat had been lying, and turning, came straight towards me, advancing slowly on tip-toe. Apparently he was not desirous of rousing me. Once again I waited my opportunity to spring upon him, for he fortunately was not yet aware that I was awake and watching him. I held my breath, lying perfectly motionless, for, advancing to me, he bent over as though to make absolutely certain that I slept. I tried to distinguish his face, but in the shadow that was impossible. I could hear my own heart beating. He seemed to be peering down at me, as though in curiosity, and I was wondering what could be his intentions, now that he had secured both my money and my papers. Suddenly ere I could anticipate his intention, his hand was uplifted, and falling, struck me a heavy blow in the side of the neck just beneath the left jaw. Instantly I felt a sharp burning pain and a sensation as of the running of warm liquid over my shoulders. Then I knew that the fluid was blood! I had been stabbed in the side of the throat! I shrieked, and tried to spring fiercely upon my assailant, but he was too quick for me. My eager hand grasped his arm, but he wrenched himself free, and next instant had vaulted lightly through the open window and had disappeared. And as for myself, I gave vent to a loud shriek for help, and then sank inertly back, next second losing consciousness. The man had escaped with all my precious permits, signed by the Emperor, as well as my money! My long journey was now most certainly a futile one. Without those Imperial permits I was utterly helpless. I should not, indeed, be allowed to speak with Madame de Rosen, even though I succeeded in finding her alive. My loss was irreparable, for it had put an end to my self-imposed mission. Such were the thoughts which ran through my overstrung brain at the moment when the blackness of insensibility fell upon me, blotting out both knowledge of the present and apprehension of the future. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. IDENTIFICATION! When again I opened my eyes it was to find a lamp being held close to my face, and a man who apparently possessed a knowledge of surgery--a political exile from Moscow, who had been a doctor, I afterwards discovered--was carefully bathing my wound. Beside him stood two Cossacks and the chief of police himself. All were greatly agitated that an attack should have been made upon a man who was guest to His Imperial Majesty, their Master. To my host's question I described in a few words what had occurred, and bewailed the loss of my papers and my money. "They are not lost," he replied. "Fortunately the sentry outside heard your scream, and seeing the intruder emerge from the window and run, he raised his rifle and shot him." "Killed him?" I asked. "Of course. He was an utter stranger in Olekminsk. Presently we shall discover who and what he is. Here are your papers," he added, handing back the precious documents to me. "For the present the man's body lies outside. Afterwards you shall see if you recognise him. From his passport his name would appear to be Gabrillo Passhin. Do you know anyone of that name?" "Nobody," I replied, my brain awhirl with the crowded events of the past half-hour. I suppose it was another half-hour before the doctor, a grey-bearded, prematurely-aged man, finished bandaging my wound and strapping my left arm across my chest. Then, assisted by my host, I rose and went forth, led by men with lanterns, to where, in the snow, as he had fallen beneath the sentry's bullet, lay the would-be assassin. They held their lanterns against the white, dead lace, but I did not recognise him. He seemed to be about thirty-five, with thin, irregular features and shaven chin. He was respectably dressed, while his hands were soft, betraying no evidence of manual labour. The features were perfectly calm, for death had been instantaneous, the bullet striking at the back of the skull. Near where he lay a small pool of blood showed dark against the snow. While we were examining the body, Petrakoff, whom I had sent for from the post-house, arrived in hot haste, and became filled with alarm when he saw my neck and arm enveloped in bandages. In a few words I told him what had occurred, and then advancing, he bent and looked upon my assailant's face. He remained bent there for quite a couple of minutes. Then, straightening himself, he asked: "Does his passport give his name as Ivan Muller--or Gabrillo Passhin?" "You know him!" I gasped. "Who is he?" "Well," he replied, "I happen to have rather good reason to know him. In Odessa he was chief of a desperate gang of bank-note forgers, who, after eluding us for two years, were at last arrested--six of them in Moscow. The seventh, who called himself Muller, escaped to Germany. A year ago he was bold enough to return to Petersburg, where I recognised him one day close to the Nicholas station and followed him to the house where he lodged. I entered there alone, very foolishly perhaps, whereupon he drew a revolver and fired point-blank at me. The bullet struck me in the right shoulder, but assistance was forthcoming, and he was arrested. His sentence about eleven months ago was confinement in the Fortress of Peter and Paul for fifteen years. So he must have escaped. Ah! he was one of the most daring, astute and desperate criminals in all Russia. At his trial he spat at the judge, and contemptuously declared that his friends would not allow him to be confined for very long." "It seems that they have not," I remarked thoughtfully. "The fact of his having dared to break into the house of the chief of police shows in itself the character of the man," Petrakoff exclaimed. "I myself had a most narrow escape when I arrested him. But what was he doing here--in Siberia?" "He may have been exiled here and escaped," remarked the chief of police, as we were returning to the bureau at the side of the house. "I hardly think that, Excellency," interrupted a Cossack sergeant, who had just returned from the post-station, where he had been making inquiries. "We have just arrested a yamshick, who arrived with the assassin an hour after midnight. Here he is." A moment later a big, red-faced, shaggy, vodka-drinking driver in ragged furs was brought into the bureau between two Cossacks, and at once interrogated by the chief of police. First he was taken out to view the body still lying in the snow; then brought back into the police office, a bare, wooden room, lit by a single petroleum lamp, and bearing on its walls posters of numbers of official regulations, each headed by the big black double eagle. "Now," asked the chief of police, assuming an air of great severity, "where do you come from?" "Krasnoyarsk, Excellency," answered the man gruffly. "What do you know of the individual you have just seen dead--eh?" "All I know of him, Excellency, is that he contracted with me to drive him to Yakutsk." "Why? Was he quite alone?" "Yes, Excellency. He made me hurry, driving night and day sometimes, for he was overtaking a friend." "What friend?" "Ah! I do not know. Only at each stancia, or povarnia, he inquired if an Englishman had passed. Therefore I concluded that it was an Englishman he was following." Petrakoff, hearing the man's words, looked meaningly towards me. "He was alone, you say?" I inquired. "Had he any friends in Krasnoyarsk, do you know?" "None that I know of. He had journeyed all the way from Petersburg, and he paid me well, because he was travelling so rapidly. We heard of the Englishman at a number of stancias, and have gradually overtaken him, until we found, on arrival here, that the friend he sought had only come in an hour before us. I heard the post-house keeper tell him so." "Then he was following this mysterious Englishman--eh?" asked the chief of police, who had seated himself at his table with some officiousness before commencing the inquiry. "No doubt he was, Excellency. One day he told me that if he did not overtake the Englishman on his way to Yakutsk, he would remain and wait for his return." Then I took a couple of steps forward to the official's table and said: "I fear that I must be the Englishman whom this mysterious person has followed in such hot haste for nearly six thousand miles." "So it seems. But why?" asked the chief of police. "I can see no reason why that escaped criminal should follow you with such sinister intent. You don't know him?" "Not in the least. I have never even heard his name before." "He was well supplied with money, it seems," remarked my host. "This wallet found upon him contains over ten thousand roubles in notes, together with a credit upon the branch of the National Bank in Yakutsk for a further thirty thousand." And he showed me a well-worn leather pocket-book, evidently of German manufacture. Both Petrakoff and myself knew only too well that this daring criminal had been released from that cold citadel in the Nevi and given money, promised a free pardon in all probability, if he followed me and at all hazards prevented me from obtaining an interview with the poor, innocent, suffering woman whose dastardly enemy had marked her "dangerous." I was about to tell the while scandalous truth, but on second thought I saw that no good could be served. Therefore I held my tongue, and allowed the officials--for the starosti of the village had now arrived-- regard the affair as a complete mystery. I had narrowly escaped death, the doctor had declared, and my friend, the chief of police of Olekminsk, kept the unfortunate yamshick under arrest while he reported the extraordinary affair to Yakutsk. He also confiscated the money found upon the man who had made that daring attack upon me. I could see he was secretly delighted that the criminal had been killed. What, I wondered, would have happened to him if I, a guest of His Imperial Majesty, had lost my life beneath his roof? The same thought apparently crossed his mind, for in those white winter days I was compelled to remain his guest, being unfit for travel on account of my wound, he many times referred to the narrow escape I had had. Petrakoff, on his part, related to us some astounding stories of the man, who hid been known to the coining and note-forging fraternity as Muller, _alias_ Passhin, the man who had at least three murders to his record. And this man was Markoff's hireling! What, I wondered, was the actual price placed upon my head? For a whole week--seven weary days--I was compelled to remain there in Olekminsk. I wanted to push forward, but the exiled doctor would not allow it. There was a small and wretched colony of political exiles in the village, and I visited them. Fancy a poet and _litterateur_, one of those rare Russian souls whose wonder-working effusions must ultimately enlighten and enfranchise the people--a Turgenieff--immured for life in that snowy desert. Yet in Olekminsk there was such a one. He lived in a wretched one-roomed, log-built cabin within a stone's-throw of the house wherein I so nearly lost my life--a tall, alert, deep-eyed man, whom even the savagery of his surroundings could not dispirit or cool the ardour of his wonderful genius. From his prolific pen flowed a ceaseless stream of learning and of light; he wrote and wrote, and in this writing forgot his wrongs and sorrows. The authorities--the local officials who wield such autocratic authority in those parts--were overjoyed to see him in this mood. They fostered his rich whim, they encouraged him to write his books, the manuscripts of which they seized and sold in Petersburg and Berlin, Paris and London. Yet he lived in a smoky, wooden hovel, banked up by snow, and wrote his books upon a rough wooden bench, which was polished at the spot over which his forearm travelled with his pen. No exile, I found, was allowed to carry on any business, teach in a school, till the soil, labour at a trade, practise a profession, or engage in any work otherwise than through a master. If I wanted any service, an exile would sometimes come and offer to perform it, but I would have to pay his master, upon whose bounty he must depend for remuneration. The doctor, named Kasharofski who bandaged me was not a revolutionist, or at all intemperate in his political view's. He was one of the thousands of Markoff's victims sacrificed in order that the Chief of Secret Police should remain in favour with the Emperor. Therefore he was not in favour with many of his fellow-exiles, who held pronounced revolutionary views. He was on pleasant visiting terms with the chief of police, and I often went to his wretched, carpetless hut, around which were sleeping bunks, and spent many an hour with him listening to the cruel, inhuman wrong from which he had suffered at the hands of that marvellously alert organisation, the Secret Police. One grey, snowy afternoon, while I sat with him in his bare wooden hut, one room with benches around for beds, and he smoked a cigar I had given him, he burst forth angrily against the exile system, declaring: "The whole government is a monstrous mistake. Russia has been striding in vain to populate Siberia for a thousand years, but she will never succeed so long as she continues in her present policy of converting the land into a vast penitentiary wherein the prisoners are prevented from making an honest livelihood, and so driven, if criminals, to a further commission of crime. Beyond doubt there are rogues of the very worst type in Russia and Siberia, but certainly it is plain that their mode of punishment will never tend to elevate or reform them; further, it is utterly impossible that Siberia, under its present system of government, should ever be populated or improved, as have been the penal colonies of the French and English." His words were, alas! too true. What I had seen of Siberia and its exile system--those terrible prisons where men and women were herded together and infected with typhoid and smallpox; those wretched hovels of the political settlement, and those chained gangs of despairing prisoners on the roads--had indeed filled me with horror. The condition of those exiles, both socially and morally, was utterly appalling. The day after my conversation with Doctor Kasharofski, after a week of irritating delay, in which every moment I feared that I was losing valuable time, I set forth again upon my last stage, the journey of four hundred miles of snow-covered tundra and forests of cheerless silver birch to Yakutsk. Did Madame de Rosen still live, or had Markoff taken good care that, even though I escaped the assassin's knife, I should never meet her again in the flesh? Ay, that was the one important question. And my heart beat quickly as, bidding farewell to my hospitable friend, the chief of police, our three shaggy horses plunged jingling away into the snow. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. THE JOURNEY'S END. The farther north we pushed, the worse became the roads, and snow fell daily. Only by following the line of telegraph and the verst-posts could we find the road, which sometimes ran along the Lena valley, and at others crossed high hills or penetrated deep, gloomy forests of dwarfed leafless trees. After three days we approached a high mountain range, where absolute silence reigned and the snowfall was constant and heavy. The trees were so overburdened with the white weight softly and quietly heaped upon them, that many had broken down completely and obstructed the wild road through the forest. Vasilli had furnished us with hatchets for this purpose, and we were often compelled to stop and hack and drag the fallen trees from our path. When at last we had gained the top of the mountain pass, we at once felt a complete change in the atmosphere. Whereas to the south everything was as calm as the quiet of death, in front of us a gale was already blowing, and instead of trees bowed down and breaking with their burden of snow, to the northward of the mountain range not a single flake appeared on the shrubbery or woodland. We had passed from the world of silence to the wild, bleak regions of the Arctic blizzard. All that day we toiled through deep snow, the mountain road rugged beyond description and the tearing wind icy and howling. It blew as though it would never calm. And the distance between the two lonely post-houses was one hundred and twenty-four English miles. Not a vestige of a habitation between. All was a great lone land. The frost was intense, and icicles hung from Vasilli's beard and from our own moustaches--a black deadly cold, rendered the more biting by the wind straight from the Polar ice-pack. I looked up upon that awful snow-covered road and shuddered. Luba and her mother had actually traversed it on foot. Because they had been marked as "dangerous" the Cossack captain had exposed them to that terrible suffering, hoping that they would thereby die before reaching Yakutsk--in which case he would, no doubt, receive a word of commendation from the Governor. We were now fast approaching the dreaded Arctic penal settlements, of which the town of Yakutsk was the centre, distant over four thousand miles from the Russian frontier, every inch of which we had traversed by road. Hour by hour, day by day, onward we went, with those irritating bells ever jingling in our ears. Petrakoff slept, his head sunk wearily upon his breast, but my mind was much too agitated for sleep. I had, by good fortune, escaped the assassin who had followed me hot-foot across Asia, and now I must soon overtake the unfortunate woman from whose lips I would seek permission for Her Highness to speak. Pakrovskoe, a mere handful of huts, came in sight one day just as the grey light faded. It was the last village before our goal--Yakutsk. We changed horses and ate some dried fish and rye bread, washed down by a cup of weak tea. Then, after half an hour's rest, again we went forward into the grey gloom of the snow, where on our left at the edge of the plain showed the pale yellow streak of the winter afterglow. Through that long, interminable night we toiled on and ever on in deep snowdrifts. Vasilli ever and anon uttering curses in his beard, for the horses we had obtained at Pakrovskoe were terrible screws. At length, however, just as the first grey of dawn appeared on the horizon our driver pointed with his whip, crying excitedly: "Yakutsk! Excellency! Yakutsk! God be thanked for a safe journey!" At first I could see nothing, but presently, straining my eyes straight before me, I discerned at the far edge of the snow-covered plain several low towers with bulgy spires, and a long line of house roofs silhouetted against the faint horizon. Petrakoff gazed forth sleepily, and then with a low, half-conscious grunt lapsed again into inert slumber. But no longer could I close my eyes. I drew my furs more closely round me, and sat with eyes fixed upon my longed-for goal. Would success crown my efforts, or had, alas! poor Marya de Rosen succumbed to the brutal treatment meted out to her by the Cossack captain. After three eager, breathless hours, which seemed weeks to me, we at last drove into the long wide thoroughfare which is the principal street of that northerly town--a road lined by small, square wooden houses, with sloping roofs, each surrounded by its little stockade. The town seemed practically deserted, a dreary, dismal, silent place, of which half the inhabitants were exiles or the free children of exiles. The remainder were, as I afterwards discovered, free Russians--merchants who had emigrated there for the advantage of trade, together with a host of Government officials--Cossack, civil, police, revenue, church, etc. Without much difficulty we found the Guestnitsa Hotel, a wretched place, verminous and dirty, like every other hotel in all Siberia was before the enlightening days of the great railroad. Here I established myself, and sent Petrakoff with a note to the Governor-General, asking for audience without delay. Scarcely had I washed, shaved and made myself a trifle presentable-- though I fear my unshorn hair presented a somewhat shaggy appearance-- when the agent of police returned with a note from His Excellency General Vorontzoff, Governor-General of the province, expressing his regret that owing to being compelled to make a military inspection during that day he was unable to receive me until five o'clock in the evening. Thus was I compelled to await His Excellency's pleasure. The fame of Alexander Vorontzoff was well-known in Petersburg. He was a hard, hide-bound bureaucrat, without a spark of pity or of human feeling. And for that reason the camarilla surrounding His Majesty the Emperor had managed to obtain his appointment as Governor-General of Yakutsk. He was the catspaw of that half-dozen astute Ministers who terrorised the Emperor and his Court, and by so doing feathered their own nests. "Politicals" committed by Markoff to his tender mercies were shown little consideration, for was not his appointment as Governor-General mainly on account of his brutal treatment of offenders during his term of office at Tomsk? Hartwig, had, more than once, mentioned this man as the most cruel, inhuman official in all Siberia. Therefore, being forewarned, I was ready to meet him on his own ground. Many a man, and many a delicate woman, transported there from Russia, although quite as innocent of revolutionary ideas as my friend Madame de Rosen, had lived but a few short days on their arrival at the prison at Yakutsk, horrible tales of which had even filtered through back to Petersburg and Moscow. One fact well-known was that, two years before, when smallpox had broken out at the prison, this brutal official caused a whole batch of prisoners to be placed in a room where a dozen other prisoners were lying in the last stages of that fatal disease, with the result that over two hundred exiles became infected, and of them one hundred and eighty died without receiving the least medical attention. Such an action stood to his credit in the bureau of the Ministry of the Interior at Petersburg! He had saved the Empire the keep of a hundred and eighty prisoners--mostly the victims of Markoff and the camarilla! When at five o'clock I was ushered into a big, gloomy room, lit by a hundred candles in brass sconces, a vulgar, thick-set man in tight-fitting, dark green uniform, his breast glittering with decorations, rose to greet me in a thick, deep voice. I judged him to be nearly sixty, with grey, steely eyes, a bloated face, short-cropped grey beard, and very square shoulders. He apologised for his absence during the day, and after handing me a cigarette invited me to a chair covered with red plush, himself taking one opposite to me. "I have been already notified of your coming," he said, speaking through his beard. "They sent me word from Petersburg that you were travelling to Yakutsk. I am very delighted to receive you as guest of my Imperial Master. In what way can I be of service to you?" I treated him with considerable hauteur, as became one bearing the order of the Tzar. From my pocket I produced the Imperial instructions to all Governors of the Asiatic provinces to do my bidding. As soon as he saw it his manner changed and he became most humble and submissive. "I must again apologise for not receiving you--for not calling upon you instantly on your arrival, Mr Trewinnard. But, truth to tell, I had for the moment forgotten that you were the guest of His Imperial Majesty. I had quite overlooked the telegram sent to me months ago," he said; and then he read the other permits I produced. "I hope you have had a safe journey, and not too uncomfortable," he went on. "I travelled once from Moscow in winter, and I must confess I, although a Russian, found it uncommonly cold." I gave him to understand that I had not travelled over six thousand miles merely to talk of climatic conditions. But he strode with swagger across the big, well-furnished room, his gay decorations glittering in the candle-light. The treble windows were closed with thick, dark green curtains pulled across them. The armchairs and sofa were leather-covered, and at the farther end of the room was a big, littered writing-table set near the high stove of glazed brick. He was a bachelor, with the reputation of being a hard drinker and a confirmed gambler. And under the iron hand of this unsympathetic and brutal official ten thousand political exiles, scattered all over the Arctic province, led an existence to which, in many cases, death would have been far preferable. Upon the dark green walls of that sombre room--a room in which many a wretched "political" had pleaded in vain--was a single picture, a portrait of the Emperor, one of those printed by the thousand and distributed to every Government office throughout the great Empire. His Excellency General Vorontzoff, as representative of the Emperor, lived in considerable state with a large military staff, and Cossack sentries posted at all the doors. He was as unapproachable as the Tzar himself, probably knowing how hated he was among those unfortunates over whom he held the power of life and death. For the ordinary man to obtain audience of him was wellnigh impossible. The explicit order in His Majesty's own handwriting altered things considerably in my case, and I saw that he was greatly puzzled as to who I really could be, and why his Master had been so solicitous regarding my welfare. "I have travelled from Petersburg, Your Excellency, in order to have private interviews with two political prisoners who have recently arrived here," I explained at last. He frowned slightly at mention of the word "political." "I understand," he said. "They are friends of yours--eh?" "Yes," I replied. "And I wish to have interviews with the ladies with as little delay as possible." "Ladies--eh?" he asked, raising his grey eyebrows. "Who are they?" "Their name is de Rosen," I said, "but their exile numbers are 14956 and 14957." He bent to his writing-table, near which he was at that moment standing, and scribbled down the numbers. "They arrived recently, you say?" "Yes. And I may tell you in confidence that a grave injustice has been done in exiling them. His Majesty is about to institute full and searching inquiries into the circumstances." His bloated face fell. He grew a trifle paler, and regarded me with some concern. "I suppose they arrived with the last convoy?" he said reflectively. "We will quickly see." And he rang a bell, in answer to which a smart young Cossack officer appeared, saluting. To him he handed the slip of paper with the numbers, saying in that hard, imperious voice of his: "Report at once to me the whereabouts of these two prisoners. They arrived recently, and I am awaiting information." The officer again saluted and withdrew. Scarcely had he closed the door when another officer, wearing his heavy greatcoat flecked with snow, entered and, saluting, handed the Governor a paper, saying: "The prisoners for Kolimsk are ready to start, Excellency." "How many?" "Two hundred and seven--one hundred and twenty-six men, and eighty-one women. Your Excellency." Sredne Kolimsk! That was the most northerly and most dreaded settlement in all the Arctic, still distant nearly one thousand miles--the living tomb of so many of Markoff's victims. "Are they outside?" asked the Governor. To which the officer in charge replied in the affirmative. "May I see them?" I asked. Whereupon my request was readily granted. But before we went outside General Vorontzoff took the list from the Captain's hand and scrawled his signature--the signature which sent two hundred and seven men and women to the coldest region in the world--that frozen bourne whence none ever returned. Outside in the dark snowy night the wretched gang, in rough, grey, snow-covered clothes, were assembled, a dismal gathering of the most hopeless and dejected wretches in the world, all of them educated, and the majority being members of the professional classes. Yet all had, by that single stroke of the Governor's pen, been consigned to a terrible fate, existence in the filthy yaurtas or huts of the half-civilised Yakuts--an unwashed race who live in the same stable as their cows, and whose habits are incredibly disgusting. That huddled, shivering crowd had already trudged over four thousand miles on foot and survived, though how many had died on the way would never be told. They stood there like driven cattle, inert, silent and broken. Hardly a word was spoken, save by the mounted Cossack guards, who smoked or joked, several of them having been drinking vodka freely before leaving. The Governor, standing at my side, glanced around them, mere shadows on the snow. Then he exclaimed with a low laugh, as though amused: "Even this fate is too good for such vermin! Let's go inside." I followed him in without a word. My heart bled for those poor unfortunate creatures, who at that moment, at a loud word of command from the Cossack captain, moved away into the bleak and stormy night. In the cosy warmth of his own room General Vorontzoff threw himself into a deep armchair and declared that I must leave the "Guestnitsa" and become his guest, an invitation which I had no inclination to accept. He offered me champagne, which I was compelled out of courtesy to drink, and we sat smoking until presently the young Cossack officer reappeared, bearing a bundle of official papers. "Well, where are they?" inquired the Governor quickly. "How slow you are!" he added emphatically. "The two prisoners in question are still here in Yakutsk," was the officer's reply. "They have not yet been sent on to Parotovsk." "Then I must go to them at once," I cried in eagerness, starting up quickly from my chair. "I must speak with them without delay. I demand to do so--in the Tzar's name." The officer bent and whispered some low words into His Excellency's ear; whereupon the Governor, turning to me with a strange expression upon his coarse countenance, said in a quiet voice: "I much regret, Mr Trewinnard, but I fear that is impossible--quite impossible!" CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. LUBA MAKES A STATEMENT. "Impossible!" I echoed, staring at the all-powerful official. "Why?" He shrugged his shoulders, slowly flicked the ash from his cigarette and glanced at the paper which the officer had handed to him. I saw that beneath the candle-light his heavy features had changed. The diamond upon his finger flashed evilly. "My pen and writing-pad," he said, addressing his aide-de-camp. The latter went to the writing-table and handed what he required. His Excellency rapidly scribbled a few words, then tearing off the sheet of paper handed it to me, saying: "As you so particularly wish to see them, I suppose your request must be granted. Here is an order to the prison governor." I took it with a word of thanks, and without delay put on my heavy fur shuba and accompanied the aide-de-camp out into the darkness. He carried a big, old-fashioned lantern to guide my footsteps, though the walk through the steadily-falling snow was not a long one. Presently we came to a series of long, wood-built houses, windowless save for some small apertures high near the roof, standing behind a high stockade before which Cossack sentries, huddled in their greatcoats, were pacing, white, snowy figures in the gloom. My guide uttered some password, which brought two sentries at the door to the salute, and then the great gates opened and we entered a big, open space which we crossed to the bureau, a large, low room, lit by a single evil-smelling petroleum lamp. Here I met a narrow-jawed, deep-eyed man in uniform--the prison governor, to whom I presented my permit. He called a Cossack gaoler, a big, fur-clad man with a jingling bunch of keys at his waist, and I followed him out across the courtyard to one of the long wooden sheds, the door of which he with difficulty unlocked, unbolted, and threw open. A hot, stifling breath of crowded humanity met me upon the threshold, a foetid odour of dirt, for the place was unventilated, and then by the single lamp high in the roof I saw that along each side of the shed were inclined plank benches crowded by sleeping or reclining women still in their prison clothes, huddled side by side with their heads against the wall, their feet to the narrow gangway. "Prisoners!" shouted the gaoler in Russian. "Attention! Where is one four nine five seven?" There was a silence as I stood upon the threshold. "Come," cried the man petulantly. "I want her here." A weak, thin voice, low and trembling, responded, and from the gloom slowly emerged a female figure in thick, ill-fitting clothes of grey cloth, unkempt and ragged. "Move quickly," snapped the gaoler. "Here is someone to see you!" "To see me!" repeated the weak voice slowly. Next moment, the light of the lantern revealed my face, I suppose, for she dashed forward, crying in English: "Why--you, Mr Trewinnard! Ah! save me! Oh! save me! I beg of you." And she clung to me, trembling with fear. It was the girl Luba de Rosen! Alas! so altered was she, so pale, haggard and prematurely-aged that I scarcely recognised her. Her appearance was dejected, ragged, horrible! Her fair hair that used to be so much admired was now tangled over her eyes, and her fine figure hidden by her rough, ill-fitting prison gown, which was old, dirty and tattered. I stared at her, speechless in horror. She was only nineteen. In that smart set in which her mother moved her beauty had been much admired. Madame de Rosen was the widow of a wealthy Jew banker, and on account of her late husband's loans to certain high officials to cover their gambling debts, all doors had been open to her. I recollected when I had last seen Luba, the night before her arrest. She had worn a pretty, Paris-made gown of carnation chiffon, and was waltzing with a good-looking young officer of the Kazan Dragoons. Alas! what a different picture she now presented. "Luba!" I said quietly in English, taking her hand as she clung to me. "Come outside. I am here to speak with you. I want to talk with you alone." The gaoler, who had had his orders from the Governor, relocked and bolted the door, and taking his lantern, withdrew a respectable distance while I stood with Luba under the wooden wall of the prison wherein she had been confined. "I have followed you here," I said, opening my capacious fur coat and throwing it around the poor shivering girl. "I only arrived to-night. Where is your mother? I must see her at once." She was silent. In the darkness I saw that her white face was downcast. I felt her sobbing as I held her, weak and tearful, in my arms. She seemed, poor girl, too overcome at meeting me to be able to speak. She tried to articulate some words, but they became choked by stifled sobs. "Your mother has been very ill, I hear, Luba," I said. "Is she better?" But the girl only drew a long sigh and slowly shook her head. "I--I can't tell you--Mr Trewinnard!" she managed to exclaim. "It is all too terrible--horrible! My poor mother! Poor darling! She--she died this morning!" "Dead!" I gasped. My heart sank within me. The iron entered my soul. "Yes. Alas!" responded the unfortunate girl. "And I am left alone--all alone in this awful place! Ah! Mr Trewinnard, you do not know--you can never dream how much we have suffered since we left Petersburg. I would have preferred death a thousand times to this. And my poor mother. She is dead--at last she now has peace. The Cossacks cannot beat her with their whips any more." "Where did she die?" I asked blankly. "In here--in this prison, upon the bench beside where I slept. Ah!" she cried, "I feel now as though I shall go mad. I lived only for her take--to wait upon her and try to alleviate her sufferings. Now that she has been taken from me I have no other object for which to live in this dreary waste of ice and snow. In a week I shall be sent on to Parotovsk with the others. But I hope before reaching there that God will be merciful and allow me to die." "No, no!" I exclaimed, my hand placed tenderly upon the poor girl's shoulder. "Banish such thoughts. You may be released yet. I am here, striving towards that end." But she only shook her head again very mournfully. Nobody is released from Siberia. As we stood together, my heavy coat wrapped about her in order to protect her a little from the piercing blast, she told me how, under the fatigue and exposure of the journey, her mother had fallen so ill that she one day dropped exhausted by the roadside. One Cossack officer, finding her unconscious, suggested that she should be left there to die, as fully half a dozen other delicate women had been left. But another officer of the convoy, a trifle more humane, had her placed in a tarantass, and by that means she had travelled as far as Tulunovsk. But the officer in charge there had compelled her to again walk, and over that last thousand miles of snow she had dragged wearily until, ill and worn out, she had arrived in Yakutsk. From the moment of her arrival she had scarcely spoken. So weak was she, that she could only lie upon the bare wooden bench, and was ever begging to be allowed to die. And only that morning had she peacefully passed away. I had arrived twelve hours too late! She had carried her secret to her grave! I heard the terrible story from the girl's lips in silence. My long weary journey had been all in vain. From the beginning to the end of poor Madame's illness no medical man had seen her. From what she had suffered no one knew, and certainly nobody cared a jot. She was, in the eyes of the law, a "dangerous political" who had died on the journey to the distant settlement to which she had been banished. And how many others, alas! had succumbed to the rigours of that awful journey! I walked with Luba back to the Governor's bureau, and in obedience to my demand he gave me a room--a bare place with a brick stove, before which the poor sad-eyed girl sat with me. I saw that the death of her mother had utterly crushed her spirit. Transferred from the gaiety and luxury of Petersburg, her pretty home and her merry circle of friends, away to that wilderness of snow, with brutal Cossacks as guards--men who beat exhausted women with whips as one lashes a dog--her brain was at last becoming affected. At certain moments she seemed very curious in her manner. Her deep blue eyes had an unusual intense expression in them--a look which I certainly did not like. That keen glittering glance was, I knew, precursory to madness. Though unkempt and ragged, wearing an old pair of men's high boots and a dirty red handkerchief tied about her head, her beauty was still remarkable. Her pretty mouth was perhaps harder, and it tightened at the corners as she related the tragic story of their arrest and their subsequent journey. Yet her eyes were splendid, and her cheeks were still dimpled they had been when I had so often sat at tea with her in her mother's great salon in Petersburg, a room decorated in white, with rose-du-Barri furniture. In tenderness I hold her hand as she told me of the brutal treatment both she and her fellow-prisoners had received at the hands of the Cossacks. "Never mind, Luba," I said with a smile, endeavouring to cheer her, "every cloud has its silver lining. Your poor mother is dead, and nobody regrets it more than myself. I travelled in haste from England in order to see her--in order to advise her to reveal to me a certain secret which she possessed." "A secret!" said the girl, looking straight into my face. "A secret of what?" "Well," I said slowly, "first, Luba, let me explain that as you well know, I am an old friend of your dear mother." "I know that, of course," she said. "Poor mother has frequently spoken of you during her journey. She often used to wonder what you would think when you heard of our arrest." "I knew you were both the innocent victims of General Markoff," I said quickly. "Ah! then you knew that!" she cried. "How did you know?" "Because I was well aware that Markoff was your mother's bitterest enemy," I answered. "He was. But why? Do you know that, Mr Trewinnard? Can you give me any explanation? It has always been a most complete mystery to me. Mother always refused to tell me anything." I paused. I had hoped that she would know something, or at least that she might give me some hint which would serve as a clue by which to elucidate the mystery of those incriminating letters, now, alas! destroyed. "Has your mother told you nothing?" I asked, looking earnestly straight in her face. "Nothing." "Immediately before her arrest she gave to Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia certain letters, asking her to keep them in safety. Are you aware of that?" "Mother told me so," the girl replied. "She also believed that the letters in question must have fallen into General Markoff's hands." "Why?" "I do not know. She often said so." "She believed that the arrest and exile of you both was due to the knowledge of what those letters contained--eh?" I asked. "I think so." "But tell me, Luba," I asked very earnestly, "did your mother ever reveal to you the nature of those letters? I am here to discover this-- because--well, to tell the truth, because your friend the Grand Duchess Natasha is in deadly peril." "In peril, why? Where is she?" In a few brief words I told her of Natalia's _incognita_ at Brighton, and of the attempt that had been made to assassinate us both, in order to suppress any knowledge of the letters that either of us might have gained. "Our own sad case is on a par with yours," she declared thoughtfully at last. "Poor mother was, I think, aware of some secret of General Markoff's. Perhaps it was believed that she had told me. At any rate, we were both arrested and sent here, where we should never have any opportunity of using our information." "You have no idea of its nature, Luba," I asked in a low voice, still deeply in earnest. "I mean you have no suspicion of the actual nature of the contents of those letters which your mother gave into Natalia's care?" The girl was silent for some time, her eyes downcast in thought. At last she replied: "It would be untrue to say that I entertain no suspicion. But, alas! I have no corroboration. My belief is only based upon what my dear mother so often used to repeat to me." "And what was that?" I asked. "That she had held the life of Russia's oppressor, General Markoff, in her hand. That she could have crushed and ruined him as he so justly deserved; but that for motives of humanity she had warned him of repeating his dastardly actions, and had long hesitated to bring him to ruin and to death." "Ah! the brute. He knew that," I cried. "He craftily awaited his opportunity, then he dealt her a cowardly blow, by arresting her and sending her here, where even in life or in death her lips would be closed for ever." CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. NOT IN THE NEWSPAPERS. Twelve weeks had elapsed--cold, weary weeks of constant sledging over those bleak, snow-bound plains, westward, back to civilisation. On the twenty-seventh of April--I have, alas! cause to remember the date--at six o'clock in the evening, I alighted from the train at Brighton, and Hartwig came eagerly forward to greet me. I had journeyed incessantly, avoiding Petersburg and coming by Warsaw and Berlin to the Hook of Holland, and that morning had apprised him of my arrival in England; but, I fear, as I emerged from the train my appearance must have been somewhat travel-worn. True, I had bought some ready-made clothes in Berlin--a new overcoat and a new hat. But I was horribly conscious that they were ill-fitting, as is every man who wears a "ready-to-wear garment"--as the tailors call it. Yes, I was utterly fagged out after that long and fruitless errand, and a I glanced at Hartwig I detected in an instant that something unusual had occurred. "What's the matter?" I asked quickly. "What has happened?" "Ah! that I unfortunately do not exactly know, Mr Trewinnard," was his reply in a tone quite unusual to him. "But what has occurred?" "Disaster," he answered in a low, hoarse voice. "Her Highness has mysteriously disappeared!" "Disappeared!" I gasped, halting and staring at him. "How? With whom?" "How can we tell?" he asked, with a gesture of despair. "Explain," I urged. "Tell me quickly. How did it happen?" Together we walked slowly out of the station-yard down in the direction of King's Road, when he said: "Well, the facts are briefly these. Last Monday--that is five days ago--Her Highness and Miss West had been over to Eastbourne by train to see an old schoolfellow of the Grand Duchess's, a certain Miss Finlay-- with whom I have since had an interview. They lunched at Mrs Finlay's house--one of those new ones on the road to Beachy Head--and left, together with Miss Finlay, to walk back to the station at half-past seven o'clock. Her Highness would not drive, but preferred to walk along the Promenade and up Terminus Road. When close to the station, Dmitri--who accompanied them--says that Her Highness stopped suddenly before a fancy needlework shop, while the other two went on. The Grand Duchess, before entering the shop, motioned to Dmitri to walk along to the station, for his surveillance, as you know, always irritated her. Dmitri, therefore, strolled on--and--well, that was the last seen of her Highness!" "Impossible!" I gasped. "I have made every effort to trace her, but without avail," declared Hartwig in despair. "It appears that she purchased some coloured silks for embroidery, paid for them, and then went out quite calmly. The girl who served her recollects her customer being met upon the threshold by a man who raised his hat in greeting and spoke to her. But she could not see his face, nor could she, in the dusk, discern whether he were young or old. The young lady seemed to be pleased to meet him, and, very curiously, it struck her at the time that that meeting had been prearranged." "Why?" I asked. "Because she says that the young lady, while making her purchase, glanced anxiously at her gold wristlet-watch once or twice." "She had a train to catch, remember." "Yes. I put that point before the girl, but she remains unshaken in her conviction that Her Highness met the man there by appointment. In any case," he added, "we have been unable to discover any trace of her since." I was silent for a moment. "But, surely, Hartwig, this is a most extraordinary affair!" I cried. "She may have been decoyed into the hands of Danilovitch!" "That is, alas! what I very much fear," the police official admitted. "This I believe to be some deeply-laid plot of Markoff's to secure her silence. You have been across Siberia, and arrived too late, yet Her Highness is still in possession of the secret. She is the only living menace to Markoff. Is it not natural, therefore, that he should take steps to seal her lips?" "We must discover her, Hartwig--we must find her, either alive or dead," I said resolutely. This news staggered me, fagged and worn out as I was. I had been compelled to leave Luba in the hands of the Governor-General, who had promised, because I was the guest of His Majesty, that he would do all in his power to render her lot less irksome. Indeed, she had been transferred to one of the rooms in the prison hospital in Yakutsk, and was under a wardress, instead of being guarded by those brutal, uncouth Cossacks. But this sudden disappearance of Natalia just at the very moment when her presence was of greatest importance held me utterly bewildered. All my efforts had been in vain! Should I telegraph the alarming news to the Emperor? Hartwig explained to me how diligently he had searched, and at once I realised the expert method with which he was dealing with the remarkable affair, and the wide scope of his inquiry. No man in Europe was more fitted to institute such a search. He had, in confidence, invoked the aid of New Scotland Yard, and being known by the heads of the Criminal Investigation Department, they had allowed him to direct the inquiry. "At present," he said, "the papers are fortunately in entire ignorance of the matter. I have been very careful that nothing shall leak out, for the story would, of course, be a grand one for the sensational Press. The public, however, does not know whose identity is hidden beneath the name of Gottorp, and no reporter dreams that a Russian Grand Duchess has been living _incognita_ in Brunswick Square," he added with a smile. "The Criminal Investigation Department have agreed with me that it would be unwise for a single word to leak out regarding the disappearance. Of course they incline to the theory of a secret lover-- but--" "You suspect young Drury--eh?" I interrupted quickly. "I hardly know what theory to form," he said with a puzzled air: "while the shopgirl in Eastbourne describes the appearance of the man's back as exactly similar to that of Mr Drury, yet I cannot believe that he would willingly play us such a trick. I know him quite well, and I believe him to be a very honest, upright, straightforward young fellow." "He knows nothing of Her Highness's real identity?" I asked anxiously, as we still strolled down towards the sea. "Has no suspicion whatever of it. He believes Miss Gottorp to be the daughter of a Berlin brewer who died and left her a fortune. No," he went on, "I detect in this affair one of Markoff's clever plots. She probably believed that she was to meet young Drury, and adopted that ruse to pause and speak with him--but--!" "But what?" I asked, turning and looking into his grave face, revealed by the light of a shop window. "Well--she was led into a trap," he said. "Decoyed away into one of the side streets, perhaps--and then--well, who knows what might have happened?" "You have searched Eastbourne, I suppose?" "The Criminal Investigation Department are doing so," he said. "I am making a perfectly independent inquiry." "You have reported nothing yet to Petersburg--eh?" "Not a word. What can I say? I have asked Miss West to refrain from uttering a syllable--also the Finlays have promised entire secrecy." "There is a motive in her disappearance, Hartwig," I said. "What is it?" "Ah! That's just it, Mr Trewinnard," he replied. "Her Highness had no motive whatever to disappear. Mr Drury was always welcome at Brunswick Square, for Miss West entirely approved of him. Besides, his presence had prevented other flirtations. Therefore there was no reason that there should have been any clandestine meeting in Eastbourne." "Then the only other suggestion is that of treachery." "Exactly. And that is the correct one--depend upon it." "If she has fallen into Markoff's hands then she may be already dead!" I gasped, staring at him. "If so, the secret will remain a secret for ever!" For a moment the great detective remained silent. Then slowly he said: "To tell the truth, that is exactly what I fear. Yes, I will try and suppress the horrible apprehension. It is too terrible." "Danilovitch is unscrupulous," I said, "and he hates us." "No doubt he does. He fears us, yet--" and he paused. "Yet a most curious point is the fact that Her Highness deliberately remained behind and sent Dmitri on, in order to be allowed opportunity to escape his vigilance." "All cleverly planned by her enemies," I declared. "She was misled, and fell into some very cunningly-baited trap, without a doubt. Do you believe she is still in Eastbourne?" "No." "Neither do I," was my assertion. "She went to London, no doubt, for there she would be easily concealed--if death has not already overtaken her--as it has overtaken poor Madame de Rosen." "I trust not," he said very thoughtfully. Then he added: "I have been thinking whether we might not again approach Danilovitch?" "He is our enemy and hers. He will give us no satisfaction," I said. "Certainly, whatever plot suggested by Markoff arose in his fertile brain. And his plots usually have the same result--the death of the victim. It may be so in this case," I added reflectively; "but I sincerely trust not." Hartwig drew a long breath. His face clouded. "Remember," he said, "it is to Markoff's advantage--indeed to him her death means the suppression of some disgraceful truth. If she lives-- then his fall is imminent. I have foreseen this all along, hence my constant precaution, which, alas! was relaxed last Monday, because I had to go to London to consult the Ambassador. They evidently were aware of that." I explained the failure of my errand, whereat he drew a long breath and said: "It almost seems, Mr Trewinnard, that our enemies have secured the advantage of us, after all. I really feel they have." "You fear that the trap into which Her Highness has fallen is a fatal one--eh?" I asked, glancing at him quickly. "What can I reply?" he said in a low tone. "Every inquiry I can devise is in progress. All the ports are watched, and observation is kept night and day upon the house in Lower Clapton from a house opposite, which Matthews, of New Scotland Yard, has taken for the purpose. Her Highness has not been there--up to now. Markoff is in Petersburg." The great detective--the man whose cleverness in the detection of crime was perhaps unequalled in Europe--drew a long, thoughtful face as he halted with me beneath a street-lamp. People hurried past us, ignorant of the momentous question we were discussing. "Where is Drury?" I asked suddenly. "Ah! That is yet another point," answered Hartwig. "He, too, is missing--he has disappeared!" CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. AT TZARSKOIE-SELO. Just before eleven o'clock that night, accompanied by Hartwig, I called at Richard Drury's cosy artistic flat in Albemarle Street, and in answer to my questions his valet, a tall, thin-faced young man, informed me that his master was not at home. "I understand that you have had no news of him since last Monday?" I said. "The fact is, this gentleman is a detective, and we are endeavouring to elucidate the mystery of Mr Drury's disappearance." The valet recognised Hartwig as having called before, and invited us into the small bachelor sitting-room, over the mantelpiece of which were many photographs of its owner's friends--the majority being of the opposite sex. "Well, sir, it's a complete mystery," the man replied. "My master slept here on Sunday night, and left for the country on Monday afternoon. He had a directors' meeting at Westminster on Tuesday, and told me that he should be back at midday. But he has never returned. That's all. They sent round from the office to know if he was in town, and of course I told them that he had not come back." "Have there been any callers lately?" I asked. "Has a lady been here?" "Only one lady ever calls, sir--a foreign lady named Gottorp." "And has she been here lately?" I inquired quickly. "She called on the Friday, and they went out together to lunch at Jules's. She often calls. She's a very nice young lady, sir." "She hasn't called since Monday?" I asked. "No, sir. A stranger--a foreigner--called on Tuesday afternoon and inquired for Mr Drury." "A foreigner!" I exclaimed. "Who was he? Describe him." "Oh! he was a dark, middle-aged man, dressed in a shabby brown suit. He wanted to see Mr Drury very particularly." Hartwig and I exchanged glances. Was the caller an agent of Secret Police. "What did he say when you told him of your master's absence?" "He seemed rather puzzled, and went away expressing his intention of calling again." "He was a stranger?" "I'd never seen him before, sir." "And this Miss Gottorp--is your master very attached to her?" "He worships her, as the sayin' is, sir," replied the man frankly. "She lives down at Brighton, and he spends half his time there on her account." "You say your master left London for the country on Monday afternoon. What was his destination?" "Ah, I don't know. I only know he drove to Victoria, but whether he left by the South Eastern or the South Coast line is a mystery." I had already formed a theory that Drury had travelled down to Eastbourne and had met his well-beloved outside the shop in Terminus Road. Afterwards both had disappeared! My amazement was mingled with annoyance and chagrin. Natalia had, alas! too little regard for the _convenances_. She had acted foolishly, with that recklessness which had always characterised her and had already scandalised the Imperial Family. Now it had resulted in her becoming victim of some dastardly plot, the exact nature of which was not yet apparent. For half an hour we both questioned Drury's valet, but could learn little of further interest. Therefore we left, and strolled along Piccadilly as far as St James's Club, where, until a late hour, we sat discussing the sensational affair. Was it an elopement, or had they both fallen victims of some cleverly-conceived trap in which we detected the sinister hand of His Excellency General Serge Markoff? Next day I returned to Brighton and closely questioned Miss West, the maid Davey, and the puzzled Dmitri. I saw the manager of the hotel where Drury was in the habit of staying, and, discovering that Drury's friend, Doctor Ingram, lived in Gower Street, I resumed to London and that same night succeeded in running him to earth. He was perfectly frank. "Dick has disappeared as suddenly as if the earth has swallowed him," he declared. "I can't make it out, especially as he told me he had a most important directors' meeting last Tuesday, and that he must travel up to Greenock on Thursday to be present at the launch of a new cruiser which his firm is building for the Admiralty. He certainly would have kept those two appointments had he been free to do so." "You knew Miss Gottorp, I believe?" I asked of the quiet-mannered, studious young man in gold-rimmed glasses. "Quite well. Dick's man told me yesterday that the young lady has also disappeared," he said. "It is really most extraordinary. I can't make it out. Dick is not the kind of man to elope, you know. He's too straightforward and honourable. Besides, he was always made most welcome at Brunswick Square--though, between ourselves, the young lady though inexpressibly charming, was always a very great mystery to me. I went with Dick twice to her house, and on each occasion saw men, foreigners they seemed, lurking about the hall. They eyed one suspiciously, and I did not like to visit her on that account." I pretended ignorance, but could see that he held Natalia in some suspicion. Indeed, he half hinted that for aught they knew, the pretty young lady might be some clever foreign adventuress. At that I laughed heartily. What would he think if I spoke the truth? Next day I put into the personal columns of several of the London newspapers an advertisement which read: "Gottorp.--Have returned: very anxious; write club--Uncle Colin." Then for four days I waited for a reply, visiting the club a dozen times each day, but all in vain. I called at Chesham House one afternoon and had a chat with His Excellency the Russian Ambassador. He was unaware of Her Imperial Highness's disappearance, and I did not inform him. I wanted to know what knowledge he possessed, and whether Markoff was still in Petersburg. I discovered that he knew nothing, and that at that moment the Chief of Secret Police was with the Emperor at the military manoeuvres in progress on that great plain which stretches from the town of Ivanovo across to the western bank of the broad Volga. Hartwig was ever active, night and day, but no trace could we find of the missing couple. Drury's friends, on their part, were making inquiry in every direction, but all to no avail. The pair had entirely disappeared. The house of the conspirators in Lower Clapton was being watched night and day, but as far as it could be observed there was little or no activity in that quarter. Danilovitch was still living there in retirement, going out only after dark, and though he was always shadowed it could not be found that he ever called at any other place than a little shop kept by a Russian cigarette-maker in Dean Street, Soho, and a small eight-roomed villa in North Finchley, where lived a compatriot named Felix Sasonoff, the London correspondent of one of the Petersburg daily newspapers. Our warning had, it seemed, had its effect. Much as we desired to approach the mysterious head of the so-called Revolutionary Organisation--the man known as "The One," but whose identity was veiled in mystery--we dared not do so, knowing that he was our bitterest enemy. One morning, in despair at obtaining no trace of the missing pair, I resolved to travel to Petersburg and there make inquiry. I realised that I must inform the Emperor, even at risk of his displeasure, for, after all, I had been compelled by my journey to Siberia to relax my vigilance, though I had left the little madcap under Hartwig's protection. What if they had actually eloped! Alas! I knew too well the light manner in which Natalia regarded the conventions of old-fashioned Mother Grundy. Indeed, it had often seemed her delight to commit breaches of the Imperial etiquette and to cause horror in her family. Yet surely she would never commit such an unpardonable offence as to elope with Richard Drury! Again, was she already dead? That was, I confess, my greatest fear, knowing well the desperate cunning of Serge Markoff, and all that her decease meant to him. So, with sudden resolve, I took the Nord Express once more back across Europe, and four days later found myself again in my old room at the Embassy, where Stoyanovitch brought me a command to audience from the Emperor. How can I adequately describe the interview, which took place in a spacious room in the Palace of Tzarskoie-Selo. "So your friend Madame de Rosen was unfortunately dead before you reached Yakutsk," remarked His Majesty gravely, standing near the window in a brilliant uniform covered with glittering decorations, for he had just returned from an official function. "I heard of it," he added. "The Governor-General Vorontzoff reported to me by telegraph. Indeed, Trewinnard, I had frequent reports of your progress. I am sorry you undertook such a journey all in vain." "I beg of Your Majesty's clemency towards the dead woman's daughter Luba," I asked. But he only made a gesture of impatience, saying: "I have already demanded a report on the whole case. Until that comes, I regret I cannot act. Vorontzoff will see that the girl is not sent farther north, and no doubt she will be well treated." In a few brief words I described some of the scenes I had witnessed on the Great Post Road, but the Emperor only sighed heavily and replied: "I regret it, I tell you. But how can I control the loyal Cossacks sent to escort those who have made attempts upon my life? I admit most freely that the exile system is wrong, cruel--perhaps inhuman. Yet how can it be altered?" "If Your Majesty makes searching inquiry, he will find some terrible injustices committed in the name of the law." "In confidence, I tell you, I am having secret inquiry made in certain quarters," he replied. "And, Trewinnard, I wish you, if you will, to make out for me a full and confidential report on your journey, and I will then have all your allegations investigated." I thanked him. Though an autocrat, he was yet a humane and just ruler-- when he was allowed to exercise justice, which, unfortunately, was but seldom. "My journey had a tragic sequel in Yakutsk, Sire," I said presently, "and upon my return to England I was met with still another misfortune-- a misfortune upon which I desire to consult Your Imperial Majesty." "What?" he asked, opening his eyes widely. "A further misfortune?" "I regret to be compelled to report that her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia has disappeared," I said in a low voice. His dark, heavy brows narrowed, his cheeks went pale, and his lips compressed. "Disappeared!" he gasped. "What do you mean? Describe this latest escapade of hers--for I suppose it is some ridiculous freak or other?" "I fear not, Sire," was my reply. Then, having described to him the facts as I have related them here to you, my reader, omitting, of course, all reference to Richard Drury, I added: "What I fear is that Her Highness has fallen victim to some revolutionary plot." "Why? What motive can the revolutionary party have in making an attempt upon her--a mere giddy girl?" "The fame motive which incited the attempt in Petersburg, in which her lamented father lost his life," was my quiet reply. His Majesty touched a bell, and in answer Stoyanovitch appeared upon the threshold and saluted. "If General Markoff is still here I desire to see him immediately." The Captain saluted, backed out and withdrew. I held my breath. This was, indeed, a misfortune. I had no wish that Markoff should know of the inquiries I was instituting. "May I venture to make a request of Your Majesty?" I asked in a low, uncertain voice. "What is it?" he asked with quick irritation. "That General Markoff shall be allowed to remain in ignorance of Her Highness's disappearance?" "Why?" asked the Emperor, looking across at me in surprise. "Because--well, because, for certain reasons, I believe secrecy at present to be the best course," I replied somewhat lamely. "Nonsense!" was his abrupt response. "Natalia is missing. You suspect that she has fallen victim to some conspiracy. Therefore Markoff must know, and our Secret Police must investigate. Markoff knows of every plot as soon as it is conceived. His organisation is marvellous. He will probably know something. Fortunately, he had only just left me on your arrival." His Excellency probably left the Emperor's presence because he did not wish to meet me face to face. Again I tried to impress upon His Majesty that, as Hartwig had commenced an investigation in England, the matter might be left to him. But he only replied: "Hartwig is head of the criminal police. He therefore has little, if any, knowledge of the revolutionaries. No, Trewinnard. This is essentially a matter for Markoff." I bit my lips, for next second the white-enamelled steel door of that bomb-proof room in which we were standing was thrown open, and a chamberlain announced: "His Excellency General Serge Markoff!" CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. THE EMPEROR'S FAVOURITE. For a second the famous chief of Secret Police turned his cunning, steel-blue eyes upon mine and bowed slightly, after making obeisance to His Majesty. "Why, I believed, Mr Trewinnard, that you were still in Siberia!" he said with a crafty smile. Though my bitterest enemy, he always feigned the greatest friendliness. "Trewinnard has just revealed a very painful and serious fact, Markoff," exclaimed the Emperor, in a deep, earnest voice. "Her Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia has disappeared." The General gave no sign of surprise. "It has already been reported to us," was his calm answer. "I have not reported it, in turn, to Your Majesty, fearing to cause undue alarm. Both here and in England we are instituting every possible inquiry." "Another plot," I remarked, with considerable sarcasm, I fear. "Probably," was His Excellency's reply, as he turned to His Imperial Master, and in that fawning voice of his, added: "Your Majesty may rest assured that if Her Highness be alive she will be found, wherever she may be." Hatred--hatred most intense--arose within my heart as I glanced at the sinister face of the favourite before me, the man who had deliberately ordered the commission of that crime which had resulted in the death of the Emperor's brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas. To his orders had been due that exciting episode in which I had so nearly lost my life in Siberia; at his orders, too, poor Marya de Rosen had been deliberately sent to her grave; and at his orders had been planned the conspiracy against the Grand Duchess which Danilo Danilovitch had intended to carry into execution, and would no doubt have done, had he not been prevented by Hartwig's boldness. I longed to turn and denounce him before his Imperial Master. Indeed, hot, angry words were upon my lips, but I suppressed them. No! The time was not yet ripe. Natalia herself had promised to make the revelations, and to her I must leave them. I must find her--and then. "Ah!" exclaimed His Majesty, well pleased. "I knew that you would be already informed, Markoff. You know everything. Nothing which affects my family ever escapes you." "I hope not, Sire. I trust I may ever be permitted to display my loyalty and gratitude for the confidence which Your Majesty sees fit to repose in me." "To your astuteness, Markoff, I have owed my life a score of times," the Emperor declared. "I have already acknowledged your devoted services. Now make haste and discover the whereabouts of my harebrained little niece, Tattie, for the little witch is utterly incorrigible." Markoff, pale and hard-faced, was silent for a moment. Then with a strange expression upon his grey, deceitful countenance he said: "Perhaps I should inform Your Majesty of one point which to-day was reported to us from England--namely, that it is believed that Her Highness has fled with--well, with a lover--a certain young Englishman." "A lover!" roared the Emperor, his face instantly white with anger. "Another lover! Who is he, pray?" "His name is Richard Drury," His Excellency replied. "Then the girl has created an open scandal! The English and French newspapers will get hold of it, and we shall have detailed accounts of the elopement--eh?" he cried excitedly. "This, Markoff, is really too much!" Then turning to me he asked: "What do you know of this young Drury? Tell me, Trewinnard." "Very little, Sire, except that he is her friend, and that he is in ignorance of her true station." "But are they in love with each other?" he demanded in a hard voice. "Have you neglected my instructions and allowed clandestine meetings-- eh?" "Unfortunately my journey across Siberia prevented my exercising due vigilance," I faltered. "Yet she gave me her word of honour that she would form no male attachment." "Bosh!" he cried angrily, as he crossed the room. "No girl can resist falling in love with a man if he is good-looking and a gentleman--at least, no girl of Tattie's high spirits and disregard for the _convenances_. You were a fool, Trewinnard, to accept the girl's word." "I believed in the honour of a lady," I said in mild reproach, "and especially as the lady was a Romanoff." "The Romanoff women are as prone to flirtation as any commoner of the same sex," he declared hastily. "Markoff knows of more than one scandal which has had to be faced and crushed out during the last five years. But this fellow Drury," he added impatiently, "who is he?" In a few brief sentences I told him what I knew concerning him. "You think they have fallen in love?" "I am fully convinced of it, Sire." "Therefore they may have eloped! Tattie's disappearance may have no connection with any revolutionary plot--eh?" "It may not. But upon that point I am quite undecided," was my reply. "Let me hear your views, Markoff," said the Emperor sharply. "I believe that Her Highness has fallen the victim of a plot," was his quick reply. "The man Drury may have shared the same fate." "Fate!" he echoed. "Do you anticipate, then, that the girl is dead?" "Alas, Sire! If she has fallen into the hands of the revolutionists, then without doubt she is dead," was the cunning official's reply. Was he revealing to his Imperial Master a fact that he knew? Was he preparing the Emperor for the receipt of bad news? I glanced at his grey, coarse, sphinx-like countenance, and felt convinced that such was the case. Had she, after all, fallen a victim of his craft and cunning, and were her lips sealed for ever? I stood there staring at the pair, the Emperor and his all-powerful favourite, like a man in a dream. Suddenly I roused myself with the determination that I would leave no stone unturned to unmask this man and reveal him in his true light to the Sovereign who had trusted him so complacently, and had been so ingeniously blinded and misled by this arch-adventurer, to whose evil machinations the death of so many innocent persons were due. "Then you are not certain whether, after all, it is an elopement?" asked the Emperor, glancing at him a few moments later. And turning impatiently to me he said in reproach: "I gave her into your hands, Trewinnard. You promised me solemnly to exercise all necessary vigilance in order to prevent a repetition of that affair in Moscow, when the madcap was about to run away to London. Yet you relaxed your vigilance and she has escaped while you have been on your wild-goose chase through Siberia." "With greatest respect to your Majesty, I humbly submit that my mission was no wild-goose chase. It concerned a woman's honour and her liberty," and I glanced at Markoff's grey, imperturbable countenance. "But the unfortunate lady was sent to her death--purposely killed by exhaustion and exposure, ere I could reach Yakutsk." "She was a dangerous person," the General snapped, with a smile of sarcasm. "Yes," I said in a hard, bitter voice. "She was marked as such upon the list of exiles--and treated as such--treated in a manner that no woman is treated in any other country which calls itself Christian!" I saw displeasure written upon the Emperor's face, therefore I apologised for my outburst. "It ill becomes you, an Englishman, to criticise our penal system, Trewinnard," the Emperor remarked in quiet rebuke. "And, moreover, we are not discussing it. Madame de Rosen conspired against my life and she is dead. Therefore the question is closed." "I believe when Your Majesty comes to ascertain the truth--the actual truth," I said, glancing meaningly at Markoff, who was then standing before the Sovereign, his hands clasped behind his back, "that you will discover some curious connection between the death of Marya de Rosen in the Yakutsk prison and the disappearance and probable death of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia." "What do you mean?" he asked, staring at me in surprise. "For answer," I said, "I must, with great respect, direct Your Majesty to His Excellency General Markoff, who is aware of all that concerns the Imperial family. He probably knows the truth regarding the strange disappearance of the young lady, and what connection it has with Madame de Rosen's untimely end." "I really do not understand you," cried the renowned chief of Secret Police, drawing himself up suddenly. "What do you infer?" "His Majesty is anxious to learn the truth," I said, looking straight into those cunning blue eyes of his. "Your Excellency, a loyal and dutiful subject, will, I trust, now make full revelation of what has really happened during the past twelve months, and what secret tie existed between Her Highness and Marya de Rosen." His face went white as paper. But only for a single second. He always preserved the most marvellous self-control. "I do not follow your meaning," he declared. "Madame de Rosen's death was surely no concern of mine. Many other politicals have died on their way to the Arctic settlements." "You speak in enigmas, Trewinnard. Pray be more explicit," the Emperor urged. I could see that my words had suddenly aroused his intense curiosity, although well aware of the antagonism in which I held the dreaded oppressor of Holy Russia. "I regret, Your Majesty, that I cannot be more explicit," I said. "His Excellency will reveal the truth--a strange truth. If not, I myself will do so. But not, however, to-day. His Excellency must be afforded an opportunity of explaining circumstances of which he is aware. Therefore I humbly beg to withdraw." And I crossed to the door and bowed low. "As you wish, Trewinnard," answered the Emperor impatiently, as with a wave of the hand he indicated that my audience was at an end. So as I backed out, bowing a second time, and while Markoff stood there in statuesque silence, his face livid, I added in a clear voice: "Ask His Excellency for the truth--the disgraceful truth! He alone knows. Let him find Her Imperial Highness--if he can--if he dare!" Then I opened the door and made my exit, full of wonder at what might occur when the pair were alone. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. PRESENTS ANOTHER PROBLEM. On returning to Petersburg that evening and entering the Embassy, I found a telegram from Hartwig, summoning me back to London immediately. There were no details, only the words: "Return here at once." All my letters to the club I had ordered to be sent to him during my absence, so I wondered whether he had received any communication from the missing pair. With the knowledge that any telegrams to me would be copied and sent to the Bureau of Secret Police, he had wisely omitted any reason for my return to London. I sent him, through the Bureau of Detective Police, the message to wire me details to the Esplanade Hotel in Berlin, and at midnight left by the ordinary train for the German frontier. Four eager anxious days I spent on that never-ending journey between the Neva and the Channel. At Berlin, on calling at the hotel, I received no word from him, only when I entered the St James's Club at five o'clock on the afternoon of my arrival at Charing Cross did I find him awaiting me. "Well," I asked anxiously, as I entered the square hall of the club, "what news?" "She's alive," he said. "She saw your advertisement and has replied!" "Thank heaven!" I gasped. "Where is she?" "Here is the address," and he drew from his pocket-book a slip of paper, with the words written in Natalia's own hand: "Miss Stebbing, Glendevon House, Lochearnhead, Perthshire." And with it he handed the note which had come to the club and which he had opened--a few brief words merely enclosing her address and telling me to exercise the greatest caution in approaching her. "I have been watched by very suspicious persons," she added, "and so I am in hiding here. When you can come, do so. I am extremely anxious to see you." "What do you make of that?" I asked the famous police official. "That she scented danger and escaped," he replied. "My first intention was to go up to Scotland to see her, but on reflection I thought, sir, that you might prefer to go alone." "I do. I shall leave Euston by the mail to-night and shall be there to-morrow morning. She has, I see assumed another name." "Yes, and she has certainly gone to an outlandish spot where no one would have thought of searching for her." "Drury suggested it, without a doubt. He knows Scotland so well," I said. Therefore yet another night I spent in a sleeping-car between Euston and Perth, eating scones for breakfast in the Station Hotel at the latter place, and leaving an hour later by way of Crieff and St Fillans, to the beautiful bank of Loch Earn, lying calm and blue in the spring sunshine. At the farther end of the loch the train halted at the tiny station of Lochearnhead, a small collection of houses at the end of the picturesque little lake, where the green wooded banks sloped to the water's edge. Quiet, secluded, and far from the bustle of town or city it was. I found a rural little lake-side village, with a post-office and general shop combined, and a few charming old-world cottages inhabited by sturdy, homely Scottish folk. Of a brown-whiskered shepherd passing near the station I inquired for Glendevon House, whereupon he pointed to a big white country mansion high upon the hill-side, commanding a wide view across the loch and surrounding hills; a house hemmed in by tall firs, fresh in their bright spring green. A quarter of an hour later, having climbed the winding road leading to it, I entered the long drive flanked by rhododendrons, and was approaching the house when, across the lawn a slim female figure, in a white cotton gown, with a crimson flower in the corsage, came flying toward me, crying: "Uncle Colin! Uncle Colin! At last!" And a moment later Natalia wrung my hand warmly, her cheeks flushed with pleasure at our encounter. "Whatever is the meaning of this latest escapade?" I asked. "You've given everybody a pretty fright, I can tell you." "I know, Uncle Colin. But you'll forgive me, won't you? Say you do," she urged. "I can't before I know what has really happened." "Let's go over to that seat," she suggested, pointing to a rustic bench set invitingly on the lawn beneath a spreading oak, "and I'll tell you everything." Then as we walked across the lawn she regarded me critically and said: "How thin you are! How very travel-worn you look!" "Ah!" I sighed. "I've been a good many thousand miles since last I saw Your Highness." "I know. And how is poor Marya? You found her, of course." "Alas!" I said in a low voice, "I did not. My journey was of no avail. She died a few hours before my arrival in Yakutsk!" "Died in Yakutsk," she echoed in a hoarse whisper halting and looking at me. "Poor Marya dead! And Luba?" "Luba is well, but still in prison." "Dead!" repeated the girl, speaking to herself, "and so your long winter journey was all in vain!" "Utterly useless," I said. "Then, on returning to London a fortnight ago, I learned that you had mysteriously disappeared. I have been back to Petersburg and informed the Emperor." "And what did he say? Was he at all anxious?" she asked quickly. "It is known that Drury has also disappeared, and therefore His Majesty believes that you have fled together." "So we did, but it was not an elopement. No, dear old Uncle Colin, you needn't be horribly scandalised. Mrs Holbrook, the owner of this place, is Dick's aunt, and he brought me here so that I might hide from my enemies." "Then where is he?" "Staying at the hotel over at St Fillans, at the other end of the loch, under the name of Gregory. Fortunately his aunt has only recently bought this place, so he has never been here before. She is extremely kind to me." "Then you often see Drury--eh?" "Oh, yes, we spend each day together. Dick comes over by the eleven o'clock train. It is such fun--much better than Brighton." "But the London police are searching everywhere for you both," I said. "This is a long way from London," she replied with a bright laugh; "they are not likely to find us, nor are those bitter enemies of ours." "What enemies?" "The revolutionists. There is a desperate plot against me. Of that I am absolutely convinced," she said as she sank upon the rustic garden seat beneath the tree. The sunny view over loch and woodland was delightful, and the pretty garden and fir wood surrounding were full of birds singing their morning song. "But you told neither Hartwig nor Dmitri of your fears," I remarked. "Why not?" and I looked straight into her beautiful face, lit by the brilliant sunshine. "Well, I will tell you, Uncle Colin," she said, leaning back, putting her neat little brown shoe forth from the hem of her white gown, and folding her bare arms as she turned to me. "Dick one day discovered that wherever we went we were followed by Dmitri, and, as you may imagine, I had considerable difficulty in explaining his constant presence. But Dick loves me, and hence believes every word I tell him. He--" "I know, you little minx," I interrupted reprovingly, "you've bewitched him. I only fear lest your mutual love may lead to unhappiness." "That's just it. I don't know exactly what will happen when he learns who I really am." "He must be told very soon," I said; "but go on, explain what happened." "Ah! no," cried the girl in quick alarm; "you must not tell him. He must not know. If so, it means our parting, and--and--" she faltered, her big, expressive eyes glistened with unshed tears. "Well--you know, Uncle Colin--you know how fondly I love Dick." "Yes, I know, my child," I sighed. "But continue, tell me all about your disappearance and its motive." Now that I had found her I saw to what desperate straights Markoff must be reduced. He had, after all, no knowledge of her whereabouts. "It was like this," she said. "One evening we had walked along the cliffs to Rottingdean together. Dmitri had not followed us, or else he had missed us before we left Brighton. But just as we were coming down the hill, after passing that big girls' college, Dick noticed that we were being followed by a man, who he decided was a foreigner. He was, I saw, a thin-faced man with a black moustache and deeply-furrowed brow, and then I recognised him as a man whom I had seen on several previous occasions. I recollected that he followed us that night on the pier when you first saw Dick walking with Doctor Ingram." "A man of middle height, undoubtedly a Russian," I cried. "I remember him distinctly. His name is Danilo Danilovitch--a most dangerous person." "Ah!" she exclaimed, "I see you know him. Well, at the moment I was not at all alarmed, but next day I received an anonymous letter telling me to exercise every precaution. There was a revolutionary plot to kill me. It was intended to kill both Dick and myself. I showed him the letter. At first he was puzzled to know why the revolutionary party should seek to assassinate a mere girl like myself, but again he accepted my explanation that it was in revenge for some action of my late father, and eventually we resolved to disappear together and remain in hiding until you returned. Then, according to what Marya de Rosen had told you, I intended to act." "Alas! I learnt nothing." "Ah!" she sighed. "That is the unfortunate point. I am undecided now how to act." "Explain how you managed to elude Dmitri's vigilance in Eastbourne." "Well, on that evening in Eastbourne I induced Miss West, Gladys Finlay and Dmitri to walk on to the station, and I entered a shop. When I came cut, Dick joined me. We slipped round a corner, and after hurrying through a number of back streets found ourselves again on the Esplanade. We walked along to Pevensey, whence that night we took train to Hastings, and arrived in London just before eleven. At midnight we left Euston for Scotland, and next morning found ourselves in hiding here. I was awfully sorry to give poor Miss West such a fright, and I knew that Hartwig would be moving heaven and earth to discover me. But I thought it best to escape and lie quite low until your return. I telegraphed to you guardedly to the British Consulate in Moscow, hoping that you might receive the message as you passed through." "I was only half an hour in Moscow, and did not leave the station," I replied. "Otherwise I, no doubt, should have received it." "To telegraph to Russia was dangerous," she remarked. "The Secret Police are furnished with copies of all telegrams coming from abroad, and Markoff is certainly on the alert." "No doubt he is," I said. "As you well know, he is desperately anxious to close your lips. Now that poor Marya is dead, you alone are in possession of his secret--whatever it may be." "And for that reason," she said slowly, her fine eyes fixed straight before her across the blue waters of the loch, "he has no doubt decided that I, too, must die." "Exactly; therefore it now remains for Your Highness to reveal to the Emperor the whole truth concerning those letters and the secret which resulted in Marya de Rosen's arrest and death. It is surely your duly! You have no longer to respect the promise of secrecy which you gave her. Her death must be avenged--and by you--_and you alone_," I added very quietly and in deep earnestness. "You must see the Emperor--you must tell him the whole truth in the interests of his own safety--in the interests, also, of the whole nation." My dainty little companion remained silent, her eyes still fixed, her slim white fingers toying nervously with her skirt. "And forsake Dick?" she asked presently in a low voice which trembled with emotion. "No, Uncle Colin. No, don't ask me!" she urged. "I really can't do that--I really can't do that. I--I love him far too well." I sighed. And of a sudden, ere I was aware of it the girl, torn by conflicting emotions, burst into a flood of tears. There, at her side I sat utterly at a loss what to say in order to mitigate her distress; for too well I knew that the pair loved each other truly, nay, madly. I knew that the love of an Imperial Grand Duchess of the greatest family in Europe is just as intense, just is passionate, just as fervent as that of a commoner, be she only a typist, a seamstress, or a serving-maid. The same feelings, the same emotions, the same passionate longings and tenderness; the same loving heart bests beneath the corsets of the patrician as beneath those of the plebeian. You, my friendly readers, each of you--be you man or woman, love to-day, or have loved long ago. Your love is human, your affection firm, strong and undying, differing in no particular to the emotions experienced by the peasant in the cottage or the princess of the blood-royal. I looked at the little figure on the rustic seat at my side, and all my sympathy went out to her. I have loved once, just as you have, my reader; and I knew, alas! what she suffered, and how she foresaw opened before her the grave of all her hopes, of all her aspirations, of all her love. She was committing the greatest sin pronounced by the unwritten law of her Imperial circle. She loved a commoner! To go forward, to speak and save her nation from the depredations of that unscrupulous camarilla, the Council of Ministers, would mean to her the abandonment of the young Englishman she loved so intensely and devotedly--the sacrifice, alas! of all she held most dear in life by the betrayal of her identity. CHAPTER THIRTY. REVEALS THE GULF. Having been introduced to Mrs Holbrook--a pleasant-fated old lady in a white-laced cap with mauve ribbons--I made excuse to "Miss Stebbing" to leave, and took train a quarter of an hour later back to St Fillans. From the village post-office I sent an urgent wire to Hartwig to go again to Lower Clapton, see Danilovitch, explain how Her Highness had discovered the plot against her, and assure him that if any attempt were male, proof of his treachery would be placed at once before his "comrades." I called at the hotel and inquired for Mr Gregory, but was informed that he was out fishing. But though I lunched there and waited till evening, yet he did not return. So again I took train back to Lochearnhead, and with the golden sunset flashing upon the loch, climbed the hill path towards Glendevon House--a nearer cut than by the carriage road. Suddenly, as I turned the corner, I saw two figures going on before me-- Natalia and Richard Drury. She wore a darker gown than in the morning, with simple, knockabout country hat, while he had on a rough tweed jacket and breeches. I drew back quickly when I recognised them. His arm was tenderly around her waist as they walked, and he was bending to her, speaking softly, as with slow steps they ascended through the hill-side copse. Yes, they were indeed a handsome, well-matched pair. But I held, my breath, foreseeing the tragic grief which must ere long arise as the result of that forbidden affection. Standing well back in the hedge, I gazed after their as with halting steps they went up that unfrequented Scotch by-way, rough and grass-grown. Suddenly they paused, and the man, believing that they were alone, took his well-beloved in his strong embrace, pushed back her hat, and imprinted a warm, passionate kiss upon her white, open brow. Perhaps it was impolite to watch. I suppose it was; yet my sympathy was entirely with them. I, who had once loved and experienced a poignant sorrow as result, knew well all that they felt at that moment, especially now that the girl, even though an Imperal Princess, was compelled to decide between love and duty. Unseen, I watched them cling to each other, exchanging fond, passionate caresses. I saw him tenderly push the dark hair from her eyes and again place his hot lips reverently to her brow. He held her small hand, and looking straight into her wonderful eyes, saw truth, honesty and pure affection mirrored there. They had halted. While the evening shadows fell he had placed his hand lightly upon her shoulder and was whispering in her ear, speaking words of passionate affection, in ignorance that between them, alas! lay a barrier of birth which could never be bridged. I felt myself a sneak and an eavesdropper; but I assure you it was with no idle curiosity--only because what I had witnessed aroused within me the most intense sorrow, because I knew that only a man's great grief and a woman's broken heart could accrue from that most unfortunate attachment. In all the world I held no girl in greater respect than Natalia, the unconventional daughter of proud Imperial Romanoffs. Indeed, I regarded her with considerable affection, if the truth were told. She had charmed me by her natural gaiety of heart, her disregard for irksome etiquette and her plain outspokenness. She was a typical outdoor girl. What the end of her affection for Dick Drury would be I dreaded to anticipate. Again he bent, and kissed her upon the lips, her sweet face raised to his, aglow in the crimson sunset. He had clasped her tenderly to his heart, holding her there in his strong arms, while he rained his hot, fervent kisses upon her, and she stood in inert ecstasy. Soon the shadows declined, yet the pair still stood there in silent enjoyment of their passionate love, all unconscious of observation. I drew a long breath. Had I not myself long ago drunk the cup of happiness to the very dregs, just as Dick Drury was now drinking it--and ever since, throughout my whole career in those gay Court circles in foreign cities, I had been obsessed by a sad and bitter remembrance. She had married a peer, and was now a great lady in London society. Her pretty face often looked out at me from the illustrated papers, for she was one of England's leading hostesses, and mentioned daily in the "personal" columns. Once she had sent me an invitation to a shooting-party at her fine castle in Yorkshire. The irony of it all! I had declined in three lines of formal thanks. Ah! yes. No man knew the true depths of grief and despair better than myself, therefore, surely, no man was more fitted to sympathise with that handsome couple, clasped at that moment in each other's arms. I turned back; I could endure it no longer, foreseeing tragedy as I did. Descending the hill to the loch-side again, I found the carriage road, and approached the big white house. I was standing alone in the long, old-fashioned drawing-room, with its bright chintzes and bowls of potpourri, awaiting Mrs Holbrook, when the merry pair came in through the long French windows, from the sloping lawn. "Why, Uncle Colin!" she gasped, starting and staring at me. "How long have you been here?" "Only a few moments," I replied, and then, advancing, I shook Drury's hand. He looked a fine, handsome fellow in his rough country tweeds. "So glad to meet you again, Mr Trewinnard," he said frankly, a smile upon his healthy, bronzed face. "I've heard from Miss Gottorp of your long journey across Siberia. You've been away months--ever since the beginning of the winter! I've always had a morbid longing to see Siberia. It must be a most dreadful place." "Well, it's hardly a country for pleasure-seeking," I laughed; then changing my tone, I said: "You two have given me a nice fright! I returned to find you both missing, and feared lest something awful had happened to you." "Fear of something happening caused us to disappear," he answered; then he practically repeated what Natalia had told me earlier in the day. "My aunt very kindly offered to put Miss Gottorp up, and I have since lived down at St Fillans under the name of Gregory." I told him of the search in progress in order to discover him. But he declared that a Scotch village or the back streets of a manufacturing town were the safest places in which to conceal oneself. "But how long do you two intend causing anxiety to your friends?" I asked, glancing from one to the other. Natalia looked at her lover with wide-open eyes of admiration. "Who knows?" she asked. "Dick has to decide that." "But Miss West and Davey, and all of them at Hove are distracted," I said, and then, turning to Drury, added, "Your man in Albemarle Street and the people at your offices in Westminster are satisfied that you've met with foul play. You certainly ought to relieve their minds by making some sign." "I must, soon," he said. "But meanwhile--" and he turned his eyes upon his well-beloved meaningly. "Meanwhile, you are both perfectly happy--eh?" "Now don't lecture us, Uncle Colin!" cried the little madcap, leaning over the back of a chair and holding up her finger threateningly; and then to Dick she added: "Oh! you don't know how horrid my wicked uncle can be when he likes. He says such caustic things." "When my niece deserves them--and only then," I assured her lover. Though Dick Drury was in trade a builder of ships, as his father before him, he was one of nature's gentlemen. There was nothing of the modern young man, clean-shaven, over-dressed, with turned-up trousers and bright socks. He was tall, lithe, strong, well and neatly dressed as became a man in his station--a man with an income of more than ten thousand a year, as I had already secretly ascertained. Had not Natalia been of Imperial birth the match would have been a most suitable one, for Dick Drury was decidedly one of the eligibles. But her love was, alas! forbidden, and marriage with a commoner not to be thought of. They stood together laughing merrily, he bright, pleasant, and all unconscious of her true station, while she, sweet and winning, stood gazing upon him, flushed with pleasure at his presence. I was describing to Drury the fright I had experienced on arrival in Brighton to find them both missing, whereupon he interrupted, saying: "I hope you will forgive us in the circumstances, Mr Trewinnard. Miss Gottorp resolved to go into hiding until you returned to give her your advice. Therefore, with my aunt's kind assistance, we managed to disappear completely." "My advice is quickly given," I said. "After to-night there will be no danger, therefore return and relieve the anxiety of your friends." "But how can you guarantee there is no danger?" asked the young man, looking at me dubiously. "I confess I'm at a loss to understand the true meaning of it all--why, indeed, any danger should arise. Miss Gottorp is so mysterious, she will tell me nothing," he said in a voice of complaint. For a moment I was silent. "There was a danger, Drury--a real imminent danger," I said at last. "But I can assure you that it is now past. I have taken steps to remove it, and hope to-morrow morning to receive word by telegraph that it no longer exists." "How can you control it?" he queried. "What is its true nature? Tell me," he urged. "No, I regret that I cannot satisfy your curiosity. It is--well--it's a family matter," I said; "therefore forgive me if I refuse to betray a confidence reposed in me as a friend of the family. It would not be fair to reveal anything told me in secrecy." "Of course not," he said. "I fully understand, Mr Trewinnard. Forgive me for asking. I did not know that the matter was so entirely confidential." "It is. But I can assure you that, holding the key to the situation as I do, and being in a position to dictate terms to Miss Gottorp's enemies, she need not in future entertain the slightest apprehension. The danger existed, I admit; but now it is over." "Then you advise us to return, Uncle Colin?" exclaimed the girl, swaying herself upon the chair. "Yes--the day after to-morrow." "You are always so weirdly mysterious," she declared. "I know you have something at the back of your mind. Come, admit it." "I have only your welfare at heart," I assured her. "Welfare!" she echoed, and as her eyes fixed themselves upon me she bit her lips. I knew, alas! the bitter trend of her thoughts. But her lover stood by, all unconscious of the blow which must ere long fall upon him, poor fellow. I pitied him, for I knew how much he was doomed to suffer, loving her so fondly and so well. He, of course, believed her to be a girl of similar social position to himself--a dainty little friend whom he had first met as a rather gawky schoolgirl at Eastbourne, and their friendship had now ripened to love. "I feel that you, Mr Trewinnard, really have our welfare at heart," declared the young man earnestly. "I know in what very high esteem Miss Gottorp holds you, and how she has been awaiting your aid and advice." "I am her friend, Drury, as I am yours," I declared. "I am aware that you love each other. I loved once, just as deeply, as fervently as you do. Therefore--I know." "But we cannot go south--back to Brighton," the girl declared. "I refuse." "Why?" he asked. "Mr Trewinnard has given us the best advice. You need not now fear these mysterious enemies of yours who seem to haunt you so constantly." "Ah!" she cried in a low, wild voice, "you do not know, Dick! You don't know the truth--all that I fear--all that I suffer--for--for your sake! Uncle Colin knows." "For my sake!" he echoed, staring at her. "I don't quite follow you. What do you mean?" "I mean," she exclaimed in a low, hoarse voice, drawing herself up and standing erect, "I mean that you do not know what Uncle Colin is endeavouring to induce me to do--you do not realise the true tragedy of my position." "No, I don't," was his blunt response, his eyes wide-open in surprise. "Oh, Dick," she cried in despair, her voice trembling with emotion, "he speaks the truth when he urges me for my own sake to go south--to return again to Hove. But, alas! if I followed his advice, sound though it is, it would mean that--that to-morrow we should part for ever!" "Part!" gasped the young man, his face becoming white in an instant. "Why?" "Because--well, simply because all affection between us is forbidden," she faltered in a hoarse, half whisper, her beautiful face ashen pale, "because,"--she gasped, still clinging to the back of the chintz-covered chair, "because, although we love each other as passionately and as dearly as we do, we can never marry--never! Between us there exists a barrier--a barrier strong but invisible, that can never be broken-- never--until the grave!" CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. THE PAINFUL TRUTH. With Her Highness's permission I had despatched a reassuring telegram in the private cipher to the Emperor prefixed by the word "Bathildis"--a message which, I think, greatly puzzled the local postmaster at Lochearnhead. Another I had sent to Miss West, and then returned to the small hotel at the loch-side where I intended to spend the night. I had left the pair together, and strolled out across the lawn. Of what happened afterwards I was in ignorance. The girl had come in search of me a quarter of an hour later, pale, trembling and tearful, and in a broken voice told me that they had parted. I took her soft little hand, and looking straight into her eyes asked: "Does he know the truth?" She shook her head slowly in the negative. "I--I have resolved to return to Russia," she said simply, in a faltering voice. "To see the Emperor?" I asked eagerly. "To tell him the truth--eh?" Her white lips were compressed. She only drew a long, deep breath. "Dick has gone," she said at last, in a strange, dreamy voice. "And-- and I must go back again to all the horrible dreariness and formality of the life to which, I suppose, I was born. Ah! Uncle Colin--I--I can't tell you how I feel. My happiness is all at an end--for ever." "Come, come," I said, placing my hand tenderly upon the girl's shoulder. "You will go back to Petersburg--and you will learn to forget. We all of us have similar disappointments, similar sorrows. I, too, have had mine." But she only shook her head, bursting into tears as she slowly disengaged herself from me. Then, with head sunk upon her chest in blank despair and sobbing bitterly, she turned from me, and in the clear, crimson afterglow, went slowly back up the garden-path to the house. I stood gazing upon her slim, dejected figure until it was lost around the bend of the laurels. Then I retraced my steps towards the little lake-side village. At ten o'clock that night, while writing a letter in the small hotel sitting-room, Richard Drury was shown in. His face was paler than usual, hard and set. He apologised for disturbing me at that hour, but I offered him a chair and handed him my cigarette-case. His boots were very dusty, I noticed; therefore I surmised that since leaving his well-beloved he had been tramping the roads. "I am much puzzled, Mr Trewinnard," he blurted forth a moment later. "Miss Gottorp has suddenly sent me from her and refused to see me again." "That is to be much regretted," I said. "Before I left I heard her declare that there were certain circumstances which rendered it impossible for you to marry. I therefore know that your interview this evening must have been a painful one." "Painful!" he echoed wildly. "I love her, Mr Trewinnard! I confess it to you, because you are her friend and mine." "I honestly believe you do, Drury. But," I sighed, "yours is, I fear, an unfortunate--a very unfortunate attachment." I was debating within myself whether or not it were wise to reveal to him Natalia's identity. Surely no good could now accrue from further secrecy, especially as she had resolved to return at once to Russia. I saw how agitated the poor fellow was, and how deep and fervent was his affection for the girl who, after all, was sacrificing her great love to perform a duty to her oppressed nation and to avenge the lives of thousands of her innocent compatriots. "Yes. I know that my affection for her is an unfortunate one," he said, in a thick voice. "She has talked strangely about this barrier between us, and how that marriage is not permitted to her. It is all so mysterious, so utterly incomprehensible, Mr Trewinnard. She is concealing something. She has some secret, and I feel sure that you, as an intimate friend of her family, are aware of it." Then after a slight pause he grew calm and, looking me straight in the face, asked: "May I not know it? Will you not tell me the truth?" "Why should I, Drury, when the truth must only cause you pain?" I queried. "You have suffered enough already. Why not go away and forget? Time heals most broken hearts." "It will never heal mine," he declared, adding: "Her words this evening have greatly puzzled me. I cannot see why we may not marry. She has no parents, I understand. Yet how is it that she seems eternally watched by certain suspicious-looking foreigners? Why is her life--and even mine--threatened as it is?" For a few moments I did not speak. My eyes were fixed upon his strong, handsome face, tanned as it was by healthy exercise. "If you wish to add to your grief by ascertaining the truth, Drury, I will tell you," I said quietly. "Yes," he cried. "Tell me--I can bear anything now. Tell me why she refuses any longer to allow me at her side--I who love her so devotedly." "Her decision is only a just one," I replied. "It must cause you deep grief, I know, but it is better for you to be made aware of the truth at once, for she knew that a great and poignant sorrow must fall upon you both one day." "Why?" he asked, still puzzled and leaning in his chair towards me. "Because the woman you love--whom you know as Miss Gottorp--has never yet revealed her true identity to you." "Ah! I see!" he cried, starting to his feet. "I guess what you are going to say. She--she is already married!" "No." "Thank God for that!" he gasped. "Well, tell me." Again I paused, my eyes fixed steadily upon his. "Her true name is not Gottorp. She is Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia Olga Nicolaievna of Russia, niece of His Majesty the Emperor!" The man before me stared at me with open mouth in blank amazement. "The Grand Duchess Natalia!" he echoed. "Impossible!" "It is true," I went on. "At Eastbourne, in her school-days, she was known as Miss Gottorp--which is one of the family names of the Imperial Romanoffs--and on her return to Brighton she resumed that name. The suspicious-looking foreigners who have puzzled you by haunting her so continuously are agents of Russian police, attached to her for her personal protection; while the threats against her have emanated from the Revolutionary Party. And," I added, "you can surely now see the existence of the barrier between you--you can discern why, at last, foreseeing tragedy in her love for you, Her Highness has summoned courage and, even though it has broken her heart, has resolved to part from you in order to spare you further anxiety and pain." For some moments he did not speak. "Her family have discovered her friendship, I suppose," he murmured at last, in a low, despairing voice. "Her family have not influenced her in the least," I assured him. "She told me the truth that she could not deceive you any longer, or allow you to build up false hopes, knowing as she did that you could never become her husband." "Ah! my God! all this is cruel, Mr Trewinnard!" he burst forth, with clenched hands. "I have all along believed her to be a girl of the upper middle-class, like myself. I never dreamed of her real rank or birth which precluded her from becoming my wife! But I see it all now-- I see how--how utterly impossible it is for me to think of marriage with Her Imperial Highness. I--I--" He could not finish his sentence. He stretched out his strong hand to me, and in a broken breath murmured a word of thanks. In his kind, manly eyes I saw the bright light of unshed tears. His voice was choked by emotion as, turning upon his heel, poor fellow! he abruptly left the room, crushed beneath the heavy blow which had so suddenly fallen upon him. CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. AT WHAT COST! Colonel Paul Polivanoff, Marshal of the Imperial Court, gorgeous in his pale-blue and gold uniform of the Nijni-Novgorod Dragoons, with many decorations, tapped at the white-enamelled steel door of His Majesty's private cabinet in the Palace of Tzarskoie-Selo, and then entered, announcing in French: "Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia and M'sieur Colin Trewinnard." Nine days had passed since that parting of the lovers at Lochearnhead, and now, as we stood upon the threshold of the bomb-proof chamber, I knew that our visit there in company was to be a momentous event in the history of modern Russia. As we entered, the Emperor, who had been busy with the pile of State documents upon his table, rose, settled the hang of his sword--for he was in a dark green military uniform, with the double-headed eagle of Saint Andrew in diamonds at his throat--and turned to meet us. Towards me His Majesty extended a cordial welcome, but I could plainly detect that his niece's presence caused him displeasure. "So you are back again in Russia--eh, Tattie?" he snapped in French, speaking in that language instead of Russian because of my presence. "It seems that during your absence you have been guilty of some very grave indiscretions and more than one scandalous escapade--eh?" "I am here to explain to Your Majesty," the girl said quite calmly, and looking very pale and sweet in her half-mourning. "Trewinnard has furnished me with reports," he said hastily, motioning her to a chair. "What you have to say, please say quickly, as I have much to do and am leaving for Moscow to-night. Be seated." "I am here for two reasons," she said, seating herself opposite to where he had sunk back into his big padded writing-chair, "to explain what you are pleased to term my conduct, and also to place your Majesty in possession of certain facts which have been very carefully hidden from you." "Another plot--eh?" he snapped. "There are plots everywhere just now." "A plot--yes--but not a revolutionary one," was her answer. "Leave such things to Markoff or to Hartwig. They are not women's business," he cried impatiently. "Rather explain your conduct in England. From what I hear, you have so far forgotten what is due to your rank and station as to fall in love with some commoner! Markoff made a long report about it the other day. I have it somewhere," and he glanced back upon his littered table, whereon lay piled the affairs of a great and powerful Empire. Her cheeks flushed slightly, and I saw that her white-gloved hand twitched nervously. We had travelled together from Petersburg, and upon the journey she had been silent and thoughtful, bracing herself up for an ordeal. "I care not a jot for any report of General Markoff's," she replied boldly. "Indeed, it was mainly to speak of him that I have asked for audience to-day." "To tell me something against him, I suppose, just because he has discovered your escapades in England--because he has dared to tell me the truth--eh, Tattie?" he said, with a dry laugh. "So like a woman!" "If he has told you the truth about me, then it is the first time he has ever told Your Majesty the truth," she said, looking straight at the Emperor. The Sovereign glanced first at her with quick surprise and then at myself. "Her Imperial Highness has something to report to Your Majesty, something of a very grave and important nature," I ventured to remark. "Eh? Eh?" asked the big bearded man, in his quick, impetuous way. "Something grave--eh? Well, Tattie, what is it?" The girl, pale and agitated, held her breath for a few moments. Then she said: "I know, uncle, that you consider me a giddy, incorrigible flirt. Perhaps I am. But, nevertheless, I am in possession of a secret--a secret which, as it affects the welfare of the nation and of the dynasty, it is, I consider, my duty to reveal to you." "Ah! Revolutionists again!" "I beg of you to listen, uncle," she urged. "I have several more serious matters to place before you." "Very well," he replied, smiling as though humouring her. "I am listening. Only pray be brief, won't you?" "You will recollect the attempt planned to be made in the Nevski on the early morning of our arrival from the Crimea, and in connection with that plot a lady, a friend of mine and of Mr Trewinnard's, named Madame de Rosen, and her daughter Luba were arrested and sent by administrative process to Siberia?" "Certainly. Trewinnard went recently on a quixotic mission to the distressed ladies," he laughed. "But why, my dear child, refer to them further? They were conspirators, and I really have no interest in their welfare. The elder woman is, I understand, dead." "Yes," the Grand Duchess cried fiercely; "killed by exposure, at the orders of General Serge Markoff." "Oh!" he exclaimed, "then you have come here to denounce poor Markoff as an assassin--eh? This is really most interesting." "What I have to relate to Your Majesty will, I believe, be found of considerable interest," she said, now quite calm and determined. "True, I have charged Serge Markoff with the illegal arrest and the subsequent death of an innocent woman. It is for me now to prove it." "Certainly," said His Imperial Majesty, settling himself in his big chair, and placing the tips of his strong white fingers together in an attitude of listening. "Then I wish to reveal to you a few facts concerning this man who wields such wide and autocratic power in our Russia--this man who is the real oppressor of our nation, and who is so cleverly misleading and terrorising its ruler." "Tattie! What are you saying?" "You will learn when I have finished," she said. "I am only a girl, I admit, but I know the truth--the scandalous truth--how you, the Emperor, are daily deceived and made a catspaw by your clever and unscrupulous Chief of Secret Police." "Speak. I am all attention," he said, his brows darkening. "I have referred to poor Marya de Rosen," said the girl, leaning her elbow upon the arm of the chair and looking straight into her uncle's face. "If the truth be told, Marya and Serge Markoff had been acquainted for a very long time. Two years after the death of her husband, Felix de Rosen, the wealthy banker of Odessa and Warsaw, Serge Markoff, in order to obtain her money, married her." "Married her!" echoed the Emperor in a loud voice. "Can you prove this?" "Yes. Three years ago, when I was living with my father in Paris, I went alone one morning to the Russian Church in the Rue Daru, where, to my utter amazement, I found a quiet marriage-service in progress. The contracting parties were none other than General Markoff and the widow, Madame de Rosen. Beyond the priest and the sacristan, I was the only person in possession of the truth. They both returned to Petersburg next day, but agreed to keep their marriage secret, as the General was cunning enough to know that marriage would probably interfere with his advancement and probably cause Your Majesty displeasure." "I had no idea of it!" he remarked, much surprised. "Marya de Rosen--or Madame Markoff, as she really was--frequently went to her husband's house, but always clandestinely and unknown to Luba, who had no suspicion of the truth," the girl went on. "According to the story told to me by Marya herself, a strange incident occurred at the General's house one evening. She had called there and been admitted, by the side entrance, by a confidential servant, and was awaiting the return of the General, who was having audience at the Winter Palace. While sitting alone, a young woman of the middle-class--probably an art-student--was ushered into the room by another servant, who believed Marya was awaiting formal audience of His Excellency. The girl was highly excited and hysterical, and finding Marya alone, at once broke out in terrible invective against the General. Marya naturally took Markoff's part, whereupon the girl began to make all sorts of charges of conspiracy, and even murder, against him--charges which Marya declared to the girl's face were lies. "Suddenly, however, the girl plunged her hand deep into the pocket of her skirt and produced three letters, which, with a mocking laugh, she urged Marya to read and then to judge His Excellency accordingly. Meanwhile, the manservant, having heard the girl's voice raised excitedly, entered and promptly ejected her, leaving the letters in Marya's hands. She opened them. They were all in Serge Markoff's own handwriting, and were addressed to a certain man named Danilo Danilovitch, once a shoemaker at Kazan, and now, in secret, the leader of the Revolutionary Party. "From the first of these Marya saw that it was quite plain that the General--the man in whom Your Majesty places such implicit faith--had actually bribed the man with five thousand roubles and a promise of police protection to assassinate Your Majesty's brother, the Grand Duke Peter Michailovitch, from whom he feared exposure, as he had been shrewd enough to discover his double-dealing and the peculation of the public funds of which Markoff had been guilty while holding the office of Governor of Kazan. Six days after that letter," Her Highness added in a hard, clear voice, "my poor Uncle Peter was shot dead by an unknown hand while emerging from the Opera House in Warsaw." "Ah! I remember!" exclaimed His Majesty hoarsely, for the Grand Duke Peter was his favourite brother, and his assassination had caused him the most profound grief. "Of the other two letters--all of them having been in my possession," Her Highness went on, "one was a brief note, appointing a meeting for the following evening at a house near the Peterhof Station, in Petersburg, while the third contained a most amazing confession. In the course of it General Markoff wrote words to the following effect: `You and your chicken-hearted friends are utterly useless to me. I was present and watched you. When he entered the theatre you and your wretched friends were afraid--you failed me! You call yourself Revolutionists--you, all of you, are without the courage of a mouse! I thought better of you. When you failed so ignominiously, I waited-- waited until he came out. Where you failed, I was fortunately successful. He fell at the first shot. Arrests were, of course, necessary. Some of your cowardly friends deserve all the punishment they will get. Forty-six have been arrested to-day. Meet me to-morrow at eight p.m. at the usual rendezvous. You shall have the money all the same, though you certainly do not deserve it. Destroy this.'" "Where is that letter?" demanded His Majesty quickly. "It has unfortunately been destroyed--destroyed by its writer. Marya was aghast at these revelations of her husband's treachery and double-dealing, for while Chief of Secret Police and Your Majesty's most trusted adviser he was actually aiding and abetting the Revolutionists! She placed the letters which had so opportunely come into her possession into her pocket, and said nothing to Markoff when he returned. But from that moment she distrusted him, and saw how ingenious and cunning were his dealings with both yourself and with the leader of the Revolutionists. He, assisted by his catspaw, Danilo Danilovitch, formed desperate plots for the mere purpose of making whole sale arrests, and thus showing you how active and astute he was. Danilo Danilovitch--who, as `The One,' the leader whose actual identity is unknown by those poor deluded wretches who believe they can effect a change in Russia by means of bombs--is as cunning and crafty as his master. It was he who threw the bomb at our carriage and who killed my poor dear father. He--" "How can you prove that?" demanded the Emperor quickly. "I myself saw him throw the bomb," I said, interrupting. "The outrage was committed at Markoff's orders." "Impossible! Why do you allege this, Trewinnard? What motive could Markoff have in killing the Grand Duke Nicholas?" "The same that he had in ordering the arrest and banishment of his own wife and her daughter," was my reply. "Her Highness will make further explanation." "The motive was simply this," went on the girl, still speaking with great calmness and determination. "A few days before I left with Your Majesty on the tour of the Empire, I called upon Marya de Rosen to wish her good-bye. On that occasion she gave me the three letters in question--which had apparently been stolen from Danilovitch by the girl who had handed them to her. Marya told me that she feared lest her husband, when he knew they were in her possession, might order a domiciliary visit for the purpose of securing possession of them. Therefore she begged me, after she had shown me the contents and bound me to strictest silence, to conceal them. This I did. "While we were absent in the south nothing transpired, but Danilovitch had arranged an attempt in the Nevski on the morning of our return to Petersburg. The plot was discovered at the eleventh hour, as usual and among those arrested was Madame de Rosen and Luba. Why? Because Your Majesty's favourite, Serge Markoff, having discovered that the incriminating letters had been handed to his wife, knew that she, and probably Luba, were aware of his secret. He feared that the evidence of his crime must have passed into other hands, and dreading lest his wife should betray him, he ordered her arrest as a dangerous political. After her arrest he saw her, and, hoping for her release, she explained how she had handed the letters to me for safe-keeping, and confessed that I was aware of the shameful truth. She was not, however, released, but sent to her grave. For that same reason Markoff ordered his agent Danilovitch to throw the bomb at the carriage in which I was riding with my poor father and Mr Trewinnard." "But I really cannot give credence to all this!" exclaimed the Emperor, who had risen again and was standing near the window which looked out upon the courtyard of the palace, whence came the sound of soldiers drilling and distant bugle-calls. "Presently Your Majesty shall be given a complete proof," his niece responded. "Danilovitch has confessed. At Markoff's orders--which he was compelled to carry out, fearing that if he refused the all-powerful Chief of Secret Police would betray him to his comrades as a spy--he, at imminent risk of being shot by the sentries, visited our palace on four occasions, and succeeded at last, after long searches, in discovering the letters where I had hidden them for safety in my old nursery, and, securing them, he handed them back to his master." "Then this Danilovitch is a Revolutionist paid by Markoff to perform his dirty work--eh?" asked the Emperor angrily. "He is paid, and paid well, to organise conspiracies against Your Majesty's person," I interrupted. "The majority of the plots of the past three years have been suggested by Markoff himself, and arranged by Danilovitch, who finds it very easy to beguile numbers of his poor deluded comrades into believing that the revolution will bring about freedom in Russia. A list of these he furnishes to Markoff before each attempt is discovered, hence the astute Chief of Secret Police is always able to put his hand upon the conspirators and to furnish a satisfactory report to Your Majesty, for which he receives commendation." "Apparently a unique arrangement," remarked the sovereign reflectively. "In order to close the lips of Madame de Rosen, he contrived that she should receive such brutal and inhuman treatment that she died of the effects of cold, hardship and exposure," I went on. "One of Markoff's agents made a desperate attempt upon myself while in Siberia, fearing that Her Highness had revealed the truth to me, and well knowing that I was aware of Danilovitch's true _metier_. The attempt fortunately failed, as did another recently formed by Danilovitch in London at Markoff's orders. Therefore--" "But this Danilovitch!" interrupted His Majesty, turning to me. "Has he actually confessed to you?" "He has, Sire," I replied. "The sole reason of my journey to Yakutsk was in order to see Marya de Rosen on Her Highness's behalf and obtain permission for her to speak and reveal to Your Majesty all that the Grand Duchess has now told you. Her Highness had promised strictest secrecy to her friend, but now that the lady is dead I have at last induced her to speak in the personal-interests of Your Majesty, as well as in the interests of the whole nation." "Yes, yes, I quite understand," said His Majesty very gravely. "By returning here, by abandoning my _incognita_, I--I have been compelled to sacrifice my love," declared the girl in a low, faltering voice, her cheeks blanched, her mouth drawn hard, and her fine eyes filled with tears. "Ah! Tattie! If what you have revealed to me be true, then the reason of Markoff's unsatisfactory reports concerning, you is quite apparent," His Majesty said, slowly folding his arms as he stood in thought, a fine commanding figure with the jewelled double eagle at his throat flashing with a thousand fires. "And so, Trewinnard," he added, turning to me, "all this is the reason why, more than once, you have given me those mysterious hints which have set me pondering." "Yes, Sire," I replied. "You have been blinded by these clever adventurers surrounding you--that circle which, headed by Serge Markoff, is always so careful to prevent you from learning the truth. The intrigue they practise is most ingenious and far-reaching, ever securing their own advancement with fat emoluments at the expense of the oppressed nation. Their basic principle is to terrorise you--to keep the bogy of revolution constantly before Your Majesty, to discover plots, and by administrative process to send hundreds, nay thousands, into exile in those far-off Arctic wastes, or fill the prisons with suspects, more than two-thirds of whom are innocent, loyal and law-abiding citizens." He turned suddenly and, pale with anger, struck his fist upon his table. "There shall be no more exile by administrative process!" he cried, and seating himself, he drew a sheet of official paper before him, and for a few moments his quill squeaked rapidly over the paper. Thus he wrote the ukase abolishing exile by administrative process--that law which the camarilla had so abused--and signed it with a flourish of his pen. The first reform in Russia--a reform which meant the yearly saving of thousands of innocent lives, the preservation of the sanctity of every home throughout the great Empire, and which guaranteed to everyone in future, suspect or known criminal or Revolutionist, a fair and open trial--had been achieved. Surely the little Grand Duchess, the madcap of the Romanoffs, had not sacrificed her great love in vain, even though while that Imperial ukase was being written she sat with bitter tears rolling slowly down her white cheeks. CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. DESCRIBES A MOMENTOUS AUDIENCE. A dead silence fell in that small, business-like room, wherein the monarch, the hardest-working man in the Empire, transacted the complicated business of the great Russian nation. Outside could be heard a sharp word of command, followed by the heavy tramp of soldiers and the roll of drums. The sentries were changing guard. Slowly--very slowly--His Majesty placed a sheet of blotting-paper over the document he had written, and then turning to the tearful girl, asked: "Will not this individual, Danilo Danilovitch, furnish me with proofs? He is a Revolutionist, yet that is no reason why I should not see him. From what you tell me, Markoff holds him in his power by constantly threatening to betray him to his comrades as a police-spy. I must see him. Where is he?" "He has accompanied us from London, Your Majesty," was my reply. "I had some difficulty in assuring him that he would obtain justice at Your Majesty's hands." "He is an assassin. He killed my brother Nicholas; yet it seems--if what you tell me be true--that Markoff compelled him to commit this crime." "Without a doubt," was my reply. "Then, Revolutionist or not, I will see him," and he touched the electric button placed in the side of his writing-table. A sentry appeared instantly, and at my suggestion His Majesty permitted me to go down the long corridor, at the end of which the dark, thin-faced man, in a rather shabby black suit, was sitting in a small ante-room, outside which stood a tall, statuesque Cossack sentry. A few words of explanation, and somewhat reluctantly Danilovitch rose and followed me into the presence of the man he was ever plotting to kill. The Emperor received him most graciously, and ordered him to be seated, saying: "My niece here and Mr Trewinnard have been speaking of you, Danilo Danilovitch, and have told me certain astounding things." The man looked up at his Sovereign, pale and frightened, and His Majesty, realising this, at once put him at his ease by adding: "I know that, in secret, you are the mysterious `One' who directs the revolutionary movement throughout the Empire, and the constant conspiracies directed against my own person. Well," he laughed, "I hope, Danilovitch, you will not find me so terrible as you have been led to expect, and, further, that when you leave here you will think a little better of the man whose duty it is to rule the Russian nation than you hitherto have done. Now," he asked, looking straight at the man, "are you prepared to speak with me openly and frankly, as I am prepared to speak to you?" "I am, Your Majesty," he said. "Then answer me a few questions," urged the Imperial autocrat. "First, tell me whether these constant conspiracies against myself--these plots for which so many hundreds are being banished to Siberia--are genuine ones formed by those who really desire to take my life?" "No, Sire," was the answer. "The last genuine plot was the one in Samara, nearly two years ago. Your Majesty escaped only by a few seconds." "When the railway line was blown up just outside the station; I remember," said the Emperor, with a grim smile. "Four of your fellow-conspirators were killed by their own explosives." "That was the last genuine plot. All the recent ones have been suggested by General Markoff, head of the Secret Police." "With your assistance?" The man nodded in the affirmative. "Then you betray your fellow-conspirators for payment--eh?" "Because I am compelled. I, alas! took a false step once, and His Excellency the General has taken advantage of it ever since. He forces me to act according to his wishes, to conspire, to betray--to murder if necessity arises--because he knows how I dread the truth becoming known to the secret revolutionary committee, and how I fully realise the terrible fate which must befall me if the actual facts were ever revealed. The Terrorists entertain no sympathy with their betrayer." "I quite understand that," remarked the Sovereign. And then, in gracious words, he closely questioned him regarding the assassination of the Grand Duke Peter outside the Opera House in Warsaw, and heard the ghastly truth of Markoff's crime from the witness's own lips. "I read the letters which I secured from the Palace of the Grand Duke Nicholas," he admitted. "They were to the same effect as Your Majesty has said. In one of them His Excellency the General confessed his crime." "You threw the bomb which killed my brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas?" "It was intended to kill Her Highness the Grand Duchess," and he indicated Natalia, "and also the Englishman, Mr Trewinnard. The General was plotting the death of both of them, fearing that they knew his secret." "And in England there was another conspiracy against them--eh?" "Yes," replied the man known as the Shoemaker of Kazan. "But Mr Trewinnard and the Chief of Criminal Police, Ivan Hartwig, discovered me, and dared me to commit the outrage on pain of betrayal to my friends. Hence I have been between two stools--compelled by Markoff and defied by Hartwig. At last, in desperation, I sent an anonymous letter to Her Highness warning her, with the fortunate result that both she and her lover--a young Englishman named Drury--disappeared, and even the Secret Police were unable to discover their whereabouts. I did so in order to gain time, for I had no motive in taking Her Highness's life, although if I refused to act I knew what the result must inevitably be." "All this astounds me," declared the Emperor. "I never dreamed that I was being thus misled, or that Markoff was acting with such cunning and unscrupulousness against the interests of the dynasty and the nation. I see the true situation. You, Danilo Danilovitch, are a Revolutionist-- not by conviction, but because of the drastic action of the Secret Police, the real rulers of Russia. Therefore, read that," and he took from his table the Imperial ukase and handed it to him. When he had read it he returned it to the Emperor's hand, and murmured: "Thank God! All Russia will praise Your Majesty for your clemency. It is the reform for which we have been craving for the past twenty years-- fair trial, and after conviction a just punishment. But we have, alas! only had arrest and prompt banishment without trial. Every man and woman in Russia has hitherto been at the mercy of any police-spy or any secret enemy." "My only wish is to give justice to the nation," declared the Sovereign, his dark, thoughtful eyes turned upon the dynamitard whose word was law to every Terrorist from Archangel to Odessa, and from Wirballen to Ekaterinburg. "And, Sire, on behalf of the Party of the People's Will I beg to thank you for granting it to us," said the man, whose keen, highly-intelligent face was now slightly flushed. "What I have heard to-day from my niece's lips, from Mr Trewinnard and from yourself, has caused the gravest thoughts to arise within me," His Majesty declared after a slight pause. "Injustice has, I see, been done on every hand, and the Secret Police has been administered by one who, it seems, is admittedly an assassin. It is now for me to remedy that-- and to do so by drastic measures." "And the whole nation will praise Your Majesty," Danilovitch replied. "I am a Revolutionist, it is true, but I have been forced--forced against my will--to formulate these false plots for the corrupt Secret Police to unearth. I declare most solemnly to Your Majesty that my position as leader of this Party and at the same time an _agent-provocateur_ has been a source of constant danger and hourly terror. In order to hide my secret, I was unfortunately compelled to commit murder--to kill the woman I loved. She discovered the truth, and would have exposed me to the vengeance which the Party never fails to mete out to its betrayers. Markoff had given me my liberty and immunity from arrest in exchange for my services to him. He held me in his power, body and soul, and, because of that, I was forced to strike down the woman I loved," he added, with a catch in his voice. "And--and--" he said, standing before the Emperor, "I crave Your Majesty's clemency. I--I crave a pardon for that act for which I have ever been truly penitent." "A pardon is granted," was the reply in a firm, deep voice. "You killed my brother Nicholas under compulsion. But on account of your open confession and the service rendered to me by these revelations, I must forgive you. I see that your actions have, all along, been controlled by Serge Markoff. Now," he added, "what more can you tell me regarding this maladministration of the police?" Danilovitch threw himself upon his knees and kissed the Emperor's hand, thanking him deeply and declaring that he would never take any further part in the revolutionary movement in the future, but exercise all his influence to crush and stamp it out. Then, when he had risen again to his feet, he addressed His Majesty, saying: "The Secret Police, as at present organised, manufacture revolutionaries. I was a loyal, law-abiding Russian before the police arrested my brother and my wife illegally, and sent them to Siberia without trial. Then I rose, like thousands of others have done, and fell into the trap which Markoff's agents so cleverly prepared. No one has been safe from arrest in Russia--" "Until to-day," the Emperor interrupted. "The ukase I have written is the law of the Empire from this hour." "Ah! God be thanked!" cried the man, placing his hands together fervently. "Probably no man can tell the many crimes and injustices for which General Markoff has been responsible. You want to know some of them--some within my own knowledge," he went on. "Well, he was responsible for the great plot in Moscow a year ago when the little Tzarevitch so narrowly escaped. Seventeen people were killed and twenty-three were injured by the six bombs which were thrown, and nearly one hundred innocent persons were sent to Schusselburg or to Siberia in consequence." "Did you formulate that plot?" the Emperor asked. "I did. Also at Markoff's orders the one at Nikolaiev where the young woman, Vera Vogel, shot the Governor-General of Kherson and two of his Cossacks. Again at Markoff's demand, I formed the plot whereby, near Tchirskaia, the bridge over the Don was blown up; fortunately just before Your Majesty's train reached it. It was I who pressed the electrical contact--I pressed it purposely a few moments too quickly, as I was determined not to be the cause of that wholesale loss of life which must have resulted had the train fallen into the river. Another attempt was the Zuroff affair, when an infernal machine charged with nitro-glycerine was not long ago actually found within the Winter Palace--placed there by an unknown hand in order to terrify Your Majesty. But I tell you the hand that placed it where it was found was that of Serge Markoff himself--the same hand which killed His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Peter in order to prevent His Highness telling Your Majesty certain ugly truths which he had accidentally discovered. And," he went on, "there were many other conspiracies of various kinds conceived for the sole purpose of keeping the Empire ever in a state of unrest and the arrest of hundreds of the innocent of both sexes. Indeed, explosives--picric acid, nitro-glycerine, melinite and cordite-- were supplied to us from a secret source. Sometimes, too, when I furnished a list of, say, ten or a dozen of those implicated in a plot, the police would arrest them with probably thirty others besides, people taken haphazard in the streets or in the houses. Whole families have been banished, men dragged from their wives, women from their husbands and children, and though innocent were consigned to those terrible oubliettes beneath the level of the lake at Schusselburg, or in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. To adequately describe all the fierce brutality, the gross injustice and the ingenious plots conceived and financed by Serge Markoff would be impossible. I only speak of those in which I, as his unwilling catspaw, have been implicated." Her Highness and myself had listened to this amazing confession without uttering a word. The Emperor, intensely interested in the man's story, put to him many questions, some concerning the demands of the Party of the People's Will, others in which he requested further details concerning Markoff's crimes against persons, and against the State. "This man in whom for years I have placed such implicit confidence has played me false!" cried the ruler presently, his face pale as he struck the table fiercely in his anger. "He has plotted with the Terrorists against me! He has been responsible for several attempts from which I have narrowly escaped with my life. Therefore he shall answer to me-- this cunning knave who is actually my brother's assassin! He shall pay the penalty of his crimes!" "All Russia knows that at Your Majesty's hands we always receive justice," the Revolutionist said. "From the Ministry, however, we never do. They are our oppressors--our murderers." "And you Revolutionists wish to kill me because of the misdeeds of my Ministers!" cried the Emperor in reproach. "If Your Majesty dismisses and punishes those who are responsible, then there will be no more Terrorism in Russia. I am a leader; I have bred and reared the serpent of the Revolution, and I myself can strangle it-- and I promise Your Majesty that as soon as General Markoff is removed from office--I will do so." CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR. THE EMPEROR'S COMMAND. Again the Emperor turned to his table and scribbled a few lines in Russian, which he handed to the man. It was an impressive moment. What he had written was the dismissal in disgrace of his favourite, the most powerful official in the Empire. "I shall receive him in audience to-night, and shall give this to him," he said. "The punishment I can afterwards consider." Then, after a pause, he added: "I have to thank you, Danilo Danilovitch, for all that you have revealed to me. Go and tell your comrades of the Revolution all that I have said and what I have done. Tell them that their Emperor will himself see that justice is accorded them--that his one object in future shall be to secure, by God's grace, the peace, prosperity and tranquillity of the Russian nation." Then the Emperor bowed as sign that the audience was at an end, and the man, unused to the etiquette of Court, bowed, turned, and wishing us farewell, walked out. "All this utterly astounds me, Trewinnard," said His Majesty, when Danilovitch had gone. He was speaking as a man, not as an Emperor. "Yet what Tattie has revealed only confirms what I suspected regarding the death of my poor brother Peter," he went on. "You recollect that I told you my suspicions--of my secret--on the day of the fourth Court ball last year. It is now quite plain. He was ruthlessly killed by the one man in my _entourage_ whom I have so foolishly believed to be my friend. Ah! How grossly one may be deceived--even though he be an Emperor!" and he sighed, drawing his strong hand wearily across his brow. After a pause he added: "I have to thank you, Trewinnard, for thus tearing the scales from my eyes. Indeed, I have to thank you for much in connection with what I have learned to-day." "No, Sire," was my reply. "Rather thank Her Imperial Highness. To her efforts all is due. She has sacrificed her great love for a most worthy man in the performance of this, her duty. Had she not resolved to return to Russia and speak openly at risk of giving you offence, she might have remained in England--or, rather, in Scotland, still preserving her _incognita_, and still retaining at her side the honest, upright young Englishman with whom she has been in love ever since her school-days at Eastbourne." "I quite realise the great sacrifice you have made, Tattie," said the Emperor, turning to her kindly, and noting how pale was her beautiful countenance and how intense her look. "By this step you have, in all probability, saved my life. Markoff and his gang of corrupt Ministers would have no doubt killed me whenever it suited their purpose to do so. But you have placed your duty to myself and to the nation before your love, therefore some adequate recompense is certainly due to you." The great man of commanding presence strode across the room from end to end, his bearded chin upon his breast, deep in thought. Suddenly he halted before her, and drawing himself up with that regal air which suited him so well, he looked straight at her, placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder as she sat, and said: "Tell me, Tattie; do you really and truly love this Englishman?" "I do, uncle," the girl faltered, her fine eyes downcast. "Of course I do. I--I cannot tell you a lie and deny it." "And--well, if Richard Drury took out letters of naturalisation as a Russian subject, and I made him a Count--and I gave you permission to marry--what then--eh?" he asked, smiling merrily as he stood over her. She sprang to her feet and grasped both his big hands. "You will!" she cried. "You really will! Uncle, tell me!" The Emperor, smiling benignly upon her--for, after all, she was his favourite niece--slowly nodded in the affirmative. Whereupon she turned to me, exclaiming: "Oh! Uncle Colin. Dear old Uncle Colin! I'm so happy--so very happy! I must telegraph to Dick at once--at once!" "No, no, little madcap," interrupted the Emperor; "not from here. The Secret Police would quickly know all about it. Send someone to the German frontier with a telegram. One of our couriers shall start to-night. Drury will receive the good news to-morrow evening, and, Tattie,"--he added, taking both her little hands again, "I have known all along, from various reports, how deeply and devotedly you love this young Englishman. Therefore, if I give my consent and make your union possible, I only hope and trust that you will both enjoy every happiness." In her wild ecstasy of delight the girl raised her sweet face to his heavy-bearded countenance, that face worn by the cares of State, and kissed him fervently, thanking him profoundly, while I on my part craved for the immediate release of poor Luba de Rosen. The Emperor at once scribbled something upon an official telegraph form, and touching a bell, the sentry carried it out. "The young lady so cruelly wronged will be free and on her way back to Petersburg within three hours," the Monarch said quietly, after the sentry had made his exit. "Oh! Uncle Colin!" cried Her Highness excitedly to me, "what a red-letter day this is for me!" "And for me also, Tattie," remarked His Majesty in his deep, clear voice. "Owing to your efforts, I have learned some amazing but bitter truths; I have at last seen the reason why my people have so cruelly misjudged me, and why they hate me. I realise how I have, alas! been blinded and misled by a corrupt and unscrupulous Ministry who have exercised their power for their own self-advancement, their methods being the stirring-up of the people, the creation of dissatisfaction, unrest, and the actual manufacture of revolutionary plots directed against my own person. I now know the truth, and I intend to act--to act with a hand as strong and as relentless as they have used against my poor, innocent, long-suffering subjects." Her Highness was all anxiety to send a telegram by courier over the frontier to Eydtkuhnen. If he left Petersburg by the night train at a quarter-past ten, he would, she reckoned, be at the frontier at six o'clock on the following evening. It was half an hour by train from Tzarskoie-Selo to Petersburg, and she was now eager to end the audience and be dismissed. But His Majesty seemed in no hurry. He asked us both many questions concerning Markoff, and what we knew regarding his dealings with the bomb-throwers. Natalia explained what had occurred in Brighton, and how she had been constantly watched by Danilovitch, while I described the visit of Hartwig and myself to that dingy house in Lower Clapton. That sinister, unscrupulous chief of Secret Police had been directly responsible for the death of Natalia's father; and Her Highness was bitter in her invectives against him. "Leave him to me," said the Emperor, frowning darkly. "He is an assassin, and he shall be punished as such." Then, ringing his bell again, he ordered the next Imperial courier in waiting to be summoned, for at whatever palace His Majesty might be there were always half a dozen couriers ready at a moment's notice to go to the furthermost end of the Empire. "I know, Tattie, you are anxious to send your message. Write it at my table, and it shall be sent from the first German station. Here, in Russia, the Secret Police are furnished with copies of all messages sent abroad or received. We do not want your secret disclosed just yet!" he laughed. So the girl seated herself in the Emperor's chair, and after one or two attempts composed a telegram containing the good news, which she addressed to Richard Drury at his flat in Albemarle Street. Presently the courier, a big, bearded man of gigantic stature, in drab uniform, was ushered into the Imperial presence, and saluted. To him, His Majesty gave the message, and ordered him to take it by the next train to Eydtkuhnen. Whereupon the man again saluted, backed out of the door, and started upon his errand. What, I wondered, would Dick Drury think when he received her reassuring message? Natalia's face beamed with supreme happiness, while the Emperor himself for the moment forgot his enemies in the pleasure which his niece's delight gave to him. Again His Majesty, with darkening brow, referred to the brutal murder of his favourite brother, the Grand Duke Peter, saying: "You will recollect, Trewinnard, the curious conviction which one day so suddenly came upon me. I revealed it to you in strictest secrecy--the ghastly truth which seemed to have been forced upon me by some invisible agency. It was my secret, and the idea has haunted me ever since. And yet here to-day my suspicion that poor Peter was killed by some person who feared what secret he might reveal stands confirmed; and yet," he cried, "how many times have I, in my ignorance, taken the hand of my brother's murderer!" Colonel Polivanoff, the Imperial Marshal; my old friend, Captain Stoyanovitch, equerry-in-waiting, both craved audience, one after the other, for they bore messages for His Majesty. Therefore they were received without ceremony and impatiently dismissed. The subject the Sovereign was discussing with us was of far more importance than reports from the great military camps at Yilna and at Smolensk, where manoeuvres were taking place. The Emperor turned to his private telephone and was speaking with Trepoff, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Petersburg, when the Marshal Polivanoff again entered, saying: "His Excellency General Markoff petitions audience of Your Majesty." Natalia and I exchanged quick glances, and both of us rose. For a second the Emperor hesitated. Then, turning to us, he commanded us to remain. "I will see him at once," he said very calmly, his face a trifle paler. Next moment the man whose dismissal in disgrace was already lying upon the Emperor's desk stood upon the threshold and bowed himself into the Imperial presence. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. "FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT." That moment was indeed a breathless one. The Emperor's countenance was grey with anger. Yet he remained quite calm and firm. He was about to deal with an enemy more bitter and more dangerous than the most relentless firebrand of the whole Revolutionary Party. "I was not aware that Your Majesty was engaged with Her Imperial Highness," the sinister-faced official began. "I have a confidential report to make--a matter of great urgency." "Well, I hope it is not another plot," remarked the Sovereign with bitter, weary sarcasm. "But whatever report you wish to make, Markoff, may be made here--before my niece and Mr Trewinnard." He glanced at us suspiciously and then said: "This afternoon the Moscow police have unearthed a most desperate plot to wreck Your Majesty's train early to-morrow morning at Chimki. I furnished them with information, and twenty-eight arrests have been made." "Indeed," remarked his Imperial Master, raising his eyebrows, quite unmoved. "Have you the list of names?" In answer, the General produced a yellow official paper, which he placed upon His Majesty's table. Then, with but a casual glance, the Emperor took up his quill and scribbled some words across the sheet and handed it back. Markoff glanced at the words written, then, much puzzled, looked at His Majesty. "Yes," the latter said. "I order their immediate release. And, let me tell you, Serge Markoff, that this afternoon I have given audience to a very intimate friend of yours; your _agent-provocateur_, Danilo Danilovitch!" The General's countenance went white as paper. Such a reception was entirely unexpected. "Ah!" exclaimed His Majesty, with a bitter smile, "I see what surprise and apprehension my talk with Danilovitch causes you. Well, I will not give utterance to the loathing I feel towards you--the man in whose hands I have placed such supreme power, and whom I have so implicitly trusted. Suffice it to say that he has revealed to me the ingenious manner in which plots have been formed in order to terrorise me, and your inhuman method of sending hundreds of innocent ones into exile, merely in order to obtain my favour." "I have never done such a thing!" cried the man in uniform, standing at attention as his master spoke. "The fellow lies." "Enough," said the Emperor, in a loud, commanding voice. "Hear me! You are an assassin. You killed my brother the Grand Duke Peter with your own dastardly hand in order to hide your disgraceful tactics. You sent your own wife to her grave, and you paid your catspaw to kill the Grand Duke Nicholas. To-day there is a plot afoot to close the lips of my niece and my good friend Trewinnard! These are only a few of your disgraceful crimes. No; do not attempt to deny them, brute and liar that you are. Rather reflect upon the terrible fate of the thousands of poor wretches who have been sent to the Arctic settlements by your relentless, inhuman hand. The souls of all those who have been worn out by the journey and died like dogs upon the Great Post Road, or in other ways have fallen innocent victims of your plots, call loudly for vengeance. And I tell you, Serge Markoff," he said, his dark, heavy brows narrowing in fierce anger, "I tell you that I shall find means by which adequate punishment will be awarded to you. Here is your dismissal!" he added, taking the document from his table. "It will be gazetted to-morrow. Go back to Petersburg at once and there remain. Do not attempt to leave Russia, or even to leave Petersburg, or you will at once be placed under arrest and sent to the fortress. Go home, place your affairs in order, and await until I send for you again." The Emperor had not yet decided what form his punishment should take. "But--but surely Your Imperial Majesty will allow me to--" he gasped with difficulty. "I will allow you nothing--nothing! You are my enemy, Serge Markoff--a crafty, cunning enemy, who now stands revealed as a brutal assassin! Ah! I shall avenge my brother Peter's death--depend upon it! Go! Get from my presence!" he commanded, and raising his hand, he pointed with his finger imperiously to the door. I had never before seen such a look upon His Majesty's strong face. And the man whose evil actions had spread terror into every corner and every home throughout the Russian Empire, thus receiving his sudden _conge_, slowly crossed the room, his head bowed, his face ashen. He was unable to speak or to protest. For a second he stood still, then, opening the door, he passed out in silence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Extract from the second edition of _The Times_ issued on the following day: "From Our Own Correspondent. "St Petersburg, May 16th. "A startling tragedy occurred just after seven o'clock last evening in front of the barracks in the Zagarodny Prospect in St Petersburg, just outside the Tzarskoie-Selo Station. According to the journal _Novosti_, His Excellency General Serge Markoff, Chief of Secret Police, and one of the Emperor's most trusted officials, who had been to Tzarskoie-Selo for audience with His Majesty, had arrived at the station unexpectedly on his return to Petersburg, and his carriage not being there, he resolved to walk down into the city. He had turned out of the station, when he was followed by an unknown man, who had, it seems, arrived by the same train. In front of the barracks the pair apparently recognised each other, and, according to a bystander, His Excellency drew a revolver and fired point-blank at the stranger, who next instant drew his own weapon and shot the General dead. "All took place in the space of a few seconds, so suddenly, indeed, that the stranger, who certainly fired in self-protection, was able to get clear away before any of the passers-by could stop him. The General's body was removed by the military ambulance to his residence facing the Summer Gardens, and the strange affair created the greatest sensation throughout the city. "It is believed that the man so suddenly recognised by His Excellency must have been a prominent Terrorist from whom the General feared assassination; but it is proved by an onlooker--a butcher who was walking only a few feet from them--that His Excellency, who appeared seized by sudden anger, fired the first shot. "The police are making every inquiry, and it is believed that the assassin of the well-known official will be arrested. "Another curious feature in connection with the strange affair is that the same journal in another column publishes in the `Official Gazette' the announcement that His Majesty the Emperor only two hours before the tragic occurrence dismissed his favourite official in disgrace. No reason is given, but it is rumoured in the diplomatic circle that certain grave administrative scandals have been discovered, and this dismissal is the first of several which are to follow. In fact, in certain usually well-informed quarters it is persistently declared that the whole Cabinet will be dismissed. "The Emperor left with the Tzarina for Moscow last evening. The Grand Duchess Natalia accompanied them, and Mr Colin Trewinnard, of the British Embassy, travelled by the same train." CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. DESCRIBES TO-DAY. Three months later. It was hot August in Russia--the month of drought and dust. Luba de Rosen had returned to her mother's house in Petersburg, where her property and her dead mother's handsome income, which had been confiscated by the State, had been returned to her. Several times both Her Highness and myself had visited her, while one afternoon she had been received in private audience at Gatchina by the Emperor, who had sympathised with her and promised to make amends in every way for the injustice she had suffered. The camarilla who had so long ruled Russia, placing the onus of their oppression upon the Emperor, had, thanks to Natalia, been broken up, and a new and honest Cabinet established in its place. Danilo Danilovitch, on the day following Markoff's assassination, had telegraphed openly from Germany to His Majesty, announcing that he had rid Russia of her worst enemy. And probably that message did not cause the Emperor much displeasure. It was the carrying out of the old Biblical law of an eye for an eye. And as the catspaw was beyond the frontier, and the crime a political one, its perpetrator was immune from arrest. Five weeks later, however, the Supreme Council of the People's Will, held in an upstairs room in Greek Street, Soho, and presided over by Danilovitch in person, heard from him a long and complete statement, in which he described his audience at Tzarskoie-Selo, and delivered the message sent by the Emperor to the Revolutionists. Unanimously it was then decided to put an end to all militant measures, now that the Emperor knew the truth, and to trust the assurances given from the throne. A loyal reply was drafted to His Majesty's message, and this was duly despatched by a confidential messenger to Russia and placed in the Emperor's own hands--a declaration of loyalty which gave him the greatest gratification. Diplomatic Europe, in ignorance of what was actually in progress, was surprised at the sudden turn of events in Russia, and on account of the unexpected dismissal of Ministers and the establishment of the Duma, felt that open revolution was imminent. From the official busybodies at the various Embassies the truth was carefully concealed. It was, of course, known that General Markoff had all along been the worst enemy of Russia, and in consequence the Revolutionary Party made open rejoicing at the news of his death. Yet the actual facts were ingeniously suppressed, both from the diplomatic corps and from the correspondents of the foreign newspapers. The entire change in the Emperor's policy and the granting of many much-needed reforms were regarded abroad as the natural reaction after the drastic autocracy. But nobody dreamed of the truth, how the Emperor, after all a humane man and a benign ruler, had at last learned the bitter truth, and had instantly acted for the welfare and safety of his beloved people. Many of the London journals published leading articles upon what they termed "the new era in Russia," attributing it to all causes except the right one, the popular opinion being that His Majesty had at last been terrorised into granting justice and a proper representation to the people. Exile of political prisoners to Siberia had been suddenly abolished by Imperial ukase, together with the major powers vested in the Secret Police. The safety and sanctity of the home was guaranteed, and no person could in future be consigned to a dungeon or exiled without fair and open trial. All this, it was said, was a triumph of the Revolution. Journalists believed that the Emperor had been forced to accord the people their demand. Little, indeed, did the world dream the actual truth, the secret of which was so well kept that only the British Foreign Minister at Downing Street was aware of it, for by the Emperor's express permission I was able to sit one day in that sombre private room in the Foreign Office and there in confidence relate the strange events, the shadows of a throne, which I have endeavoured to set down in the foregoing pages. Since the day of the dismissal of Serge Markoff with five members of the Cabinet, and the breaking up of that disgraceful camarilla which had surrounded the Sovereign, suppressing the truth, preventing reforms, and ruling Holy Russia with a hand of iron, the nation had indeed entered upon an era of financial and social progress. Russia has become a nation of enlightenment, prosperity and industry, even, perhaps, against the will of her upper classes. I was present on that August day in the handsome private church attached to the great Palace of Peterhof, and there witnessed the marriage of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia to Richard Drury, Count of Ozerna, who had become a naturalised Russian subject and been ennobled by the Emperor. It was a brilliant function, for all the Ministers, foreign Ambassadors and the whole Imperial Court, including the Emperor and Empress, were present. The Court now being out of mourning for the Grand Duke Nicholas, the display of smart gowns, uniforms and decorations was more striking than even at a State ball at the Winter Palace. Standing beside Captain Stoyanovitch, I was near Natalia, the incorrigible little madcap of the Romanoffs, when with her husband she knelt before the altar while the priest, in his gorgeous robes, bestowed upon them his blessing. And when they rose and passed out, their handsome faces reflected the supreme joy of the triumph of their mutual love. Some years have now passed. His Imperial Majesty, alas! lies in his great sarcophagus in Moscow, and the Tzarevitch reigns in his stead. But in Russia the Revolutionary movement is no longer a militant one, for the people know well that their ruler's aims and aspirations are those of his father, and patiently await the reforms which, though perhaps slow in progress, nevertheless do from time to time become law and bestow the greatest benefits upon the many millions of souls from the German frontier to the Sea of Japan. Ivan Hartwig, the Anglo-Russian, still lives on the outskirts of Petersburg as Otto Schenk, and is still head of the Russian Surete, and from him I only recently heard that Danilo Danilovitch had been discovered in Chicago, leading the life of a highly-respected citizen. He had changed his name into Daniels, and was the proprietor of one of the largest boot factories in that progressive city. Miss West has been pensioned and remains in Brighton, but Davey, the English maid, is still in the Grand Duchess's service. As for myself--well, I am still a diplomat, and still a bachelor. After service as Councillor of Embassy in Berlin, Washington and Paris, I was appointed by the late King Edward his _Envoy extraordinaire et Ministre plenipotentiaire_ to a certain brilliant Court in the South of Europe, where I still reside in the great white Embassy as chief of a large and brilliant staff. Sometimes when I go on leave, I manage to snatch a week or two with Count Drury and his pretty wife, at the Grand Ducal Palace in Petersburg, where they live together in perfect idyllic happiness, and where splendid receptions are given during the winter season. More than once, too, I have been guest at their great Castle of Ozerna, a gloomy mediaeval fortress, near Orel in Central Russia, to enjoy the excellent boar-hunting in the huge forests surrounding. And often as I have sat at their table, waited on by the gorgeous flunkeys in the blue-and-gold Grand Ducal livery, headed by old Igor, I have looked into Natalia's pretty face and reflected how Little the Russian people ever dream that for the liberty which has recently come to them they are indebted solely to a woman--to the girl who was once declared to be an incorrigible flirt, and who had scandalised the Imperial family--the little Grand Duchess, who, at the sacrifice of her own great love, boldly exposed and denounced that unscrupulous and powerful official, Markoff, the one-time Chief of Secret Police, the man who had sacrificed so many innocent lives as the Price of Power. The End. 9749 ---- Distributed Proofreaders THE HIGHWAYMAN BY H. C. BAILEY CONTENTS I. THE COMPLETE HERO II. THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON III. A MAN OF MANY WORLDS IV. A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE V. THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE VI. HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL VII. GENEROSITY OF A FATHER VIII. MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS IX. ANGER OF AN UNCLE X. YOUNG BLOOD XI. ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON XII. IN HASTE XIII. DISTRESS OF A MOTHER XIV. SPECTATORS OF PARADISE XV. MRS. BOYCE XVI. THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE XVII. RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON XVIII. HARRY IS DISMISSED XIX. ALISON FINDS FRIENDS XX. RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN XXI. CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER XXII. TWO'S COMPANY XXIII. THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON XXIV. QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD XXV. SAUVE QUI PEUT XXVI. REVELATIONS XXVII. VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD XXVIII. IN THE TAP XXIX. ALISON KNEELS XXX. EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON XXXI. CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE XXXII. PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN XXXIII. REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE XXXIV. HARRY WAKES UP CHAPTER I THE COMPLETE HERO Harry Boyce addressed Queen Anne in glittering verse. She was not present. She had, however, no cause to regret that, for he was tramping the Great North Road at four miles by the hour--a pace far beyond the capacity of Her Majesty's legs; and his verses were Latin--a language not within the capacity of Her Majesty's mind. Her absence gave him no grief. In all his twenty-four years he could not remember being grieved by anyone's absence. His general content was never diminished at finding himself alone. He chose the Queen as the subject of his verses merely because he did not admire her. She appeared to him then, as to later generations, a woman ineffectual and without interest; a dull woman physically, mentally, and perhaps morally; just the woman upon whom it would be hardest to make an encomium of any splendour. So he was heartily ingenious over his alcaics, and relished them. From this you may divine much that you have to know about the soul of Harry Boyce. It was more given to mockery than enthusiasms, apter to criticisms than devotion, not very gentle nor very kind, and so quite satisfied with itself and by itself. To be sure, it was yet only twenty-four. You discover also other things less fundamental. He was something of a scholar, as scholarship was reckoned in those placid days. He had even some Greek--more than Mr. Pope and quite as much as Mr. Addison. His Latin verses would have brought him a fellowship at Merton if he had been willing to take Holy Orders, "I may take them indeed; but how believe they have been given me?" quoth he to the Warden with a tilt of one eyebrow. Whereat the Warden, aghast, wrote him off as a youth unreasonable, impracticable, and impish. Many others had the same opinion of Harry Boyce before the world was done with him. Few of them saw in his antics the uncertain spasms of too tender a conscience. But you must judge. Of course he was poor. He could only boast a bob wig, a base thing, which, for all the show it made, might have been a man's own hair. He wore no sword. His hat lacked feather and lace. His coat and breeches were but black drugget, shiny at each corner of him and rusty everywhere. His stockings were worsted, and darned even on his excellent calves. His shoes had strings where buckles should have been, and mere black heels--and low heels at that. As you know, he could walk at a round pace with them--a preposterous, vulgar thing. There was nothing in him to give this poverty a romantical air. To be sure, he had admirable legs, but the rest was neither good nor bad. He was of the middle size and a wholesome complexion. You would look at him long and see nothing rare enough to be worth looking at. If you looked longer yet you might begin to be surprised: his so ordinary face was extraordinary in its lack of expression. The man who owned it must be either very dull of heart and mind, or self-contained and of self-control beyond the common. But whatever the heart might be, no one ever took the eyes for the eyes of a fool. They were keen, alert, perpetually on guard. There is a letter extant--it was indeed a dear friend who wrote it--which mocks at Harry for his "curst stand-and-deliver stare." But it is a queer thing that most men had to know Harry Boyce a long time before they remarked that his eyes were not quite of the same colour. The common English grey-green-blue was in both of them, but one had a bluer glint than the other. The oddity, when it was discovered, seemed to make the challenge of the eyes more defiant and more baffling, as though they gleamed from the shadow of a mask. Not that anyone cared yet whether he wore a mask or his soul in that placid, ordinary face. Who should care a pinch of snuff for "a scholar just from his college broke loose" with a penny farthing in his pocket, who had to pioneer young gentlemen through their Horace and their Tully for his bed and board? When you meet him, Harry Boyce was happy in having caught for his pupil a young fellow who had not merely money but brains, and so sublime a condescension that Harry was not sent away from table with the parson when the puddings came. Mr. Geoffrey Waverton was pleased to have a value for him, and defended him from his natural duty of being gentleman usher to Lady Waverton. So, Mr. Waverton having taken horse, Harry was free to go walking. It was late in a wet autumn, and all the clay of Middlesex slippery as butter and, withal, affectionate as warm glue. Harry kept to the highway. Though its miles of mud and water were, on the surface, even worse than the too green meadows or the gleaming brown furrows of plough land, a careful man could count upon its letting him go no further than knee deep. When he came to Whetstone, Harry's feet were brown, shapeless, weighty masses, but he had not lost either shoe, and he was still in hopes of reaching Barnet and a pint of small beer before it was time to struggle back. At the worst a dry throat and wet legs were a cheap price for escaping the voice of Lady Waverton, who, in the afternoons, read the romances of Mlle. de Scudéry aloud. He could see the tufts of smoke above Barnet and its church on the hill-top. He was winding down to the bottom of the valley from which that hill rises, when eloquence arrested him. He may at other times have heard profanity as copious, but never profanity so vehement or at such speed. The orator was a woman. Harry stood to listen with critical admiration. Madame mixed the ugly and the pleasant rarely; she made a charming grotesque. Her mind was very far from nice and provided her with amazing images; but she had a pretty, womanly voice, and hard though she drove it, it would not break to one ugly note. Disgusting epithets, mean threats, poured out in mellow music. Harry splashed on round the corner. He was eager to see her. In the morass at the cross-lanes by the green, a coach was stuck--a coach of splendour. It was a huge thing as big as a room, half glass, half gold and garter blue, and it swayed luxuriously on its great springs. Six horses heaved at it in vain with great splashing and squelching, and a whole company of servants, some mounted, some afoot, struggled with them. The profane woman had half her body and two gesticulating arms out of the coach window. She was plainly neither a drab nor in liquor. Harry halted out of range of the splashes to examine and enjoy her. She had been comely, and still could hold a man's eye with her curves of neck and bosom. The piquant features must have been adorable before they sharpened and her cheeks faded and the lines came. Her abundant hair must once have been gold, and was not yet altogether grey. "You filthy slug," said she. "Samuel! Stand to it, I say. Damme, I'll have a whip about that loose belly of yours! Now pull, you swine, pull. Odso, flog the black horse. You, devil broil your bones, lay on to him. What now? Od rot you, Antony, you'll see no money this month, you--" She became unprintable. As she took breath again, she saw Harry Boyce calmly contemplative. "You dog, who bade you stand and gape? Go, give a hand there, I say." Harry touched his hat. "By your leave, ma'am, I am too busy admiring you." "William, put that rogue into the ditch," said she. All this while a man in the coach had been writing, calmly intent upon his tablets as though there was not a sound or a rage within a mile. He now stood up, and, while his lady was still execrating through one door of the coach, he opened the other and came out. Two of the servants, obedient to the lady's oaths, were approaching Harry, who waited them with calm and a swinging stick. The man waved his hand at them and they turned tail. But he had no further interest in Harry. He stood to watch the struggles of his horses and his men. He was of some height, and, though past middle age, bore himself with singular grace and vigour. He had still a rarely handsome face--too handsome, by far, for Harry's taste. The features were of an impossible, absurd perfection. There was something superhuman or fatuous, at least something vastly irritating, in his assured calm, his air of blandly confident supremacy. He walked on to the leaders and, with a gesture and a word, set the whole team pulling at an angle. Meanwhile the lady had earnestly continued her abusive orders, but none of the servants now professed to heed her. Dragging the horses on, or labouring hand and shoulder at the wheels, they were now effective, and they watched the man's eye as though it were an inspiration. Wondering why he did, Harry, too, put his weight on a wheel. The horses found a footing in the mire, the coach was dragged on to the higher, firmer ground beyond. My lady subsided. The man came back to the coach and touched his hat to Harry. "I'm obliged for your help, sir," he said, and climbed in. They drove away towards London. As the servants swung to their saddles, "Who's your obscene lady?" said Harry. "What, don't you know him, bumpkin?" "She will never be him. Her shape is all provocative she." This humble wit was not remarked. His ignorance occupied them, "Oh Lud, not to know the Old Corporal!" One of Harry's eyebrows went up. "That the Old Corporal? Faith, I am sorry for him." He received a handful of mud in his face. With a cry of "Rot your impudence," they splashed off. While he wiped the mud out of his eyes, Harry felt a very comfortable self-satisfaction. It was agreeable to pity His Grace of Marlborough. For the Duke of Marlborough was still the greatest man in Europe, the greatest man in the world--credibly the greatest man that ever lived. A pleasant fool, to marry such a wife and to keep her. Harry Boyce at no time in his life had much admiration for human eminence. In this, his hungry youth, he was set upon despising rank and power, great fame and pure virtue, as no more than the luck of fools. He would always atone by finding sympathy and excuses for any rogue's roguery. Highly fortified in this faith by the exhibition of Marlborough's matrimonial happiness, he trudged back. The delay over the coach had left him no time for small ale at Barnet. Mr. Waverton, though amiably pleased to deliver Harry from attendance on his mother, required constant attendance on himself. He would be, in his superb way, disagreeable if Harry were not in waiting when he was wanted to take a hand at ombre. Harry liked Mr. Waverton well enough, as well as he liked anybody, but found him in the part of offended majesty intolerable. So there was some hard walking back to Whetstone. On the way his temper was not sweetened by two horsemen at the gallop who gave him a shower-bath of mud. As he came through the village, behold another coach labouring up to the high road from Totteridge lane. This had but four horses, no array of outriders, no gilt splendours. It was a sober, old-fashioned thing, and it rumbled on at a sober gait. "Some city ma'am," Harry sneered at it, "much the same shape as her horses." But half an hour after he saw it again. Where the road was dark through a thicket it had come to a stand. "Oh Lud," said Harry, "here's more fair madames in the mud. They may sit on it till they hatch it for me." But he wondered a little. It was indeed nothing very strange in such an autumn to find a coach stuck upon the highway. But two for one afternoon, two so near was a generous provision. And hereabouts, where the road ran level and high, was a strange place for a coach to choose to stick. "Madame seems to be a gross girl," quoth Harry. And then he saw what made him step out. There were two men on horseback by the halted coach--two men with black upon their faces which must be masks, and that in their hands which must be pistols. "Egad, the road's joyful to-night," said Harry. "And two and one make three," and he began to run, and arrived. Of the two highwaymen one was dismounted. The other, holding his friend's horse, held also a pistol at the coachman's head, muttering lurid threats of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. Ay, hand out the jewel-box. Now, my tackle, what ha' you got aboard? What's under that pretty tucker?" He threw the jewel-case out into the mud and, leaning across one woman, reached with a fat, foul hand to the younger bosom beyond. He was prevented by a whistle and a cry, "Behind you, Ben." His companion announced the arrival of Harry. Ben came out of the coach with an oath and thrust his pistol into Harry's face. "Good e'en to you, bully. Now cut and run or I'll drill you. Via, my poppet." Harry looked along the pistol and stood fast. The highwayman was no bigger than he, and bloated. "I am studying arithmetic, Benjamin," said he. "Burn your eyes, be off with you; run while you may." Harry laughed and swung his stick at the mud. "But, I wonder, is it addition or subtraction? Is it two and one makes three, or--" "Kick the bumpkin into the ditch, Ben," the man on horseback advised. "Off with you," Benjamin thrust him back, and in the act the pistol wavered. Harry slashed with his stick at the pistol hand. A yell, an oath, and the shot came together--a shot which went into the mud and sent it spattering about them. Harry sprang away from Benjamin's rush and brought his stick down on the hindquarters of the horses. They plunged forward, and the man in the saddle, wrestling with them, let off another aimless shot. Harry dodged round them and lashed them again, and they bolted down the road. He returned to fling himself upon Benjamin, who was ramming another charge into his pistol. "It seems to be subtraction, Benjamin," said he, embracing the man fervently. "One from two leaves one," and they swayed together, and he found Benjamin's body soft. Benjamin, panting, cursed him. "Od rot you, why must you meddle, bully? What's your will, burn you? Ha' done now, and--" Benjamin went down on his back in the mud with Harry on top of him. "Ugh! What's the game, bully?" "I think you call it the high toby," said Harry delicately and began to sing to the tune of a catch: "Oh, three merry men, three merry men, three highwaymen were we. You in a quag and he on a nag and I on top of the three." "Lord love you, are you on the road?" Benjamin cried. "Why, rot you, did you want a share then? You should ha' said so, bully. Come on now, my dear, let's up. We do be gentlemen and share fair enough." "I warrant you I am having my share," Harry laughed; "and I like it very well. But oh, Benjamin, there would have been nought to share if I had not come up. No fun at all, Benjamin." He wrenched the pistol away. "'Tis I have made the business joyous. You are a dull fellow by yourself." "Rot you," said Benjamin frankly. "When Ned comes back he'll shoot you like vermin." On which they both heard horses, and both, according to their abilities--Benjamin in the mud, and Harry keeping a sure hold of him--wriggled to look for them. Harry laughed. It was certainly not a returning Ned. These horses came from the other way, and there were four of them and each had a rider. "I fear your Ned will come too late, Benjamin--if, by the grace of God, he comes at all." So said Harry, chuckling, and to his amazement Benjamin also laughed. Why should Benjamin find consolation in the coming of this _posse_? It was not credible that they could be allies of his. Highwaymen did not work in gangs of half a dozen. The four horsemen, urged by the shots or by what they saw, came at a gallop and reined up almost on top of Harry and Benjamin. One of them, a little man with a lean, brown face, called out, "By your leave, sir! What's this?" "It's a rude fellow, sir," Harry said. "I fear a lewd fellow. By trade a highwayman. The highway, indeed, is his life's love, his adored mistress. Observe how he cleaves to it." He compressed Benjamin, who squelched, into the mud, and rose, standing on Benjamin's chest and stomach. Benjamin groaned, and the eyes behind his mask rolled towards the little man. "Filthy dog," that little man said with sincere disgust. "Can I serve you, sir?" he touched his hat to the women in the coach. "Why, Benjamin has a friend, one Ned. Ned hath a pistol or so and two horses which have bolted with him. But he may yet persuade them to bring back his pistols and him. Now, if you would be so good, it would be convenient in you to ride on and destroy Ned." "It's a pleasure, sir," the little man showed his teeth. "And the fat rogue there, can I help you with him? Shall we take him on to the constables?" "Oh, I thank you, but my Benjamin is docile. I'll e'en tie him up with his garters, and all will be well." The little man scowled at Benjamin. "I shall hope to be at his hanging," he said incisively. "Sir, your most obedient! Ladies!" he bobbed at them and rode off, his three companions close about him in eager talk. As they went, Benjamin let out a cry of anguish: "Captain!" The little man and his company used their spurs. Harry looked at their hurry and then down at Benjamin. "Now why did you call him that, my Benjamin?" said he. "Indeed, why did you call on him at all?" From behind the mask Benjamin's prominent eyes stared sullenly. He said nothing. Harry shook his head. "I feel that I do not know you, Benjamin. I must see more of you," With which he fell upon the man again and twitched off the mask. The wig came with it. Benjamin was revealed the owner of a big, bald, shiny head with a face which was puffed and purple. "You were right, Benjamin," said Harry sadly, "You were kind. To wear a mask was charity, nay, decency--what breeches are to other men. That obese and flaccid nose--pah, let us talk of something else." He lay upon Benjamin and tugged at his sword-belt. Benjamin writhed and groaned. His sword was caught underneath him, the hilt deep in the small of his back. Harry hauled the sword-belt off at last and gripped at Benjamin's wrists. He began to struggle again. "Do not be troublesome or I'll tap the beer on your brain. So." He hauled the belt taut about the fighting arms and made all fast. Then he sat himself on Benjamin's legs, which thus ceased to be turbulent, and, taking off the garters, therewith tied the ankles together. Sighing satisfaction, Harry picked up the pistol and sword, spoils of victory, and rose at his leisure. He contemplated the hapless highwayman with benign interest for a moment, and turned to the coach. "You are still there, ladies? Benjamin is flattered and so am I. But the play is over. He will not be amusing for some time, and at any moment he may be profane. I see him bursting with it. Pray drive on and remove your chaste ears." He restored to them the jewel-case. "Put him up on the box, sir," the younger woman cried. "I beg your pardon, madame?" "We will take him to the constables at Finchley." "But why? He is beautiful there, my Benjamin, and I doubt he was never beautiful before. And I have planted him so firmly. I think if we leave him there he may grow and blossom. Do not dig him up again yet. Imagine Benjamin in flower! A thing to dream of." "You are pleased to be witty, sir. Come, we have lost time enough. Put the rogue up, and do you mount with us." Harry became aware that this young woman had a brow of pride. It was ample and broad and, after the Greek manner, it rose almost in a line with her admirable nose. A noble head, to be sure, but alarming to a mere human man. So Harry thought, and he touched his hat and said: "Madame, your most humble. Pray what do you want with my Benjamin? Your gentle heart would never have him hanged." Her eyes made Harry feel that he was impudent, which, unhappily, amused him. "I desire the fellow should be given up to the law, sir," she said coldly. "Have you anything against it?" "Oh, ma'am, a thousand things, with which I'll not weary you. For I see that you would not understand. You are very young (as I hope). Perhaps you may soon grow older (which I pray for you). Let this suffice then. My Benjamin may deserve a hanging. Who knows? We are not God, ma'am, neither you nor I. Therefore I have no mind to be a hangman. And you--why, you are young enough to wait another occasion. And so I give you good-night. Home, coachman, home." The young woman stared at him as though he were grovelling stupidity, and then lay back on her cushions with a "You will drive on, Samuel." Harry made his bow, and then, as the coach began to move, there was a cry: "Alison! Alison! It is not right!" The older woman leaned forward, and for the first time he remarked a gentle, motherly face, much lined and worn. "Sure, sir, you will ride with us," she said, and he liked the voice. "We may carry you home." Harry smiled at her. "Nay, ma'am. I am too dirty for such fine company." "Drive on," said Mistress Alison. And the coach rolled away. Harry looked down at the wretched Benjamin, whose eyes answered with apprehension and anxiety. "What's the game?" said Benjamin hoarsely. "I say, master--what d'ye want with me?" Harry did not answer. He was finding that motherly face, that pleasant voice, curiously vivid still. This annoyed him, and he forced himself back with a jerk to the oddity of events. "A queer business, my Benjamin," he said. "Who was your captain, I wonder?" Benjamin scowled. "I know nought o' no captain." "Ah, I thought you did. But I fear you have annoyed the captain, Benjamin. Now what had you done--or what had you not done?" "It's not fair, master," Benjamin whined. "You do be making game of me, and me beat." "I am rebuked, Benjamin. Good-night." "Oons, ye won't leave me so?" Benjamin howled. "I ha' done you no harm, master. Come now, play fair. What d'ye want of me?" "Nothing, Benjamin, nothing. I like you very well. You are a beautiful mystery. Pleasant dreams." The hapless Benjamin howled after him long and loud. Thereby Harry, who had a musical ear, was spurred to his best pace. "It's a vile voice," he reflected; "like Lady Waverton's. The marmoreal Alison was right. He would be better hanged. But so also would Lady Waverton. She will acridly want to know why I am late. Well! It will be a melancholy satisfaction not to tell her. That will also annoy Geoffrey, who'll magnificently indicate that I owe him an apology. The poor Geoffrey! He is so fond of himself!" His evening was as pleasant as he had anticipated. He won two shillings from Lady Waverton at ombre, which made her angry; and lost them to Geoffrey, which made him melancholy. For Mr. Waverton loved (in small things) to be a martyr. CHAPTER II THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON Mr. Waverton had an idea in his head. That was not the least unusual. It was, unhappily, a wrong one. That was not unusual either. We must have a trifle of Latin. Mr. Waverton, studying Horace, desired to translate, _Civium ardor prava jubentium_ "the wicked ardour of the overbearing citizens." In vain Harry urged that he was outraging grammar. Mr. Waverton did not believe him, did not want to believe him--the same thing. Mr. Waverton was convinced that he had an insight into the soul of Horace which Harry's pedantic eyes could not share. He explained, as one explains to a dull child, the rare poetic beauty of the sentiment which he had produced. The hero whom Horace was celebrating, you know, was the man superior to the common herd. Now common men (as even Harry might be aware) are all overbearing. It is this quality in the vulgar which most distresses fine souls (like Mr. Waverton) who desire nothing but their just rights. "I dare say it is," Harry yawned. "If Horace had wanted to mean that, he would have said so." "I often think, Harry, you dry scholars have no sense for the thought of a poet," said Mr. Waverton elegantly, and lay back in his chair and surveyed Harry. He was a handsome lad and knew how to set it off. He had height and bulk--almost too much of that indeed, and so made light of it by a careless, lounging ease. At this time he was only twenty-two, but of a precocious maturity. He had the self-possession--as well as the full-bottomed wig--of experience and worldly wisdom, and would have liked to hear you say so. In its dark aquiline style his face was finely moulded and imposing, and already it had a massive gravity. "A mighty grand fellow indeed," said Lady Dorchester once, "if only his mouth had grown since he was a baby." It has to be admitted that Mr. Waverton's mouth, a small, pretty feature, was oddly assorted with the haughty manner in which the rest of him was constructed. The ladies who lamented that were, for the most part, consoled by his eyes--large, dark eyes of a liquid melancholy. But my Lord Wharton complained that they looked at him like a hound's. Mr. Waverton was an only son, and fatherless. He had also great possessions. From his house of Tetherdown all the fields that he could see stretching away to the Essex border were of his inheritance. His mother was no wiser than she should have been. She consisted spiritually of admiration for herself, for the family into which she had married, and the son whom she had borne. "After all," said Harry Boyce in moments of geniality, "it's wonderful the boy has come out of it so well." Mr. Waverton, thanks to vacillation of himself and his mother, doubt as to what career, what manner of education, what university, could be worthy his talents, went up to Oxford at last and (for those days) very late. After doing nothing for another year or two, he decided (which was also unusual for a gentleman of means in those days) that he had a genius in pure literature. Therefore Harry was hired to decorate him with all the elegances of Greek and Latin. The appointment was considered a great prize for a lad so awkward as Harry Boyce. It might well end in a luxurious competence--a stewardship, for example, and marriage with my lady's maid. "That is, if you play your cards well, sirrah," the Sub-Warden felt it his duty to warn Harry's difficult temper. "Oh, sir, I could never play cards," said Harry, for the Sub-Warden was a master at picquet. "I am too honest." Yet he had not fallen out with Mr. Waverton. It is probable that he was careful to keep on good terms with his bread and butter. But he had always, I believe, a kindness for Geoffrey Waverton, and bore no ill will for his parade of supremacy. Tyranny in small things, indeed, Mr. Waverton did not affect. He had a desire to be magnificent. Those who did not cross him, those who were content to be his inferiors, found him amiable enough and, on occasion, generous.... "Shall we try another line, Mr. Waverton?" said Harry wearily. "I have a mind to make an epigram," Mr. Waverton announced. "The arrogance of the vulgar, the--the uninstructed--perhaps I lack the _mot juste_, but _quand même_--the mansuetude of the loftier mind. A fine antithesis that, I think." He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out. Away down the hill the fields lay in a mellow mist, the kindly autumn sun made the copses glow golden; it was a benign scene, apt to encourage wit. Mr. Waverton lisped in numbers, but the numbers did not come. He turned to seek stimulus from Harry. "You relish the thought?" "It is a perfect subject for your style," said Harry. Mr. Waverton smiled, and turned again to the window for productive meditation. A third man came lounging in, unheard by Mr. Waverton's rapt mind. He opened his eyes at the back which Mr. Waverton turned upon Harry and the space between them. "Why, Geoffrey, have you been very stupid this morning? And has schoolmaster stood you in the corner? Well done, Mr. Boyce. I always told you, spare the rod and spoil the child. Shall I go cut a birch for you?" "I wonder you are not tired of that old jest, Charles," said Waverton with a dignity which did not permit him to turn round. "Never while it annoys you, child." "Mr. Waverton is in labour with a poem," Harry explained. "And it's indecent in me to be present at the ceremony? Well, Geoffrey, postpone the birth." He sat himself down at his ease in Geoffrey's chair. He was a compact man with only one arm. He looked ten years older than Geoffrey and was, in fact, five. The campaign in Flanders which had destroyed his right arm had set and hardened a frame and face by nature solid enough. That face was long and angular, with a heavy chin and an expression of sardonic complacency oddly increased by the jauntiness of its shabby brown wig. Waverton turned round wearily upon the unwelcome guest. "Well, Charles, what is it?" "It is nothing. My dear Geoffrey, if I had anything to do or anything to say why should I come to you?" "_Merci_, monsieur," Waverton smiled gracious indulgence. Mr. Hadley chuckled, and in French replied: "Yes, let's talk French; it embellishes our simple wit and elevates our souls above the vulgar." There is reason to believe that Waverton liked his French better in fragments than continuously. He still smiled condescension, but risked no other answer. "Come, Geoffrey, what's the news?" Mr. Hadley reverted to English. "Could you say your lessons this morning? And did you wear a new coat last night?" "You may go if you will, Harry. Mr. Hadley will be talking for some time," Waverton said. "Indeed, he may, perhaps, have something to say." Harry was used to being turned out for any reason or none. He well understood that Waverton was not fond of an audience when he was being laughed at. "If you please," he said, and made his bow to Mr. Hadley. "Why, what's the matter? I don't bite. You are too meek for this life, Mr. Boyce." He looked at Harry with some contempt in his grey eyes. "Oons, you're a man and a brother, ain't you? Sit down and be hearty. Lud, Geoffrey, why do you never have a pipe in the room?" "It's death to a clean taste, your tobacco smoking, and I value my wine." "Value it, quotha! Ay, by the spoonful. You ha' never known how to drink since they weaned you. And you, Mr. Boyce, d'ye never smoke a pipe over your Latin?" "I hope I know my place, Mr. Hadley," Harry said solemnly. Charles Hadley stared at him. "Hear the Scripture, Mr. Boyce: 'What shall it profit a man though he gain a pretty patron and lose his own soul?'" "You are very polite, sir," said Harry. "Upon my honour, Charles, this is too much," Mr. Waverton cried in noble indignation. "Mr. Boyce is my friend, and you'll be good enough to take him as yours if you come to my house." Charles Hadley was not out of countenance. He eyed them both, and his sardonic expression was more marked. "You make a pretty pair," said he. "When two men ride a horse, one must ride behind. Eh, Mr. Boyce? I wonder. Well, Geoffrey, it's a wicked world. Had you heard of that?" "The world is what you make it, I think," said Mr. Waverton with dignity. "Oons, I could sometimes believe you did make it. A simple, pompous place, Geoffrey, that is kind to you if you'll not laugh at it. And full of petty, pompous mysteries. Maybe you make the mysteries too, Geoffrey. Damme, it is so. It's perfectly in your manner," he chuckled abundantly. "Come, child, what were you doing on the highway yesterday?" Harry stared at him. "When you have finished laughing at your joke, perhaps you will make it," said Waverton. "Pray let us have it over before dinner." "My dear child, why be so touchy? Were you bitten? Well, you know, this morning one of my fellows brings in a miserable wretch he had found on the road by Black Horse Spinney. The thing was half-dead with wet and cold. He had been lying there all night--so he said, and it's the one thing I believe of him. He was found trussed as tight as a chicken in his own sword-belt and his own garters. Damme, it was a fellow of some humour had the handling of him. He had not been robbed, for there was a bag of money at his middle. He professed that he could tell nothing of who had trussed him or why he was set upon. He would have nought of law or hue and cry. Egad, empty and shivering as he was, he wanted nothing but to be let go. A perfect Christian, as you remark, Geoffrey. Now, you or I, if we had been tied up in the mud through one of these damned raw nights, would take some pains to catch the fellow who did the trussing. But my wretch was as meek as the Gospels. So here is a silly, teasing mystery. Who is the footpad that is at the pains of tying up a fellow and never looks for his purse? Odds fish, I did not know we had a gentleman of such humour in these parts. I suspect you, Geoffrey, I protest. There's a misty fatuousness about it which--" "By your leave, sir," a servant appeared, "my lady waits dinner." "Then I fear we shall pay for it," said Hadley, and stood up. "You dine with us, Charles?" Mr. Waverton was not hearty about it. "I'll give you that pleasure, child. Well, Mr. Boyce, what do you make of my mystery?" Harry had to say something. "Perhaps your friend was carrying more than guineas," he said. "What then? Papers and plots and the high political? I don't think it. If you saw him--a mere tub of beer--and a leaky tub this morning, for he had a vile cold in the head and dribbled damnably." "I give it up then. Have you let him go?" They were moving out in the corridor and Hadley did not answer. "Is he gone?" Harry said again. Hadley turned round upon him. "Why, yes. Does it signify?" "I wonder who he was," said Harry. Upon that they entered the drawing-room of Lady Waverton. It was congested and dim. The two oriel windows were so draped with curtains of pink and yellow that only a faint light as of the last of a sunset filtered through. The wide spaces were beset with screens in lacquer, odd chairs, Dutch tables, and very many cabinets,--cabinets inlaid with flowers and birds of many colours; cabinets full of shells, agates, corals, and any gaudy stone; cabinets and yet again more cabinets full of Eastern china. In the midst Lady Waverton reclined. She had been handsome in a large, bold style, and might still have been but for excessive decoration. Her dress was voluminous white satin embroidered in a big pattern of gold and set off with black. It was low at her opulent bosom, to the curves of which the eye was directed by black patches craftily fixed. There were many more patches on her face which, still only a little too full and too loose, had its colours laid on in sharp and vivid contrasts. Her black hair was erected in symmetrical waves high above her brow, and one ringlet was brought by glossy, frozen curls to caress her bosom. She held out the whitest of hands drooping from a large but still fine arm for Mr. Hadley to kiss. "You are a bad fellow, Charles Hadley," she pouted. "You make me feel old." "There's a common childish fancy, ma'am." "You never come to see me now. And when you do come, 'tis not to see me." "A thousand pardons. Mr. Boyce delayed me awhile with the beauties of his conversation." "Mr. Boyce?" she looked at Harry as if wondering that he dared exist. "Go and see why they do not bring in dinner." Having thus diminished Harry, she proceeded, without waiting for him to be gone, to criticize him. "You know, I would never have a chaplain in the house. This tutor fellow is of the same breed, Charles. They tease me, these men which are neither gentlemen nor servants. Faith, life's hard for the poor wretches. They are torn 'twixt their conceit and their poverty. They know not from minute to minute whether they will fawn or be insolent. So they do both indifferent ill." Harry, who chose not to hear, was opening the door. There came in upon him a woman--the young woman of the coach. Even as he recoiled, bowing, even as he collected his startled wits, he was aware of the singular beauty of her complexion. Its delicacy, its life, were nonpareil. The first clear process of his mind was to wonder how he had contrived not to remark that complexion when first he saw her. Lady Waverton lifted up her voice. "Alison! Dear child! And are you home at last? It's delicious in you. You seek us out first, do you not? My sweet girl!" Alison was engulfed. Conceive apple blossom in the embraces of a peony. The apple blossom emerged with a calm, "Dear Lady Waverton." "You are a sad bad thing. I writ you five letters, I think, and not one from you." "You are so much cleverer than I am. I had nothing to say." Alison's voice was sweet and low, but too sublimely calm for perfect comfort in her hearers. "So here I am to say it and make my excuses," she dropped a small curtsey, "my lady. Why, Geoffrey, I thought you had been back at Oxford!" Mr. Waverton came forward, smiling magnificence. "I am delighted to disappoint you, Alison." "Nay, never believe her, Geoffrey," Lady Waverton lifted up her voice and was arch. "I vow she counted on finding you here. Why else had she come? I know when I was a toast I wasted none of my time going to see old women," she languished affectionately at the girl. "Dear Lady Waverton,"--if it was possible, Alison's voice became calmer than ever--"how well you know me. And how cruel to expose me. If Geoffrey had his mother's wit, faith, I should never dare come here at all." "It is not my wit which you need ever fear, Alison," Geoffrey's eyes were ardent upon her. "Why, you are merciful. Or is it modest?" "I can be neither, Alison. I am a man." "My dear Geoffrey, I am sorry for all your misfortunes." She turned from him to Mr. Hadley, who was content in a corner. "Have we quarrelled?" "We never loved each other well enough." "Is that why I am always very glad to see Mr. Hadley?" "It is why he can tell Miss Lambourne that she looks divinely beautiful." "That means inhuman, sir." "Which is not my fault, ma'am." Geoffrey was visibly restive at his exclusion, "Charles never could pay a compliment without a sting in it." "That is why they are agreeable, sir," said she. "That is why they are true," said Hadley in the same breath, and they laughed together. Lady Waverton interfered imperiously. "Alison, dear, come sit by me and tell me all about yourself." "Faith, not with the gentlemen to listen," said she, and was saved by Harry and the butler, who came in together announcing dinner. Lady Waverton rose elaborately. "Give me your arm, Charles. My dear Alison--" "But who is this?" Alison said, and she stared with placid, candid interest at Harry. With equal composure Harry stared back. But there was no candour in his expressionless face. For he had become keenly aware of her beauty. It was waking in him desire and already something deeper and stronger, and he vehemently resented the disturbance. He had no wish to be troubled by any woman, and for this woman, judging her on her behaviour, he felt even a little more contempt than the store which he had for all her sex. It was cursedly impertinent in her to be such a joy to the blood. She stood there, her eyes level with his eyes, and dared to look as strong as he--slighter to be sure, but not too slight for a woman, and delectably deep bosomed. There was life and laughter in that calm Greek face, and the vivid, delicate colour of it maddened him. The great crown of black hair was just what her brow needed for its royalty. He could find no fault in the irksome wench. Even her dress, dark grey as her eyes, perfectly became her, perfectly pleased in its generous modesty. And she knew of her power too. There was a mocking confidence in every line of her. "But who is this, Lady Waverton?" she was saying again. Lady Waverton tried to draw her on. "'Tis but Geoffrey's new factotum." "My good friend, Harry Boyce, Alison," said Geoffrey with a patronly hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry made his bow. "Faith, sir, we have met before," she smiled. "No, ma'am," Harry bowed again. "I have never had an honour, which, sure, I could not forget." Her brow wrinkled. Lady Waverton swept her on, and Harry in the rear had the pleasure of hearing Lady Waverton say: "A poor, vulgar wretch, my dear. An out-at-elbows scholar which Geoffrey met at Oxford and keeps out of charity. He is too soft of heart, dear boy, and such creatures stick to him like burrs." The dinner-table was a blaze of silver, but otherwise not bountifully provided. Lady Waverton looked down it with pride. "I am of Mr. Addison's mind, my dear," she announced. "Do you remember? 'Two plain dishes with two good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends make me more pleased and vain than all your luxury.'" "Why, then, you must now be sore out of countenance," Alison protested. "For I am not good-natured and I vow Mr. Hadley is not cheerful." Mr. Hadley's face, set in contemplation of the food, shed gloom and apprehension. "But perhaps Mr. Boyce is ingenious." "I hope so," said Hadley. It was Harry's task to carve, which dispensed him from answering the girl or even looking at her. One not abundant fowl and a calf's head smoked before him. Under a heavy fire of directions from Lady Waverton he did his duty. Miss Lambourne may have suddenly grown weary of Lady Waverton's eloquence upon the daintiest bits of these unexciting foods. She may have been waiting for the moment when Harry would have no occupation to prevent him listening to her. While my lady was still explaining the superiority of her calf, as bred and born in the house of Waverton, to all other calves, just when Harry had finished his work, Miss Lambourne broke out: "Faith, I was almost forgetting my splendid story. I wonder, now, have any of you met any ventures on the North Road?" Harry began to eat. Charles Hadley ceased an anxious examination of his plate and looked at her. Lady Waverton cried out: "Dear Alison! Don't tell me you have been stopped. Too terrible! I vow I could never bear it. I should die of shame. They tell me these rogues are vilely impudent to a fine woman." Geoffrey exhibited a tender agitation. "Why, Alison, what is it? Zounds, I cannot have you go travelling alone! You must give me news when you make a journey, and I'll ride with you." "Thank you for your agonies. But the virgin in distress found her knight-errant duly provided. He rose out of the mud romantically apropos. To be sure, I think he was mad. But that is all in the part. The complete hero. Geoffrey, could you be a little mad?" "More than a little," said he with proper ardour. "Pray don't torture us, Alison. Let us hear." "It's on my mind that I am going to hear news of my funny friend," said Hadley solemnly. "Don't you think so, Mr. Boyce?" Harry, who had been eating with the humble zeal appropriate to a poor scholar, looked up for a moment: "Why, sir, I can't tell at all. If you say so, indeed--" and he went on eating. "Come, are you in it too, Mr. Hadley?" Alison cried. "In it, odds life, I am bewilderingly out of it," quoth Hadley, and again told his tale of the mysterious man found tied up in the mud who knew nothing of his assailants and wanted no vengeance on them. "That's our Benjamin," Alison laughed. "Oh, but you did not let him go?" "Not let him go, quotha! For what I know, he was a poor, suffering martyr, though to look at his nose, I doubt it. And yet he was fool enough. Nay, how could I stay him?" "Why, send him to gaol for a rogue and a vagabond. Should he not?" she invited the suffrages of the table. "Dear Alison, to be sure, yes," Lady Waverton murmured. "These fellows must be put down." "You owed it to yourself to look deeper into the matter, Charles," said Geoffrey gravely. "Come, Mr. Boyce, your sentence too," Alison cried, wicked eyes intent upon him. He met them with bland meekness. "Indeed, ma'am, I can't tell. It's Mr. Hadley's affair." "From a virtuous woman, good Lord deliver us," Hadley groaned. "You would make a rare hanging judge, Alison. Now, i' God's name, let's have your tale. What's the rogue to you?" "Oh, sir, a great joy. Why, he gave me the only knight-errant ever I had. A vile muddy one, to be sure, but poor maids must not be choosers. We were driving home, Mrs. Weston and I, and by Black Horse Spinney we were stopped by two highwaymen. They had just begun to be rude, when out of the mud comes my knight-errant, bold as Don Quixote and as shabby withal, and with a pretty wit too--which is not much in the way of knight-errants, I think. He scared the highwaymen's horses and set them bolting with the one fellow which held them, then he knocked the other down, took his pistol, and tied the rogue up in his own garters. Oh, the neatest knight-errant ever you saw. Then we bade him put the fellow on the box and drive on with us. But monsieur was haughty, if you please. He wanted none of our company. Off he packed us, for me to cry my eyes out for love of him. Which I do heartily, I warrant you." "Alison!" Geoffrey cried, and laid his hand on hers. "Faith, yes, give me sympathy. I have loved and lost--in the mud. To be sure, I can ne'er be my own woman again till I find him and give him--a brush, I think, and maybe a pair of breeches too, for his own can never recover their youth. Dear Geoffrey, help me to find him." Geoffrey had taken his hand away in a hurry. He contemplated her with cold reproof. It did not trouble her. She was giving all her attention to Harry; gay, malicious eyes challenged him to declare himself, mocked him for his modesty, vaunted what she had to give. "Damme, this is madder and madder yet," Hadley broke in. "Who is your Orlando Furioso that's a champion of dames and too haughty to ride in their carriage; that ties up highwaymen and forgets to tell the constable where he left 'em? Odso, I thought I knew most of the fools in these parts, but there's one bigger than I know." "Dear Alison--I could never have survived it--but you are so strong--and what a person! My dear, I could not bear to think of him. A rude, low fellow, to be sure," Thus Lady Waverton coherently. Alison laughed. "I doubt I'm not so delicate," Then she leaned towards Harry. "Well, and you? Come, Mr. Boyce, why leave yourself out?" "I beg pardon, ma'am?" She made an impatient sound. "And what do you think of my hero?" "I wonder who the gentleman was, ma'am," Harry said. Her eyes fought a moment more with his bland, meaningless face. "Faith, I think he's a fool for his pains," said she. "Grateful woman," Hadley grunted. "Humph. _Spretae injuria formae_, ain't it, Mr. Boyce? Give miss a construe." Harry gave a deprecating cough instead. "Oh, be brave, sir," she jeered. "I am afraid it means 'the insult of slighting your beauty,' ma'am," said Harry meekly. Lady Waverton straightened her back and looked ice at him. But the butler was at her elbow, whispering. "Colonel Boyce?" she repeated. "What Colonel Boyce? Who is Colonel Boyce? "It might be my father," Harry suggested. "Why, Harry, I never knew you had a father," Waverton sneered amiably. "Is your father a colonel?" Lady Waverton was torn between incredulity of such presumption and rage at it. "Not that I know of, my lady. But he has always surprised me." "Shall we have him in, Geoffrey?" said Lady Waverton. "My dear mother!" Geoffrey waved his hand to the butler. "Ask the gentleman to be so good as to join us." Mr. Hadley turned in his chair, and over the remnants of the fowl and the calf's head directed a grim smile at Harry. "Thank you for a very pleasant dinner," said he. CHAPTER III A MAN OF MANY WORLDS There came in a man of many colours. Dazzled eyes, recovering from their first dismay, might admit that his splendours were harmonious. A red coat with gold buttons, a waistcoat of gold satin embroidered in blue, breeches of blue velvet with golden garters were topped by a face burnt brown and a great jet-black periwig. He carried off all this with airy ease. "My lady, your most humble and devoted," he bowed to Lady Waverton. "Harry, dear lad," he held out his hands, and Harry, rising, found himself embraced and kissed on both cheeks. "Colonel Boyce is it?" said Lady Waverton with some emphasis on the title. "In the service of your ladyship," he laughed, and bowed to her again, and turned upon the company. "Pray present me, dear lady." She made some stumbling about it, but Colonel Boyce appeared to enjoy himself with an "I account myself fortunate, ma'am," for Miss Lambourne; with a "My boy's friends are mine, sir--and his debts too," for Geoffrey; and to Mr. Hadley, "You have served, sir?" with a look of respect at the empty sleeve. Hadley nodded. "Ay, ay. The red field of honour. Well, there's no life like it." "That's why I left it," Hadley grunted. "Come, sir, draw up a chair and join us," Geoffrey said. "Be sure you are very welcome." "Ten thousand thanks." Without enthusiasm Colonel Boyce looked at the calf's head. "But--egad, I am sorry for it now--but I have dined." "At least you'll drink a glass of wine with us?" "Oh, I can't deny myself the pleasure, sir." He drew up a chair, Geoffrey reached at a decanter, and so Lady Waverton rose and Alison after her. Colonel Boyce started up. "But no--not at that price. Damme, that would poison the Prince's own Tokay. Nay, you are too cruel, my lady. I come, and you desolate the table to receive me. Gad's life, ma'am, our friends here will be calling me out for my daring to exist." Lady Waverton was very well pleased. "Sir, you will let me give you a dish of tea. I warrant the men were already sighing to be rid of us." "Then I vow they be blind," quoth Colonel Boyce, and opened the door, from which he came back with a laugh to his glass of port. Over drinking it he went through all the tricks of the connoisseur and ended with a cultured ecstasy. "I see you are a man of the world, Colonel," Hadley sneered. "A man of many worlds, sir," the Colonel laughed easily. "I wonder which this is?" "Why, this is the world of good company and good fellowship--" he smiled and bowed to Geoffrey--"of sound wine and sound learning." "Sir, you are very good. But I hope my wine is better than my scholarship. This is our man of learning," he slapped Harry on the shoulder. "And Harry counts me a mere trifler, a literary exquisite, an amateur of elegances." "If your scholarship has the elegance of your wine, Mr. Waverton, you do very well. I doubt my Harry is no judge of the graces. He has always been something of a plodder." "Have I?" Harry found his tongue. "How did you know?" The Colonel laughed. "He has me there, the rogue. The truth is, gentlemen, I have not seen him in these six years. Damme, Harry, you are grown no fatter." "Servitors don't make flesh," said Harry. "And soldiers don't make money. Still; there's enough for two now, boy." "I am glad you have been fortunate," the tone suggested that though the father had quite enough for two; there would be none to spare for the son. "Why, sir," Waverton was grandly genial, "I hope you don't mean to rob me of Harry. He's the most useful fellow, and, I promise you; I value him." "Thank you very much," said Harry. "I'll take you into my confidence, Mr. Waverton," the Colonel leaned across the table. "Then I'll take my leave," said Hadley. "No need, sir. At this time, we all know, there are higher claims on a man than a friend's or a father's." "I feel like a pawn," Harry complained. "Egad, sir, a pawn may save a queen or check a king." "But do you suppose it enjoys it?" "Are you away to the war, sir?" Geoffrey smiled. "I doubt our Harry has no turn for soldiering." "You are always right, Mr. Waverton," Harry nodded at him. "It is not only soldiers who fight our battles, Mr. Waverton," said the Colonel with dignity. "There's danger enough for a quick wit and a cool judgment far behind the lines. And you need not go to Flanders to find the war. It's flaming all over England, all over--France," he dropped the last word in a lower tone, as if his heat had carried him away and it was a blunder. He flung himself back and emptied his glass, and looked gloomily at the empty decanter. "Why, Mr. Waverton, you have made me into a babbler. It's time you delivered me to the ladies." "Aye, aye," Hadley yawned. "Let's try another of the worlds." They marched out, but the Colonel and Waverton, waiting on each other, were some distance behind the other pair. "You must know I have often had some desire for the life of action," said Mr. Waverton. To which the Colonel earnestly, "I have never known a man more fit for it," and upon that they entered my lady's drawing-room. Miss Lambourne was singing Carey's song of the nightingale: "While in a Bow'r with beauty blest The lov'd Amintor lies, While sinking on Lucinda's breast He fondly kiss'd her Eyes. A wakeful nightingale who long Had mourn'd within, the Shade Sweetly renewed her plaintive song And warbled through the Glade." On the coming of the men the wakeful nightingale broke off her plaintive song abruptly. Lady Waverton, who was again at full length on her couch, then opened her eyes. "Delicious, delicately delicious," she sighed. "Why did you stop, dear?" she controlled a yawn. "Oh, the men! Odious creatures!" she rose on her elbow and looked at them, and looked down at her dress and patted it. Colonel Boyce accepted the challenge briskly, and marched upon her. "Egad, my lady, your name is cruelty." "Who--I, sir? I vow I never had the heart to see any creature suffer." "Nay, your very nature is cruelty. You exist but to torture us." "Good lack, sir," says my lady, well pleased, "and must I die to serve your pleasure?" "Why, there it is. We can neither bear to be with you nor to be without you. I protest, ma'am, your sex was made for our torture. 'Tis why you parade it and delight in it." "Lud, sir, you are mighty rude," my lady simpered. "I parade my sex? Alack, my modesty!" "Modesty--that's but another weapon to madden us. Fie, ma'am, why do you clothe yourself in such beauty but to flaunt upon our senses that sex of yours?" My lady was duly shocked and hid behind her fan. "Aye, there it is! We catch a whiff of paradise and straightway it is denied us. Our nightingale there is silent when we draw near. Our Venus here hides herself when our eyes would enjoy her. As His Grace said to me, you women are like heaven to a damned soul." "You are a wicked fellow," said Lady Waverton with relish. Geoffrey at his elbow put in, "'His Grace,' Colonel?" "The Old Corporal, Mr. Waverton. The Duke of Marlborough." "You have served with him, sir?" Colonel Boyce gave a laugh of genial condescension. "Why, yes, Mr. Waverton, I stand as close to His Grace as most men." After a moment of impressive silence, the Wavertons vigorously directed the conversation to the Duke of Marlborough. Colonel Boyce made no objection. In the most obliging manner he admitted them to a piquant intimacy with His Grace's manners and customs. He mingled things personal and high politics with a fascinating air of letting out secrets at every word; and, throughout, he maintained a tantalizing discretion about his own position. My lady and Mr. Waverton were more and more fascinated. So that Miss Lambourne had good opportunity to try her maiden steel upon Harry. As soon as he came in, he withdrew himself to a cabinet of medals in a remote corner. Mr. Hadley approached the harpsichord and reached it just before it fell silent. Miss Lambourne looked up into his face. "Yes, shall we lay our heads together?" said he. "But I doubt mine would turn yours." "If you'll risk it, ma'am, I will." "La, sir, is this an offer? I protest I am all one blush." "Then your imagination is bolder than mine, ma'am. I mean--" "Oh, fie for shame! To disgrace a poor maid so! To betray her weakness! It is unmanly, Mr. Hadley. Sure, my father (in the general resurrection) will have your blood. I leave you to your conscience, sir," which she did, making for Harry. Mr. Hadley, remaining by the harpsichord, contemplated them, and with his one hand caressed his chin. "It's a fascinating family, the family of Boyce," said he to himself. Miss Lambourne sat herself down beside Harry before he chose to be aware of her coming. He started up and obsequiously drew away. "You are very coy, Mr. Boyce," said the lady. Harry replied, with the servile laughter of a dependent, "Oh, ma'am, you are mocking me." "Tit for tat"--Alison's eyes had some fire in them. "Tat, ma'am?" "Lud, now, don't be tedious. Sir, the house of Waverton is entranced by your splendid father: and Charles Hadley (as usual) is entranced by himself. You have no audience Mr. Boyce. Stop acting, and tell me--what is wrong with me?" Harry considered her with calm criticism. "It's not for me to tell Miss Lambourne that she is too beautiful." "Indeed, I thought you had more sense." "Too beautiful," Harry persisted deliberately; "too beautiful to be good company." "That will not serve, sir. You are not so inflammable. Being more in the nature of a tortoise." "If you had a flaw or so: if your nose had a twist; if your cheeks had felt the weather; if--I fear, ma'am, I grow intimate. In fine, if you were less fine, you would be a comfort to a man. But as it is--permit the tortoise to keep in his shell." "I advise you, Mr. Boyce--I resent this." Harry bowed. "I dare to remind you, ma'am--I did not demand the conversation." "The conversation!" Her eyes flashed. "What do I care if a lad's impudent? Perhaps I like it well enough, Mr. Boyce. There is more than that between you and me. You have done me something of a service, and you'll not let me avow it nor pay you. Well?" "Well, ma'am, you're telling the truth," said Harry placidly. The lady made an exclamation. "I shall bear you a grudge for this, sir." "I am vastly obliged, ma'am." The lady drew back a little and looked at him full, which he bore calmly. "I suppose I am beneath Mr. Boyce's concernment." "Not beneath, ma'am. Above. Above. Do you admire the Italian medals? They are of a delicate restraint," He turned to the cabinet and began to lecture. Miss Lambourne was not repulsed. He maintained a steady flow of instruction. She waited, watching him. By this time Colonel Boyce was growing tired of his Duke of Marlborough and his State secrets, and seeking diversion. "Odds fish, it's a hard road that leads to fortune. You are happy, Mr. Waverton. You were born with yours." "I conceive, sir, that every man of high spirit must needs take the road to fame." "A dream of a shadow, Mr. Waverton," said the Colonel, with melancholy grandeur. "'Take the goods the gods provide you,'" he waved his hand at the crowded opulence of the room and then, smiling paternally, at Miss Lambourne. Lady Waverton simpered at her son. He chose to ignore the hint. "Why, Colonel, if a man is happily placed above vulgar needs, the more reason--" "Vulgar needs! Oh, fie, Mr. Waverton. A divine creature." Colonel Boyce looked wicked, and his easy hand designed in the air Miss Lambourne's shape. Lady Waverton tittered. Geoffrey blushed, and "You do me too much honour sir, indeed," he stammered. Colonel Boyce turned smiling upon Lady Waverton. "I vow, ma'am, a man hath twice the modesty of a maid." "You are a bad fellow," said Lady Waverton, very well pleased. "You go too fast, sir;" with so much mirth about him Geoffrey feared for his dignity. "There is nothing between me and Miss Lambourne." The Colonel shook his head. "I confess I thought better of you, sir. What, is miss her own mistress?" "Miss Lambourne has no father or mother, sir." "And her face is her fortune? Egad, 'tis the prettiest romance!" Geoffrey and his mother laughed together. "Not quite all her fortune, sir. She is the only child of Sir Thomas Lambourne." "What! old Tom Lambourne of the India House?" Colonel Boyce whistled. He looked with a new interest at her as she stood by Harry, absorbing the lecture on medals, and as he looked his face put on a queer air of mockery. This he presented to Geoffrey. "Something of a plum, sirrah. Well, well, some folks have but to open their mouths." Mr. Waverton, not quite certain whether the Colonel ought to be so familiar, concluded to be pleased, and laughed fatuously. During which music the butler announced "Mrs. Weston." Lady Waverton and Geoffrey exchanged a glance of disgust. Lady Waverton murmured, "What a person!" It escaped their notice that Colonel Boyce had stiffened at the name. His full face lost all its geniality, all expression. He was for the first time singularly like his son. Mrs. Weston was Alison's companion of the coach, a woman of middle age, inclining to be stout; but her face was thin and lined, belying her comfortable aspect,--a wistful face which had known much sorrow, and had still much tenderness to give. Lady Waverton put out a languid and supercilious hand. "I hope you are better." "Thank you. I have not been ill." "Oh, I always forget." "Your servant, ma'am." Geoffrey bowed. "Oh,"--Lady Waverton turned on her elbow. "Colonel Boyce--Mrs. Weston, Alison's companion. Faith, duenna, I think." "Your most obedient, ma'am." Colonel Boyce bowed low. Mrs. Weston stared at him, seemed to try to speak, said nothing, and hurried across the room. "Alison, dear, are you ready?" her voice sounded hoarse. "Am I ever ready?" Alison laughed. "Weston, dear, we are finding friends here;" she pointed to Harry. Colonel Boyce had followed. He laid his hand on Harry's shoulder: "My son, ma'am," said he. Mrs. Weston's eyes grew wide, and her face was white and drawn, and she swayed. As Harry bowed to her, a lacquered box was swept off the table with a great clatter, and Colonel Boyce cried, "Odds life, Harry, you are a clumsy fellow. Here, man, here," and made a great commotion over picking it up. Alison had her arm about Mrs. Weston: "Why, Weston, dear, what is it? Are you seeing a ghost?" She laughed. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, come to life." "I ask pardon, ma'am." Harry rose with the box. "'Bid me to live and I will live,'" said the Colonel, with a grand air. "Come away, dear, come," Mrs. Weston gasped, in much agitation. "Why, Weston, he is not our highwayman, you know," Alison was still laughing, and then seeing her distress real, took it in earnest. "You are shaken, poor thing. Come!" She mothered the woman away and, turning, called over her shoulder-- "_Revanche_, Mr. Boyce." There was an explanation to Lady Waverton: poor Weston had been so alarmed by the highwaymen that she was not fit to be out of her bed, and anything alarmed her; even Mr. Boyce; so dear Lady Waverton must forgive them. And Geoffrey took them to their carriage. "What a person!" said Lady Waverton. Mr. Hadley came out of his corner and looked Harry up and down with dislike. "Let me know when you play the next act, Mr. Boyce," he said, and turned to Lady Waverton. "My lady, I beg leave to go with my friends." CHAPTER IV A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE In a small, bare room Colonel Boyce sat himself down on a pallet bed and made a wry face at his son. "My poor, dear boy," he said, and shifted uneasily, and looked round at the stained walls and shivered. "It's damp, I vow it's damp," he complained. "Oh yes. It's damp after rain, and it's hot after sun, and it's icy after frost. It's a very sympathetic room," said Harry. "They are barbarians, these Wavertons. I vow they give their horses better lodging." "Oh yes. I am not worth so much as a horse," said Harry. "Lud, Harry, don't whine,"--his father was irritated. "Have some spirit. I hate to hear a lad meek." "I thought you did," said Harry. The Colonel laughed. "Oh, I am bit, am I? _Tant mieux_. But why the devil do you stay here?" "Now why the devil do you want to know?" said Harry. "No, that is not kind, boy." "Oh, Oh, are we kind?" "My dear Harry, I have not seen you for six years, and I have not come now to quarrel." "Then why have you come?" said the affectionate son. "You are a gracious cub." Colonel Boyce would not be ruffled. "When I saw you last, Harry--" "You borrowed a shilling of me. I remember I was glad that I had not another." "You can have it back with interest now. There is plenty in the purse, Harry, and half of all mine is yours." "You have changed," Harry said. "Odds life, Harry, bear no grudges. I dare say I was hard in what you remember of me. Well, things were hard upon me and I lived hard. You shall find me mellow enough now." "Hard? I don't know that you were hard. I thought you were as cold as ice. I believe, sir, I am still frozen." "Egad, Harry, you must have had a curst childhood." "Oh, must we be sympathetic?" said Harry. "You're right, boy. The past is past. 'Tis your future which is the matter. So again--why do you stay here?" Harry laughed. "They give me bed and board, and a shilling or two by the month." "Bed?" His father shifted upon it. "A bag of stones, I think. And for the board--bread of affliction and water of affliction by what I saw of the remains. Egad, Harry, they are savages, these Wavertons." "I did not hear you say so to madame. And Geoffrey is not a bad fellow as far as he has understanding." "A dolt, eh? He might take a woman's eye, though. These big dreamy fellows, the women hanker after them queerly. Take care, Harry." He looked knowing. "Bed and board--bah, you can do better than that. Now what do you think I have been doing?" "Something profitable, to judge by your genial splendours. Have you turned highwayman?" "You all talk about highwaymen in this house," said the Colonel with a frown and a keen glance. "Damme, no." "Why, are you really a colonel?" "Faith, you may come see my commission,"--Colonel Boyce was not annoyed,--"and, egad, share my pay." He pulled out a fat purse and thrust some guineas upon Harry. "Don't deny me now, boy," he said, with some tenderness. "I never meant to," said Harry, and counted them. "But how long have you been a soldier? I never knew you were anything." "I have been with his Grace of Marlborough in every campaign since Blenheim. Do you think it's a good service, Harry?" he smiled at his own opulence. "For a versatile man," said Harry, and looked at his father curiously. "Why, I can take the field as well as another. Egad, when Vendome fell back from Oudenarde I was commanding a battalion. But it is not in the field that my best work is done." "Faith, I had guessed that," Harry said. "You have a sharp tongue, Harry. It's a dangerous weakness. Be careful to grow out of it. Then I think you may do well enough." "In your profession, sir? To be sure, you flatter me." "In my profession--" His father looked at him keenly. "I am not sure. Maybe you can do better, which will be well enough. Now, what can you do? You can use a sword, I suppose, though you wear none?" Harry shrugged. "I know the rigmarole, the salutes; I could begin a duel, _par exemple_. It's the other man who would end it." "Duels--bah, only dolts are troubled with them. You must learn to hold your own in a flurry. You can ride, I suppose?" "If the beast has a mane." "Humph. You speak French?" "As we speak it in England." "Yes." His father nodded. "When a man is no fool, he finds his profit in not doing things too well. Well, Harry, are you Whig or Tory--Jacobite or Hanoverian?" "Whichever you like, sir." "By the Lord, you take after me mightily. Now look 'e, thus it is. The Queen grows old. She eats too well and drinks too well, and she has the gout. It's common among all who know her ways that she cannot last long. The poor soul will not be wise at dinner. But even if she should last, we are in an odd case. For Anne hath a conscience as well as a stomach, and it seems they grow together. As the old lady gets fatter, she feels remorse. When she's tearful after dinner now she asks her women what right she has to be queen and keep a good cellar while her poor half-brother Prince James lives in exile on _vin ordinaire_." Harry shrugged his shoulders. "'Poor, dear lad,' says she, 'and to be sure I am a sad, bad woman. But I think I'll die a queen.' What then, sir?" "I don't say you are wrong, Harry. She's more like to drown the lad in tears than right him. And meanwhile our rightful king, James the Pretender, is left to his _vin ordinaire_. Faith, it's a proper liquor, for rightful heirs which can't right themselves. And yet there is a chance. The Queen has always been religious, and when a woman hath religion she may play the devil with your reason any minute. But here is what's more likely. You know when an old fellow hath played the knave with some wardship or some matter of trust, often he holds fast to it all his life and then seeks to commend himself to the day of judgment by bequeathing his spoils to those from whom he stole them. Well, it's whispered among them that know her that Madame Anne will do her possible to make Prince James King when she is gone." "A dead Queen is but a corpse," said Harry. "When she is gone 'twill not be for her to say who shall reign." "That's half a truth. You know the law is so that Prince George of Hanover should be the King. About him no man knows anything save that he hath a vile taste in women. I do suspect Marlborough is in the right--he has a nose for men--when he saith there is nought to know. Well, we tried a Dutchman once for our King and liked him ill enough. Who is to say that we shall like a German better? Now Prince James--he is half an Englishman at least, though they say he has his father's weakness for priests. I'll not hide from you, Harry, that I am in the confidence of some great men. It's laid upon me to go to France with an errand to Prince James." "I suppose that is high treason, sir." Colonel Boyce smiled queerly. "You see how I trust you, Harry. Bah, you are not frightened of words. Who is the worse for it, if I find out what's Monsieur's temper and how he would bear himself if he were King?" "And what he would pay any kind gentlemen who chose to turn Jacobites apropos." "If you like." Colonel Boyce laughed. I promise you, Harry, there are great men in this. Now I need a trusty fellow to my right hand: a fellow who can talk and say nothing: a fellow who is in no service but mine: and all the better if he hath some learning to play the secretary. So I thought of you. And since it may carry you to something of note, I chose you with right good will." "Do you wonder that you surprise me?" "I profess you're not generous, Harry. It's true enough, I have done little for you yet. But the truth is I could do nothing. As soon as I have it in my power, I come to you--" "And offer me--a game at hazard." "Why, Harry, you're not a coward?" "Faith, I can't tell. Perhaps I will go with you. But I have no expectation in it." "I suppose you have some here," his father sneered. "What do they call you? You seem to be something better than Master Geoffrey's valet and a good deal worse than my lady's footman." "Why, I believe you have lost your temper." Harry laughed. "Oh, admirable sight! Pray let me enjoy it! The father rages at his son's ingratitude!" But Colonel Boyce had quickly recovered his equanimity. "They used to tell me that I was a cold fellow. But I vow you are a very fish. So you have half a mind to stay here, have you? Well, I bear no malice." "It is only half a mind," Harry said. "Are you in a hurry?" "Oh, you may sleep on it. Damme, I suppose there is little to do here but sleep. What does Master Geoffrey want with you? He is old to keep a tame schoolmaster." "I listen to his poetry." "Oh Lud!" said Colonel Boyce, with sincere sympathy. "I suppose they are wealthy folk, your Wavertons. Do they keep much company?" Harry shrugged. "Who is this Mrs. Weston?" "I never saw her before." Harry paused, and then with a laugh added--"before yesterday." "That's a fine woman, her mistress. Do you do anything in that quarter, sirrah?" "Why should you think so?" "She was willing enough that you should try." "She is meat for my betters," said Harry meekly. "For Master Geoffrey?" The Colonel looked knowing. "Do you know, Harry, I think Master Geoffrey is a pigeon made to be plucked. Well. What was the pretty lady's talk about highwaymen?" Harry looked at his father for some time. "The truth is, I don't understand Benjamin," he said at last. "I wonder if you will. Faith, sir, here is a pretty piece of family life. The good son confides in his father alone of all the world." "Go on, sir," Colonel Boyce chuckled. "I play fair." So Harry told his tale of Benjamin and Benjamin's companion and their disaster. It was that appearance in the crisis of the fight of other gentlemen on horseback which most interested Colonel Boyce. "So they went in pursuit of the fellow who had fled and they never came back again." He looked quizzically at his son. "These be very honest gentlemen." "Why, sir, I thought nothing of that. They were plainly travelling at speed. I suppose they missed him, and had no time to waste in searching." "Then why o' God's name did he not come back to help his fellow? He was mounted, he was armed, and only you and your cudgel against him. Bah, Harry, do not be an innocent. Consider: these fellows went after him at speed. He cannot have been far away. It is any odds that he had his bolting horses in hand before he had gone two furlongs. Then--allow him some sense--then he must have turned and come back for his friend. And then these other honest gentlemen swept down on him. Well. Why have you heard no more of them or him?" "Faith, sir, you are right," Harry conceived for the first time some admiration for his father. "I had missed that: and, egad, it is the chief question of the puzzle. But--" "Puzzle! Oh Lud, there's no puzzle. They were all one gang, these fellows." Harry laughed. "Then there was not much honour among the thieves. They abandoned their Benjamin to me with delight." "Ah, bah, you do not suppose they were out for such small game as your pretty miss. They would not work in a gang to stop a simple, common coach, be it never so rich. Come, Harry, use your wits. Did you hear of any great folks on the road yesterday?" Harry made an exclamation. "Odds life, sir, you would make a great thief-catcher. You have hit it. There was your friend, the Duke of Marl-borough, stuck in the mud below Barnet Hill." And he told that part of the story. "Humph. So they came too late," his father said. "You see how it is. This gang was charged to stop his Grace, and was something slow about it. The two first, your Benjamin and his friend, I suppose they should have held the Duke's fellows in play till the others came up. They missed him, or they shirked it, and instead, tried to stay their stomachs with some common game. The rest of the gang would be well enough pleased that you should baste Benjamin while they hurried on after the Duke. Did you mark any of them, what like they were?" "Not I. I was too busy with Benjamin." "And your pretty miss, eh? A pity. But it's well enough for your first affair." "First? Why, am I to spend my life tumbling with gentlemen of the road?" "And a profitable, pleasant life too, if you use your wits." Harry opened his eyes. "Do you know it well, sir? Now, what I don't understand is why a gang of highwaymen should appoint to set upon the Duke of Marlborough. It's dangerous, to be sure--" "You will understand why, if you come to France," said Colonel Boyce, with a queer smile. "There be many would pay high for a sight of his Grace's private papers," and he laughed to himself over some joke. "Nay, but you have done very well, Harry," he condescended. "I like this business of leaving Benjamin tied up on the road. 'Tis damned nonsense, to be sure, but it has an air, a distinction. Your pretty miss will like that. And I judge you have not told the Wavertons you were the hero, nor let miss tell them. 'Tis your little secret for yourselves. A good touch, Harry. Odds life, I begin to be proud of you. I suppose you will soon go pay your respects--to Mrs. Weston." He laughed heartily. Harry was not amused. "Do you know, I think I like you much less than you like me," he said. Colonel Boyce seemed very well content. CHAPTER V THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE Colonel Boyce was established in the house, a guest of high honour. Harry, dazed at the mere fact, could not be very sure how it had happened or why. The Wavertons, mother and son, had assaulted the Colonel with hospitality--for a night--for another--for longer and longer--and he, appearing at first honestly dubious, remained with a benign condescension. There is no doubt that, in an honourable way, Lady Waverton was fascinated by Colonel Boyce. She saw nothing coarse in his highly-coloured manners, suspected no guile in his flattery or his parade of importance. Harry, who had never supposed her a wise woman, was surprised by her complete surrender. He had credited her with too much pride to succumb to flattery, which was to his taste impudently gross. But he was not yet old enough to allow that other folks might have tastes wholly unlike his own, and he had himself--it is perhaps the only trait of much delicacy in him--a shrinking discomfort under praise. Colonel Boyce took his victory with a complacency which Harry thought oddly fatuous in a man so acute. "Egad, the old lady would go to church with me to-morrow if I asked her;" he laughed, and seemed to think that in that at least my lady showed sense. "You had better take her, sir," said Harry, with a sneer. "I know she has a good dower. And a fool and her money are soon parted." "Damme, Harry, you are venomous!" For the first time in their acquaintance Colonel Boyce showed some signs of smarting. "What harm have I done you? No, sir, you have a nasty tongue. I intend the old lady no harm, neither. What if she has a tenderness for me? I suppose that does not make me a fool." "To be sure, sir, I did not know your affection was serious." Harry laughed disagreeably. "I believe you would not miss a chance to say a bitter thing though it ruined you, Lud, Harry, if you can't be grateful, don't be a fool too. What a pox are your Wavertons to me? I don't value them a pinch of snuff. What I am doing, I am doing for you. You know what you were when I found you--no better than a footman out of livery. Now, they treat you like a gentleman." "And all for the _beaux yeux_ of my father. Well, it's true, sir. But I don't know that I like any of us much the better for it." To his great surprise his father looked at him with affectionate admiration. "Egad, you take that tone very well," said he. "It's a good card. Maybe it's the best with the women." Harry had to laugh. "I think you have the easiest temper in the world, sir." "Aye, aye. It has been the ruin of me." And so they parted the best of friends. Indeed Harry had never liked his father so well or felt so much his superior. Thus from age to age is filial affection confirmed. But he had to allow some adroitness in his father. Not only Lady Waverton, but Geoffrey too, succumbed to the paternal charms. That was the more surprising. Geoffrey, behind his vanity and his affectation, was no fool. He had also a temper apt to dislike any man who made a show of position or achievement beyond his own. Yet he hung upon the lips of Colonel Boyce. What they gave him was indeed a pleasing mixture--secrets about great affairs flavoured with deference to his ingenious criticisms. There was something solid about it, too. The Colonel, displaying himself as a man of much importance, perpetually hinted that only the occasion was needed for Mr. Waverton to surpass him by far, and to that occasion he could point the way. It appeared to Harry that his father had in mind to enlist Geoffrey for the proposed mission to France, or some other scheme unrevealed. And being unable to see any reason for wanting Geoffrey as a man, he suspected that his father wanted money. He saw clearly that nobody wanted him, and was therewith very well content. At this time in his life he asked nothing better than to be left alone with his whims and the open air. He covered many a mile of sticky clay in these autumn days, placidly vacant of mind, and afterwards accounted them the most comfortable of his life. Mr. Waverton's house was set upon a hill, at one end of a line of hills which now look over the wilderness of London, falling steeply thereto, and upon the other side, to northward and the open country, more gently. In the epoch of Harry Boyce those hills were all woodland--pleasant patches still remain,--and if the need of great walking was not upon him he was often pleased to loiter through their thickets. It was on a wild south-westerly day when the naked trees were at a loud chorus that Alison came to him. The dainty colours of her face laughed from a russet hood, russet cloak and green skirt wind-borne against her gave him the delight of her shape. "'Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you,'" she cried. "You're poetical, ma'am." "I vow not I. I say what I mean. There's an unmaidenly trick. And, faith, I am here to rifle you, Mr. Boyce." "Wish you joy, ma'am. What of?" "Of your conceit, to be sure. Have you anything else?" "I have nothing which could be of any use to Miss Lambourne. So God knows why she runs after me." "Oh, brave!" Miss Lambourne was not out of countenance. "'Tis a shameless maid indeed which runs after a man"--she made him a curtsy. "But what is the man who runs away from a maid?" Harry Boyce cursed her in his heart. She was by far too desirable. The rain-fraught wind had made the dawn tints of her clearer, lucent and yet more delicate. Her grey eyes danced like the sunlight ripples of deep water. Her lips were purely, brilliantly red. She fronted him and the wind, flaunting the richness of her bosom, poised and strong. She seemed the very body of life. For the first time he felt unsure of himself. "Did you come to call names, ma'am?" he growled. "I allow you the privileges of a gentleman, Mr. Boyce." "Gentleman? Oh Lud, no, ma'am. I am an upper servant. Rather better than the butler. Not so good as the steward." "It won't serve you, sir. You have insulted me, and I demand satisfaction." She drew off her gauntleted glove and flicked him in the face with it. "Now will you fight?" "Oh, must we slap and scratch then?" Harry flushed darker than the mark of the glove. "I thought we had been fighting." Miss Lambourne laughed. "You can lose your temper then? It's something, in fact. Yes, we have been fighting, sir, and you don't fight fair." "Who does with a woman?" Harry sneered. "I cry you mercy, ma'am. You are vastly too strong for me. Let me alone and I ask no more of you." To which Miss Lambourne said, very innocently, "Why?" Harry looked up and saw her beautiful face meek and appealing, with something of a demure smile in the eyes. "Come, sir, what have I asked of you? You have done me something of a great service. There was a man handling me--do you know what that means? "--she made a wry face and gave herself a shaking shudder--"You rid me of him, and with some risk to your precious skin. Well, sir, I am grateful, and I want to show it. Odds life, I should be a beast did I not. I want to thank you and to sing your praises--to yourself also perhaps. And you are pleased to be a churl and a boor." "In effect," said Harry coolly. "Egad, ma'am, let me have the luxury of hating you. For I am the Wavertons' gentleman usher and you are the nonpareil Miss Lambourne, vastly rich and--" he ended with a shrug and a rueful grin. "And--?" Miss Lambourne softly insisted. "And damnably lovely. Lord, you know that." "I thank God," said Miss Lambourne devoutly. "Is it true, Mr. Boyce--do the meek inherit the earth?" She held out her hands to him, one bare, one gloved, she swayed a little towards him, and her face was gentle and wistful. "Nay, sir, I ask your pardon. Call friends if you please and will please me." Harry lost hold of himself at last. The blood surged in him, and he caught at her and kissed her fiercely. It was he who was embarrassed. As he stood away from her, eyeing her with a queer defiant shame, she smiled through a small matter of a blush, and breathing quickly said: "What does it feel like, sir?" "The world's a miracle," Harry said unsteadily and would have caught her again. She turned, she was away light of foot, and in a moment through the wind he heard her singing to a tune of her own the child's rhyme: "Fly away, Jack, Fly away, Jill, Come again, Jack, Come again, Jill." CHAPTER VI HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL Where the lane from Fortis Green crosses the high road there stood an ale-house. On the wettest days, and some others, the place was Harry's resort. Not that he had a liking for ale-house company--or indeed any company. But within the precincts of the Wavertons' house tobacco was forbidden and--all the more for that--tobacco he loved with a solid devotion. The alehouse of the cross roads offered a clean floor, a clean fire, air not too foul, a tolerable chair, a landlord who did not talk, and until evening, sufficient solitude. There Harry smoked many pipes in tranquillity until the day when on his entry he found Mr. Hadley's sardonic face waiting for him. He liked Charles Hadley less than many men whom he more despised. Nobody in a position just better than menial can be expected to like the condescending mockery which was Mr. Hadley's _metier_. But Harry--it is one of his most noble qualities--bore being laughed at well enough. What most annoyed him was Mr. Hadley's parade of a surly, austere virtue. He did not doubt that it was sincere. He could more easily have forgiven it if it had been hypocritical. A man had no business to be so mighty honest. Mr. Hadley nodded at Harry, who said it was a dirty day, and called for his pot of small ale and his pennyworth of Spanish tobacco. Mr. Hadley was civil enough to pass him a pipe from the box. Both gentlemen smoked in grave silence. "So you are still with us," said Mr. Hadley. "By your good leave, sir." "I had an apprehension the Colonel was going to ravish you away." "I hope I am still of some use to Mr. Waverton." "Damme, you might be the old family retainer. 'Faithful service of the antique world,' egad. I suppose you will end your days with Geoffrey, and be buried at his feet like a trusty hound." "If you please, sir." They looked at each other. "Well, Mr. Boyce, I beg your pardon," Hadley said. "But you'll allow you are irritating to a plain man." "I do not desire it, sir." "I may hold my tongue and mind my own business, eh? Why not take me friendly?" "I intend you no harm, Mr. Hadley." "That's devilish good of you, Mr. Boyce. To be plain with you, what do you want here?" "Here? Oh Lord, sir, I come to smoke my pipe!" "And what if I come to smoke you? Odds life, I know you are no fool. Do me the honour to take me for none. And tell me, if you please, why do you choose to be Master Geoffrey's gentleman in waiting? You are good for better than that, Mr. Boyce." "No doubt, sir. But it brings me bread and butter." "You could earn that fighting in Flanders." Harry shrugged. "I am not very brave, Mr. Hadley." "You count upon staying here, do you?" "If I can satisfy Mr. Waverton," said Harry meekly. Hadley's face grew harder. "I vow I do my best to wish you well, Mr. Boyce. I should be glad to hear that you'll give up walking in the woods." There was a moment of silence. "I did not know that I had asked for your advice, sir." Harry said. "I am not grateful for it." "Damme, that's the first honest answer you have made," Hadley cried. "Look 'e, Mr. Boyce, I am as much your friend as I may be. I have an uncle which was the lady's guardian. If I said a word to him he would carry it to Lady Waverton in a gouty rage. There would be a swift end of Mr. Boyce the tutor. Well, I would not desire that. For all your airs, I'll believe you a man of honour. And I ask you what's to become of Mr. Boyce the tutor seeking private meetings with the Lambourne heiress? Egad, sir, you were made for better things than such a mean business." "Honour!" Harry sneered. "Were you talking of men of honour? I suppose there is good cover in the woods, Mr. Hadley." Hadley stared at him. "It was not good enough, you see, sir." He knocked out his pipe and stood up. "Bah, this is childish. You don't think me a knave, nor I you. I have said my say, and I mean you well." "I believe that, Mr. Hadley"--Harry met him with level eyes--"and I am not grateful." "You know who she is meant for." "I know that the lady might call us both impudent." "Would that break your bones? Come, sir, the lady hath been destined for Master Geoffrey since she had hair and never has rebelled." "Lord, Mr. Hadley, are you destiny?" Mr. Hadley let that by with an impatient shrug. "So if you be fool enough to have ambitions after her, you would wear a better face in eating no more of Master Geoffrey's bread." "It's a good day for walking, Mr. Hadley. Which way do you go? For I go the other." "I hope so," Mr. Hadley agreed, and on that the two gentlemen parted, both something warm. We should flatter him in supposing Harry Boyce of a chivalrous delicacy. Whether the lady's fair fame might be the worse for him was a question of which he never thought. It is certain that he did not blame himself for using his place as Geoffrey's paid servant to damage Geoffrey in his affections. And indeed you will agree that he was innocent of any designed attack upon the lady. Yet Mr. Hadley succeeded in making him very uncomfortable. What most troubled him, I conceive, was the fear of being ridiculous. The position of a poor tutor aspiring to the favours of the heiress destined for his master invites the unkind gibe. And Harry could not be sure that Alison herself was free from the desire to make him a figure of scorn. Such a suspicion might disconcert the most ardent of lovers. Harry Boyce, whatever his abilities in the profession, was not that yet. But the very fact that he had come to feel an ache of longing for Alison made him for once dread laughter. If he had been manoeuvring for what he could get by her, or if he had been merely taken by her good looks, he might have met jeering with a brazen face. But she had engaged his most private emotions, and to have them made ludicrous would be of all possible punishments most intolerable. The precise truth of what he felt for her then was, I suppose, that he wanted to make her his own--wanted to have all of her in his power; and a gentleman whom the world--and the lady--are laughing at for an aspiring menial cannot comfortably think about his right to possess her. There was something else. He was not meticulously delicate, but he had a complete practical sanity. He saw very well that even if Alison, by the chance of circumstance, had some infatuation for him, she might soon repent: he saw that even if the affair went with romantic success--a thing hardly possible--his position and hers might be awkward enough. Her friends would be long in forgiving either of them, and find ways enough to hurt them both. Mr. Hadley, confound him, spoke the common sense of mankind. There was one solution--that estimable father. By the time he came back to the house on Tether-down, Harry was resolved to enlist under the ambiguous banner of Colonel Boyce. CHAPTER VII GENEROSITY OF A FATHER With grim irony Harry congratulated himself on his decision. When first he came into the house he heard Alison singing. There was indeed (as he told himself clearly) nothing wonderful about her voice--it resembled the divine only in being still and small. Yet he could not (he called himself still more clearly a fool) keep away from it, and so he slunk into Lady Waverton's drawing-room. Only duty and stated hours were wont to drag him there. Lady Waverton showed her appreciation of his unusual attendance by staring at him across the massed trifles of the room with sleepy and insolent amazement. But it was not the glassy eyes of Lady Waverton which convinced Harry that flight was the true wisdom. Over Alison at the harpsichord, Geoffrey hung tenderly: their shoulders touched, eyes answered eyes, and miss was radiant. She sang at him with a naughty archness that song of Mr. Congreve's: "Thus to a ripe consenting maid, Poor old repenting Delia said, Would you long preserve your lover? Would you still his goddess reign? Never let him all discover, Never let him much obtain. Men will admire, adore and die While wishing at your feet they lie; But admitting their embraces Wakes 'em from the golden dream: Nothing's new besides our faces, Every woman is the same." She contorted her own face into smug folly by way of illustration. Then she and Geoffrey laughed together. "I vow you're the most deliciously wicked creature that ever was born a maid." "D'ye regret it, sir? Faith, I could not well be born a wife." "No, ma'am, that's an honour to be won by care and pains." "Pains! Lud, yes, I believe that. But, dear sir, I reckon it the punishment for folly. Why,"--she chose to see Harry--"why, here is our knight of the rueful countenance!" Mr. Waverton laughed. "It is related of the Egyptians--" "God help us," Alison murmured. He went on, giggling. "It is related of the Ancient Egyptians that they ever had a corpse among the guests at their feasts." "Were their cooks so bad?" said Alison. "To remind them that all men are mortal. Now you see why we keep Harry." "I wonder if he looked as happy when he was alive," said Alison, surveying his wooden face. "_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. He doesn't like it known." Colonel Boyce, who had listened to the song and the first coruscations of wit with the condescending smile of a connoisseur, now exhibited some impatience. "Egad, Harry, why will you dress like a parson out at elbows?" "His customary suit of solemn black," said Geoffrey. "He is in mourning for himself, of course," Alison laughed. "I have two suits of clothes, ma'am," said Harry meekly. "This is the better." "Poor Harry!" Geoffrey granted him a look of protective affection. "I vow we are too hard on him, Alison." And then in a lower voice for her private ear. "A dear, worthy fellow, but--well, what would you have?--of no spirit." Alison bit her lip. "Oh, Mr. Waverton," Harry protested, "indeed, I am proud to be the cause of such wit." Colonel Boyce stared at his son with an enigmatic frown. Alison's eyes brightened. But Geoffrey suspected no guile. "Not witty thyself, dear lad, but the cause of wit in others, eh? Odds life, Harry, you are invaluable." "'Tis your kindness for me makes you think so, Mr. Waverton. And, to be sure, I could ask no more than to amuse your lady." Alison said tartly, "Oh, it takes little to amuse me, sir." "I am sure, ma'am," Harry agreed meekly. "It's a happy nature." and he bowed to Geoffrey, humbly congratulating him on a lady of such simple tastes. Geoffrey, who had now had enough of his good tutor, eliminated him by a compliment or so on Alison's voice and the demand that she should sing again. He found her in an awkward temper. She would not sing this, she would not sing that, she found faults in every song known to Mr. Waverton. Yet in a fashion she was encouraging. For this new method of keeping him off was governed by a queer adulation of him: no song in the world could be worth his distinguished attention; her little voice must be to his accomplished ear vain and ludicrous; the kind things he was so good as to say were vastly gratifying, to be sure, but they were merely his kind condescension. And, oh Lud, it was time she was gone, or poor, dear Weston would be imagining her slaughtered on the highway. Geoffrey could not make much of this, but was pleased to take it as flattering feminine homage to his magnificence. By way of reward, he announced an intention of riding home with her carriage. "Faith, you are too good"--her eyes were modestly hidden--"but then you are too good to everybody. Is he not, Mr. Boyce?" "Oh, ma'am, we all practise on his kindness," Harry said. "A good night to your mourning," she said sharply, "dear Lady Waverton." They kissed. "Colonel Boyce, I hold you to your promise." "With all my heart, ma'am. Your devoted." She was gone, and Harry, with a look of significance at his father, went off too.... In that shabby upper chamber of his, Harry again offered the Colonel a choice between the bed and the one chair. Colonel Boyce made a gesture and an exclamation of impatience, and remained standing. "Now, what the devil do you want with me?" he complained. "I want to be very grateful. I want to enlist with you. When shall we start?" His father frowned, and in a little while made a crooked answer, "Do you know, Harry, you are too mighty subtle. I was so at your years. It's very pretty sport, but--well, it won't butter your parsnips. The women can't tell what to make of it. Having, in general, no humour, pretty creatures." "I am obliged for the sermon, sir. Shall we leave to-morrow?" "Egad, you are in a fluster," his father smiled. "Well, to be sure, he is a teasing fellow, the beautiful Geoffrey." Harry made an exclamation. "You'll forgive me, sir, if I say you are talking nonsense." "Oh Lud, yes," his father chuckled. "Whether I am agreeable to women, whether Mr. Waverton is agreeable to me--odds life, sir, I don't trouble my head about such things. Pray, why should you? As well sit down and cry because my eyes are not the same colour." "No. No. There is something taking about that, Harry," his father remonstrated placidly. "When you please to be in earnest, sir," Harry cried, "if this affair of yours is in earnest--" "Oh, you may count on that." Colonel Boyce was still enjoying himself. "Then I am ready for it. And the sooner the better." "Hurry is a bad horse. The truth is, something more hangs on this affair than Mr. Harry's whims. Oh, damme, I don't blame you, though. He is tiresome, our Geoffrey." "Why, sir, if we have to waste time, we might waste it more comfortably than with the Waverton family. Shall we say to-morrow?" Colonel Boyce tapped his still excellent teeth. "Patience, patience," he said, and considered his son gravely. "As for to-morrow, I have friends to see, and so have you. Your pretty miss engaged me to ride over with you to her house. And behind the brave Geoffrey's back, if you please. She is a sly puss, Harry." He expected so obviously an angry answer that Harry chose to disappoint him. "I shall be happy to take leave of Miss Lambourne. And shall I ride pillion with you, sir? For I have no horse of my own." "Bah, dear Geoffrey will lend me the best in the stable." "I give you joy of the progress in his affections." Colonel Boyce laughed. "You are pledged for the forenoon then," he paused. "And as to that little affair of mine--you shall know your part soon enough." "It cannot be too soon, sir." "No." Colonel Boyce nodded. "I think it's full time." He took leave of his son with what the son thought superfluous affection. Half an hour afterwards he was in Mr. Waverton's room--a place very precious. Everything in it--and there were many things--had an air of being strange. Mr. Waverton slept behind curtains of black and silver. His floor was covered with some stuff like scarlet velvet. There was a skull in the place of honour on the walls, flanked by two Venetian pictures of the Virgin, and faced by a blowsy Bacchus and Ariadne from Flanders. The chairs were of the newest Italian mode, designed rather to carry as much gilding as possible than to comfort the human form. Colonel Boyce, regarding them with some apprehension, stood himself before the fire and waved off Geoffrey's effusive courtesy. "I hope you have good news for me, Mr. Waverton?" So he opened the attack. "Why, sir, I have considered my engagements," Geoffrey said magnificently. "I believe I could hold myself free for some months--if the enterprise were of weight." "You relieve me vastly. I'll not disguise from you, Mr. Waverton, that I am something anxious to secure you. I could not find a gentleman so well equipped for this delicate business. You'll observe, 'tis of the first importance that we should have presence, an air, the _je ne sais quoi_ of dignity and family." "Sir, you are very obliging." Geoffrey swallowed it whole. "When I came here I confess I was at my wit's end. Indeed, I had a mind to go alone. The gentlemen of my acquaintance--either they could not be trusted with an affair of such value, or they had too much of our English coarseness to be at ease with it. Faith, when I came to see my poor, dear Harry, little I thought that in his neighbourhood I should find the very man for my embassy." The two gentlemen laughed together over the incompatibility of Harry with gentlemanly diplomacy. "Not but what Harry is a faithful, trusty fellow," said Mr. Waverton, with magnificent condescension. "You are very good to say so. A dolt, sir, a dolt; so much the worse for me. Now, Mr. Waverton, to you I have no need of a word more on the secrecy of the affair. Though, to be sure, this very morning I had another note from Cadogan--Marlborough's _âme damnée_ you know--pressing it on me that nothing should get abroad. So when we go, we'll be off without a good-bye, and if you must leave a word behind for the anxieties of my lady, let her know that you are off with me to see the army in Flanders." "I profess, Colonel, you are mighty cautious." "Dear sir, we cannot be too cautious in this affair. There's many a handsome scheme gone awry for the sake of some affectionate farewell. Mothers, wives, lady-loves--sweet luxuries, Mr. Waverton, but damned dangerous. Now here's my plan. We'll go riding on an afternoon and not come back again. Trust my servant to get away quietly with your baggage and mine. We must travel light, to be sure. We'll go round London. I have too many friends there, and I want none of them asking where old Noll Boyce is off to now. Newhaven is the port for us. There is a trusty fellow there has his orders already. I look to land at Le Havre. Now, the Prince, by our latest news, is back at St. Germain. As you can guess, Mr. Waverton, to be seen in Paris would suit my health even less than to be seen in London. Too many honest Frenchmen have met me in the wars, and, what's worse, too many of them know me deep in Marlborough's business. I could not show my face without all King Louis's court talking of some great matter afoot. What I have in mind is to halt on the road--at Pontoise maybe--while you ride on with letters to Prince James. I warrant you they are such, and with such names to them, as will assure you a noble welcome. It's intended that he should quit St. Germain privately with you to conduct him to me. Then I warrant you we shall know how to deal with the lad." He paused and stared at Geoffrey intently, and gradually a grim humour stole into his eyes. He began to laugh. "Egad, I envy you, Mr. Waverton. To be in such an affair at your years--bah, I should have been crazy with pride." "You need not doubt that I value the occasion, sir," Geoffrey said grandly. "Pray, believe that I shall do honour to your confidence." "To be sure you will. Odds life, to chaffer with a king's son about kingdoms, to offer a realm to a prince in exile (if only he will be a good boy)--it's a fine, stately affair, sir, and you are the very man to take it in the right vein." "Sir, you are most obliging. I profess I vaunt myself very happy in your kindness. Be sure that I shall know how to justify you." "Egad, you do already," Colonel Boyce smiled, still with some touch of cruelty in his eyes. "Pray, sir, when must we start?" "When I know, maybe I shall need to start in an hour." "I shall not fail you. I shall want, I suppose, some funds in hand?" Colonel Boyce shrugged. "Oh Lud, yes, we'll want some money. A matter of five hundred pounds should serve." "I will arrange for it in the morning," said Mr. Waverton, too magnificent to be startled. "Pray, what clothes shall we be able to carry?" "Damme, that's a grave matter," said Colonel Boyce, and with becoming gravity discussed it. CHAPTER VIII MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS Thus Colonel Boyce blandly arranged the lives of his young friends. It is believed that he had a peculiar pleasure in manoeuvring his fellow-creatures from behind a veil of secrecy. For in this he sought not merely his private profit (though it was never out of his calculations); he enjoyed his operations for their own sake; he liked his trickery as trickery; to push and pull people to the place in which he wanted them without their knowing how or why or to what end they were impelled was to him a pleasure second to none in life. And on a survey of his whole career he is to be accounted successful. Though I cannot find that he ever achieved anything of signal importance even for himself, at one time or another he brought a great number of people, some of them powerful, and some of them honourable, under his direction, he had his complete will of many of them, and was rewarded by the bitter hostility of the majority. He contrived, in fact, to live just such a life as he liked best. What more can any man have? So he told Harry nothing of his engagement of Mr. Waverton, and Harry, you have seen, was not likely to guess that anyone would enlist his Geoffrey for a serious enterprise. On the next morning, indeed, Harry did remark that Geoffrey was more portentous than usual, but thought nothing of it. He was embarrassed by thinking about himself. There was, as Colonel Boyce predicted, no difficulty about a horse for Harry. When the Colonel suggested it, Geoffrey showed some satirical surprise at Harry's daring, but (advising one of the older carriage horses) bade him take what he would. Colonel Boyce spoke only of riding with his son. He said nothing of where they were going. Harry wondered whether Geoffrey would have been so gracious if he had known that Alison was their destination, and, a new experience for him, felt some qualms of conscience. It was uncomfortable to use a favour from Geoffrey, even a trifling favour granted with a sneer, for meeting his lady; still more uncomfortable to go seek the lady out secretly. But if he announced what he was doing, there would be instantly something ridiculous about it, and he would have to swallow much of Geoffrey's humour. Geoffrey might even come with them, and Alison and he be humorous together--a fate intolerable. There was indeed an easy way of escape. He had but to stay away from the lady. But, though he despised himself for it, he desired infinitely to see her again. She compelled him, as he had never believed anything outside his own will could compel. After all, it was no such matter, for he would soon be gone with his father to France. He might well hope never to see her again. So on that ride through the steep wooded lanes to Highgate, his father found him morose, and complained of it. "Damme, for a young fellow that's off to his lady-love you are a mighty poor thing, Harry." "My lady-love! I have no taste for rich food. I thought it was your lady we were going to see." "What the devil do you mean by that?" Colonel Boyce stared. "Oh, fie, sir! Why be ashamed of her?" "God knows what you are talking about." Colonel Boyce was extraordinarily irritated. "Ashamed of whom?" "Of the peerless Miss Lambourne, to be sure. Oh, sir, why be so innocent? How could she resist your charms? And indeed--" "Miss Lambourne! What damned nonsense you talk, Harry." "I followed your lead, sir," said Harry meekly. "But if we are to talk sense--when shall we start for France?" "You shall know when I know." And on that they came to the top of the hill and the gates of the Hall. The wet weather had yielded to St. Martin's summer. It was a day of gentle silver-gold sunlight and benign air. With her companion, Mrs. Weston, Miss Lambourne was walking in the garden. She met the gentlemen at a turn of the drive by rampant sweetbriers. "Here's our knight of the rueful countenance, and faith, on Rosinante, poor jade," she patted Harry's aged carriage horse. "Oh, and he has brought with him Solomon in all his glory," she made a wonderful curtsy to the splendours of Colonel Boyce. "Now, who would have dreamt Don Quixote's father was Solomon?" "I suppose I take after my mother, ma'am," Harry said meekly. "It's a hope which often consoles me." "Why, they say Solomon had something of a variety in wives, and among them--" Colonel Boyce dismounted with so much noise that the jest was hardly heard and the end of it altogether lost. "You did not tell me"--Mrs. Weston was speaking and seemed to find it difficult--"Alison, you did not tell me the gentlemen were coming." It occurred to Harry that she looked very pale and ill. "Why, Weston; dear, I could not tell if they would keep troth." She began to hum: "Men were deceivers ever, One foot on sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never." "Nay, ma'am, sigh no more for here are we," Colonel Boyce said brusquely. "Oh Lud, he overwhelms us with the honour." She laughed. "How can we entertain him worthily? Sir, will you walk? My poor house and I await your pleasure." "I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I have never had a lady-in-waiting." "Oh, celibate virtue!" quoth Miss Lambourne. And so to the house Colonel Boyce led her and his horse, and a little way behind Harry followed with his and Mrs. Weston. She had nothing to say for herself. She looked so wan, she walked so slowly, and with such an air of pain that Harry had to say something about fearing she was not well. Then he felt a fool for his pains; as she turned in answer and shook her head he saw such a sad, wistful dignity in her eyes that the small coin of courtesy seemed an absurd offering. A fancy, to be sure, in itself absurd. Yet he could not make the woman out. There was something odd and baffling in the way she looked at him. She led off with an odd question, "Pray, have you lived much with Colonel Boyce?" "Not I, ma'am." Harry laughed. "If I were not a very wise child I should hardly know my own father. Lived with him? Not much more than with my mother, whom I never saw." "Oh, did you not?" Her eyes dwelt upon him. After a little while, "Who brought you up then?" "Schools. Half a dozen schools between Taunton and London, and Westminster at last." "Were you happy?" "When I had sixpence." "But Colonel Boyce is rich!" she cried. "I have no evidence of it, ma'am." "I cannot understand. You hardly know him. But he comes to you at Lady Waverton's; he stays with you; he brings you here. I believe you are closer with him than you say." "Why, ma'am, it's mighty kind in you to concern yourself so with my affairs. And if you can't understand them, faith, no more can I." She showed no shame at this rebuke of impertinence. In a minute Harry was sorry he had amused himself by giving it. There was something strangely affecting in the woman. Middle-aged, stout, faded, bound in manner and speech by a shy clumsiness, she refused to be insignificant, she made an appeal to him which he puzzled over in vain. Her simplicity was with power, as of a nature which had cared only for the greater things. He felt himself meeting one who had more than he of human quality, richer in suffering, richer in all emotion, and (what was vastly surprising) under her dullness, her feebleness, of fuller and deeper life. From vague, intriguing, bewildering fancies, her voice brought him back with a start. "He brought you here?" she was asking. To be sure, she was wonderfully maladroit. This buzzing, futile curiosity irritated him again into a sneer. "He is no doubt captivated by the beautiful eyes of Miss Lambourne." "He! Mr. Boyce?"--she corrected herself with a stammer and a blush--"Colonel Boyce? Oh no. Indeed, he is old enough to be her father." "I think we ought to tell him so." Harry chuckled. "It would do him good." "I think this is not very delicate, sir." Mrs. Weston was still blushing. "Egad, ma'am, if you ask questions, you must expect answers," Harry snapped at her. "Why do you sneer at her? Why should you speak coarsely of her? I suppose you come to the house of your own choice? Or does he make you come?" Harry saw no occasion for such excitement. "Why, you take away my breath with your pronouns. He and she--she and he--pray, let's leave him and her out of the question. Here's a very pretty garden." "Indeed, we need not quarrel, I think." She laughed nervously, and gave him an odd, shy look. "Pray, do you stay with the Wavertons?" "Alas, ma'am, I make your acquaintance and bid you farewell all in one day." "Make my acquaintance!" Again came a nervous laugh, and it was a moment before she went on. "We have met before to-day." "Oh Lud, ma'am, I would desire you forget it." "I am to forget it!" she echoed. "Oh ... Oh, you are very proud." "Not I, indeed. The truth is, ma'am, that silly affair with our highwayman, it embarrasses me mightily. I want to live it down. Pray, help me, and think no more about it." "I suppose that is what you say to Alison?" For the first time there was a touch of fun in her eyes. "Word for word, ma'am." "Why do you come here then?" "As I have the honour to tell you--to say good-bye." She checked and stared at him. She was very pale. But now they were at the steps of the house, and Colonel Boyce, who had resigned his horse to a groom, turned with Alison to meet them. "I am hot with the Colonel's compliments, Weston, dear," she announced. "I must take a turn with Mr. Boyce to cool me. 'Tis his role. A convenient family, faith. One makes you uncomfortably hot and t'other freezes you. You go get warm, my Weston. Though I vow 'tis dangerous to trust you to the Colonel. He has made very shameless love to me, and you have a tender heart." It occurred to Harry that Mrs. Weston and his father, thus forced to look at each other, wore each an air of defiance. They amused him. "I am not afraid," Mrs. Weston said. "I profess I am abashed," said Colonel Boyce. "Pray, ma'am, be gentle to my disgrace," and he offered his arm. She bowed and moved away, and he followed her. Harry and Alison, face to face, and sufficiently close, eyed each other with some amusement. "Oh, Mr. Boyce," said she, and shook her head. "Oh, Miss Lambourne," Harry exhorted in his turn. "You have fallen. You have walked into my parlour." "I am the best of sons, ma'am. I endure all things at my father's orders--even spiders." She still eyed him steadily, searching him, and was still amused. She moved a little so that the admirable flowing lines of her shape were more marked. Then she said, "Why are you afraid of me?" Harry shook his head, smiling. "Vainly is the net spread in the sight of the bird, ma'am. But, faith, it was a pretty question, and I make you my compliments." "So. Will you walk, sir?" She turned into a narrow path in the shadow of arches, clothed by a great Austrian brier, on which here and there a yellow flame still glowed. "Mr. Boyce--when I meet you in company you shrink and cower detestably; when I meet you alone, you fence with me impudently enough and shrewdly; and always you avoid me while you can. I suppose there's in all this something more than the freaks of a fool. Then it's fear. Prithee, sir, why in God's name are you afraid of me?" "Miss Lambourne got out of bed very earnest this morning," Harry grinned. "But oh, let's be grave and honest with all my heart. Why, then, ma'am, I've to say that a penniless fellow has the right to be afraid of Miss Lambourne's money bags." "Fie, you are no such fool. If one is good company to t'other, which is rich and which is poor is no more matter than which fair and which dark." "In a better world, ma'am, I would believe you." "And here you believe kind folks would sneer at Harry Boyce for scenting an heiress. So you tuck your tail between your legs and go to ground. I suppose that is called honour, sir." "Oh no, ma'am. Taste." "La, I offend monsieur's fine taste, do I?" "Not often, ma'am. But by all means let us be earnest. I believe I mind being sneered at no more than my betters. _Par exemple_, ma'am, when you laugh at me for being shabby, I am not much disturbed." She blushed furiously. "I never did." "Oh, I must have read your thoughts then," Harry laughed. "Well, what matters to me is not that folks laugh at me but why they laugh. That they mock me for being out at elbows I swallow well enough. That they should sneer at me for making love to a woman's purse would give me a nausea." Miss Lambourne was pleased to look modest. "Indeed, sir, I did not know that you had made love to me." "I am obliged by your honesty, ma'am." Miss Lambourne looked up and spoke with some vehemence. "It comes to this, then, you would be beaten by what folks may say about you. Oh, brave!" "Lud, we are all beaten by what folks might say. Would you ride into London in your shift?" "I don't want to ride in my shift," she cried fiercely. "Perhaps not, ma'am. But perhaps I don't want to make love to your purse." "Od burn it, sir, am I nothing but a purse?" "I leave it to your husband to find out, ma'am, and beg leave to take my leave. My kind father offers me occupation at a distance, and I embrace it ardently. Who knows? It may provide me with a coat." "You are going away?" "I have had the honour to say so." "And why, if you please?" Harry shrugged. "Because, ma'am, without my assistance, Mr. Waverton can very well translate Horace into his own sublime verse and Miss Lambourne into his own proud wife." He intended her to rage. What she did was to say softly: "You do not want to see me that?" "I have no ambition to amuse you, ma'am." Miss Lambourne looked sideways. "What if I don't want you to go away?" "Egad, ma'am, I know you don't." Harry laughed. "You amuse yourself vastly (God knows why) with baiting me." "Why, it amuses me." Alison still looked at him sideways. "Don't you know why?" He did not choose to answer. "Indeed, then, if I am nought to you why do you care what folks say of you and me?" Harry made a step towards her. "You mean to have it again, do you?" he muttered. "Pray, sir, what?" and still she looked sideways. "What you dragged out of me in the wood." "Dragged out of--oh!" She blushed, she drew back, and so had occasion to do something with her cloak which let a glimpse of white neck and bosom come into the light. "You flatter us both indeed." "I'll tell you the truth of us both"--he, too, was flushed: "you are a curst coquette and I am a curst fool." Now she met his eyes fairly, and in hers there was no more laughter, but she smiled with her lips: "I think you know yourself better than you know me." Harry gripped her hands. "You go about to make me mad with desire for you, you--" "I want you so," she breathed, and leaned back, away from him, her eyes half veiled. He had his arms about her body, held her close. The red lips curved in a riddle of a smile. He saw dark depths in the shadowed eyes. "_Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre_" she murmured. Harry exclaimed something, felt her against him, was aware of all her form--and heard footsteps. Alison was out of his grasp, her back to him, plucking a rose. "You will see me again--you shall see me again. I ride in the wood to-morrow morning," she muttered. "You'll pay for it," Harry growled. His father arrived, Mrs. Weston, a servant at their heels. Alison came round with a swirl of skirts. "Dear sir, I doubt you have burnt up dinner by your long passages with my Weston. Come in, come in," and she led the way. For once Colonel Boyce was without an answer. Harry, who was dreading witticisms, looked at him in surprise, and with more surprise saw that he looked angry. Mrs. Weston hurried on before them all. Her eyes were red. CHAPTER IX ANGER OF AN UNCLE It seems certain that on this day Alison wore a dress of a blue like peacock's feathers. That colour--as you may see, she wears it in both the Kneller and the Thornhill portraits--was much a favourite of hers, and indeed it set off well the rare beauty of her own hues. The clarity, the delicacy, of her cheeks were such as you may see on one of those roses which, white in full flower, have a rosy flush on the outer petals of the bud, and the same rose open may serve for the likeness of a neck and bosom which she guarded no more prudishly than her day's fashion demanded. For all the daintiness, her lips, a proud pair, were richly red (stained of raspberries, in Charles Hadley's sneer), and with the black masses of her hair and grey eyes almost as dark, gave her an aspect of, what neither man nor woman ever denied her, eager and passionate life. All this was flowering out of her peacock blue velvet, and Harry, I infer, went mad. She never expanded into the larger extravagances of the hoop, preferring to trust to her own shape. Her waist made no pretence of fine-ladyship, but the bodice was close laced _à la mode_ to parade the riches of her bosom. Strong and gloriously alive, and abundantly a woman--so she smiled at the world. It was a delirious hour for Harry, that dinner. He knew that Alison was pleased to be in the gayest spirits, and his father, in his father's own flamboyant style, seconded her heartily. He joined in, too, and seemed to himself loud and vapid, yet had no power of restraint. It was as though his usual placid, critical mind were detached and watched himself in the happy exuberance of drunkenness--which was a state unknown to him, for excess of liquor could only move him with drowsy gloom. And in the midst of the noise Mrs. Weston sat, pale and silent, a ghost at the feast. He was glad when his father spoke of going, though he found himself talking some folly against it, on Alison's side, who jovially mocked the Colonel for shyness. But Colonel Boyce, it appeared, had made up his mind, and Harry was surprised at the masterful ease with which, keeping the empty fun still loud, he extricated himself and his unwilling son. They were all at the door, a noisy, laughing company, and the horses waited. "It's no use, ma'am," Harry cried, "he knows how to get his way, _monsieur mon père_." "Pray heaven he hath not taught his son the art!" "Oh Lud, no, I am the very humble servant of any petticoat." "Fie, that's far worse, sir. I see you would still be forgetting which covered your wife." "Never believe him, Madame Alison." quoth the Colonel. "It's a strong rogue and a masterless man," "Why, that's better again. And yet it's not so well if he'll be mistressless too." "Fight it out, child," the Colonel cried. "'Lay on, Macduff, and curst be she that first cries hold, enough!' Come, Harry, to horse." "See, Weston, he deserts me, and merrily!" There came upon the scene two other horsemen--Mr. Hadley's gaunt, one-armed frame and a big, lumbering elder with a rosy face. Harry bowed over Alison's hand. It was she who put it to his lips, and nodding a roguish smile at the other gentlemen, "So you run away, sir?" she said. Harry looked at her and "Give me back my head," he said in a low voice. "I have lost it somewhere here." "Oh, your head!" She laughed. "Well, maybe it's the best part of you." He mounted, and Colonel Boyce, already in the saddle, kissed his hand to her. They rode off, compelled to single file by the plump old gentleman who held the middle of the road and glowered at them. Mr. Hadley made an elaborate bow. The old gentleman watched them out of sight round the curve of the drive, then sent his horse on with an oath and, dismounting heavily at Alison's toes, roared out: "What the devil's this folly, miss?" He made angry puffing noises. "I vow I heard you laughing at Finchley. Might have heard him kissing too." "Kissing? Oh la, sir, my hand, and so may you." She held it out and made an impudent little curtsy. "I protest the gentleman is all maidenly. That is why he and I make so good a match." The old gentleman spluttered and was still redder. "Match, miss? What, the devil!" "Oh no, sir. Pray come in, sir. I see you are in a heat, and I fear for a chill on your gout." "You are mighty civil, miss. You are too civil by half," the old gentleman puffed, and stalked past her. Alison stood in the way of Charles Hadley as he made to follow. There was some pugnacity on her fair face. "It's mighty kind of Mr. Hadley to concern himself with me." "Egad, ma'am, if I come untimely it's pure happy chance." She whirled round on that and they went in. "Will you please to drink a dish of tea, Sir John?" "You know I won't, miss." The old gentleman let himself down with a grunt into the largest chair in her drawing-room. "Now who the plague is this kissing fellow?" "Sure, sir, it's the gentleman Mr. Hadley told you of," said Alison meekly. She hit both her birds. Mr. Hadley and his uncle looked at each other. Sir John snorted. Mr. Hadley shrugged and gave an acid laugh. "What, what, that fellow of Waverton's? Od burn it, miss, he's a starveling usher." "Oh, sir, don't be hasty. I dare say he'll be fat when he's old." "Don't be pert, miss. D'ye know all the county's talking of you and this fellow?" Alison paled a little. She spoke in a still small voice. "I did not know how much I was in Mr. Hadley's debt. I advise you, Sir John, don't be one of those who talk." "You advise me, miss! Damme, ain't I your guardian?" "I am trying to remember that you once were, sir. But you make it very hard." "What the devil do you mean?" "I mean--" "I vow neither of you knows what you mean," Mr. Hadley drowned her in a drawl. "I never saw such fire-eaters. Look 'e, Alison, we come riding over in a civil way and--" "Tell me you have been planning a scandal about me. Oh, I vow I am obliged to you." Mr. Hadley laughed. "Lud, child, you ha' known me long enough. Do I deal in tattle? And if we have seen what we should not ha' seen, if you're hot at being caught, prithee, whose fault is it? Egad, you know well enough there's things beneath Miss Lambourne's dignity." "Yes, indeed, and I see Mr. Hadley is one of them." "You're a fool for your pains, Charles," John shouted. "What's sense to a wench? Now, miss, I'll have an end of this. You're old Tom Lambourne's daughter for all your folly, and I'll not have his flesh and blood the sport of any greedy rogue from the kennel." There was a moment of silence. Then Alison, whose colour was grown high, said quietly, "Pray, Sir John, will you go or shall I? I do not desire to see you again in my house." "Go?" The old gentleman struggled to his feet. "Damme, Charles, the girl's mad. Yes, miss, I'll go--and go straight to my Lady Waverton. Od burn it, we'll have your fellow out of the county in an hour. Egad, miss, you're besotted. Why, what is he?--a trickster, a knight of the road. 'Stand and deliver,' that's my gentleman's trade. He's for your father's money, you fool." "Good-bye, Sir John," Alison said, and turned away. With unwonted agility, Mr. Hadley came between her and the door. "You are not fair to us, Alison," he said. "Prithee, be fair to yourself." She passed him without a word. Mr. Hadley turned and showed Sir John a rueful face. "We have made a bad business of it, sir." Sir John swore. "Brazen impudence, damme, brazen, I say." "Oh Lord! Don't make bad worse." Sir John swore again. Upon his rage came Alison's voice singing: "When daffodils begin to peer With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year, For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale." Sir John spluttered, and went out roaring for his horse. CHAPTER X YOUNG BLOOD There is reason to believe that from the first Mr. Hadley suspected he was making a fool of himself. This sensation, the common accompaniment of an attempt to do your duty, was just of the right strength to ensure that all his actions should be disastrous. It was, as you see, not strong enough to restrain him from exciting the dull and choleric mind of Sir John Burford; it did not avail to direct the ensuing storm. And then, having first failed to be sufficient check, it developed into a very paralysis. Startled by the furies he had roused in Alison, Mr. Hadley found that suspicion of his own folly develop into a gruesome conviction. It compelled him to labour with Sir John vehemently until that blundering knight consented to wait before exploding his alarms upon Lady Waverton. Even as the first blundering remonstrances had irritated Alison's wanton will into passionate resolution, so this ensuing vacillation and delay gave it opportunity. If the tale had been told to Lady Waverton, no doubt but Harry would have been banished from Tetherdown that night. It is likely, indeed, that the ultimate fates of Alison and Harry would have been the same. But many antecedent adventures must have been different or superfluous. Mr. Hadley was now full of common sense. Mr. Hadley sagely argued with his uncle that they would do more harm than good by carrying their tale to Lady Waverton. The woman was a fool in grain, and whatever she did would surely do it in the silliest way. Tell her a word, and she would swiftly give birth to a scandal which the world would not willingly let die, in which Mr. Harry Boyce, if he were indeed the knave of their hypothesis, might easily find a means to strengthen his grip of Alison. It was better to wait and (so Mr. Hadley with a sour smile) "see which way the cat jumped." Perhaps Madame Alison, who was no kitten, might not be altogether infatuated. The shock of the afternoon, for all her heroics, might have waked in her some doubt of the charms of Mr. Boyce. The girl was shrewd enough. She had dealt with fortune-hunters before--remember the Scottish lord's son--and shown a humorous appreciation of the tribe. She was not a chit with the green sickness; she was neither so young nor so old that she must needs fall into the arms of any man who made eyes at her. After all, likely enough she was but amusing herself with Mr. Boyce. Not a very delicate business, but they were full-blooded folk, the Lambournes. Remember old Tom, her father: there was a jolly bluff rogue. Well, if miss was but having her fling, it would do no good to tease her. Thus Mr. Hadley, cautiously recoiling, doubting or hoping he was making the best of things, brought Sir John, in spite of some boilings over, safe back to his home and his jovial daughter. When Harry and his father rode away from Alison, for once in a while Harry found his father's mood in tune with his own. Colonel Boyce suddenly relapsed from hilarity into a perfect silence. He soon reined his horse to a walk, and his wonted alert, soldierly bearing suffered eclipse. He gave at the back, he was thoughtful, he was melancholy--a very comfortable companion. "Pray, sir, when do we start for France?" said Harry at length. "What's that? Egad, you're in a hurry, ain't you? Not to-night nor yet to-morrow. Time enough, time enough. Make the best of it, Harry." It occurred to Harry that his father was preoccupied. But with that he did not concern himself. He was in too much tumult. It appeared that he would be able to meet Alison in the morning. He did not know whether he was glad. He had been telling himself that he would have snatched at the excuse to fail her, and yet was not sure that if his father had announced instant departure he would not have bidden his father to the devil. But still in a fashion he was angry, in a degree he was frightened. He knew that he would go meet the girl now; he could not help himself--an exasperating state. And when he was with her--her presence now set all his nature rioting--with other folk by, it was hard enough to be sane; when he was alone with her in the wood, what would the wild wench be to him before they parted? There was no love in him. He had no tenderness for her, he did not want to cherish her, serve her, glorify her. Only she made him mad with passion. But, according to his private lights, he was honest, and wished to be, and was therefore commanded to try to save the girl from his wicked will and hers. He despised himself for the gleam of cautious duty. What in the world was worth so much as the rose petals of her face, the round swell of her breast? "Damme, Harry, a man's a fool to be ambitious," so his father broke in upon this tumult. "Why do we fret and trick after a place, or a purse, or a trifle of power?" Harry stared at him. "Lord, sir, why are you so moral?" And then Colonel Boyce began to laugh. "I grow old, I think. Oh, the devil, I never had regrets worse than the morning's headache for last night's wine. I suppose if you live long enough, life's a procession of morning headaches. Well, I vow I've not lived long enough yet, Harry." "I dare say you are the best judge," Harry admitted. "There's a higher court, eh? Who knows? Maybe we are all the toys of chance." He shrugged. "Why then, damme, I have never been afraid to take what I chose and wait for the bill. Dodge it, or pay it. Odso, there is no other way for a hungry man." "Lord, sir, now you are philosophical! What's the matter?" "Humph, I suppose my stomach is weakening," said Colonel Boyce. "I don't digest things as I did." In this pensive temper they came back to Tetherdown. The Colonel's servant was waiting for him with letters, and he was seen no more that night. Harry did not know till afterwards that Mr. Waverton, as well as letters, was taken to the Colonel's room. Madame Alison was left by the exhortations of her anxious friends feeling defiant of all the world. It is a comfortable condition, but, for a passionate girl of twenty-two, fruitful of delusions. Alison was so far happier than Harry in that she knew what she wanted. You may wonder if you will how Harry Boyce, with nothing handsome about him but his legs, could rouse in the girl just such a wild longing as her beauty set ablaze in him. These problems, comforting to the conceit of man, are numerous. And, as usual, madame had dreamed her gentleman into a wonderful fellow. The overthrow of the highwayman became from the first a splendid achievement. Sure, Mr. Boyce must be of rare courage and strength, even as he was deliciously adroit, and that insolent air with which he did his devoir gave one a sweet thrill. Afterwards, he progressed in her imagination from victory to victory. What served him best was his capacity for puzzling her. That its hero should want to keep such a gallant affair secret proved him of amazing modesty or amazing pride--perhaps both--a titillating combination. It surprised her more that he should dare rebuff the advances of Miss Lambourne. Madame knew very well the power of her beauty over men. If she gave one half an inch she expected that he should be instantly mad to get an ell of her. But here was Mr. Boyce, though she gave him a good many inches, as supercilious about her as if he were a woman. It was incredible that the creature had no warm blood in him. Indeed, she had proof--she could still make herself feel the ache of his grasp in the wood--that he was on occasion as fierce as any woman need want a man. Why, then, monsieur must be defying her out of wanton pride. A marvellous fellow, who dared think himself too good for her. She made no account of all his wise, honest talk about being poor while she was rich. To her temper it was impossible that a man who wanted her in his arms should stop to weigh his purse and hers, or to consider what the world would say of him for wooing her. All that must be mere fencing, mere mockery. To be sure, he fenced mighty cleverly. The smug meekness which he put on when she attacked him before others was bewildering. If she had never seen him in action she must have been deceived. And, faith, it seemed certain that he wanted to deceive her, to put her off, to put her aside. The haughty gentleman dared believe that he could be very comfortable without Miss Lambourne. It must not be allowed. He was by far too fine a fellow to be let go his way. Faith, it was mighty noble, this self-sufficient power of his, capable of anything, caring for nothing, hiding itself behind an impenetrable mask, and living a secret life of its own. She was on fire to enter into him and take possession, and use him for herself. So she was driven by a double need, knew it, and was not the least ashamed. She longed to have Harry Boyce in her arms and his grip cruel upon her. But also she wanted to conquer him and hold his mind at her order. She imagined him under her direction winning all manner of fame. And she believed herself mightily in love.... There is a moss on the birch trunks which makes a colour of singular charm, a soft, delicate, grey green. A hood of that colour embraced Alison's black hair and the glow of the dark eyes and her raspberry lips. The cloak of the same colour she drew close about her with one gauntleted hand, so that it confessed her shape. The birches could still show a few golden leaves, though each moment another went whirling away as the crests bowed and tossed before the wind. In the brown bracken beneath Harry Boyce stood waiting. His graces were set off with his customary rusty black. His hat was well down upon his bobwig, and he hunched his shoulders against the wind, making a picture of melancholy discomfort. He rocked to and fro a little, according to a habit of his when he was excited. Alison was very close to him before she stopped. "What have you come for?" he growled. She drew a breath, and then, very quietly, "For you," she said. "You have had enough fun with me, ma'am." Her breast was touching him, and he did not draw back. "Then why did you come?" She laughed. "Because I'm a fool." "A fool to want me?" "By God, yes. You know that, you slut." "No. You would be a fool if you didn't, you--man." "Be careful." Harry flushed. "Oh Lud, was I made to be careful?" He gripped her hand, and, after a moment, "Take off your hood," he muttered. "Is that all?" She laughed, and let it fall from hair and neck, and looked as though sunlight had flashed out at her. "Honest gentleman, you are lightly satisfied." "So are not you, I vow." She was pleased to answer that with a scrap of a song: "Jog on, jog on the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a! A merry heart goes all the way, A sad one tires in a mile-a." "Faith, yours is a mighty sad one, Harry. Pray, what are you the better for stripping me of this?" She flirted the hood. "I can see those wicked colours of yours. Lord, what a fool is a man to go mad for a show of pink and white!" "And is that all I am?" Harry shrugged. "Item--a pair of eyes that look sideways; item--a woman's body with arms and sufficient legs." "Lud, it's an inventory! I'm for sale, then. Well, what's your bid?" "I've a shilling in my pocket ma'am and want it to buy tobacco." "Oh, silly, what does a man pay for a woman?" Harry laughed. "Why, nothing, if she's worth buying." Then Alison said softly, "Going--going--gone," and clapped her hands and laughed. "You go beyond me at least," Harry said in a moment. She put her hands behind her and leaned forward till her bosom pressed upon him lightly, and then, with her head tilted back so that he saw the white curve from under her chin, and the line of the blue vein in it, "You want me, Harry," she said. "You know that too well, by God." "Too well for what, sir?" "Too well for my peace, ma'am." He flushed. "His peace!" She laughed. "Oh Lud, the dear man wants peace!" He flung himself upon her, holding her to him as she staggered back, and kissed her till she was gasping for breath, gripped her head to hold it against his kisses, buried his face in the fragrance of her neck. She gave herself, her arms still behind her, offering the swell of her breasts to him, her eyes gay.... "You are mine, now. You're mine, do you hear?" he said unsteadily. "I want you," she smiled, and was crushed again. When he let her go, it was to step back and look at her, wondering and intent. She stood something less than her full height, her bosom beating fast. She was all flushed and smiling, but now her eyes were dim and they met his shyly. "Egad, you're exalting," he said with a wry smile. "I feel all power when you grasp at me so--power--just power." "No, faith, you are not. When I hold you to me, when you yield for me, I am all the power there is. Damme, the very life of the world." "So then," she looked at him through her eyelashes, "and have it so. For it's I who give you all." "In effect," Harry said: and then, "go to, you make us both mad." "I am content." "Yes, and for how long?" She made an exclamation. "Have I worn out the poor gentleman already?" "Would you keep yourself for me? Will you wait?" "Why, what have we to wait for now?" "Till I am something more than this shabby usher." "I despise you when you talk so." Her face flamed. "Fie, what's a word and a coat? You have lived with me in your arms. You are what I make of you then. Is it enough, Harry, is it not enough?" "I'll come to your arms something better before I come again. I am off to France." "Ah!" Then she studied him for a little while. "You meant to run away, then. Oh, brave Harry! Oh, wise! Pray, are you not ashamed?" "Yes, shame's the only wear." "I'll not spare you, I vow." "Egad, ma'am, mercy never was a virtue of yours." "Is it mercy you want in a woman?" "I'll take what I want, not ask for it." "Why, now you brag! And if there is not in me what monsieur wants?" "So much the worse for us both. But you should have thought of that before." "Faith, Harry, you take it sombrely." She made a wry mouth at him. "Pluck up heart. I vow I'll satisfy you." "You'll not deny me anything you have." She paused a moment. "Amen, so be it. And must we never smile again?" "I wonder"--he took her hands; "I wonder, will you be smiling to-morrow when I am away to France." "Oh, are you still set on that fancy?" She gave a contemptuous laugh. "Prithee, Harry, shall I like you the better for waiting till you have French lace at your neck and a frenchified air?" "You'll please to wait till I bring Miss Lambourne a fellow who has done something more than snuffle over a servitor's books. I want to prove myself, Alison." "You have proved yourself on me, sir. What, am I a lean wench in despair to hunger for a snuffling servitor? If you were that, I were not for you. But I know you better, God help me, my Lord Lucifer. Why then, take the goods the gods provide you and say grace over me." Harry shook his head, smiling. "Lord, it's a mule! Pray what do you look to do in France?" "I am pledged to my father and his policies--to go poking behind the curtains of the war and deal with the go-betweens of princes." "So. You talk big. Well, I like to hear it. What is the business?" "My father, if you believe him, has Marlborough's secrets in his pocket and is sent to chaffer for him. You may guess where and why. Queen Anne hath a brother." Her eyes sparkled. "You like the adventure, Harry?" "Egad, I begin to think so." "I love you for that!" she cried, and it was the first time she spoke the word. "Why then, first go with me to church and call me wife!" He drew in his breath. "By God, do you mean that?" "Why, don't you mean me honourably?" She gave an unsteady laugh, her eyes mistily kind. He sprang at her. CHAPTER XI ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON It was always in after life alleged by Mr. Hadley that his steady interest in the family of his uncle was nothing but a desire to keep the old gentleman out of mischief. Sir John Burford was indeed of a temper too irascible to be safe with his bucolically English mind: a man who in throwing tankards at his servants and challenges at his friends was a source of continuous anxiety to his reasonable kinsfolk. But he had also a daughter. She received the benevolent Mr. Hadley when on the morning after the explosions in Alison's house he came to see whether Sir John was still dangerous or his daughter any thinner. It was the latter purpose which he professed to Susan Burford. She was not annoyed. In her cradle she had been instructed that she was a jolly, fat girl, and through life she accepted the status, like every other which was given her, with great good humour. She was, in fact, no fatter than serves to give a tall woman an air of genial well-being. It was conjectured by her friends that her father, needing all his irascibility for himself, had allowed her to inherit only his physical qualities. She had indeed the largeness of Sir John and his open countenance. Her supreme equanimity perhaps came from her mother. She was by a dozen years at least younger than Mr. Hadley, and always thought him a very clever boy. "Sir John is gone out to the pigs, Mr. Hadley. Perhaps you'll go too," she said, and looked innocent. "Well, they are peaceful company, Susan. And you're so surly." "I thought you would find some joke in that," said Susan, with kindly satisfaction. "Damme, don't be so maternal. It's cloying to the male. Be discreet, Susan. You will talk as though you had weaned me but a year or two, and still wanted me at the breast." Susan was not disconcerted. "Will you drink a tankard?" said she. "Or Sir John has some Spanish wine which he makes much of." "Susan, you despise men. It is a vile infidel habit." He paused, and Susan dutifully smiled. "Why now, what are you laughing at? You! You don't know what I mean." "To be sure, no," said Susan. "Does it matter?" "Oh Lud, your repartees! Bludgeons and broadswords! I mean, ma'am, you think men are nought but casks--things to fill with drink and victuals. Is it not true?" Susan considered this, her head a little on one side and smiling. She wore a dress of dark blue velvet cut low about the neck, and so, nature having made her sumptuous, was very well suited. "Egad, now I know what you're like," Mr. Hadley cried. "You're one of Rubens' women, Susan; just one of those plump, spacious dames as healthy as milk and peaches, and blandly jolly about it." Susan looked down at herself with her usual amiable satisfaction and patted the heavy coils of her yellow hair and said: "Sir John often talks of having me painted. But that's after dinner. Will you stay dinner, Mr. Hadley?" "Damme, Susan, what should I say after dinner, if I say so much now?" Susan smiled upon him with perfect calm. "Why, I never can tell what you will say. Can you?" "You're a hypocrite, Susan. You look as simple as a baby, and the truth is you're deep, devilish deep. Here!" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a guinea for your thoughts if you tell them true. Now what are you thinking, ma'am?" "Why, I am thinking that you came to see my father, and yet you stay here talking to me;" she gurgled pleasant laughter and held out her hand for the guinea. Mr. Hadley still retained it. "That pleases you, does it?" "Yes, indeed. You're so comical." Mr. Hadley surrendered the guinea, looked at his empty left sleeve and made a wry face. "Lord, yes, I am comical enough. A lop-sided grotesque." "That's not fair!" He had at last made her blush. "You know well I did not mean that. I think it makes you look--noble." "It makes me feel a fool," said Mr. Hadley. "Lord, Susan, one arm's not enough to go round you." "So we'll kill the Elstree hog for Christmas;" that apposite interruption came in her father's robust voice. Sir John strode rolling in. "What, Charles! In very good time, egad. You can come with me." "What, sir, back to the swine? I profess Susan makes as pretty company." Sir John was pleased to laugh. "Ay, the wench pays for her victuals, too. Damme, Sue, you look good enough to eat." He chucked her chin paternally. "Well, my lad, I ha' thought over that business and I'm taking horse to ride over to Tetherdown." "Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley. "And what then, sir?" "I'll talk to Master Geoffrey." "Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley again. "Do it delicately." "Delicate be damned," said Sir John. "I had better ride with you," said Mr. Hadley. "Good boy. Here, Roger--Mr. Hadley's horse." Susan stood up. "Lud, sir, you will not be here to dinner then?" Sir John shook his head. Mr. Hadley scratched his chin. "I am not so sure that Geoffrey will give us a dinner," said he. "Why, sir," Susan was interested, "what's your business with Mr. Waverton?" "To tell him he's a fool, wench," quoth Sir John. "Oh. And will Mr. Waverton like that?" "Like it! Odso, he'll like it well enough if he has sense." Mr. Hadley grinned. "That's logic, faith. Well, sir, have with you." So off they rode. On the way Sir John was pleased to expound to Mr. Hadley the profound sagacity of his new plan. He would rally Geoffrey on his flaccidity; accuse him of being an oaf; and, describing all the while in an inflammatory manner the charms of Alison, hint that Geoffrey's tutor had ambitions after them. "And if that don't wake up my gentleman, he may go to the devil for me and deserve it." It crossed Mr. Hadley's lucid mind that a gentleman who required so much waking up did not deserve Miss Lambourne. But she was quite capable of discovering that for herself, if indeed she had not already. And certainly it would do Geoffrey no harm to be made uncomfortable. So Mr. Hadley rode on with right good will. But when they came to Tetherdown it was announced that Mr. Waverton had gone riding. "Why, then we'll wait for him." Sir John strode in. The butler looked dubious. Mr. Waverton had said nothing of when he would come back. "Why the devil should he?" Sir John stretched his legs before the fire. "He'll dine, won't he?" The butler bowed. "Prithee, William," says Mr. Hadley, "is Mr. Boyce in the house?" "Mr. Boyce, sir, is gone walking." Mr. Hadley shrugged. "Odso, away with you," Sir John waved the man off. "Let my lady know we are here." The butler coughed. "My lady is in bed, Sir John." "What, still?" quoth Sir John, for it was close upon noon. "Hath been afoot, Sir John. But took to her bed half an hour since." "What, what? Is she ailing?" The butler could not say, but looked a volume of secrets, so that Sir John swore him out of the room. "Vaporous old wench, Charles," Sir John snorted. And a second time Mr. Hadley shrugged. In a little while the butler came back even more puffed up. Her ladyship hoped to receive the gentlemen in half an hour. CHAPTER XII IN HASTE Oh, Harry, Harry, I give in. I am the weaker vessel. At least, I have the shorter legs." "What, you're asking me to spare you already? Lord, how will you bear me as a husband?" They were under the great beeches in Hampstead Lane, breasting the rise to the heath, on their march for that kindly chapel, where, if you dined in the tavern annexed, the incumbent would marry you for nothing, charge but the five shillings, cost price of the Queen's licence, and ask no questions. Harry shortened his stride, and looked down with grim amusement at Alison's breathless bosom. "I believe you mean to make an end of me before you have begun with me," she panted. "Lord, sir, what a figure you'll cut if you bring me to church too faint to say, 'I will.'" "Why, the Levite would but take it for maiden modesty. Not knowing you." "You are trying to play the brute. It won't save you, Harry. I shan't be frightened." "You! No, faith, it's I. I am beside myself with terror." "I do believe that's true!" She laughed at him. "But, oh, dear sir, why?" "Lest I should not fulfil the heroical expectations of Miss Lambourne. Confess it, ma'am; you count on me to exalt you into heavens of ecstasy, to bewilder the world with my glories, and be shaved by breakfast-time." "To be sure, I'll always expect the impossible of you." "There it is. I suppose you expect me to begin by creating a wedding-ring." "Why, you have created me." "Oh, no, no, no. You're a splendid iniquity, but not mine, I vow." "This woman of yours never lived till you made her. I profess Miss Lambourne was ever known for a dull cold thing born 'to suckle fools and chronicle small beer.'" "So she wrote me down her property. Egad, ma'am, it was very natural." "You know what you have made of me," Alison said. "God knows what you'll make of me. And now in the matter of the ring--" "Oh Lud, what a trivial thing is a man!" She drew off her glove and held out a hand with two rings on it. "Marry me with which you will." One was a plain piece of gold, paler than the common, carved into an odd device of a snake biting its tail. "With thine own ring I thee wed," Harry said, and took it off. "I take you to witness, Mrs. Alison, the snake was in your paradise before I came." They were across the heath now and going down the steep, narrow lane beyond. The chapel of the Hampstead marriages stood raw red beside a garden with lawns and arbours shaggy in winter's untidiness. Even the tavern at the gate, a spreading one-story place of timber, looked dead and desolate. Harry forced open the sticking door and strode in, Madame Alison loitering behind. He was met by a dirty lad whose gaping clothes were half hidden by a leather apron, and whose shoes protruded straw--a lad who smelt of the stable and small beer. "Where's the priest?" said Harry. "In the tap," said the boy, and shuffled off. There came out into the passage, wheezing and wiping his chops, a little bloated man in a cassock, with his bands under his right ear. He leered at Harry and tried to look round him at Alison. "You're out of season, my lord," said he. "These chill rains, they play the mischief with lusty blood. Go to, you'll not be denied, won't you? Do you dine here?" "We have no time for it." "What, you're hasty, ain't you?" He gave a hoarse laugh. "There's my fee to pay then." "Here's a guinea to pay for all," said Harry. The dirty fist took it, the little red eyes peered at it closely, the dirty mouth bit it and was satisfied. "Go you round to the chapel door and wait. Lord, but man and wench never had to wait for me." He waddled off. Harry turned upon Alison. "So with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he said, with a crooked smile. "God give you joy of them. I vow I was never so frightened of spending a guinea." "Why, d'ye doubt if I'm worth it? Nay, sir, I'm honest stuff and challenge any trial." Harry looked down at her and was met by eyes as bold as his own. The chapel door opened, and the little priest beckoned them in. A pair of witnesses were already posted by the altar, the dirty lad of the tavern and a shock-headed wench. "Licence first, licence first." The parson bustled off to a table in a corner. "I warrant you we do things decently in Sion. Aye, and tightly, my pretty. Never a lawyer can undo my knots, never fear." He scratched laboriously over their names, while the dank smell of the place sank into them. They were marched to the altar. A hoarse muttering poured from the priest. He made no pretence of solemnity or even of meaning. He was concerned only to make an end and have done with them. Of all the service they heard nothing clearly but what they said themselves, and while they were deliberate over that the little priest grunted and puffed at them. He ended with a leer and drove them before him back to the table. There was more scratching in his register. The two uncouth witnesses scrawled something for their names and shambled off. "Let's breathe some free air," said Harry, and laid hold of his wife. The parson chuckled. "Free? You'll never be free again, my lord. I can see that in madame's eye. What, you ha' sold your birthright for a mess of pottage, ain't you? And mighty savoury pottage, too, says you." He rolled his eyes and smacked his lips. "Softly now, softly, madame wants her certificate. Madame wants to warrant herself a lawful married wife, if you don't ... There, my lady. And happy to marry you again any day at the same price." They were away from him at last and in clean air stretching their legs up the hill again. "Poor Harry!" Alison laughed. "Before you looked like a man fighting for his life. Now you look like a man going to be hanged. Dear lad! Pray how much would you give to escape me now?" She put her arm into his. He let her shorten his stride a little, but made no other confession of her existence. "Fie, Harry, it's over early to repent. In all reason you should first be sure of your sin. Who knows? I may not be deadly after all. 'Alack,' says he, 'I will not be comforted. Egad, the world's a cheat. A fool and his folly are soon parted they told me, and here am I tied to her till death us do part. So, a halter, gratis, for God's sake.'" "You're full of other folks' nonsense, Mrs. Boyce," said Harry with a grim look at her. "Oh, noble name!" She bobbed a curtsy. "Full? I am full of nothing but fasting, aye," she sighed, and turned up her eyes--"fasting from all but our sacrament." They were upon the ridge of the heath and Harry checked her, and stood looking away over the wide prospect of mist-veiled meadow and dim blue woods. She was beginning her mocking chatter again when he broke in with, "Ods life, ha' done!" and turned to look deep into her eyes. "There's mystery in this, and I think you see nothing of it." "Why, yes, faith. If you were no mystery, should I want you? If you had discovered all of me, would you want me?" "Bah, what do we know of living, you and I, or--or of love?" She laughed, with a scrap of twisted song: "Most living is feigning. Most loving mere folly, Then heigho the holly, This life is most jolly." He shrugged and marched her on again. "Pray, sir, will you dine at home?" she said demurely. Harry flushed. "I must go tell my father and all," he growled. "I'll be with you soon enough, madame wife." "Oh brave! Dear sir, have with you. I must see Geoffrey's face." "Egad, let's be decent!" Harry cried. "Decent! For shame, sir! What's more decent than man and wife?" "Man and wife!" Harry echoed it with a sour laugh. "Do you feel a wife? I never felt less of a man." "You shall be satisfied," she said, and looked at him gravely. "And I--I am not afraid, Harry." CHAPTER XIII DISTRESS OF A MOTHER Mr. Hadley and Sir John Burford in the hall at Tetherdown looked at each other across the fire. "Would you call for a pipe now, Charles?" says Sir John, fidgeting. "There'll be none in the house, sir. Geoffrey has no stomach for tobacco." "Damme, if I know what he hath a stomach for," Sir John grumbled, and kicked at the burning logs. "He don't eat no more than an old woman, nor drink so much as a young miss. Ain't the half-hour gone, Charles?" "That's a poetic phrase, sir. It means a year or so--while she's tiring her hair." "What and painting her face, too? Same as Jezebel." My lady's waiting-woman, Arabella, came in. She minced in the manner of her mistress, but, being a foot shorter, with different effect. She stood before Sir John, who had the largest chair, and stared at him, with languid insolence. "Ods my life, don't ogle me, woman," says he. "At your leisure, sir, if you please." She tossed her head. "Leisure! Oh Lord, I'm at leisure, thank 'e." Arabella sniffed. "I think you are in madame's chair, sir," Mr. Hadley explained. "What, then? She ain't here, nor I don't carry the plague." "The lady-in-waiting wants to compose it for madame." "Compose!" Sir John exploded an oath, and jumped up. "I ha'n't decomposed it." Arabella dusted the chair, wheeled it a little this way and that, put two footstools before it, and three cushions into it, contemplated them for some time, and then shifted them a little. After which she minced out with a great sigh. "Good God!" says Sir John. "I wonder," says Mr. Hadley--"I wonder if we've come to take the breeks off a Highlander?" "What's your will?" Sir John gasped. "I wonder if my lady knows all we can tell her. It might have made her hypochondriac." "Hip who? Odso, I am hipped myself." My lady came. She had so much flowing drapery about her that she seemed all robes. She moved very slowly, she was bowed, and she leaned upon the shoulder of Arabella. With care she deposited herself in the big chair. Arabella arranged her draperies, arranged the cushion, and stood aside. My lady lay back, put back the lace about her head, and showed them her large pale face and sighed. "You are welcome, gentlemen," said she. "You are vastly kind." "Odso, ma'am, what's the matter?" Sir John cried. "Why, have you not heard? Arabella, he has not heard!" My lady was convulsed, and clutched at the maid, who comforted her with a scent-bottle. "He has gone!" she sighed. "He has gone." "What the devil! Who the devil?" My lady recovered herself. From somewhere in her voluminous folds she produced a letter. "If it would please you, be patient with me. My unhappy eyes." She dabbed at them with a handful of lace, and read: "My lady, my mother,--I have but time for these few unkempt lines, wherein to bid you for a while farewell. My good friend, Colonel Boyce, has favoured me with an occasion to go see something of the warring world beyond the sea. And I, since the inglorious leisure of the hearth irks my blood, heartily company with him. It needs not that you indulge in tears, save such as must fall for my absence. I seek honour. So, with a son's kiss, I leave you, my mother. G.W." On which his mother's voice broke, and she wept. "Lord, what a fop!" said Sir John. My lady swelled in her draperies. "So he's gone to the war, has he? Odso, I didn't think he had it in him." "Sir, if you jeer at my bereavement!" my lady sobbed. "And where's Harry Boyce?" says Mr. Hadley. Sir John stared at him. "Why, seeking honour too, ain't he? What's in your head, Charles?" "This is rude," my lady sobbed; "this is brutal. The tutor! Oh, heaven, what is the tutor to me? I would to God I had never seen him--him nor his wicked father." Sir John tugged at Mr. Hadley's empty sleeve and drew him aside. "What are you pointing at, Charles? D'ye mean the two rogues have took Geoffrey off to make away with him between 'em?" "Lord, sir, you've a villainous imagination." Mr. Hadley grinned. "I mean no such matter. Nay, I'll lay a guinea, Harry Boyce is not gone at all." "Sir John"--my lady raised herself and was shrill--"what are you whispering there?" "What, what? You mean the old fellow took Geoffrey off to leave the young fellow a clear field with Ally Lambourne? Odso, that's devilish deep, ain't it? But we can set the young fellow packing, my lad. We--" "Sir John!" my lady's voice rose higher yet. "Coming, ma'am, coming. Od burn my heart and soul!" That last invocation was not directed at her but an invading tumult. The butler entered backwards, protesting, between two men who did not take off their hats. They were in riding-boots and cloaks, and splashed from the road. They had pistol butts ostentatious in their side pockets, and one carried some papers in his hand. "Stand back, my bully, stand back, or you'll smell Newgate," says he to the butler. "Burn your impudence," Sir John roared, and strode forward. "In the Queen's name. Messengers of the Secretary of State, with his warrant." The man waved his papers under Sir John's nose. "Master of the house, are you?" "I am Sir John Burford of Finchley, and be hanged to you." "There is the mistress of the house, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley "Thank'e. In the Queen's name, ma'am. Warrants to take Oliver Boyce, Colonel, and Geoffrey Waverton, Esquire." My lady shrieked, fell back, and was understood to be fainting. "You come too late, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley. "Your foxes be gone away." The man tapped his nose and grinned. "That won't do, sir. Set about it, Joe," and he nudged his fellow. "What's the charge against them?" says Mr. Hadley. The man laughed. "Come, sir, you know better than that. I ain't here to answer questions." Mr. Hadley put his hand in his pocket. The man grinned and shook his head, and went out pushing his comrade in front of him. Mr. Hadley followed them. As soon as they were out in the corridor and the door was shut behind them, the man turned and held out his hand to Mr. Hadley, who dropped into it a couple of guineas. "Lord, now, what did you think it was?" says the messenger genially. "Treasonable correspondence--Pretender--Lewis le Grand and so forth. Quite gentleman-like, d'ye smoke me?" "Prithee, who set you on?" says Mr. Hadley. "Now you go too far, ecod, you do. I don't mind obliging a gentleman, but you want to lose me my place. We'll be searching the house, by your leave." Off they went, and Mr. Hadley went back to my lady. She had been revived, and the air was heavy with scent. She fluttered her hands at the ministering Arabella and said faintly, "What is it, Charles?" "It seems there's some talk of their having dealings with the Pretender." "Lord bless my soul," Sir John puffed. "The Pretender?" Lady Waverton smiled through her powder. "La, now, Geoffrey's father always had a kindness for the young Prince." "I vow, ma'am, you take it with a fine spirit," says Mr. Hadley in some surprise. "You'll find, Mr. Hadley, that such families as ours, the older families, know how to bear themselves in this cause." Sir John stared at her and puffed the louder, and muttered very audibly, "Here's a turnabout!" "Oh, ma'am, to be sure it's a well-born party," Mr. Hadley shrugged. "D'ye give us leave to remain and see that these fellows show no impudence?" "Oh, sir, you are very obliging," says my lady superciliously. Mr. Hadley bowed, and withdrew to the recess of a window with Sir John following. "Here's a queer thing, Charles. Did ever you know Master Geoffrey was a Jacobite?" Mr. Hadley shook his head. "Nor this Colonel Boyce neither?" "I never saw a Jacobite in so good a coat, and I never thought Geoffrey would risk his coat for any king. And thirdly and lastly, I never knew Whitehall put itself out in these days whether a man was Jacobite or no. Why, damme, they be all half Jacobites themselves, from the Queen down." "Aye, aye," says Sir John sagely. "A devilish queer thing indeed." And on that came Alison and Harry--Alison rosy and smiling, Harry a pale and deliberate appendage. "Dear Lady Waverton, let me present my husband." Lady Waverton sat up straight. Lady Waverton embraced the pair of them with a bewildered glare. "I married him this morning," Alison laughed. "Alison, this is unmaidenly jesting," said my lady feebly. "Why, if it were, so it might be. But the truth is, it's unmaidenly truth. For I am Mrs. Harry Boyce. Give me joy." "Joy!" my lady gasped. "It's unworthy! It's cruel! Oh, Geoffrey, Geoffrey! How dare you?" She was again understood to faint. Through the rustle of Arabella and the odours of scent came the explosions of Sir John, swearing. Mr. Hadley moved forward, and, ignoring Alison, addressed himself to Harry. "Pray, sir, did you know that Mr. Waverton this morning left Tetherdown in your father's company, your father taking him, as he says in a letter, to the wars?" "Knew?" Lady Waverton chose to speak out of her swoon. "To be sure they knew. They would not have dared else. Dear Geoffrey! A villain! And you, miss--you whom he trusted! Oh!" She again took scent. "La, ma'am, he trusted me no more than I him. You are not well, I think." "You give me news, Mr. Hadley," Harry said. "I knew that my father meant to go abroad, and understood that I was to go with him." "Perhaps you'll go after him." Mr. Hadley shrugged and turned away. "Why, what's all this, Harry?" Alison laughed. "Your wise father hath chosen to take Geoffrey instead of you?" "In spite of my modesty, I'm surprised, ma'am," says Harry. "Burn your impudent face," quoth Sir John from the background. "Well, sir, if you were in your father's plans, maybe you'll pay your father's debts," quoth Mr. Hadley. "What do I owe you, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry, bristling. The two messengers came back again. "Right enough, sir, gone away." The spokesman nodded at Mr. Hadley. "We'll be riding. Trust no offence?" He looked hopeful. "Here's Colonel Boyce's son, wishing to answer for his father." The man looked Harry up and down and chuckled. "Lord, and mighty like. Servant, sir," he winked at Harry. "Tell the Colonel, sorry we missed him," He winked again and laughed. "What's this comedy of yours, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry. "Your friends have warrants to arrest your father and Mr. Waverton for treasonable correspondence with the Pretender. But none for you, I fear, Mr. Boyce." "Devil a one," the man laughed. "Come, Ned, we'll be jogging," Out they swung. A bewildered company, full of suspicions, stared at one another. "Come, Harry, let us go home," Alison said. "Home!" Lady Waverton gasped with an hysterical laugh. "Hear her!" "My lady"--Alison made her a curtsy--"gentlemen--all the friends of Mr. Boyce will be very welcome to me." Sir John swore. "You for a fool and he for a knave, damme, you're well matched." "When you were younger, sir, I suppose you were less of a boor," says Harry. "Mr. Hadley--my lady--" he made two stiff bows and gave his arm to Alison. "Humph, they go off with the honours." Mr. Hadley shrugged, and held out his arm in front of Sir John, who was plunging after them. "Be hanged to you. What did the rogue mean, telling me I was old?" "Why, he meant that a man who is too old to fight should be civil." "Too old?" Sir John fumed. "Burn him for a coward." "I think not," says Mr. Hadley. "But for the rest--God be with you. My lady--sincerely your servant." My lady was now weeping. "You never loved him," she complained. "You were never his friend," and she became speechless. The two men looked at each other. "Well, Charles, we'll to horse," Sir John concluded. "Servant, ma'am." They left her in the scented embraces of Arabella. To Harry as he went out came the butler, who, with something of a furtive manner, produced and gave him a letter. Harry looked at the writing and thrust it into his coat. Alison saw and took no notice. They walked on for some way before silence was broken. Then Harry said: "Well, madame wife, so you feel you've been bit." "Who--I? What do you know of what I feel?" "Oh, I can tell hot from cold. I know when you are thinking you ought to have thought twice. Egad, I agree with you. You've been badly bit. Here you were told that I was just off out of the country; that you must catch me at once if you wanted to catch me; that if you took me you would soon have me off your hands. And now we're tied up, you find I'm not going at all. I vow it's disheartening. But if you'll believe me, I did honestly believe my old rogue of a father. I did think he meant to take me." "And now you can't be comforted because you have to stay with me. Oh, Harry, you're a gloomy fellow to own a new wife. But why did the good man take Geoffrey when he might have had you? I should have thought he knew a goose when he saw one." "I can't tell. I never saw much meaning in the old gentleman." "You might as well look at his letter." Harry stared. "How did you know that was his?" "You like doing things mysteriously, the family of Boyce." The letter said this: "MR. HARRY,--I flatter myself that you will be offended. But 'tis all for your good. When I came after you I did not know that you were so clever a fellow. No more did I expect that I should have to like you. But since I do, I prefer that I should do without you. And since you have some of my wits, you may very well do without me. But I believe you will do the better without friend Geoffrey. Therefore I take him, who will indeed do my business much more sincerely than your worthy self. With the dear fellow safe out of the way, I count upon you to push on bravely with Mrs. Alison. You'll not find two such chances in one life. If you were master of her you could promise yourself anything in decent reason you please to want. For all your wits you are not the man to make his own way out of nothing. So don't be haughty. Why should you? It's a mighty pretty thing, Harry, and (trust an old fellow who hath made some use of the sex in his day) as tender as you may hope for in an heiress. She has looked your way already, and in her pique at the good Geoffrey deserting her, you'll find her warmer for you. If you don't make her warm enough for wiving, you're an oaf, which is not in my blood--nor your mother's, to be honest. Nor if I was young again and played your hand, I wouldn't let her grow cold when I had her safe.... So be a man, and I give you my blessing. "O. BOYCE" Harry held it out to Alison. "We're a noble family--the family of Boyce," said he. But Alison read it without a blush or a sneer, and when she gave it back she was laughing. "Oh, he's more cunning than any beast of the field! Oh, he knows the world! Poor, dear fellow." "Oh Lud, yes, he's a fool for his wisdom. But he's my father." "Well, sir?" Harry scowled at the ground. "Oh, what does he matter? Harry, what does anything matter to-day--or to-morrow, or to-morrow's to-morrow?" "I had no guess of all this." Harry crushed the paper. "You believe that?" "Oh, silly, silly." "You're still content?" "Not yet," Alison said. CHAPTER XIV SPECTATORS OF PARADISE In the old house on the hill Mrs. Weston sat alone. She was looking out of the oriel window at a garden of wintry emptiness and wind swept. The westerly gale roared and moaned, the heavy earth was sodden and beaten into hollows and pools through which broke tiny pale points of snowdrops. Away beyond the first terrace of lawn the roses bowed and tossed wild arms. A silvery gleam of sunlight fell on the turf, glistened, and was gone. Mrs. Weston sat with her hands in her lap and her needle at rest in a half-worked piece of linen. A veil of languor had fallen upon the wistfulness of her face. Her bosom hardly stirred. The sound of the opening door broke her dream, and she picked up her work and began to sew eagerly. It was Susan Burford who came in, royally neat in her riding-habit, for all the storm. She walked in her leisurely, spacious fashion to Mrs. Weston, who started and stood up, laughing nervously. "Indeed Alison will be pleased. You are kind. I know she has been longing to see you." Susan laughed and, a large young goddess of health, stooped to kiss the worn face. "You always talk about somebody else. Are you pleased?" "My dear!" Mrs. Weston protested. "You know I am." "We match very well. You never want to talk, and I never have anything to say." Susan sat down, and for some time the only sound was from Mrs. Weston's needle. At last, "You are still here, then," Susan said. "My dear! Why not, indeed?" "Oh. But you would always stay by Alison if she needed you." "Why, she never has needed me. And now less than ever." "Oh." Susan considered that. "And is he kind to you?" Mrs. Weston flushed. "Indeed he has been very good to me." "That is all I wanted to ask you," said Susan, and again there was silence. After a little while Mrs. Weston dropped her sewing and looked anxiously at Susan. "Have you ever seen him?" "Only his back. He used to keep in the corners at Tetherdown." "I suppose people--talk about him." "I don't listen," said Susan, "People are always in such a hurry. I can't keep up." "I suppose you think Alison was in a great hurry." "Only Alison knows about that." "Yes." Mrs. Weston looked at her with affectionate admiration, as though she had been endowed with rare understanding of the human heart. "Do you know you are the only one of the people Alison liked who has come here--since?" "Oh." (Susan's favourite eloquent reply.) "I don't mind about people." "He doesn't mind at all. She doesn't mind yet." "What is that you are working?" said Susan. "But indeed they are most perfectly happy," said Mrs. Weston, in a hurry. "Is it for a tucker?" said Susan. In a greater hurry, Mrs. Weston began to explain. She was still at it when Alison and Harry came back. They too had been riding. The storm had granted Alison none of Susan's majestic neatness. She looked a wild creature of the hills, her wet habit clinging about her, black ringlets broken loose curling about her, brown eyes fierce with life, and all the dainty colours of her face very clear and bright. She saw Susan and cried out, "Oh, my child, I love you." Susan rose leisurely to her majestic height and smiled down upon her. "I think you are the loveliest thing that ever was made," said she. Alison laughed, and they kissed. "I am quite of your mind, ma'am," said Harry. "Or I was," he made Susan a bow, "till this moment." "I was going to ask her if she was happy, sir," Susan said. "I shan't ask her." She held out her hand. "But I want you to ask me a thousand things." Alison put an arm round her, "Come away, come. At least I am going to tell you"--she shot a wicked glance at Harry--"everything." Off they went. "What's this mean, ma'am?" Harry stood over Mrs. Weston. "Is our wise Sir John sending to spy out the land?" "I wish you would not talk so." Mrs. Weston shivered. "It is like your father. Oh, sure, you have no need to be suspicious of every one." "Suspicious? Faith, I don't trouble myself." Harry laughed. "All the world may go hang for me. But you'll not expect me to believe in it." "I think you need fear no one's ill will. You are fortunate enough now." "Miraculously beyond my deserts, ma'am. As you say. But there's the wisdom of twenty years' shabbiness in me. And I wonder if the good Sir John wants to be meddling." "You need not be shabby now." "Lord, I bear him no malice. For he can do nought. Only I would not have him plague Alison." At last Mrs. Weston smiled upon him. "Aye, you are very careful of her." "I vow I would not so insult her." Harry laughed. "But you need not be afraid. Susan is here for herself. She is like that. She is the most independent woman ever I knew. She has come because she loves Alison." "Why, then, I love her. And egad it will be easy. She's a splendid piece." Mrs. Weston gave him an anxious glance. "She is very loyal," said she, with some emphasis. "It's a virtue. To be sure it's a virtue of the stupid." Harry cocked a teasing eye at her. "And I--well, ma'am, you wouldn't call me stupid." "I don't think it clever to jeer at what's good--and true--and noble." "Egad, ma'am, you are very parental!" Harry grinned. "You will be talking to me like a mother--and a stern mother, I protest." "Am I stern?" Mrs. Weston looked at him with eyes penitent and tender. "Only to yourself, I think. Lud, ma'am, why take me to heart?" "What now, Harry?" Alison and Susan close linked came back again. "Whose heart are you taking?" "Why, madame's," said Harry, with a flourish. "You see, ma'am," he turned to Susan, "I've a gift for making folks cry." "Oh. Like an onion," says she, in her slow, grave fashion. "Susan dear! How perfect," Alison laughed. "Now I know why I am growing tired of him. A little, you know, was piquant. But a whole onion to myself--God help us!" "Yet your onion goes well with a goose," Harry said. "Alack, Harry, but there's nothing sage about you and me." "Oh, fie! See there she sits, our domestic sage"--he waved at Mrs. Weston. "To be sure we couldn't do without her." Alison caressed the grey hair. "I must be riding, Alison," Susan said. Alison began to protest affectionate hospitality. Harry shook his head. "I have warned you of this, Alison. We are too conjugal. It embarasses the polite." "I am not embarassed," said Susan, with her placid gravity. "I want to come again." "By the fifth or sixth time, ma'am, I may feel that I am forgiven." "I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Boyce." "Then you can do it the more heartily." Harry smiled and held out his hand. "Oh." There was a faint shadow of a blush. "I did not think I should like you." She turned. "I beg your pardon, Alison." "I beg, ma'am, you'll come teach my wife to be kind. She also is frank. But for kindness--well, we are all sinners." "There it is, Mr. Boyce," said Susan, holding out her hand. And when she was gone. "Now, why did I not marry her first?" said Harry pensively. "Because she would never have married you, child. Being of those who like the man to ask." As Susan rode down the north slope of the hill, she was met by Mr. Hadley, gaunt upon a white horse, like death in the Revelation. The comparison did not occur to Susan, who had a fresh mind, but she did think white unbecoming to Mr. Hadley, and said, gurgling, "Where did you find that horse? Or why did you find it?" "He was a bad debt. But he has a great soul. And don't prevaricate, Susan. Where have you been?" Mr. Hadley bent his sardonic brows. "To gossip with Alison." "Odso, I guessed you would turn traitor." "No. I haven't turned at all, Mr. Hadley." "She has declared war on us. Your dear father fizzes and fumes like a grenade all day. And you go gossip with her. It's flat treason, miss. Come, did you tell Sir John you were going?" "No. But he would guess. He is so clever about me. Like you." "Humph. If he guesses you're a woman, it's all he does. And, damme, I suppose it's enough. So your curious sex bade you go and pry. Well, and what did you see in Mr. Harry Boyce?" "I suppose you are scolding me," said Susan placidly. "With all my heart." "Oh. Why do you ride that horse?" "Damme, miss, don't wriggle. You had no business at Highgate!" "He looks as if he had the gout." Mr. Hadley grinned. "But as you went, let's hear what you saw." "I always loved Alison." "Your business is to love your father, Susan--till some other man asks you." "I love her better now. She is so happy." "Damn her impudence," said Mr. Hadley. "Why did you lose your temper with her?" "I never lose my temper with any one but you." "Well. You made my father lose his." "Ods life, Susan, don't you know it's a man's right to tell women how they ought to live? Dear Alison wouldn't listen." Susan laughed. "She has made you look very foolish." "If she has I'll forgive her." "Oh. You do then," said Susan. "On your honour, miss, what did you think of Mr. Harry Boyce?" "I wondered Alison should love him." "Ods life, yes. But what's this you're saying?" "He is so quiet and simple." "Simple! Damme, the fellow's an incarnate mask." "Oh. I think I know all about him. I never thought I knew all about Alison. She wants so much." "And she hasn't got all she wants, eh?" "Yes, I believe," said Susan, after a moment. "Pray God you're right." "Oh. I like to hear you say that. You have been so"--for once her placid words stumbled--"so sordid about this." "Damme, Susan, don't be a saint." Mr. Hadley grinned. "They die virgins." CHAPTER XV MRS. BOYCE It was a time of wild plots. The long war of Marlborough had left England impregnably triumphant, and France ambitious of nothing but peace. No fear remained that foreign arms would carry James, the Pretender by right divine, to his sister's throne. Who should reign when Anne's growing weakness ended in death was for England alone to decide, and English law gave the succession to Prince George of Hanover. But there was a party, or at least the leaders of a party, who saw more profit to themselves in importing the Pretender. Harley and Bolingbroke, they had thrust out of the Queen's confidence and the government the friends of Hanover. They had undermined the authority of Marlborough at home and abroad, and were now ready, honourably or dishonourably, to put an end to the war which made him necessary. If he were dispatched into ignominy or exile, there could be no one strong enough, they believed, to prevent them driving England the way they chose. What that way would be no one clearly knew, themselves, perhaps, least of all. But together and singly they set going many strange secret schemes which were to make a new king, a new England, and new magnificence for themselves, singly or together. All which the mass of England watched with shrewd, incurious eyes. It could not long be a secret that plots were afoot. To shoulder out of power all who were committed friends of the lawful order was a confession of designs against it. As if that were not enough, Bolingbroke and Harley so managed their business that everything they did was wrapped in a mist of trickery and intrigue. And yet, though they were vastly mysterious over what could have borne the light without much shame, they contrived to let the agents of their deeper treachery blunder into notice and fill the air with rumours of untimely truth. Still England gave no sign. "Under which King"--Hanoverian or Pretender--perhaps there were few in England who cared. If the Pretender was bred French and a Papist, Prince George was a German born. Some of those who had joined heartily in driving out his father began to put it about that the son would be a better king for that lesson. George of Hanover had the right of law, but the Parliament of to-morrow might undo what the Parliament of yesterday had done. Who could be ardent for the right of an unknown foreigner over England? And few were ardent, but there were many who, caring nothing for Pretender or Hanoverian, had a solid resolution that England should not be torn in the cause of either. Whatever was done, must be done quietly and in good order. Since it seemed that the Hanoverian had no need to change anything in law or State or Church, best that he should be king. As for the devious politics, the tricks, and the mystery of Harley and Bolingbroke, they were of no account to plain men. There was yet another party not content to watch and wait till the plotters lost themselves in their own mysteries. The men whom Harley and Bolingbroke had driven from power had no mind to submit to impotence. They well knew what they wanted: the Hanoverian, the lawful, limited king upon the throne and themselves as his ministers. They were not delicate about the means they used. Since there were treason and plots, they too turned their hands to plotting and with a vigour and ruthless resolution of which the other camp was innocent. So the wise and eminent were busy while Harry Boyce and his Alison made trial of their marriage. Harry lived in a dream of bewildered happiness. He had counted on nothing but the need of his passion, hoped for nothing but its ecstasy in her beauty, and at its wildest the strain of gloom in him had bade him dread what lay beyond. She gave him a miracle of mad delight. A new force of life was born in him while he enjoyed her joy. It was a discovery of intoxicating power that he could wake that rare, consummate creature to such eager exultation as his own. In those wonderful hours it seemed that they passed out of themselves into a world where every part of their being was one and in the happiness of unbounded strength. So passion and she kept faith with him and something more. But the miracle of passion in her arms had less enchantment than the joy of the quiet hours. It was with this that she bewildered him. Before she yielded to him, he would have jeered at the hope that she might bring the gift of peace in her bosom. As the first days of marriage passed he learnt that all his placid loneliness had been the mere endurance of hunger. He had stayed himself with the husk of life. She satisfied him with the fruit. For she too could be calm, delighting in the little daily things, utterly happy with nonsense. To share all that with her was to find in it a strange, lulling enchantment of content. His fortune seemed too good to be real. For he possessed all that ever fancy had pretended was worth coveting: his life was a perfect happiness. No doubts from within, no troubles from without, had power to assail him. All the old, reasonable, practical fears were become ludicrous cowardice, only remembered for Alison to tease with. As for other people, and what they said and thought and did, some folks were kind and were welcome, no folks were of account. He and she deliciously sufficed themselves. And there was no dread of change, save in age and death, infinitely distant and insignificant--no matter but to glorify the power of life. Sometimes he was aware that the wonder of passion must grow faint and fail, but he saw nothing which could take from him the quiet, exquisite, daily joys. Was it real, or a charmed dream, this perfect fortune of content? Indeed, nothing was real in those days but the delight in being with her. Alison had her share. He did not deceive himself. She had her ecstasies and her exultations, she thought herself even madder than he was. And in these days, perhaps, her passion was deeper and stronger than his. She was satisfied, she felt herself accomplished, and gloried in her new power with a more profound, a more secret delight than his. She had given him eagerly all that she had, and in the giving found herself more than ever her own. For all the union, the deepest, truest self in her stood aloof in a mystery. It was not of her will, for she desired to deny him nothing. She did not reckon him weak in failing to take all of her. This must needs be the way of life. No man's passion could be stronger than his. Doubtless he too had his secret soul apart. And indeed it was glorious not to lose self in love, to stay always, through the ecstasies, aloof, to give always anew of will and choice--never to merge helpless in some unknown double being and become only half a body, half a soul, capitulating always to the rest, to the other. This self-glorious pride of hers gave her for a while that zest in all the trivial common things which made her a companion so delightful to Harry's temper. But she enjoyed them in a spirit different from his. All the bread-and-butter business of living was to him delightful in itself and for itself. He was born to want no better bread than is made of wheat. She played with it, made a dainty mock of it, amused herself with it, and at the back of her mind despised it. So they lived, and you imagine Mrs. Weston's dim, wistful eyes watching them with a great tenderness. For she understood them no better than they themselves. It was Alison who first grew tired. Not of love or passion, but of the trivialities and the quiet life at Highgate. She had ambitions, or thought she had. It had been just rediscovered that women could be leaders in the world--at least in politics and the tricks of statecraft. Women were the fiercest partisans and their voices powerful in the warring parties. It was a woman, his termagant duchess, who had given Marlborough his ascendancy in England, made him dominate all Europe. It was a clever woman who had contrived Marlborough's downfall and given his enemies the government of England. It was a woman--another duchess--who beat Swift. You need not suspect Alison, who had some humour, of imagining Harry Boyce a Marlborough. But he did believe him able to make a noise in the world, and coveted much the sensation of owning him while the world listened. She did not see herself controlling queens and kings and parties, but she was well aware of her beauty and its power, and had a mind to use it widely. She was hungry for excitement. So Mrs. Alison determined to set her man upon a larger, busier stage. The decree went forth that old Tom Lambourne's house in the Lincoln's Inn Fields was again to be inhabited. Harry was asked for his advice afterwards. Perhaps he would have been wiser if he had begun their first quarrel then. But he was enjoying her too much to deny her her ways or her whims, and he only laughed at her. He was not pleased, to be sure. He had a taste, which cannot have come from his father, for copse and field. He never found anything in the town which was worth the living in other folk's smoke. He disliked crowds and in particular crowds of fine ladies and gentlemen. So with some horror he saw before him a vista of polite splendours, and said so. "Oh Lud, sir," says she, "if I had wanted to sleep my life away I should not have married you. And if you wanted to sleep out yours you should not have married me." "I was born for innocence and green fields. You'll make me a bull in a china shop." "I'll love you the better, child. Faith, Harry, I would be very glad to have you break something." "Madame's heart, _par exemple_?" "That would be an adventure." So you find them arrived in the Lincoln's Inn Fields as the first step to the conquest of the world. The world was not as excited as Alison thought fit. Her father, old Tom Lambourne, had commanded reverence in the City and some respect even as far west as St. James's by sheer weight of wealth. A rare capacity for living hard had won him an army of diverse friends. But neither his business nor his pleasures provided him with many who could be bequeathed to his daughter. Her mother, born a baker's daughter in Shoe Lane, having died in giving Alison birth, had left her nothing besides her admirable body but some grumbling objects of charity. It remained for Alison to make her own way in the world of fine ladies and gentlemen. Since she was by certain fame an heiress of great possessions, her way might have been easy if she had not found herself a husband. The taint of the city, if she had borne herself humbly, need not have made her quite intolerable to people of birth. But since her money was already married she could only be reckoned as a city goodwife; pretty enough, indeed, to be game for fine gentlemen, but to fine ladies a nobody. Folks were slow in coming to the grand house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; slower still, if they had houses of elegance, to ask Mrs. Alison back. It suited Harry very well. He would, as his wife complained, go mooning across the fields to Islington almost as happily as through the woods at Highgate. His books had almost as good a savour in town as in the country. When she dragged him to hear Nicolini or Wilks or the Bracegirdle, he could console himself by gentle jeering over the fact that in a playhouse where everybody knew everybody not a creature had a bow for him or her. Of course she smarted. Day by day he chose to affect astonishment over her failures, believing with infatuated content that he was slowly driving her back to the country and sanity, though he was but driving her away from him. And she, choosing to feel humiliated, blamed him for the shame of it. "Why, child," says he in his supercilious way, "'tis not failing to be in the _beau monde_ that's ridiculous, but wanting to be." To such monitions she began not to answer back--a symptom very dangerous. She set up a basset table. That, if anything could, must proclaim her a woman of fashion--a woman, indeed, who had a fancy to be a trifle daring. There's no doubt that Alison about this time and afterwards did want to dabble in danger. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. She encouraged high play. For herself, she enjoyed the excitement of it, having no need to care if she lost. She wanted to have about her people who affected heavy stakes, believing in the innocence of her heart that they were exhilarating company. So she made for herself a queer society, which Harry to her angry disgust defined as a mixture of sheep and wolves. There were good wives and lads from the city anxious to make a jingling show with the funds of the family counting-house, there were hungry beaux and madames from the other end of the town seeking their fortune impudently wherever it might be found. To one of these happy parties there was introduced a Mrs. Boyce. She was a faded, handsome creature much jewelled about lean shoulders. Alison, who hardly heard her name in the rout, took no account of it and little of her. But on the next day this Mrs. Boyce came early and caught Alison alone. She began with such a fuss about apologizing for her earliness that Alison set her down for an ill-bred, tiresome creature. She had a high voice which, like the rest of her, was a trifle faded. "I protest, ma'am, I have long desired to know you better." Alison languidly muttered something civil. "Let me make myself known first, I beg. I am the niece of Sir Gilbert Heathcote." Alison, of course, had heard of Sir Gilly--one of the chiefs of high finance--but cared nothing about him. "I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I was only born Thomas Lambourne's daughter." "There is no need; ma'am." A long, lean hand was waved. "I wonder if we are in some fashion connected. We are both called Mrs. Boyce. The Boyces of Oxfordshire, ma'am?" Alison's laugh had something of a sneer in it, "Of nowhere that I know, ma'am. My husband is Mr. Harry Boyce, son of Colonel Oliver Boyce." The lady fluttered her fan, settled herself afresh in her chair, rearranged her close-fitting lips. Alison was reminded of a hen preening itself. "I had heard so, ma'am. And my husband is Colonel Oliver Boyce." "La, ma'am, do you mean the same?" Alison cried. Mrs. Oliver Boyce gave a lifeless smile. "That is why I did myself the honour of giving you my confidence, ma'am. I think there are not two Colonel Oliver Boyces. The younger son of one of the Oxfordshire family." "Oh Lud, how should I know? I never looked into the grandfathers." "No, ma'am?" The tone was patronizing contempt. "You might have been the wiser of it. Colonel Oliver Boyce--he has taken the title lately--when I knew him he was something in the service of the Duke of Marlborough. Oh, a fine man to the eye, ma'am, and very splendid in his talk." "Why, that's his likeness," Alison laughed. "And what then, ma'am? Have you come seeking the Colonel? He is the Lord knows where. Or is it--faith, you don't tell me Harry is your son?" "No, ma'am. At least I was spared bearing children." "Oh--why, give you joy if you would have it so. But how can I serve you? Maybe your Colonel is not my Colonel after all. At least he and Harry are father and son heartily enough." "It may be so, ma'am," said the lady heavily, and here Harry came in. Alison looked up laughing and then frowned. Harry would not ever dress fine. His wig was still unfashionably small, he wore some sombre stuff, and to her eye (as she said) looked like a mole. "Here's Mr. Boyce, ma'am. Harry, Mrs. Oliver Boyce, who is come to say that you never had father nor mother." "Your obliged servant, ma'am." Harry opened his eyes. "Pray, has my father married again?" "You'll find, sir, that Colonel Boyce has only been married once." "If you please, ma'am," said Harry blandly. "Pray, are you blaming him? Or--" a gesture expressed his complete ignorance of what she was doing. The lady seemed to force herself to laugh. "Oh, fie, sir. Sure it is not for me to blame him." "No, ma'am?" Harry was first interrogative then acquiescent. "No, ma'am. I wonder if you could give me the Colonel's direction." "I, sir? You are pleased to amuse yourself." "I vow, ma'am, I was never less amused." "Colonel Boyce was pleased to leave me five years ago. I have not forgotten it, if you have." "Faith, this is very distressing," Harry protested in bewilderment. "But you do me injustice, ma'am. I have forgotten nothing about my father. For I never knew anything." "As you please, sir," the lady drawled. "I was talking, by your leave, to Mrs. Boyce." "Oh, ma'am, a hundred pardons," Harry took himself off in a hurry. His chief emotion over the lady seems to have been satisfaction that she wanted nothing to do with him. As for her story of being his father's deserted wife, he had long supposed his father capable of anything. As for the lady herself, he wrote her down a tiresome busybody and perhaps he was not far wrong. Alison too was much of the same opinion, but it was unfortunately hampered by a natural curiosity to hear what the lady could tell about the mystery of Harry and his father. "You had something to say to me, ma'am?" "I count it my duty, ma'am, to give you warning of Colonel Boyce." Alison stood up. "Duty? I know nothing of your duty, ma'am. But I think it is mine not to listen to you." "I protest, I should have said the same," the lady drawled. "I too had spirit once, child. That was before I suffered. I would I had known you earlier. And yet perhaps I may do something to save you even now." "I cannot tell how, ma'am." "Listen, if you please!" the lady said dramatically. "I was something of an heiress as you are and maybe something of a toast too. The worse for me. I choose to believe it was not only my money which brought Oliver Boyce upon me. He took all I could give him and very soon gave me nothing, not even common courtesy. When I began to be careful he began to be brutal. But for my family--I told you that Sir Gilbert Heathcote was my uncle--he would have stripped me of every penny. When they stepped in to save me some rag of my fortune, my good Mr. Boyce left me. I have never had a word from him since. Pray, child, take warning." "If it is so, I am sorry for it," said Alison coldly, "I believe I hear company." She began to walk to the outer room. Behind her, "As for your Harry Boyce," said the lady, "oh, I make no doubt he's Oliver's son, though certainly he is none of mine." Alison made as if she did not hear, and she was spared more by the coming of some of her guests. The card tables filled. There was no more danger of being private with Mrs. Oliver Boyce. Indeed, the lady, as if she had done all she wanted, took her leave early. She was affectionate about it, for which Alison liked her none the better. Through most of that evening, amid the flutter of cards and the clatter--"Spadillio, on my life! What, it's Basto, is it? Did you hear of Mrs. Prue? She'll not show for a month. We win the Codille, ma'am. They say the Duchess and she pulled caps"--Alison was telling herself over and over that the creature was a detestable low thing who only wanted to make mischief. It should, you think, have needed no effort to believe that. But the obvious malice had power to annoy a mind already discontented. Alison could not stop wondering what the mystery was about Harry's birth and his father. Perhaps Harry knew more than the little he professed. Perhaps he was not the careless, indolent fellow he chose to seem, but something more cunning and less lofty. What if he were just such another as the woman painted his father--a fellow on the hunt for an heiress, who, once he had her and her money, cared no more about her? To be sure there was some evidence for that. Since they had come to town, he was always off by himself. If she wanted him with her, she had to plead and plague him. A proud office! Why, that very night monsieur did not please to appear at the card tables. He was too fine for her and her company. So she fretted and rubbed the poison in. And naturally, she fared ill at the card table. Her cards were bad and she made the worst of them. She was not a good loser and it was a wife much inflamed who, when her guests were gone, sought out her husband. Harry sat with Mrs. Weston, who was at needlework and, if Alison had been able to see, looked very benign. But it was he who demanded all the wife's angry eyes. His wig was on the table beside him. He had a pipe in his mouth. He was lolling in the deeps of a chair and smiling to himself over a book. "You might be in an ale-house, you look so slovenly." Harry grinned up at her. "Oh, madame wife hasn't been winning to-night. Tell me all about it." "Faugh! Your pipe," Alison coughed. "For God's sake keep it to the tavern. It's enough that you reek of it without making my house reek too." Harry gave a great sigh and put the pipe down. "We were so comfortable till you came. I am glad to see you, dear." "I was comfortable till you came." Alison snapped. "Pray, mother Weston," says Harry, "forgive our public caresses. We have not long been married." Alison looked ice at him. "Weston dear, would you leave us? I have something to say to Harry." Harry opened his eyes. Mrs. Weston looked at her anxiously, bade them a nervous good-night, and hurried out. "Harry--who was your mother?" Alison stood stern over the lolling husband. "Egad, what's this? Have you been brooding over your bony friend? Who is she?" "She says she is your father's wife; and says he left her." "Well, if she is his wife, I wager he did leave her. Faith, she was made to be deserted." "What do you know of her?" "Nothing, by the grace of God. Why should I? If my father got drunk and married her, he would not want to talk about it when he was sober." "I despise you when you talk so," Alison cried. "And yet you listened to her, child." "She says that he took all her money before he left her." "Oh! Pray, why has she so much to say, and to you?" "She wanted to warn me against Colonel Boyce." "And against his son, I think. And you were so kind as to listen. Egad, ma'am, I am obliged to you. Well, now you know what to do. You have the money and I have none. Pray, lock up your purse to-night." "You are childish," said Alison with lofty scorn. "Harry--who was your mother?" "Oh, I thought your kind friend told you I had none. I dare say it's as true as the rest." "You don't know?" "I never saw her." "She said--" Alison hesitated. "Oh Lud, don't be squeamish now." "She said your father had never been married except to her." "Odso! That is what you had to tell me. I am a bastard, am I?" He laughed and turned in his chair. "Give you good-night, madame wife." "Harry--" "Oh, God save you!" He took up his pipe. "I am no company for you. And, by God, you are no company for me." She looked at him a moment, hesitated, went slowly out. CHAPTER XVI THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE The irruption of Mrs. Oliver Boyce could not easily have been foretold. That the past life of Colonel Boyce was likely to throw shadows over his son Harry might have considered, but the nature of the lady and her care and the successful opportunity of her malice were hardly to be calculated. There is less excuse for him in the affair of Sir George Anville. Given the conditions of that hasty marriage and the state into which it had brought them and the society about them, some Sir George or other was a natural consequence. The ugly quarrel which Mrs. Oliver Boyce had made for them was never composed. When they met again in the morning they were coldly and haughtily civil, and so they chose to remain. Mrs. Weston, not being blind, saw that something was amiss and tried with blundering motherly affection to push them back into one another's arms. She hardened, as is usual, their hostility. Each was mortally afraid of weakening, each suspected the other at once of softness and of guile and so held aloof and fed upon scorn. They had both enough of that pride of sex which gives one pleasure in the sufferings of the other. And of course the quarrel was poisoned with a sordid taint. The colder, the haughtier Harry was, the more Alison inclined to believe that he had wanted nothing of her but her money. The haughtier, the colder Alison was, the more Harry raged against her for a mean creature who desired to make him feel his dependence upon her money bags. In himself Sir George Anville was of no importance. If Harry had been comfortable he could never have taken the trouble to be angry over the man. It is certain that Alison never thought him worth any thought of hers, still less worth one finger's surrender. And yet Sir George contrived to be disastrous to the pair of them. That was not, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said of him in another matter, altogether his fault. "The fool has excuses," quoth she, "which others have not. He is so great a fool that you hardly believe his folly is but folly." Sir George was a man born without impulse or capacity for anything. Lady Mary, who was fond of using him for her wit, made a grammarian's jest on him, "The creature's an anomaly: active in form, passive in meaning." He was bred in a society which made it a fashion to be vicious. He affected to follow the fashion. If vice must needs be something active, or at least, something of the will, Sir George Anville must escape punishment. But he was to a wholesome taste more offensive than sinners who did more damage. It was Harry's worst blunder in the affair that he treated Alison as if she did not feel that. Sir George knew no other way of passing his life than in dangling about women. He was generally tolerated as a butt, and being impervious to contempt, supposed that his fascinations procured him immunity. He did--it must be reckoned the first of his two accomplishments--he did know a pretty woman from a plain one, and therefore as soon as he knew Alison much resorted to her. His other accomplishment was to dress well. He was lean and had an air of languor which was not affected, but a natural lack of vigour. It may be believed that Alison tolerated him because he made a not disagreeable decoration to her rooms. But at this era she was cynical, and perhaps told herself that Sir George was as good a man as another. He began to come at hours when she could be found alone and was sometimes admitted. So Harry caught him once or twice, was ironically obsequious to him (which Sir George took for solemn earnest), and afterwards amused himself by congratulating Mrs. Alison on the power of her charms. "Odds fish, I can't tell where you'll stop, ma'am. You'll have a corpse on his knees to you yet. Maybe the corpse of a lord. I vow I'm proud of you." Which was not likely to get the door shut on Sir George. So that dangling gentleman became convinced that Alison was yielding to his embraces. He was, in a limp way, gratified. A devilish fine woman to be sure. She might be a trifle exhausting to a man of _ton_. But what would you? Women were greedy and must be satisfied with what one could spare them. And it was pleasant to see the pretty creatures pining. He would lure madame on with a few tit-bits. In this kindly mood he went to her on a wet April day when Alison was fretting for a wild walk or a wilder ride in wind and rain. But even to herself she would not confess that she was tired of the town. It would have assimilated her to Harry. Sir George sat himself down by Alison's side, simpered at her, sniffed, put his thin hands on his thin knees and ogled them. Alison held out to him a cup of tea. He arranged his rings before he took it and then again simpered at her. After some humming and hawing, "D'ye go to the play to-night, ma'am?" he drawled. "What play is it?" "Ah--some curst play or other," said Sir George; and exhausted by that effort relapsed for a while into silence. Alison did not help him out. It is possible that she was wondering how a creature so vapid could go on existing. She looked Sir George over with an odd, close inspection. Sir George, who had some perceptions, became aware of it and according to his nature misunderstood it. He sniffed again, and "Pray, ma'am, what perfume do you use?" Alison stared at him. "I am delicate in such things," said he, and smelt his own handkerchief. Alison hesitated between disgust and amusement. To be sure the creature was such a fool that it was not fair to think of him save as a buffoon. So unfortunately she chose amusement. "Oh, I vow, Sir George, your delicacy is rare," she laughed. The poor creature took it for a compliment. He leered at her: "But you are exquisite, my Indamora." "Who?" "It's an amorous lady in a play," Sir George explained. "Pretty creature," he patted Alison's arm, and leaned upon her to kiss her neck. She was so surprised that his lips had almost time to reach her. "Lord, sir, are you mad?" she cried, as she thrust him off. "Pretty creature," Sir George giggled, and clung to her. "Your carriage is at the door, Sir George." Harry stood over them. His face was as much a mask as ever, his voice placid. Alison started up and stood to face him with a lowering brow. He did not appear to see her. Sir George shook down his ruffles. "Carriage? What d'ye mean?" says he. "I ha' had no carriage this year. I came in a hackney coach." Harry turned away from him and opened the door. "Eh? Oh, stap me!" Sir George giggled and got on to his feet, "Madame, your eternally devoted." He went out with a strut, waving his scented handkerchief in the direction of Harry. Then Alison spoke. Her eyes were furious. "You--oh, you boor! How dare you?" "Egad, that's very good!" Harry laughed. She beat her foot on the floor. "Oh, you are not to be borne! To make a noise of it! To make a scandal of me and that--that creature!" "To be sure, I came untimely. Well, ma'am, if you wanted to be quiet about it, I had rather it made a noise." "My God!" she was white. "You dare say that to me! Be careful, Harry." "Pray, ma'am, no heroics." "I warn you, there are things I'll not bear." "Is it possible?" Harry sneered. She swept past him and away. CHAPTER XVII RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON It seems that, years afterwards, Harry and Alison were afflicted with a dreary and remorseful wonder at these wars. Both, as they grew older, had something of a turn for moralising, and in their copious letters to their several children is evidence of much penitence and puzzling over the disasters of their youth. Each plainly took all the blame. Each is eloquent about the sins of pride and hardness. Harry preaches the duty of trust; Alison the folly of easy intimacies. Both of them, in those latter days when they could calmly estimate what they had lost, still wondered with a gloomy scorn how they had come to let the ugly, ridiculous affair of Sir George set them against each other. You find them both trying to recall (or guess) what exactly it was that, in the time of crisis, they felt and believed. When it was all part of their history, Harry could hardly persuade himself that ever he had fancied Alison untrue, even disloyal; or Alison believe that she had stormed against him for driving out of the house a man who had been impudent to her. Yet it is not to be doubted that Harry did let suspicions of her honesty poison him. He could not, at the worst of his anger, believe that she would play false with such a husk of a fop; but he told himself that she wanted to make the fellow into a waiting gentleman, a servant, and a toy at once--a thing more nauseous than a lover. And Alison, though at the back of her brain she was aware that Harry had excuse for what he had done, raged the more against him for the intolerable things he had said. His suspicions made her despise him. For his assumption of authority she hated him. There were almost from the first the usual sage and kindly friends to tell them that it was all a misunderstanding, that they had only to be frank with each other and commonly reasonable and there would be no quarrel left. But it is doubtful whether this sagacious advice could have done them much good if they had taken it. "Talk things over like rational creatures," was (as usual) the prescription. But if they had really been rational, they would only have come to the conclusion that they ought not to be married. The force of their passion, to be sure, was real enough and still moved in them. To hold them together they had nothing else. There was no consciousness of other need, no longing for a common life, no desire to help or give. If they had been most calmly wise and wisely calm in a dozen conversations, they would but have made this all the clearer. Still it is true, as the sagacious friends guessed, that they did not try to compose the quarrel. Each was by far too proud. Harry was pleased to consider that he had done his duty by a flighty wife, and would take no more account of her unless she were penitent--or provoked him again. Alison, reckoning herself meanly insulted, was resolved that he could never again be more than an unwelcome guest in her house. They were, to be sure, ridiculous. In private they avoided each other. In public they continued to meet, for each was too proud to confess to the world the failure of their marriage. You imagine how poor Mrs. Weston enjoyed life in an icy atmosphere, the temperature of which she was not permitted to notice. Such were their relations when the final blow fell upon them. They dined late in the Lincoln Inn Fields. It was as much as six o'clock and they were still at table--as jovial as usual. The butler came to Alison with an elaborate whispering. "Pray him come up," she said aloud, and looked defiance down the table at Harry. "It is Mr. Waverton." "Lord, Lord, is he still alive?" Harry grinned. "That's heroic." "Back from France? Is Colonel Boyce come back?" Mrs. Weston cried. "I know nothing of Colonel Boyce," said Alison coldly. "You couldn't please him better," Harry laughed. "Dear Geoffrey! I wonder if he knows anything? Well I It would be a new experience." Mr. Waverton came. He was more stately than ever--browner also, but not changed otherwise. His large and handsome face affected all the old melancholy. "Oh, Mr. Waverton!" Harry grinned. "You do honour me. Pray let me present you to my poor wife." Geoffrey took no notice of him. "Madame, your obedient," he bowed to Alison. "I beg leave to have some speech with you." "There's still some dinner. Draw up a chair," said Harry. "I did not come to dine, sir." "Oh, that's a sad stomach of yours. A glass of wine, then?" "I do not take wine with you, Mr. Boyce." "I wonder if you have made a mistake. For you have come into my house." "I will answer for all my mistakes, sir, with hearty goodwill." "Egad, you'll be busy." "Oh, be silent!" Alison cried. "You are welcome, Mr. Waverton. How can I serve you?" "I understand the gentleman's desire to hurry me into a quarrel, ma'am. Be sure that I shall not permit it." Harry laughed disagreeably. "It's very well, sir. But I choose first that you should listen to what I have to say." "Listen I Oh Lud, is it a poem?" Mr. Waverton flushed. "You are impertinent, sir. It shall not serve you. I intend that madame shall know the truth of your father's treachery and yours." Harry stood up. "Are we to stay for more of this, ma'am?" "I shall stay," Alison said. "You remark the gentleman's impatience to silence me, ma'am. I promise you that I shall tell you nothing which he or any man can deny." "It's a dull tale, then," Harry muttered. "I think it will excite you enough, ma'am. You are advised that I went to France with Colonel Boyce. The office which he offered me was to negotiate with Prince James. This I undertook readily, for to his party my family hath ever had an inclination, nay, an affection, and I saw in the affair duties of honour and moment." "To the greater glory of Geoffrey, first Duke of Waverton, whom God preserve," quoth Harry. "I did not, I will avow, foresee that the thing was but a trick to take me away from my house and out of the country. Though I may regret, ma'am"--he bowed magnificently to Alison--"I do not even now blame myself for my blindness, for I have ever accounted it unworthy of a man of honour to fear treachery in his servants"--he glared at Harry--"or weakness--ah--weakness in those to whom he gives his devotion"--he made melancholy eyes at Alison. "No more of that. In fine, I did not suspect that a fellow who was taking wages from my hand had plotted to rob me of what was my dearest hope, or that another--another--would surrender herself a prey to his crafty greed." "Damme, it is a poem after all," Harry groaned. "You said you had something to tell me, sir," said Alison coldly. "Nay, ma'am, be patient. I give you no reproaches. But what is, is. If it irks you that I remind you of it, do not give the blame to me." "I shall blame you for being tedious, by your leave." Alison yawned. "Wait till all's told. Well, ma'am, I left Tetherdown with Colonel Boyce, and we rode posthaste to Newhaven. He was there joined by some half-dozen fellows, low fellows to my eye. This much surprised me, and I took occasion to tell him so, for he had given out that his was a very secret errand of Marlborough's privy policy, into which he would admit none but me. He made out that these fellows were but messengers and escort, and I permitted myself to be satisfied, though I remarked that he was on familiar terms with them. But that gave me little concern, for I had from the first remarked in Colonel Boyce a coarse habit of intimacy with the vulgar." "Aye, aye, you and he took to each other famously," says Harry. "Lud, sir, must you be so wordy?" Alison cried. "You will find that every word has its import, ma'am. From some of these fellows Colonel Boyce learnt that there was a warrant out against him for treasonable practices with the Pretender. This affected him to great indignation, in which, as I frankly told him, I found matter for bewilderment. Since he was, as he professed, about to deal with the Pretender, it was but fair that the Government should arraign him on that charge. Over which he was pleased to laugh at me, and then, to explain his mirth, averred that the Government, and in particular Mr. Secretary St. John, was much more Jacobite than he, and so had no title to meddle with him. Then he said that what irked him was that they should have heard of his dealings with France, which must be done secretly or fail. So we went in a hurry aboard the schooner which was ready for him, and crossed to Dieppe, landing by night beyond the town. I make no doubt from his adroitness that Colonel Boyce hath done business in France before, but of what kind I leave you to guess when you have heard all. We were well furnished with horses and upon the road to Paris before noon. He gave out to some officers which questioned him that we were of Prince James's service upon our way to St. Germain. We rode to Pontoise, and there, as it had been planned from the first, Colonel Boyce stayed while I rode on to the Prince. He dared not, as he said, go himself to Paris, for fear that some of the French officers should recognize him as Marlborough's man and denounce him for a spy. Therefore was I to go with letters to the Prince, and messages which should persuade him to ride out to Pontoise and come to business with Colonel Boyce. I went on then alone, save that Colonel Boyce gave me one of his fellows to be my guide and servant, and he stayed with the rest at Pontoise. Thus far, I beg you remark, I had no cause to apprehend treachery. Upon the face, the scheme was fair enough, and all had been done even as Colonel Boyce proposed to me in England. I will maintain myself honourably free of any blame in the affair against any man whomsoever." "God bless you," said Harry heartily. Mr. Waverton visibly laboured with a repartee. "Oh, sir, a prayer from you is a rare honour," he said at length. "You're to understand, ma'am, that I was furnished with letters of credence from certain of the Jacobite agents in England--John Rogers and Mrs. White, I remember. How they were come by, I cannot now tell, though I may guess, for it is plain that there was no stint of money in the affair. So I came easily to speech with the Prince and his secretary, my Lord Middleton. And I will ever maintain that His Royal Highness is altogether such as a prince should be. Being of a dark complexion and a melancholy dignity, there is in him no lightness of thought or word. To me he was, I profess, very flattering, showing me courtesies beyond my rights or expectations. He received me, in a word, most favourably, and being influenced, as I regret I cannot doubt, by my person and address, was easily inclined to ride out to Pontoise. Only my Lord Middleton made difficulties. He is of a sardonic turn, and permits his wit to outrun his civility. He set me questions in a fashion which my honour could not brook. Yet I can relate that in the end I prevailed over my Lord Middleton's jealousy. For he said to the Prince: '_Enfin_, sir, I can tell no reason why you should not go see this Colonel if you choose. If there were any guile in the business, faith, they would never have trusted it to this fellow!' "So the thing was agreed. In the morning we rode for Pontoise, the Prince, my Lord Middleton, myself. His Royal Highness was pleased to limit himself to one servant. The man with whom Colonel Boyce had provided me went on to carry advice of our coming. We came to Pontoise towards evening. Colonel Boyce had put up at the Lion d'Or. He was waiting for us in the courtyard and received us, as I thought, something shortly, hurrying us into the house. But once inside, he made ceremony enough, with endless speeches about the condescension of His Royal Highness. All this too obsequious, in a boorish taste, so that the Prince bade him have done and come to business. Therewith Colonel Boyce was as full of apologies as he had been of servilities. I vow I never heard him so copious as that night. "He took us, you are to understand, to an upper room. And what first moved my suspicion was that he bade me be gone. Then my Lord Middleton countered him with, 'I believe, sir, the gentleman had best stay.' Immediately Colonel Boyce was all smiles over his blunder, and we sat down about the table in that upper room and came to the substance of his negotiation. He kept, I'll allow, to the purposes which, from the first, he had pretended to me: whether Prince James, if assured of support from Marlborough and his friends, would choose to avow himself Protestant; but he made so many conditions over it, he was so vague and wary that 'twas hard to tell what he would be at. When my Lord Middleton tried to pin him to something plain and certain he would ever evade, till it began to grow late and the Prince talked of supper and bed. This Colonel Boyce took up very heartily, and was indeed giving his orders when there came a noise in the courtyard and he ran to the window and looked out. "My Lord Middleton was behind him, with a 'What's your anxiety, sir?' "'Why, my lord, I would not have these roysterers break upon the Prince's incognito. Pray, sir, this way and you'll be secure'; he points to an inner door. "'I believe we are as safe here, sir,' says my Lord Middleton. "'Egad, sir, come away,' says Colonel Boyce; and he was in fact dragging the Prince across the room when the door bursts open and in comes a stranger, a little man. He flung himself across the room upon Colonel Boyce, making some play with a pistol. There was some grappling and wrestling. I recall that they gasped and breathed hard. But it's odd, I believe, that there was no word spoken. Then Colonel Boyce freed himself and bolted through that inner door. The stranger fired a shot after him, and while we were all deaf and sneezing with it and utterly amazed he turns on us. 'That's a miss,' says he. 'Please God they'll bag him below. Eh, Charles,' he wags his head at my Lord Middleton, 'I thought you had more sense,' "'Damme,' says my lord, 'it's Hector McBean. And prithee what's all this ruffling, Mac?' "'Why, you have let His Majesty walk into a stinking trap. That fellow Boyce, he hath been Marlborough's spy, Sunderland's spy, the devil's spy this twenty year.' "'Why, I thought he had something the smack of it,' says my lord. 'And yet--' "'Who's this now?' Captain McBean turned on me. 'Yours or his?' "'His ambassador in fact,' My lord looked me over and took snuff. 'You won't tell me that hath any guile in it. Prithee, what is it you have against the man Boyce?' "'Eh, did ye see him run?' says Captain McBean. 'A man's not in that hurry if he hath a good conscience. If ye'll please to have him up, maybe we'll hear a tale.' "But as he spoke there came into the room a French officer of dragoons, who, saluting the Prince, asked Captain McBean if he had found his rogue. On which 'Have I found him?' Captain McBean cries out, 'Eh, sir, did he not run into your arms?' But it appeared that Colonel Boyce had not been caught, and they determined at last that he must have made his way out by a door at the back of the inn and won clear away. But I am sorry to tell you, ma'am, that he hath not yet been found. For if they catch him in France, he may count on a hanging." "Pray, sir, how did you dodge the rope?" Harry said. "Did you talk them to death, your Pretender and his tail?" "You're too eloquent for me, Mr. Waverton," Alison yawned. "I can't tell what you want to say. What is this mighty crime which you and Colonel Boyce were compassing?" "Sneers become you ill, ma'am," says Mr. Waverton magnificently. "I repudiate any charge whatsoever; and tell my story my own way. Some hot words passed between Captain McBean and the Frenchman, each blaming the other for Colonel Boyce's escape. Then Captain McBean says 'The fellows that were drinking in the tap, I suppose you've let them dodge you too? No? Well, that's a wonder. Tie this rogue up with them and have them in guard.' So he mocked at me, but the Prince brought him up roundly. "'You go too fast for me, my good captain,' quoth he. 'What's your charge against the gentleman?--who is to my mind a very simple gentleman.' So His Royal Highness was pleased to honour me." "Egad, he was right, Waverton," Harry laughed. "I think I know how to value your fair words now, sir," says Mr. Waverton grandly. "Be pleased to spare them. Upon that, as I was saying, Captain McBean lost command of himself and was grossly violent. Roaring that I was none the less a knave because I was so natural a fool, and the like empty insolence. Accusing me of being art and part in a vile plot with Colonel Boyce to kidnap and murder His Royal Highness." "Now we have it," Alison murmured and looked at Harry strangely. "Aye, ma'am. Now, perhaps (though late enough) your eyes are opened," said Mr. Waverton with relish. "Well, I let the man run on. He was indeed not to be stopped. A rude, vehement fellow. When he was exhausted, I addressed His Royal Highness." "Lack a day, I believe you," says Harry. "I made it clear to him, sir, that my birth and position must warrant me innocent of any treachery, and though I might well disdain to answer these reckless charges I owed it to myself to remark to His Royal Highness that, but for my desire to serve him, I had never meddled in the affair. So that when I had done, my Lord Middleton says, laughing, 'Egad, sir, it seems you owe this fine gentleman thanks for his kindly condescension to you'; and the Prince was pleased to answer, 'We are too small for his notice, faith. But is he finished yet?' Then I bowed to His Royal Highness and sat down, well enough pleased, as you may believe. "But this Captain McBean called out in his rude fashion, 'Eh, sir, he may e'en be the booby he pretends. The better decoy, I allow. But by your leave, we'll look into it more narrowly. Would Your Majesty please to permit me have up the other rogues?' "This, in a word, they did, and Captain McBean and my Lord Middleton (who is to my mind something more of the attorney than becomes a man of rank) questioning the fellows shrewdly, it was made put--I crave your attention, madam--it was made out that Colonel Boyce had undertaken for the service of the Hanoverian junto here to kidnap or kill Prince James. And the plan was to bring the Prince out to Pontoise and so drag out affairs that he passed the night there. Then in the night they were to invade his room and command him to follow them. They pretended indeed that they meant only to carry him off. But 'tis not to be doubted that they looked for resistance and a bloody issue to the affair. So, ma'am, here is the trade of the family of Boyce--to procure murder, and the murder of a prince of the blood royal, of our lawful king. I give you joy of the name you bear." Alison bent her head. "You may well be proud of your part, Mr. Waverton." "They let you go, did they?" says Harry; "your captain and your lord and your prince?" "Let me go, sir? There is nothing against me. I defy your impudence. Nay, I thank you, I thank you. You lead me gracefully to the end of my story." "Good God! It has an end!" "When these rogues were questioned about me, not a man of them could pretend to have anything against me. They openly confessed that Colonel Boyce had warned them that I must be kept in innocence of the affair lest I should thwart it. For he said that he had brought me into it to show a good face to the Prince as one beyond suspicion of treachery. Nay and moreover--and here's my last word to you, ma'am--he avowed that he chose me because he wanted me out of England where I stood between his own son and a pretty heiress. At which, as I remember, my Lord Middleton chose to be amused." "Damme, I like that man," says Harry. "So, ma'am," Mr. Waverton tossed his head. "Here you have it. I am drawn into a murderous, vile, base treason that I may be kept out of the way while Mr. Boyce prosecutes his designs upon you. I give you joy of the loyal fidelity which yielded to him. I leave you to enjoy him with what appetite you may." He made a majestic bow, he turned and was gone. Harry and Alison were left staring at each other. From behind came a small strained voice: "Colonel Boyce--he--he is safe, then?" It was Mrs. Weston. The two turned with a start, surprised by her existence. Harry laughed. "Oh aye, he is safe. He would be." Mrs. Weston rose slowly and then made a rush for the door. The husband and wife were left alone. CHAPTER XVIII HARRY IS DISMISSED Alison turned and stared into the fire. Harry filled himself a glass of port and drank it and laughed. She looked round at him. "Faith, Mr. Waverton is mighty good entertainment," he explained. "Is that all you want to say?" Harry would not be awed by that ominous voice. "Oh Lud, how could I dare talk after him? Our poetic orator!" He made flourishes in the air after Mr. Waverton's manner. "Nay, but I would give my new wig to have been in that upper chamber at Pontoise. Dear Geoffrey on his defence booming noble periods--and the Prince, poor gentleman, with his fingers in his ears! If dear Geoffrey was telling the truth. I wonder." "Oh, is that what you'll pretend?" "Pretend? I pretend nothing, ma'am. Why, to be sure, our Geoffrey always means to tell the truth--having, God bless him, no imagination. But you'll remark what when he tells a tale, it's Mr. Waverton has always the _beau rôle_. He sees the world like that, dear lad. So I should be glad to hear the Caledonian gentleman's notion of what happened." "I see. You'll make that your defence. Geoffrey imagined it all." "Egad, ma'am, you may lower your tone. I have nothing to defend, nor are you set in judgment." Alison started up. "Do you suppose all this is to make no change?" she cried. "You're a splendid creature, by heaven," says Harry, tilting his chair back and watching her with a little epicurean smile, the proud vigour of her, the blood in her cheeks, the flash of her eyes, and the sweep of the white arm. "I could hate you for that," she said, and her lips set. "Yes. I think you're in a fair way to it," says Harry. "I wonder if you know why." "Because I have come to despise you," she cried sharply. "You will be solemn, will you?" says Harry. "Much good may it do you. And so, egad, have at you heartily. For you have said things which both of us will find it hard to forget." "Oh, you can feel that?" "Look 'e, ma'am, if we are to be in earnest, we had best not snap at each other like a pair of puppies. Now, what's happened?" "You have to ask that? My God, if you have to ask, there's no use in words between you and me." "Oh Lud, don't be mystical. Mr. Waverton comes here to do his poor possible to make mischief between us. I suppose you saw that. He tells us that he went blundering with my father into a muddle of a plot." "He tells us that your father planned a vile base murder and sought to make him, a man of honour, part in it. Pray, sir, is that not infamous?" "Egad, if you haven't caught his style! You believe all that, do you?" "Yes." "We shall go far to-night, I think," Harry shrugged. "And shall I tell you why you believe it, ma'am? It's because you are looking about to find matter for blackening me." Alison hesitated a moment. "You cannot deny it. It is proved. Your father would not stay to face them." "Face a pistol and a furious Scot? Well, I never said he was a hero." "Do you pretend it was only a fight he feared? Do you dare tell me it was an honest, honourable plan? Nay, come, let me see if there's anything you think shameful." Harry shrugged. "I know my father not much better than you do, ma'am. I never thought him a Bayard. Some plot there was, I think, and these political plots are all dirty enough. But, Lord, who is clean of them? And I'm not ready to write my father off a murderer because Mr. Waverton went blundering into a business which, on his own confession, he does not understand." "He went in your place. You should have gone with your father." "Should have gone? D'ye wish I had, ma'am?" "Perhaps." Harry started up. "Oh, say it out. I knew we should go far to-night." They stood close, fronting each other fiercely. "My God, is it strange if I wish you had gone? Your father is a base wretch who should be on the gallows, and I am to be his son's wife and bear the name, and the while he goes bragging that he took Geoffrey Waverton off so that you should be free to come at me." "Aye, that. To be sure, that rankles. But you have known it long. I showed you the letter he left me which said he had taken Geoffrey out of my way and bade me snatch my chance of you. And you made light of that, ma'am. Oh, it was a base thing, if you will, but you know well enough it went for nought. We had done our work before. By God, Alison, Geoffrey there or Geoffrey here, you would have come to me." "Ah!" It was like a cry of pain. "You brag of it. I forced myself on you, I suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I--what was I?" She shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would taunt me with that." "Egad, you're in a frenzy," says Harry. "You cry aloud and cut yourself with knives. You will be hurting yourself." "I loathe you for that calm way of yours," she cried. "You mock me till I am mad, and then you please to be grave and lofty. You--I took you out of the gutter." "What now, ma'am?" Harry stiffened. "It's all a mask!" she cried. "Nothing of you shows in your voice or your face--your face, bah, it's always the same, when you kiss and when you strike. A mask! You're always in a mask. That's how you took me. I was a fool, and thought there must be something fine behind it." She laughed. "You were clever enough. You knew the trick and the mystery of it would take a woman. A mask! Yes, faith, that is the wear for a highwayman. I remember how Charles Hadley used to laugh at your 'Curst stand-and-deliver stare.' I liked it, I liked the challenge of it. But he knew you better. That's your trade, the highwayman, faith, the highwayman! You trick us all and prey upon us, as you dare. So you marked me down, who was rich and a girl, and you have caught me, and you have rifled me, and, for what you care I may now go hang. I ask you for my pride again, my honour, and you mock at me. Oh, I am ashamed for a fool and worse, and you know it, God help me, but you--you--" Harry shrugged. "I suppose we have come to the end now," he said coolly. "Well, ma'am, to be sure we married in haste, and it seems we have both come to repentance. As for wrong that I have done you--why, I can't make you a maid again, and, if you please, more's the pity. My apologies and regrets. For the rest, all of your money that hath been spent on me will go in a small purse, and, I promise you, you shall spend no more. So you may sleep sound, and I wish you good night." She watched him cross the room, and, as he was opening the door, cried out, "What do you mean?" He turned. "Why, would you still be talking?" Their eyes met in defiance. "You can go," she said. "I have had the honour to tell you so," he said, and was gone. CHAPTER XIX ALISON FINDS FRIENDS It was on the second day after that Susan Burford and Mr. Hadley rode in to the Lincoln's Inn Fields. They found Alison and Mrs. Weston together, and both sewing--a fact which failed to interest Mr. Hadley, but surprised Susan, who knew Alison, without a taste for needlework. "My dear," says Susan, embracing Alison physically and spiritually in her large, buxom, genial way. "You have been a long time finding me," says Alison and put her off. "I suppose I know why you kindly come to me now." "B-r-r-r-r!" Mr. Hadley made the sound of one who comes into a cold draught. "The truth is, Susan has been so busy improving herself that she has had no time for her friends. In fine, she has been trying to make herself worthy the honour of my affections and large enough to support the burden of my dignity. I don't say she satisfies me, but she does her best." He propelled Susan forward with his one hand. "'A poor thing, ma'am, but mine own.'" "Oh, he is amusing himself, you see," says Susan, in her leisurely fashion. "Damme, Susan, you're so mighty innocent that sometimes I believe you are innocent." "But you have known me so long," Susan protested. Alison stood up with an air of ceremony. Her pale face constrained itself at last to smile at them. "My dear, I wish you may be very happy," says she, and gave Susan a matronly kiss. "Mr. Hadley, you're a fortunate man." She put out a stately hand. Having bowed over it. "B-r-r-r," says Mr. Hadley. "Damn these east winds. Susan, you're a plague with your affections. You will have me talk about you, and I can't make you interesting, I hope, ma'am, we find Mr. Boyce well?" Alison drew back. "Why do you ask that? You have seen Mr. Waverton, of course." Mrs. Weston put down her work and folded her hands upon it. "Why, yes, I have seen Geoffrey; and what's worse, heard him. I hope he did not plague you too long." "Pray, Mr. Hadley, don't be ironical. You can spare me that. Mr. Waverton told us his story the night before last. Thereupon Mr. Boyce and I parted company. He left my house immediately and I do not know where he is." Mr. Hadley distinguished himself by containing an oath. Susan said, "Oh, my dear," in that slow, calm way which might mean anything. It was Mrs. Weston who cried out, "Alison, you never told me." "You asked once or twice where he was, and I told you I did not know. What does it matter?" "You quarrelled with him?" "Quarrelled!" "Because of what this Mr. Waverton said?" "Do you think it could make no difference?" Mrs. Weston clasped her hands and swayed in her chair. "Alison; we had no guess of this. I am sorry. I am so sorry," Susan said. "There is no need." Alison held her head high. "If we have, in some sort, forced your confidence, I beg you believe, ma'am, it was not meant," So Mr. Hadley in the grand style. "For I protest it never came into my head that Geoffrey would make mischief between you and Mr. Boyce." "You say that?" Alison stared at him. "Oh, you mean I was so besotted with him." Mr. Hadley relapsed to his ordinary manner. "Damme, d'ye think we came for nothing but to jeer at you? I promise you we have pleasanter matter to hand. Neither to jeer at you, nor to meddle with you, Alison, but friendly. So take us friendly in God's name. If you will go about to find a sneer in every word, why, a sneer you'll find, but not of my making. We bring you nothing but goodwill, and want nothing more of you. But if we irk you, why, let us go and we'll see you again in good time." "That's a pretty speech to begin with an oath," Alison said, through the flicker of a smile. "And, faith, I should be slow to take offence at you. For we quarrelled before, because you were at pains to warn me. Well, sir, I humble myself before your wisdom." There was a pause. "Oh. Now we are all ill at ease," says Susan. "Odso, ma'am, it's not fair," Mr. Hadley cried. "I am not here to say, 'I told you so,' I am not so proud of it. Well, damme, I have no temptation to be meddling in your affairs. But I think you will have to know. It is with Mr. Waverton I have fallen out now." "With Mr. Waverton?" Alison repeated. "What is there between you and him?" "I believe he had the impertinence to expect my sympathetic admiration. While I was thinking him a low fellow. Which I took occasion to tell him. Without result." Mr. Hadley shrugged. "But I believe he did not feel it. It's a thick hide." "And what was your difference?" "Why, this precious story of his." There was some little time of silence. "You don't believe it," Alison said slowly. "Come, you must say more than that." "I profess, ma'am, I have no will to say anything. Whatever I say, I'll be impertinent." "Oh. Shall we mark it in you?" Susan said. "Well, sir, you were not always so shy of scolding me," says Alison, and again with a faint smile. "Scold you! God warn us, I have no commission. I can tell you what I thought of Waverton and his tale. Did I believe it? Ods fish, I never remember believing Geoffrey. If he had to tell you two and two was four, he would pretend that his genius first discovered it. So I don't know what happened at Pontoise. Likely the old Colonel did mix him up in some plot which some other fellows smoked. Maybe it was even such as Geoffrey said, kidnapping and murder to follow. These plots, they grow nastier and nastier the longer they are afoot. And Colonel Boyce--well, by your leave, I don't think him delicate. But for the rest of it, I'll wager that's Geoffrey's sprightly invention. You know very well, ma'am, I have no kindness for your Mr. Boyce. But, damme, he never thought of tricking Geoffrey out of the way to give himself a free hand with you. And it's a low trick in Geoffrey to go about with that tale." "Oh! But he is stupid," Susan said. "What if Colonel Boyce thought of the trick?" says Alison. "Egad, Mr. Boyce is unfortunate in his father. Maybe he knows that as well as we. But--damme, ma'am, you will have it--I believe there was not much trick in his affair with you." "I believe you once warned me of his tricks," Alison said coldly. "It's no matter now. I tease you with my affairs." "If I can serve you, I'm heartily at your command." "Oh, you have worked hard to make the best of a bad business. But I can do that for myself, and I like my own way of it." Mr. Hadley bowed. "Oh! Let us go home," Susan said. Alison looked at her in some surprise, and, as she stood up, came quickly to kiss her. "Have I been rude?" she whispered. "That would be no matter," Susan said, "You choose to be angry with me?" Alison stiffened. "Oh! One isn't angry. One is sorry," Susan said. Alison let her go, and Mr. Hadley, ceremonious but with visible relief, went after her. Then Mrs. Weston said suddenly, quickly, "Where is he?" "He?" Alison chose to be slow. "Mr. Boyce? I have no notion." "You drove him out?" "I could not endure him longer. Or he could endure me no longer. He went heartily enough. I think we were both glad it was over." "You taunted him till he had to go?" "Weston, dear!" Alison laughed at the sudden fierceness of the meek. "What's the matter?" "I have heard you mocking him." "Maybe. We both have sharp enough tongues." "You used to jeer at him for being poor." "Good lack, are you calling me to account, ma'am?" "Yes, you may well be ashamed! Where is he?" "Ashamed? What do you mean, Weston? What is the man to you?" "I am his mother," Mrs. Weston said. "You!... You! Oh, but this is mad!" "I am not mad." "But, Weston, dear, you knew nothing about him till he came; nor he of you. How could he be your son?" "I had never seen him since he was a baby. I was not married." "That is why you would not tell me? Oh, Weston, dear!" "I did not mean to tell you now. I knew it would hurt him with you. But I suppose it's no matter now. But these are my affairs, not yours." "My dear--" "You need not pity me." "What am I to say?" Alison held out her arms. "You have nothing to say now. You are not his wife now. You have never been anything but a bad wife." She gathered up her work with unsteady hands and turned away. "Where are you going?" "I am going out of your house. Away from you." "But, Weston--not now, not to-night. Where can you go? What can you do?" "I can do well enough without you, as he can.... Why don't you tell me that I have been living on your money? You told him so often enough." "Oh ... you're cruel," Alison said. "What does it matter? You'll not be hurt. You are too hard." She hurried to the door. "Ah, don't go like this," Alison cried. "Weston, let's part kindly. I could not know. I have done nothing against you." Mrs. Weston laughed. "Stay a moment at least. I want to know. Harry's father--is Colonel Boyce--?" "Yes, there it is. That is all you want--to pry into all the story. It is nothing to you. He is nothing to you now." The door closed behind her. CHAPTER XX RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN Harry was not gone far. In Long Acre stood a tavern calling itself 'The Hand of Pork.' This had always tempted Harry, whose tastes were of the people. While still a domesticated husband, he had tried its ale with satisfaction. When he left Alison it was to 'The Hand of Pork' that he brought his small, battered box. He had a few guineas in his pocket, and made a wry face over them. "Ill-gotten gains," says he, for some were the scraped savings of Geoffrey Waverton's tutor and some the pocket money of Alison's husband. But he was in no case to be delicate. Beef and bread had to be paid for, and, in fact, his scruples were little more than a joke. It is not to be concealed that in minor things Harry Boyce was not nicely honest. If you can imagine him seriously arguing over that money--a thing impossible--he would have said that the guineas were of consequence to him and none to Geoffrey and Alison, that whether he had dealt honestly by them or not, it would not better his case to pay them back a few shillings. You have seen that he had qualms of conscience over the rights of Geoffrey's service and Alison's arms. But the ugly, awkward details gave him no trouble. He may, if you please, have swallowed a camel or so, but he never strained at a gnat. Now that he was done with Geoffrey and Alison, both, his first feeling was comfort. It was a huge relief to be his own man again. He told himself indeed that he was mighty grateful to Geoffrey for bringing on the final explosion. For one thing, it wiped off all Geoffrey's score. If Master Geoffrey had been treated shabbily, Master Geoffrey had played a shabby trick. They could call quits--a pleasant sensation. It would have been awkward if Geoffrey had chosen to be magnanimous nobility. But he was never intelligent, the poor Geoffrey. He had done his best to be damaging, bless him, and in all ways had been a benefactor. For, in fact, it was a great relief to be done with Alison. What with her fretful discontent, her rages, her industrious hate, she had made herself intolerable. I do not suppose that he forgot, even in the heat of the divorce, the exquisite pleasure which for a while she had given him. I think he was always ready to acknowledge that to himself, for it is certain that he bore her no malice, and if he blamed her for their catastrophe, blamed himself as much. He might make the most or more of all the taunts, of her zeal to find occasions for despising him. He forgot nothing and forgave her nothing; he wrote her down a cruel enemy. But he did not pay her back with equal hate; he dismissed all the warfare and the wounds with a shrug of sagacious cynicism. She hated him? She had the right, she was his wife. And perhaps she was in the right too. He must fairly be reckoned a very poor match for her beauty and her wealth and her not insignificant brains. After all, he was essentially a nobody--a nobody in every department, body, mind, and soul. She might even claim that she had been cheated, for if she ought to have known that she was marrying a nobody, she could not guess that he had a bar-sinister or a disreputable father. Certainly Madame Alison could plead something of a case. You are not to suppose Harry in an ecstasy of meek devotion. He was quite sure that she had behaved to him very badly. He admitted no excuse for her eagerness to hurt him as soon as she was tired of him. She might hate him; but after all there were obligations of courtesy, of decency, of womanhood, and her venomous temper had broken them all. He was well rid of her. In fine, she and he could call quits as well as he and Geoffrey. There was no occasion to rage against her. She had treated him badly, but, first, he had brought her into an awkward mess. Faith, she ought not to have hurried into a marriage for passion if passion was so soon to sate her. But then, what man would blame a woman for marrying for passion? Not the man she married, who might rather humble himself because he had not been able to keep her passion alive. Well, it was over, and since it was over, nothing for it but to part. God be with her! She had given him his hour. And he--why, at least she had lived with him moments she would not forget. A glorious woman. It is probable that in these first hours of their parting he began to love her. So much for his emotions. But you will not suppose that Harry Boyce was wholly occupied with emotions. He could not indeed afford it. He had to make some provision for keeping alive. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that he had a friend or two. There was an usher at Westminster, and a hack writer of Lintot's in Little Britain. He did not propose to live on them, who had hardly enough to feed themselves. But he looked for them to put him in the way of some pittance, and they did. The usher had news that, after Ascension-Day, Westminster would be wanting a writing master, for the man in possession hoped by then to marry the dean's cook and set up an ale-house. The author procured a commission to write two lampoons and a pamphlet against French wines. In the intervals of this occupation, Harry looked for his father. It would be hard to guess--Harry himself could not have told--what he hoped to gain by that. He wanted, of course, to find out the truth of the mission to France. Whether his father was likely to tell it, he could not make up his mind. What he would do with the truth if ever he learnt it, he did not know in the least. Suppose the best event: suppose his father could declare excellent intentions and Geoffrey a liar. Harry imagined himself going to Alison with the news and demanding to be taken on again. A nightmare joke. Yet to come at the truth seemed the most important task in life. The first step, though you think it impossibly difficult, did not dismay him. He had no doubt of discovering his father. That Colonel Boyce should have been killed or even caught was incredible. He was not the man so to oblige his enemies. It was incredible, too, that he would go long into hiding. Away from the importance of bustle and intrigue he could not exist. Therefore he would certainly come back to London: therefore sooner or later he would be found at one of the coffee-houses favoured by the brisk fellows in the underworld of politics--at Tom's, or the British, or Diggory's by the Seven Dials. He might be heard of among the fire-eating Jacobites of Sam's. There were not so many likely places, but Harry laid down more pennies than he could spare at the bars, and all in vain. He sat in Sam's on an afternoon chopping Greek tags with a jolly, fanatical old parson. The days were fast lengthening, and for one reason or another--the company at Sam's were not too fond of light--only a candle here and there was burning. A little man came in with a party very obsequious to him. As he walked up to the bar Harry had a glimpse of a lean, brown face. He remembered it and yet no more than faintly, and could not tell where he had seen it. It did not much engage him, and he went on with his Greek and his parson. The little man made some noise with the pretty girl behind the bar, claiming the privileges of an old friend and a good deal of liquor, and it was a little while before he was established at a table with his party. Harry chose to mouth out something Homeric and sounding. The little man stopped in the middle of lighting his pipe. "I know that roll, _pardieu_!" he muttered, and in a florid fashion declaimed, "Fol de rol de row," and laughed alcoholically. "Who's talking Hebrew here?" One of his party pointed out Harry and the parson. The little man blinked through the smoky twilight. He stood up, took his candle and lurched across the room to Harry. Down under Harry's nose he put the candle with a bang. Harry jerked back and glared at him, and he, rocking a little and blinking, said thickly, "It's a filthy likeness, after all, it is." "No, sir, there's only one of me," said Harry. "If you see two, give God the glory and go to bed." "I'm saying, bully, I'm saying," the little man's accent became more Caledonian and he clutched at Harry's shoulder. "I'm saying, my laddie--" "Damme, that's what I complain of." "I'm saying I do not like your complexion. It's yellow, my jo, it's a wee rotten orange, it is so." His company, a faithful tail, shook with laughter. "Sleep it off, sir," says Harry, with a shrug. "What's your will? Clip it off, do ye say so? Losh, you would have a face or two to spare. Eh, but I'm doubting you know too much o' clipping. There's clippit ears, and maybe you have a pair." He twitched Harry's bob wig awry; and with singular luck reeled out of the reach of Harry's answering blow. "Ay, and there's clippit shillings and maybe ye make your filthy living by their parings and shavings. Well a well, and there's clippit wings; and I'll clip yours, my bonny goose, the night." He clutched at the wig again and tossed it into the fire. Harry sprang up and struck at him. He flung himself backwards into the arms of his friends and with a surprising adroitness plucked out his sword. "Have at ye, my man;" he giggled and made a pass. "Easy, Captain," says one of his company. "The boy hath no sword." "Oh ay, 'tis the Lord that's a man of war. The devil was aye for peace. Well, what ails ye not to lend the imp a bodkin?" The fat old keeper of the coffee-house waddled into the midst. "Sure, Captain, you don't mean it. I would need to set my lads upon you. 'Tis disorderly homicide, indeed. Ye can't mean it. Not downstairs. I'll not deny there's the elegant parlour on the first floor." "Ye're a canting old devil, Sam," says the little man. "But I'll oblige you. Come up, my bully, and I'll show you a thing." "Here's for you, cully." One of the company thrust upon Harry a sword. "Oh, by your leave,"--Harry waved it oft--"I don't fight a drunken man." "Drunk!" the little man screamed. "Ods blades, there's a naughty way to mock a gentleman. I'll school you, bully; fou or fasting, I'll school you. What, you'll not lug out, like a bonny lad should? I jaloused it. I'm thinking you would take a beating like a lamb, laddie. Well a well. I'll be blithe to rub you down with an oaken towel. Here, Patrick, give us your staff." "Oh, I see you must be let blood." Harry shrugged. "Well, sir, do I fight the whole platoon?" "You're peevish, do you know, you're peevish. Here, Fraser, give him your hanger. Do you second the bairn, Donald? Come, Patrick, I'll have you. There's one for you and one for me, my man, and damn all favours." It seemed to Harry that the little man's company were something surprised at this turn, but they took it in a disciplined silence. So the party of four marched up the stairs. You will believe that Harry liked the business ill enough. He shot glances at the two chosen for seconds. There was nothing sottish about them. They were very soberly alert, they had the tan and the vigour of open-air life. They looked anything but the fit comrades for a swashbuckling tavern hero. They were as stiff as pokers, they said not a word, they showed not a sign of interest in the affair--rather like two soldiers on guard than ready seconds in a drunken brawl. Once in the upper room they made their arrangements with solemn care, locking the door, clearing a sufficient space, and setting the candles so that the light fell fairly. Harry was taken aside, helped out of his coat, asked if he needed anything, gravely advised to risk nothing and play close. "We are at your service, Mr. O'Connor," says Donald. "At your pleasure, Mr. Mackenzie," says the other. Harry was set against the little man and the swords crossed. It then occurred to him that the little man was very suddenly recovered from his liquor. The blustering chatter had been cut off as soon as they started up the stairs. Since then the little man had spoken not one word. Of the unsteadiness, the blinking, the rocking to and fro, nothing remained. He had marched to his place with a formal precision. There was the same manner, a correctness exact and staccato, about this sword play. The knave can never have been drunk, Harry said to himself as he sweated and was the more embarrassed by bewilderment. But he dared not let himself think. The little man was urgently dangerous, and Harry knew enough to know it. Harry had no pretensions to science. All he could use was the rudiments. He had kept his head at singlestick, held his own with the foil against other lads, and never before faced a point. The little man had the speed and certainty of a _maître d'armes_. So Harry fought, breathing hard, every muscle aching, mind numb and dazed under the strain, expecting--hoping--every moment the thrust that would make an end. It did not come. The ache and fever of the fight went on and on. Still the little man was masterful and precise. Still he demanded all Harry's vigour and more than all, kept him struggling desperately, beset by fear on the edge of death. Harry felt himself weakening, faltering, and still the opposing blade searched his defence sharply, still the little man was an exemplar of easy precision. And yet Harry's maladroitness always sufficed to save his skin. He was puzzled, and blundered and fumbled the more. The play grew slower and slower, and he was the more tortured, enduring many times the shame and the pain of defeat. At last he had hit upon the truth. He was wondering in a dazed fashion why that other sword seemed always to wait on him when he made a gross mistake. Visibly, palpably, the little man's blade halted to give him time for a parry. Harry dropped his point and gasped out, "Damme, sir, you are playing with me." "What's your will? I fight my own way. At your convenience, sir." "The Captain's within his right, sir," says Harry's solemn second. "Damn you, for a pack of mountebanks!" Harry cried. "On guard, sir," says the little man. Harry gave him an oath and dashed at him. There was a moment's wild fighting and then the little man forced it back to order. They were at the old game again, precise scientific thrust, pause, and blundering parry, when to Harry's amazement the little man's sword wavered and flew from his hand. Through a long minute Harry stood staring at him, and he waiting unarmed for Harry's thrust. Again Harry lowered his sword. At once the little man stooped and picked up his. "Do you demand to continue, Captain?" says his second. "You're a fool, Patrick," quoth the little man. The impenetrable second saluted and turned to his fellow. "Another bout, if you please, Mr. Mackenzie." "Would you grant it, sir?" says Harry's solemn Scot. "Egad, we are all mad here," Harry wiped his brow. "Oh, play it out to hell." The little man saluted formally and again they engaged. And now Harry was enveloped in another kind of fighting. Scientific it might be, but science far beyond his understanding. The little man's point was everywhere upon him and he thrusting blindly at the air. He might have been pinked a score times over, he was for all he knew. And then on a sudden his own point touched something. Next moment it was struck up to the ceiling. Some one called out "A hit." He saw the two seconds standing between the swords and a red scratch on the little man's cheek. "_Touché_," says he with a bow. "My compliments, if you please. It's some while since a man marked me. I am glad to know you, sir. Pray, what's your name?" "Harry Boyce, sir." "Egad, it's wonderful!" says the little man, with a laugh which appealed to Harry. "Hector McBean, at your service." Harry stared. "Aye, aye, I'm thinking we'll explain ourselves. Will you walk, sir?" "If you please." Captain McBean took his arm, said over his shoulder to the two seconds "To-morrow," and marched off with him. Once they were out in the street, "So you are Colonel Noll Boyce's son," says Captain McBean with an odd look. "He has often told me so." "If you had not such a look of him I wouldn't believe it. Oh, pardon, monsieur, _mille pardons_, _ma foi._ I have been insolent to you in all this affair. You'll please to observe that the whole of it, and the issue, is to your honour. Will I have to say more?" "Oh Lud, no. Pray, let's talk sense." "I take to you marvellously, _mon enfant_. Well now, have you heard of me?" "Enough to want much more." "What, has father been talking?" "D'ye know where he is, Captain McBean?" "I wish I did." "So do I. It was Mr. Waverton who told the tale. Now you know why I am eager to hear what you can say of my father or my father of you." "Are you a good son, Mr. Boyce?" "I pay my debts." "There's a crooked answer. Are you in the Colonel's secrets?" "I have no reason to think so." "I guess he did not trust you. I guess he was right. Do you remember where you met me first?" "I remember that I can't remember." "And me that thought I was a beauty! Well, but you were busy. You were making mud pies with Ben." "I have it. You were his captain on the horse. Pray, sir, what was my Benjamin's mystery?" "I am going to trust you, Mr. Boyce. I shall not require you to trust me unless you choose. I tell you frankly I hope for it. And so--come in with you." They turned out of the Strand into Bow Street. Captain McBean let himself into a house, and took Harry up to a room very neat and cosy. "D'ye drink usquebaugh? A pity. It's the cleanest liquor. Well, draw up." He pushed a tobacco-box across the table. "That's right Spanish. Now, _mon cher_, are you Jacobite or Hanoverian?" "I never could tell." "Oh, look you, I ask no confidences. And I make no doubt of your honour. If you had a mind to play tricks you would have tried one on me to-night. Well, I have proved you. Your pardon again. But when I saw Noll Boyce's son lurking in Sam's, how could I know he was without guile? Now there is something I must say to you. But how much I say is a question. I have no desire to embarrass you with awkward knowledge. So which is your king, _mon enfant_, James or George?" "I care not a puff of smoke for either." "So. I suppose there is something you care for. Well--you asked about Ben's mystery. It's a good beginning. The rascal should have stopped the Duke of Marlborough's coach and held it till I came up with my fellows. Instead of which he went about some private thieving. I am your debtor for giving the knave his gruel. What's Marlborough to me? It's not his dirty guineas I was after, but his papers. He was then pretending to negotiate with St. Germain. There were those of us who doubted the old villain had some black design in his head again, and it was thought that if we could turn over his private papers, we should know where to have him. It was certified that he had with him something from his agents abroad. Well, we missed him, and how deep he is dipped in this business, I know no more than you. "Now I come to your father, _mon enfant_, and I promise you I will be as delicate as I may. Do you know, _par exemple_, how Colonel Boyce is in the mouths of gentlemen?" "Oh, sir, that's another of the matters for which I care nothing." "_Tenez donc_. You were born old, I think. Well, Colonel Boyce has been in some few plots, devices, and manoeuvres. No man ever denied him wit, nor will I, _mordieu_. But it's his virtue that neither his friends nor his enemies were ever sure of him. I believe, Mr. Boyce, that if he heard me he would thank me for a compliment. _Bien_--I come back to my tale. "It was known to us poor Jacobites in England that Colonel Boyce was making salutes to St. Germain. Which much intrigued us, for we would not, by your leave, have him of our side. They don't know him there as we do, and King James, God save him! is young and honourable and sanguine." "Poor lad," says Harry with a shrug. "You may keep your pity, Mr. Boyce," McBean said stiffly. "I would have him so, by your leave. Now we heard that letters went to St. Germain from Colonel Boyce full of windy promises--_verbosa et grandis epistola_. D'ye keep up your humanities?--in the name of my Lord Sunderland and my Lord Stair. Black names both. But they were vastly intrigued at St. Germain. If Sunderland and Stair were ready to turn honest, then _pardieu_, there was hope of the devil himself. Oh, I don't blame the King nor even Charles Middleton, though he is old enough to be slow. The times are changing, and maybe Stair and Sunderland they see it as well as we, and mean to find salvation. I can't tell. But the thing looked ill. Stair and Sunderland--there is no treachery too foul for those names. And if they meant honestly, why--saving your presence, _mon enfant_--why did they choose Colonel Boyce for their agent? It was no good warranty. So we adventured a counter. We have friends enough now in the Government, _mon cher_, and it was arranged that the Colonel should be arrested as a Jacobite. A good stroke, I think. It was mine. Only the old gentleman dodged it." "Pray, what did you know of Mr. Waverton?" "That sheep's-head!" McBean laughed. "Why, a letter came to hand in which the Colonel talked of taking the pretty gentleman to France. So he was joined in the warrant. _D'ailleurs_--it made a good appearance. However, we missed him; but we found something in his papers which made me queasy. So I e'en was off to France after him. "The Colonel stayed at Pontoise and sent your Waverton off to St. Germain with a mighty plausible letter about secret proposals from the chiefs of the Whigs, which brought the King out to hear them secretly. _Ma foi_! I think Charles Middleton should have smelt a rat. But it was a clever trick, and to choose your Waverton to play it was masterly. For who could think that peacock would be in anything crafty? At Pontoise I tumbled in upon them, and your father, _mon cher_, he ran off on sight of me. Observe, I press nothing against him. I allow that the best evidence I have against him is just that--he ran away when he saw me. Secondly, he had with him some three-four rascals whose faces would hang them. And thirdly and lastly, beloved brethren, these fellows, when put to it and charged with a plot to murder King James, were frightened for their lives and babbled wildly, of which the sum was that they had been brought but to kidnap him. I grant ye, they may have lied, and I would not hang a dog (who was not a Whig) upon their word. But confess, _mon cher_, the thing is black enough. What did the Colonel want with King James alone? Why did he need his bullies? Why did he run away? I leave it with you." Harry knocked out his pipe. "I am obliged for the story, sir. Why did you tell it?" "You have a cold blood in you, _mon enfant_" says Captain MacBean. "Observe, I look for nothing wonderful from you. I allow your position is very difficult to a man of honour. And with all my heart--" "Oh Lud, sir, let's have nothing pathetic." "Aye, aye," McBean bowed. "Mr. Boyce! I do profess I feel the delicacy of the affair, and I detest it, _pardieu_. But I dare not absolve ye from your duty." "Oh, sir, you are very sublime." "Hear me out, Mr. Boyce. I have shown you cause to fear that your father has it in mind to compass a vile treachery, perhaps a murder. Would you deny it?" "Damme, sir, I am not the day of judgment." "_Bien_. I believe that is an answer. I declare to you there is yet a chance that he may succeed, aye, here in London." Harry swore. "If your friends must go walking into traps what is it to me?" "Well, sir, though you will own no loyalty to king or queen or country, I'll not be deceived. I call on you for your aid. It's believed your father is in London. It is likely he will seek you out, as he did before. Maybe at this hour you know where he is." "If I did, should I betray him to you, sir?" "I ask no treachery. But I do call on you, discover his purpose if you can, and if he intends violence to the King, prevent it. Lord, sir, it's to save your father from infamy, and your own name." "The King? The Pretender is in London?" Harry cried. "I told you that I should trust you far, Mr. Boyce." Harry stared at him, and after a moment stood up. "I can do nothing," he said. "It is of all things most unlikely that I should do anything. For what I know, my father is dead. He has been nothing else to me all my life. But I believe I should thank you." "Well!" quoth McBean. "God help you. I ha' drawn a bow at a venture. I think I have hit something, Mr. Boyce." CHAPTER XXI CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER Do you remember how frightened Swift was of the Mohocks? How he came home early, and even (that was bitter) spent some pence on being carried in a sedan chair to avoid the "race of rakes that play the devil about this town every night, slit people's noses," and so forth? He had some reason to fear. "Was there a Watchman took his hourly rounds Safe from their blows or new invented wounds" in these last days of Queen Anne? Their way was to gather and take plenty of liquor, "then make a general sally and attack all that are so unfortunate as to walk the streets through which they patrol. Some are knocked down, others stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed." The women would be turned upside down or clapped into barrels and rolled over the stones. It was a dark night with but a glimpse of the new moon when Harry left Captain McBean. From Bow Street to the "Hand of Pork" in Long Acre was only a few hundred yards, but murky enough, and Harry took Mr. Gay's advice for such night walking: "Let constant Vigilance thy footsteps guide, And wary Circumspection guard thy side." Nevertheless, as he was coming by the corner into Long Acre, he was surprised by a sound at his heels. He stepped quickly aside and turned upon it, felt a blow upon his head, saw flashes of light and the street, whirling round, rose up to meet him, and he knew no more. When he came to himself he was in a room with fire and lights. He raised himself and heard voices. Then some one was standing over him. He looked up into his father's face. "Who was that?" he said feebly. "Don't you see yet, Harry? It will soon pass off." "Lord, I know you. Who are the others?" "There is none here but me," said Colonel Boyce. Harry looked painfully round the room and saw that it had become empty. "What was it? A pistol?" said he, and began to feel his head. "Egad, nothing so gentlemanly. A cudgel, by the look of the bruise. A Mohock's club, I suppose. I found you lying in the kennel as I was coming home." "Oh, you're at home are you?" Harry laughed stupidly. "And where is home?" "These are my lodgings in Martin's Lane, Harry, and you are welcome. But what have you to do in town? Young husbands should not be night walkers." Harry stared at him for a moment. "I thought you knew everything," he said. Then, beginning to scramble up, he became aware that his clothes were all undone--coat, shirt, even breeches. "Odso, why were you stripping me?" "I found you so. They shave you close, the Mohocks." "They are a queer crew, your Mohocks." Harry looked at his father. "What should I carry inside my shirt?" Then he thrust his hands into his pockets. "Well, I had not much, but all's gone." "Damned rogues," said his father with honest indignation. "How much have you lost, Harry?" "Five guineas or so." "I can make that good at least. But what is it to you? You are a warm fellow now. What, you've made no hole in Madame Alison's money bags yet." "You're offensive, do you know?" Harry said. "I have been itching to tell you so." Colonel Boyce's face set. "What now? Are you against me, sirrah?" "Ods fish, you're a martyr, ain't you?" Harry laughed. But we are beginning at the end, I think. If you remember, sir, you promised to take me to France and went off without me." "D'ye quarrel with that? Why, you had a fatter fish to fry than you could catch with me. So I left you at her and you ha' dined upon her. What's the matter then?" "You were not honest with me--" Colonel Boyce laughed, "Ah, bah, you will be a Puritan. It must be your mother in you." "My mother! Thank you. We'll come to her. But one tale at a time. You let me think I was to go with you till you were gone without me. You took Waverton and told me nothing of that till you had him safe away." "Egad, boy, it was all for your good." "Perhaps you did think so," said Harry after a moment. "In fact it's what I complain of. You want to play Providence to me. Pray, sir, go about your business." Colonel Boyce shrugged. "You're a proper grateful son. So be it. You have your wealthy wench and want no more of me. Well, go to the devil your own way, Harry." "By your leave, I prefer it. But there's more, sir. Now comes Mr. Waverton and declares to my wife and me that you enticed him into a vile plot: for your pretence of a mission to the Pretender was nothing but a device for murder." "Mr. Waverton said that to Mrs. Harry Boyce? Egad, it wasn't civil of Mr. Waverton. And what did the lady say to him?" "That's no matter. What do you say to him, sir? Did you intend murder?" "Lud, Harry, you talk like a ranting parson. It was not your way. Who has put this buzz of morality into your head? I suppose your pretty wife would have you break with your father. He's a low, coarse fellow, faith, who might want some of her money." "We will leave my wife out, if you please. She will not trouble you. She and I have parted." "God's my life! What's the quarrel?" Harry shrugged. "Does one ever know? I was not good enough for her, I believe. And perhaps she was not good enough for me." "Damn you for a prig," says his father. "If you like. But you'll remark that I do not complain of her." "Bah, you make me sick, sir! Not complain of her! That luscious piece! Egad, you should be drunk with her. But you're not a man, Harry, you're a parson." "Oh, command your emotions! She rebelled against being wed to a man whose father ran about the world compassing murder, to a man who was withal a low fellow, a bastard. So far, it is your affair." "I see you are no hand with a woman." "Do I take after you, sir? We came upon a woman who said she was Mrs. Oliver Boyce and could not live with him, and boasted vehemently that she was no mother of mine." Colonel Boyce plucked at his mouth. "So dear Rachel has got her finger into the pie. Why, Harry, you have had no luck." "She is your wife, then. Oh, I admire your taste, sir. And pray, who was my mother?" Colonel Boyce began to say something and stopped. "It's no matter. I believe she would not wish you to know. Why, Harry, I profess I am sorry. If we had been married, better for us all." "Oh, you will be mysterious still. I suppose you are as tender of her honour as of mine or your own. And this matter of murdering the Pretender, pray, is that a mystery too?" Colonel Boyce became restless. "Ods life, sirrah, there is no matter of murder. Who told you so? The fool Waverton. And where did he get the tale?" "A gentleman who runs away tells his own tale." "Now mark, Harry. The plan was but to bring Prince James to England--" "Dead or alive," Harry laughed. "Pshaw. I had him at Pontoise and was doing well with him. Then in comes a swashbuckling Scots Jacobite which is my private enemy, and a dozen bullies at his tail. Well, I had no mind to have him stick me or turn me over to the French as a spy of Marlborough's, so I went off. The fool Waverton let himself be taken. I make no doubt the Scot filled him to the brim with slanders of me. But is that my fault?" "So you're done with the Pretender?" Colonel Boyce gave his son a queer look. "Why, there's not much to be done with him in Martin's Lane, boy." "Then what are you doing?" "Egad, Harry, I should think you want to lay an information against me. Waiting for better times is all my business now. My bolt's shot. And pray, sirrah, what may be your business now you've cut loose from Mrs. Alison?" Harry laughed. "Living on my means." "Why, does she settle something on you?" Harry looked at his father without affection. "Do you know, sir, I am not always proud of your name." "Egad, but you must have money somehow." "The family motto, I suppose. Well, sir, I write for the Press." "Good God, not for the newspapers? You have not fallen to that?" "Oh, sir, the shillings are clean by comparison." They looked at each other for a minute or two. "You walk abroad late, Mr. Author," says Colonel Boyce. "Do you make friends in your profession?" "I believe I have two in the town--a hack writer for Lintot and an usher at Westminster. And what then, pray?" "You were with them to-night?" "You are paternal on a sudden, sir. Do you think of putting me out to nurse again?" "So." Colonel Boyce stood up as if he had finished and then forced a laugh and slapped his son's shoulder, "Come, Harry, why quarrel? There's room enough for you here. I allow I owe you something. Join in with me." "I have no luck in mysteries, sir. I'll wish you goodnight." "Now you bear me a grudge," his father protested. "What, for getting me born? Sometimes, perhaps." "Egad, Harry, I should like to do something for you." "Then give me a sword." "A sword? And what for i' God's name?" "In case I meet any more of your Mohocks." Colonel Boyce was taken aback for a moment. Then he cried out heartily: "Damme, the rogues took five guineas from you too. Here, fill your purse, child." He shot out gold on the table. "I'll take back my five guineas," said Harry, and counted them, while his father watched with a frown. "There are swords of mine below," said Colonel Boyce. They went down and from a rack of arms Harry chose a plain black hanger with an agate hilt. As he did it on he saw below it some heavy staves loaded with lead--just such as the Mohocks used. "And where do you lodge?" says Colonel Boyce. "At the 'Hand of Pork' in Long Acre. Goodbye, sir." Colonel Boyce nodded, and for some time after he had gone stood at the door, watching. CHAPTER XXII TWO'S COMPANY Alison was gone back to her house at Highgate--and immediately regretted it. She took her adventures in a youthful, egoistic fashion: saw herself as a lovely woman made the prey of man and robbed of her right to her own life, a tender, confiding soul deceived and tortured into despair. The Lincoln's Inn Fields became the abomination of desolation, her fine society was dust and ashes and mankind in general all mocking villainy. So it was natural that she should retire from the world and become a recluse of tragic dignity. What other part is there for the deserted wife to play? But she came upon awkward difficulties. The world would not be left behind. It was much more closely about her among the woods and meadows of Highgate than in her London drawing-room. The would-be fine ladies and gentlemen of her routs and her card parties, so the sweetmeats and the wines and strong waters were good enough, cared nothing whether she had a husband upstairs or somewhere else. Out in the country every one, gentle and simple, had a curious eye upon her. The very woods and meadows must be jogging her memory and putting her questions. Every one had known Miss Lambourne of the Hall and gone whispering about her strange, passionate marriage. Each pleasant path and lane had seen something of that first wild happiness. All day long she was driven back upon herself and what she had lost. There is no doubt that she suffered. Of course she still told her heart wonderful tales about the shame that she had to bear and her torturing wrongs, and beyond doubt she believed most of them. For she could still profess to herself a miserable degradation in being married to a man of no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! Imagine her distress. At first she chose to pretend that she had been overthrown by passion. The more she tried to despise Harry, the more that fancy shamed her. But there was in her a strength which refused to be content with that. She would still boast to herself that she was not the woman to be swept away by a gust of longing for the man who chanced to take her eye. And so she brought down on herself the inexorable question--if Harry were man enough to wake passion in her and deserve her magnificence, why had she driven him off? For all her selfishness and her insolent pride, she had a vehement desire, a part perhaps of her very pride in her womanhood, to owe him nothing, to play him fair, to give him all that a man could ask. Little by little she forced herself to believe that she had failed of that. After all, he had offered her nothing but himself, poor, friendless, of no repute, indolent, careless of all the world--and she had professed content. What his father might do was no matter to that. He had offered her what he was and given it faithfully. And she had not played fair. When she found herself confessing that, she discovered a new power of being wretched. All the romantic, egoistic melancholy went down the wind. The finest, proudest of her, her own honour, told of a torturing wound. "I'll satisfy you"--that had been the boast before the wild marriage was done. And after all she had chosen to deny him. Nothing else could matter. There could be no excuse. It was he that she had taken, not his name or what he might be, and he had not changed. It was herself that she had promised--what other honour for woman or man than to give like for like?--and she had broken faith. She was humiliated--a state of all others the most dolorous for Alison. To it came on a merry spring day Mr. Waverton. She was in two minds whether to let him see her, and then--too proud to hide from him or greedy of a chance to hurt him--had him in. Mr. Waverton had decorated himself for a house of mourning. His large form was all black and silver and drooped sympathetically. His handsome face was set in a chastened melancholy as of one who grieves for another's trouble with a modest satisfaction. "Dear lady," says he tenderly, and bowed over her hand. "Dear Geoffrey," says she. "Here's a new song." "Madame?" "'Vengeance is mine' was the refrain last time. Now it's weeping over the penitent prodigal. How I love you, Geoffrey." Mr. Waverton made a gesture of emotion, an exclamation. "I wronged you, Alison," he said in a deep voice. "Nay, but you must forgive me. I have suffered too. Remember! I had lost all." "Ah, no," says Alison tragically, "you had still yourself, Geoffrey." His emotion was understood to be too much for Mr. Waverton. In a little while, "We have both been the sport of villainy," he said. "Forgive me, Alison. I remember that I spoke bitterly. Can you wonder? I had dreamed of you in his arms. To see you there in that knave's power--ah, I was beside myself. And he laughed, do you remember, he laughed!" "He never would take you to heart, in fact." "A treacherous hound!" said Mr. Waverton with startling vehemence. "Oh, he was honest when he laughed." Mr. Waverton swept Harry out of the conversation. "Forgive me, Alison, I should have known. My heart should have told me." "Oh Lud, and is your heart to give tongue now?" "My heart," said Mr. Waverton with dignity, "my heart is always crying to you. And now--now that the first agony is past, I know all." "I wish I did," said Alison and looked in his eyes. "But even then--ah, Alison, I have blamed myself cruelly--even then I should have known that when your eyes were opened, when you knew the truth, you would have no more of him." "You might have known," Alison said slowly. "You might have judged me by yourself." "Aye, that indeed," says Mr. Waverton heartily. "For we are very like, Alison, we are of the same spirit, you and I." "You make me proud." "It's our tragedy: we so like, so made to answer each other, should be betrayed to our ruin by this same vile trickster. Oh, I blame you no more than myself." "This is too generous." "No," says Mr. Waverton. "No. When I came on that woman of yours, that Mrs. Weston--faith, I am glad that you have cut her off too. I never liked that woman." "Yes, she is poor." "There it is! I doubt she was in Boyce's pay." Alison opened her eyes at him. "Oh, Geoffrey, you surpass yourself to-day. Go on, go on." "If you please," says Mr. Waverton, something ruffled. "I believe he hired her to play his game with you. Had you a suspicion of it when you sent her packing?" "By God, Geoffrey, I could suspect anyone when you talk to me." "She is bitter against you. When I heard from her that you had driven the fellow away from you, I was on fire to come to you." "To forgive the prodigal! Oh, your nobility, Geoffrey. And pray where did you meet Mrs. Weston?" "Why, in the High Street here. She lodges in one of those wretched cottages behind the street." "She is here?" Alison shivered a little. "Perhaps she has some game to play yet. She may be his spy. Be warned against her." Alison leant forward in her chair. Her face was hidden from him. "You are giving me a lesson, Geoffrey. I'll profit by it, I promise you!" "Alison!" Mr. Waverton gave a laugh of triumph. "I fight for us both. And I promise you I am eager enough. As soon as I learnt that you had left him, why, he was delivered into my hand. By heaven, he shall find no mercy now. Already I have him watched. I went to an attorney much practised in these treasonous cheating plots, and of him I have hired trusty fellows who know all the rogues in London and their hiding-holes. You said something?" But Alison was laughing. "I believe there is some humour in it," Mr. Waverton conceded grandly. "Well, they have tracked him down. Our gentleman lies at a filthy tavern in the Long Acre. The 'Leg of Pork,' or some such lewd name. He haunts Jacobite coffeehouses and the like low places. They believe that he makes some dirty money by scribbling for the Press. A writer in the newspapers! He is sunk almost to his right depth. They make no doubt that before long we shall catch him dabbling in some new treasonous matter. And then--" he made gestures of doom. "Well? And then?" "The law may revenge us on the treacherous rogue," said Mr. Waverton with majesty. Alison stood up. Mr. Waverton, always polite, started up too. "I give you joy, Geoffrey," she said very quietly. "Not yet! Not yet!" Mr. Waverton put up a modest hand. "I believe there is nothing you could feel." Mr. Waverton recoiled and stared his bewilderment. "You carry a sword, Geoffrey. Oh, that I were a man!" "To use it upon him! Bah, such rogues are not worth the honour of steel." "Oh! Honour! Honour!" she cried and flung out her arms, trembling. "The honour of you and me!" What was Mr. Waverton to make of that? "I believe I have excited you," says he. "By God, it is the first time," Alison cried and turned on him so fiercely that he started back. There was a servant at the door saying something which went unheard. Then Susan Burford came into the room, an odd contrast in her placid simplicity to the amazed magnificence of Mr. Waverton or Alison's tremulous, furious beauty. Alison was turned away from her and too much engaged to hear or be aware of her. "Here is Miss Burford," said Waverton in a hurry. Alison whirled upon her. "You! You have nothing to do here." "My dear Alison!" Waverton protested. "Miss Burford, your very obedient." Susan made him a small leisurely curtsy and sat down. "Oh, please give me a dish of tea," she said. "We have not seen you at Tetherdown in this long while," Mr. Waverton complained genially. "I believe not," says Susan. Alison stared at her. "Why do you come here? You know you despise me." "I do not come to people I despise," says Susan placidly. "Well. I am private with dear Geoffrey, if you please." "My dear Alison! I must be riding. We have finished our business, I think. I'll not fail to be with you again soon. I hope to have news for you. Miss Burford, your most obedient." Susan bent her head. "Alison--" he held out his hand and smiled at her protective affection. "Geoffrey," said Alison, and looked in his eyes. She did not take the hand. She was very pale. Mr. Waverton's smile was withered. He took himself out with a jauntiness that sat upon him awkwardly. Then Alison turned again upon Susan. "You want to know what I have to do with him?" she said fiercely. "No," says Susan. Alison stared at the fair, placid face and cried out: "You are a fool." "Oh, my dear," says Susan. "I hate that cold, flabby way of yours. You think it is all good and wise and kind. It's like a silly mother with a spoilt child. You've not spirit enough to scold, and all the while you are thinking me vile and base and mean." "But that is ridiculous. Nobody could think you mean," Susan said. "There it is again. You believe it is kind to talk so, and it drives me mad. I am shameful--do you hear? I am shameful and perhaps I want to be, and I loathe myself. Now, go. I shall not stay with you. Go." Susan stood up. "Alison, oh, Alison," she said. Alison flung out of the room. CHAPTER XXIII THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON Late in that evening one of Alison's servants rode up to the "Hand of Pork" and inquired for Mr. Boyce. After some parley, he was told that Mr. Boyce had not been in the tavern that day. So he left a letter in the tap and rode back to Highgate. That letter, which was not heard of till long afterwards, ran thus: "Mr. Boyce,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have you come for this my asking. Pray believe it is urgent for us both that we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall which I hope you would not have me bear.--A." An ungainly, confused composition, as you see, but it set forth very clearly the state of Alison's unhappy mind. She was revolted, of course, by Geoffrey's scheme of spying and trapping, loathed him for propounding it to her, and was eager to warn Harry against it and clear herself of any part in the vile business. But she would not have Harry suppose that she was praying him to come back to her. This time, at least, there should be no wooing on her side. If she wanted him hungrily, shamefully, he should not know till he chose to take her. But he must come to her and be told all the tale, and hold her free of any part in Geoffrey's baseness. So she fought with herself and wrote of her strife, and, as things went, it mattered nothing to Harry, for he never knew of it till much else had happened. When he woke on the morning after his affairs with Captain McBean and the Mohocks and his father--woke with a sore head and a very stiff shoulder, he was a prey to puzzled excitement. There is no doubt that McBean had engaged his affections. He was not, indeed, very grateful for the fantastic duel. Of all men, Harry Boyce was the least likely to be pleased by oddity or an extravagance of chivalry. He always thought, I believe, that Captain McBean was a little mad, and liked him none the better for it. But he confessed that with the madness there was allied a most persuasive mind, a very reasonable reason. The combination may not be so surprising to you as to Harry Boyce. He thought that McBean's exposition of the affair of his father, and his consequent duty, was exactly and delicately true--which means, of course, that it agreed with his own temper. He had no more doubt than McBean that his father had planned, was planning, treachery which, win or lose, would disgrace him. He admitted that it was his own wretched duty to do what he might to make an end of these plans. You smile, perhaps, at Harry Boyce claiming for himself the commands of duty. He was eminently not a saint. He was not delicate. And yet, thrust upon an awkward choice, it is certain that he chose what must be difficult, hazardous, and distressing, rather than stand aloof and let his father's villainy go its way. I make no pretence of exalting him into a tragic fellow. He had no affection for his father, no respect. Merely to work against his father's will, to smash his father's schemes, would certainly not have cost him one twinge. He had no hate for his father either, not the least ambition to ruin him or make him suffer. But he would heartily have liked to bring these murderous plots to nothing and yet save his father from vengeance. Harry had his share of the common human instinct to keep one's family out of mischief--or at least out of the newspapers. And it is not to be denied that there was also active in him a simple human animosity. He bore his father a grudge for being publicly a knave: a man who had received nothing from his parents but the gift of birth might fairly demand that they should not bother him with their rogueries. He did not extenuate his father's share in the catastrophe of the marriage. Perhaps it was in itself fated to miscarry, but if Colonel Boyce had not mixed up his affairs with it, the end need not have been ignominious. Harry vigorously condemned the old gentleman's meddling. It was an impertinence at the best to manipulate other folks, and a father who did it so stupidly as Colonel Boyce was a pestilent nuisance. But all this, I believe, rankled less than the behaviour of Colonel Boyce on the night before. If the old gentleman had acknowledged his offences, if he had even been content to talk of them frankly, man to man, he might have been forgiven. But his affectation of profound wisdom, his patronage, and above all, his parade of mystery infuriated Harry's lucid mind. It sought further causes of offence and had no difficulty in finding them. Everything about that conversation was suspicious. For how did it begin? With a broken head, with every button of his clothes torn open as though he had just been searched to the skin, he woke up in his father's presence. The father might pose as a good Samaritan who had come upon a sufferer by the wayside, but he should not have shown so nervous an anxiety to know what the sufferer had been about. The father talked of Mohocks; but what Mohocks were these who knocked a man down before making sport of him and, not content with taking his money, went through all his clothes? Why was a Mohock's club lying there beneath the father's swords? Harry made a ready guess at the riddle. His father must have fellows watching McBean's house. They had knocked him down to search him for papers. Then the father must have known that he had been with McBean, and those anxious questions were to discover how much he was McBean's friend. Colonel Boyce must have a lively interest in the affairs of McBean--and yet he professed that he had now nothing in hand. What if he knew of the secret of the Pretender's coming to London? What if he was still seeking a chance to accomplish his plot of murder? Well, Captain McBean expected no less of him. Captain McBean was in the right of it. It became a good son's duty to confound his father's politics. There's no denying that Harry went into the business with zest. While he ate his breakfast in the taproom, he caught sight of a fellow lurking about outside. Whose spy this was is, in fact, not certain. Afterwards Colonel Boyce vehemently denied that he had commissioned any man against Harry. Though you may not believe him, it is possible that the fellow was one of those in Waverton's pay. Harry made no doubt that his father was the offender. He went upstairs again and put a book in his pocket. (He had been commissioned for a translation of Ovid, which, let us be thankful, never came into print.) Thus characteristically provided, he went out to baffle the spy and the father. In the courts between Drury Lane and Bow Street he did some ingenious marching and counter-marching whereby--he was always confident and we cannot be quite sure--the spy was shaken off. He then came into St. Martin's Lane by the north end, and dodging in and out of it more than once, made for a tavern close to his father's lodging. He planted himself inside by a window, called for a tankard and a pipe, and divided his attention between the Tristia and his father's door across the lane. It soon appeared that Colonel Boyce was to have a busy morning. By ones and twos a dozen men went into his house. They were not, even to Harry's hostile eye, brazenly ruffians. Something of the bully they might have about them, for they ran to brawn and swagger, but they were trim enough and brisk, and had no smack of debauch--a company of old soldiers, by the look of them, and still not past their prime. They were with Colonel Boyce a long time, and Harry grew very sick of the Tristia, and had to drink more beer over it than was his habit of a morning. They came out at last singly, and yet with very short intervals between them. They all turned the same way--across Leicester Fields. There seemed to Harry something so uncommon in this that he was moved to follow. He made his way out by the back door and the tavern yard. As he came into Leicester Fields, he saw that the units had already amalgamated into three companies. They were all steadily marching westward. Keeping behind a cart he followed them, and after a while bought for twopence a lift in an empty hay wagon. I record all this because he seems to have been very proud of it, which is characteristic of his simple nature. The hay wagon rumbled him past two companies of them halted and coalescing at an inn. The first still headed him at a good round pace all the way to Kensington. The wagon was going through Kensington village when he saw that this vanguard too had found an inn. A little farther on he abandoned his wagon and, buying bread and cheese at a farm, made his dinner under the hedge. It was a long while before he saw anything more of the gentlemen of the inn, and lying among primroses and cowslips he nearly forgot all about them and his excitement and his wonderful tactics. He was, in fact, becoming sentimental, and had made three neat hendecasyllabics to the cowslips when the gentlemen came out again. They split into pairs and marched on briskly. Harry went through the hedge, and from behind it he watched them pass. Then, as now, the road ran straight, and it was not safe to come out and follow them till they were far ahead. While he waited he heard more tramping, and in a little while the rest of the company went by. He peeped out after them and saw an odd thing: though the road ran straight for a mile or more, the first party had vanished already. Harry climbed a tree. It was some little time before he discovered the lost party. They had scattered, they had taken to the fields and, under hedges, they were making southward. The rest of the company did likewise. Soon he saw what they were after. There was a lane running from the high road towards Fulham. A little way back from it, in a good garden, stood a house of modest comfort, doubtless the place to which some gentleman about town came for his pleasures or a breath of fresh air. About its grounds the company went into hiding. Harry came down from his tree in a hurry and, like an honest man, took to the high road. It was, you know, his one uncommon capacity to go easily at a round pace. He did his best along the road and down the lane and, though he caught a glimpse of a coat here and there, unchallenged he came up the drive and across the garden to the door of the house. He had hardly knocked before he was being inspected through a peep-hole. The door was opened and instantly shut behind him. He was in darkness dimly lit by one candle. The windows had their shutters closed and barred. "What's your will, sir?" says the man who let him in. "The master of the house, if you please," Two other men lounged into the hall. "And your name, sir?" "You may say that I came from Captain McBean." The man appeared to think it over. "That's true enough, faith," says another, advancing out of the shadow. Harry recognised one of the solemn seconds of the duel, Patrick O'Connor. "Will I serve your turn, sir?" "If you're master here." "I am not. Come on now." He led the way to a room where a cadaverous man, richly dressed, sat huddled over a fire. "'Tis a gentleman from the captain, my lord. Mr. Boyce, my Lord Sale." Harry bowed. My lord yawned. "You've a devil of a name, Mr. Boyce," says he. "I deplore it, and hope to disgrace it." "Is it possible?" said my lord, and yawned again. "I had the honour to tell you, my lord, that I answer for the gentleman," says Mr. O'Connor. "You may endorse the devil, if you please," my lord sneered. Harry struck in, "I came to tell you, my lord, that your house is watched, and by now surrounded." "Damn them, they have found it out, have they?" says my lord, and spread out his lean hands to the fire. "How many, if you please?" says O'Connor. "A dozen or so. They marched out this morning, scattered, and met again in the village and came here across country. They are well-armed, I believe, and look men who would fight." "Ods fish, that nets this hole," says my lord. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, when will they put the ferret in?" Harry shrugged. "Oh, there's a limit to your kindness, is there? Do you choose to tell us who sent them?" Harry was silent a moment and then blurted out: "They came from Colonel Boyce's lodging." My lord laughed. "Sure, 'tis an honour to know you, sir," says O'Connor, and bowed to Harry. "Damned filial, indeed," my lord chuckled. O'Connor turned upon him. "They have you beat easily, my lord," he said fiercely. "Damned courageous indeed." But my lord only nodded at him. "What, we be six--to count Mr. Boyce. Sure, we could hold the house against the devil's christening." There came in briskly a tall fellow crying: "Come, Sale, it's full time, I believe." My Lord Sale got on his feet, "Stap me, sir, I believe not," he drawled. "We must stay at home. They have smoked us. Here's a gracious youth come to tell us that his Whiggish friends beset the house." The Pretender frowned and seemed slow to understand. Harry looked him over. He was certainly a fine figure of a man, and bore himself gallantly enough. His face was darkly handsome in a melancholy fashion, not unlike the youth of his uncle, Charles II. He turned upon Harry. "What is all this, sir?" "Oh, sir, it's that old rogue Noll Boyce," my lord put in. "And here's his son betraying the father." "Faith, my lord, I'll remind you of that," O'Connor said. "Sir, the gentleman is an honest gentleman." "Colonel Boyce--he is your father, sir?" the Pretender bent his black brows over Harry. "He begot me, he says." Harry shrugged. "I desire to defend you from him. He has surrounded your house here with a dozen sturdy knaves who intend you, I believe, the worst." "I am obliged by your service, sir," says the Pretender coldly. "Pray, my lord, is the coach ready?" My lord shook his head. "I don't advise it, sir. The good Mr. Boyce cannot be lying. Or allow the knaves mean but to frighten you. I dare not risk your person." "Dare? You dare too much, my lord, who command neither my person nor my honour. I do not thank you for your advice. You will have the coach brought instantly." "I ask your pardon, sir, and beg you to consider. What will the world say of me if I let you run into a gang of murderers? We can maintain the house against them till our friends come seeking us. In the open we are outnumbered desperately. Nay, sir, be advised; what is to lose by waiting? If you go, you grasp at a shadow and may throw away your life for it." "I say, my lord, I do not thank you for your care of me, which is careless of my honour and your own. I am promised to our friends. Do you desire me to go afoot, my lord?" "I have done, sir." My lord bowed and went out. "Sir, I believe they will not spare you," says Harry. "I have heard you," the Pretender said haughtily, and waved him away. "I'll not be put off so." The Pretender turned upon him. "Sir, I have done what I could to save your life from a base plot. If it succeeds, the shame of it must fall upon me and my name, for it's my cursed father that planned it. And you choose to run upon the danger. I entreat you, do me right. Your blood should not be upon my head." "You have done your duty, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender bowed. "I thank you. But I must do mine." "Why, faith, sir, 'tis the right principle of war to wait the rogues here," says O'Connor. "You will not?" "Go to, man, I say it again and again." For the first time in their acquaintance, Harry saw Mr. O'Connor smile. "I have the honour to take your orders, sir. But sure, we are not at the end of our tactics. I'll presume to advise you. Let the coach come to the door, and me and the other gentlemen will make some display of mounting her and guarding her; she moves off slowly; it's any odds the rogues will believe we have you with us and deliver their main attack, while you'll be mounting quietly in the yard with my lord and ride off with him to Kensington." "The plan is well enough. Have it so," said the Pretender carelessly. O'Connor went out in a hurry and Harry followed him. "I'll join you, if you please, Mr. O'Connor." O'Connor laughed. "Oh, your servant, your servant. No offence, Mr. Boyce. I profess I have an admiration for you. But, faith, you are not a man of war. Do you go round to the stable-yard, now, and watch there to see they prepare nothing against us from the back." He bustled off, calling up his fellows. So Harry, with a long face, I suppose, drifted away to the back of the house. The coach was already moving out of the yard, and he saw no sign of his father's legion. In a moment the groom, with one of O'Connor's men to help him, was busy again in the stable. Still the legion did not reveal themselves. O'Connor's man ran back into the house, leaving two horses saddled in the stable. Then the Pretender and my lord hurried out, and the horses were brought to meet them. As they mounted, Harry heard the clatter of the coach and then pistols and shouts, and the clash of fighting. The Pretender spurred off, my lord taking the lead of him through the gate. As they passed, a shot was fired out of the hedge. My lord swayed, fumbling at his holsters, and crying out: "Ride on, sir, ride," fell from the saddle. His foot was caught in the stirrup, and the frightened horse dragged him along the ground. Harry ran up and snatched the bridle. "How is it with you, my lord?" "I have enough, I believe," my lord gasped. "Damme, sir, don't fumble at me. Mount and after him." So Harry went bumping in the saddle after the Pretender. CHAPTER XXIV QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD The Pretender looked over his shoulder as Harry came up. "Where is he hit?" "He has it in the body and he suffers." The Pretender muttered something. "I bring ill-luck to my friends, you see. Best ride off, Mr. Boyce." "You can do me no harm, sir. God knows if I can do you any good." The Pretender looked at him curiously. "I think you are something of my own temper. In effect, there is little to hope with me." "Who knows?" Harry shrugged. "_Par exemple,_ sir, do you know where we are going now?" "This is a parable, _mordieu_! I leave my friends to be shot for me and die, perhaps, while I ride off and know not the least of my way." "Egad, sir, you were in enough of a hurry to go somewhere." Harry reined up. "Am I to be trusted in the affair?" The Pretender amazed Harry by laughing--a laugh so hearty and boyish that he seemed another man from the creature of stiff, pedantic melancholy. "Oh Lud, Mr. Boyce, don't scold. You might be a politician. Tell me, where is this damned palace?" "Kensington, sir? Bear to the left, if you please." So they swung round, and soon hitting upon a lane saw the village and the trees about the palace. In a little while, "Mr. Boyce: how much do you know?" the Pretender said; and still he was more the boy than the disinherited king. "Egad, sir, no more than I told you: that my father had bullies watching for you." "And I believe I have not thanked you." It was Harry's turn to laugh. "Faith, sir, you ought to be grateful to the family of Boyce." "I shall not forget." "He takes care that you shall remember him, my honourable father." "I do not desire repartees, Mr. Boyce. Come, sir, you carry yourself too proudly. You are not to disdain what you have done, or yourself." Harry bowed,--permitted himself, I suppose, some inward ironic smile,--he was not born with reverence, and the royal airs of this haughty, gloomy lad had no authority over him. Then and always the pretensions of the Pretender appeared to him pathetically ridiculous. But for the man he would sometimes profess a greater liking than he had learnt to feel for any other in the world. Harry was careful to avoid most of the village. As they came into it on the eastward side a horseman galloped up to them. "From my Lord Masham, sir. Pray you follow me at speed." He led them on to the palace, but not by the straight approach, and brought them to a little door in the garden wall upon the London side. There a handsome fellow stood waiting for them, and bowed them in with a "Sir, sir, we have been much anxious for you. I trust to God nothing has fallen out amiss?" "There was a watch set for me, my lord, and I fear some of our friends are down. But for this gentleman I had hardly been here." Masham swore and cried out, "They have news of the design! I profess I feared it. Pray, sir, come on quickly. The Queen is weaker, and my lady much troubled for her. By God, we have left it late. And the ministers must still be wrangling, and my Lord Bolingbroke like a man mazed. We must be swift and downright with the Council." Then at last Harry understood. The Pretender was to be brought face to face with his sister, the weakening weak Queen, and a Privy Council was to be in waiting. Suppose she declared him her heir; suppose she presented him to a Council all high Tories and good Jacobites! A good plot, a very excellent plot, if there were a man with the courage and the will to make it work. Within the palace it was now twilight. They were hurried up privy stairways and along corridors, and Harry fancied behind the gloom a hundred watching eyes, and could not be sure they were only fancy. As they crossed the head of the grand staircase Masham made an exclamation and checked and peered down. The Pretender turned and Harry, but Masham plunged after them and wildly waved them on. "What is it, my lord? Have you seen a ghost?" The Pretender smiled. "Oh God, sir, go on!" Masham gasped. "We can but challenge the hazard now," and he muttered to himself. "You are inconvenient, my lord," says the Pretender with a shrug. "Go before. Conduct me, if you please," Masham brushed by him and hurried on. Harry understood my lord's alarm. He, too, had seen a little company below by the grand entry, and among them one of singular grace, a rare nobility of form and feature, a strange placidity. There was no forgetting, no mistaking him. It was the gentleman of the bogged coach, the Old Corporal, the Duke of Marlborough.. Marlborough, who was in disgrace, who should be in exile, back at the palace when the Tories were staking their all on a desperate, splendid throw: Marlborough, who had betrayed and ruined James II, come back to baffle his son! No wonder Lord Masham was uneasy for his head. They were brought to a small room, blatantly an antechamber, and Masham, brusquely bidding them wait, broke through the inner door. He was back in a moment as pale as he had been red. "Come in, sir," he muttered. "I believe we had best be short." And through the open door Harry heard another voice. It was thin and strained, and seemed to make no words, like a baby's cry or an animal's. Across another antechamber, they came into a big room of some prim splendour, and as they passed the door Harry made out what that feeble voice was saying: "The Council, Abbie: we must go to the Council: we keep the Council waiting, Abbie:" that came over and over again, and he knew why he had not understood. The words were run together and slurred as if they were shaped by a mind drowsy or fuddled. A great fire was burning though the day was warm enough, and by the fire sat a mound of a woman. She could be of no great height, perhaps she was not very stout, but she sat heaped together and shapeless, a flaccid mass. She had a table by her, and on it some warm drink that steamed. Through the drifting vapour Harry saw her face, and seemed to see it change and vanish like the vapour. For it was all bloated and loose, and it trembled, and it had no colour in it but a pallid grey. And as he looked there came to him a sense of death. Yet she was pompously dressed, in a dress cut very low, a dress of rich stuff and colour, and there was an array of jewels sparkling about her neck and at her bosom, and her hands lay heavy with rings. There hung about her a woman buxom and pleasant enough, yet with something sly in her plump face. "Fie, ma'am, fie," she was saying, "the Council is here but for your pleasure:" she looked up and nodded imperiously at Masham. "The Prince James, ma'am," Masham cried. The Queen, who had seemed to see nothing of their coming, started and shook and blinked towards him. "He is loud, Abbie. Tell him not to be loud," she complained. "Look, ma'am, look," Lady Masham patted at her. "It is your brother, it is Prince James." The Pretender came forward, holding out his hand. "Am I welcome, Anne?" he said heavily. The Queen stared at him with dull eyes. "It is King Charles," she said, and stirred in her chair and gave a foolish laugh. "No, but he is like King Charles. But King Charles had so many sons. Who is he, Abbie? Why does he come? The Council is waiting." "I am your brother, Anne," the Pretender said. "What does he say, Abbie?" the Queen turned to Lady Masham and took her hand and fondled it feebly. "I am alone. There is none left to me. My boy is dead. My babies--I am alone. I am alone." "I am your brother and your King," the Pretender cried. She fell back in her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, tap of her hand beat through the room. Lady Masham took command. "Nay, sir, leave her. You can do no more now. Let her be. I will handle her if I can." She rustled across the room and struck a bell. "Masham, bring Dr. Arbuthnot. He irks her less than the rest." Harry followed the Pretender into the outer room, shambling awkwardly. The progress from failure to failure dazed him. He recalled afterwards, as many petty matters of this time stayed vivid in his memory, a preposterous blunder into a chair. The Pretender sat down and stretched at his ease. "We are too late, I think," he said coldly. "It is the genius of my family." He took snuff. "You may go, if you will, Mr. Boyce." Harry looked up and struggled to collect himself. "Not till you are in safety," he said, and was dully aware of some discomfort. The dying woman, the sheer ugliness of death, the sordid emotions about her numbed the life in him. He felt himself in a world inhuman. Yet, even afterwards, he seems not to have discovered anything ignoble in his admired Pretender. The blame was fate's that mocked coldly at the hopes and affections of men. "I am obliged, sir," said the Pretender, and so they waited together.... After a little while of gloomy silence in that bare room, Masham broke in, beckoning and muttering: "Sir, sir, the Queen is dead." The Pretender stood up. "_Enfin_" said he, with a shrug. CHAPTER XXV SAUVE QUI PEUT "Sir, you must be gone instantly," says Masham. "You are officious, my lord." The Pretender stared at him. "I have nothing to fear." "I warrant you have," Masham cried. "And so have others." "I believe that, _pardieu_. Come, my lord, command yourself. Where is this Council? I may still show myself to the lords and challenge them." "Damme, you cannot be so mad! 'Tis packed with Whigs. They must have wind of you, curse them. Marlborough is there, and Argyll and Sunderland, burn his foxy face. It might have gone amiss though the Queen armed you to her chair. Now she is dead, there is no hope for you. Go to the Council! Go to the Tower--go to the block." The Pretender turned to Harry with a smile and a shrug. "He trims his sails quickly." "That's unworthy, by God," Masham cried. "My lord is in the right, sir," Harry said. "It's true enough, Marlborough is here and he makes sure. You'll but extinguish yourself to try more now. The need is to bring you safe to your friends." "You also!" The Pretender shrugged again. "Faith, Mr. Boyce, you show yourself vastly anxious for my life. You are not much concerned for my honour." "Egad, sir, I should have thought your honour was to maintain your cause. You'll not do that from a prison or coffin." "Who knows?" the Pretender said. "My grandfather--" Masham was stamping with impatience. "Oh Lud, sir, must we gossip about your grandfather? Stay here, you cannot. It is not decent. The Queen's a corpse behind that door. Why, and if they take you in the palace, it's ruin for you and for us all. Oh, we shall not be spared if you are caught." "Yes. I am a curse to my friends." The Pretender laughed drearily. "Well, my lord, you shall be delivered at least. Lead the way." Masham hurried out on the word. As they followed the Pretender took Harry's arm. "I wish you may be right, Mr. Boyce," he said. "But my heart bids me stay." "Oh, sir, a king has no right to a heart," says Harry. They were suddenly thrown upon Masham as he checked and drew back without warning. He had come upon a woman who was leaving the Queen's apartments, a woman who had once been handsome, and was still proud of it. She stared haughtily at Masham and his companions, and swept on before them. He was much agitated. "What alarms you, my lord?" The Pretender sneered. "Carrots from Somerset, egad," Masham muttered, gazing after the disdainful lady's red head. "It's the Duchess of Somerset, sir, the damnedest Whig, and she came from the Queen. Now they will all know the Queen is gone. Come on, sir, come on for God's sake." They hurried after him through the palace. All was quiet enough. Afterwards, indeed, Harry could hardly believe that fancy had not played tricks with his memory; for the emptiness, the silence of the corridors must needs have been a dramatic invention of his own mind and no reality. But it is true that as they hurried their retreat he was haunted by the quiet of the place--the quiet of death, a quiet ominous of storm. They were down at the door by which they had entered, and Masham's servant-in-waiting there was dispatched for the horses. Masham fumed at the minutes of delay, ran out and in again, and then with some awkwardness apologized for himself. "Egad, sir, I warrant you we have done what we could. It is for you I fear, by God. I promise you, I doubt damnably how things may go. Pray, sir, put yourself in safety." "I am grateful for your emotions, my lord." Masham stared at him and then cried out, "Ods life, what now?" The horses were coming, but before the horses came two of the Guards at the double. They halted at the door, panting, and grounded their muskets. "What the devil's this, my lad?" says Masham. "None is to leave the palace, my lord." "Damme, sirrah, you know me?" "It won't do, my lord. That's the order. You must go speak with the captain at the main gate." "Come, sir, I have no time. Forget that you were here soon enough to stop me. You shall not lose by it." "It won't do, my lord. Nay, nay, don't force me to it." The corporal crossed muskets with his fellow as Masham was thrusting by. "Order is to spare none." "Damme, sir, what do your mean?" "Sure, my lord, you know better than that." The corporal grinned. "Ask the captain, if you please." Masham recoiled and drew the others back into the palace. They heard the corporal shout: "Put the nags up, my bully. My lord won't ride to-day." "They know you are here, sir," Masham said, with a very white face. "Damn the Somerset! She lost no time. What is to do now?" "It seems my own plan was the best, gentlemen. If I had gone into the Council we should at the worst have been in no worse case." "Oh Lud, sir, must we wrangle that out again?" "You are impudent, my lord. I will do without your company." "Good God, sir, it's no time for forms. What would you be at?" "I shall go to the main gate of your palace and see who will stand in my way." "That's ruin for certain," Masham groaned. "Be easy, my lord. I shall not boast myself your guest." "Oh, you are mad." "By your leave, sir," says Harry. "We need not so soon despair, I think, nor you run upon your death. There is something more to be tried. These sentries, they'll be on the watch for a gentleman of your distinction and in my lord's company or of some noble attendance. But a common fellow may pass them. If you would lend me your fine clothes and that great wig, and condescend to my subfuse and bob, there's no one would take so shabby a fellow for yourself. Maybe I might make a show to break out one way, while you slipped past by another." "And left you to bear the brunt for me? I complain of you again, Mr. Boyce--you do not much value my honour." "And I say again, sir, your honour is to maintain your cause. Nay, but what can they do to me? Faith, it's no sin to wear fine clothes. And I--well, I think the Whigs will never bring me into court. I know too much of my father." "Oh, you are specious, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender smiled at him. "Nay, if all my friends were such as you, I should not be in this queer plight." He put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "How am I to thank you, sirrah?" "Pray, sir, do as I advise." The hand pressed harder. "Be it so then." "Egad, I like it very well," says Masham heartily. The two exchanged a shrug and a sneer at him. "If Mr. Boyce will risk it, he may make a show of marching out by the garden entrance while you slip away by the servants' wicket beyond." "I believe I can trust you to get rid of me, my lord," the Pretender shrugged. "Pray, where may we exchange our characters--and our breeches?" "Oh, sir, follow me; we must be private about that." Harry burst out laughing. "Aye, faith, he is a gentleman of delicacy, our Masham," the Pretender said. But my lord had no ears or no understanding for irony. He brought them to his own quarters and, fervidly entreating them to lose no time, shut them in and mounted guard outside the door. They cut queer figures to their own eyes when they came out, and Masham was distressed by their laughter. "What ails you?" he protested nervously. "It does well enough, I swear." "I am flattered by your admiration, _pardieu_," says the Pretender, with a rueful grin down at the shabby clothes which were so tight upon him, and a clutch at the bob-wig's jauntiness. "Some are born great," says Harry, "and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. I believe I can keep inside your periwig, sir, but damme if I am sure about your breeches. They disdain me, egad." "God's life, sir, if you make a jest of it you'll ruin us all," Masham cried. "I vow it's not seemly, neither. The Queen's dead but this half-hour, and--and, by God, our own heads are loose on our shoulders." "My lord's in the right, sir. It's no laughing matter," says Harry. "Aye, he's all noble feeling," the Pretender shrugged. "Come on, sir, in God's name," Masham groaned. "Look you, thus it goes. I'll bring you within sight of the garden entry. Then you make to go out, Mr. Boyce, with what parade you can. And you, sir, I'll take you to the head of the back stairs. You have but to go straight down and out, and I wish you God speed with all my heart. Come, come!" They marched along the corridor and must needs pass the end of that which led to the Queen's apartments. Masham was a little ahead of the others. He passed the corner. Then he checked and he turned sharp about and charged back on them, crowding them against the wall, trying to stand in front of both of them and hide them. It was Marlborough who alarmed my lord, Marlborough who came, alone, pacing slowly from the room where the Queen lay dead. No dismay, no emotion troubled his supreme grace. He disdained his splendours and his beauty with the wonted calm. He saw them, could not but see them, huddled together as they were and striving not to be seen. His face betrayed nothing. He paced slowly up to them. It seemed to Harry that from the first his placid eyes looked at none of them but the Pretender. "We have met before, sir, I think," he said gently. "On the field of battle," says the Pretender in French. Marlborough bowed. "Give me your company." "Oh, your family has always been too kind to mine." Marlborough pointed the way. The Pretender shrugged, and "_Enfin_," says he with a bitter laugh, and marched on with an air. Masham, leaning against the wall and very white, muttered to himself, "My God, my God!" Harry ran forward to look after them. He saw Marlborough glance over the Pretender's shabby clothes and then, making some ostentation of it, put on his hat. The Pretender with a stare of disdain put on his--or Harry's. They came to the head of the grand staircase and went down. The servants in the hall sprang up and ran to open the doors for His Grace. Harry heard a din and a clang and saw a flash of steel as the guard outside presented arms. The two passed out and out of sight. For a little while the servants stood staring after them, and then came back to their chairs whispering. Harry turned round to Masham. "What now?" "Now?" Masham stared. "Now we may go hang ourselves." "Like Judas? Damme, I don't feel the obligation. Do you, my lord?" Masham swore at him and began to walk off. "Can you lend me a humbler coat, my lord?" Harry cried. "I am no more use in this." "I'll do no more in it," Masham growled. "Look to yourself." "_Enfin,_ as His Majesty says," quoth Harry with a laugh, and went on to look for the garden entry or any other humble door. He found it soon enough and was going through it--to be instantly beset by a sergeant's party and a joyful shout, "Odso, 'tis himself, 'tis the Chevalier." "You flatter me," says Harry, and they marched him off. CHAPTER XXVI REVELATIONS Harry was kept a long time in a guard room. Once or twice an officer came in and looked him over, but he was asked no questions, and he asked none. He was ill at ease. Not, I believe, from any fear for himself. He knew, indeed, that he might hang for his pains. What he had done for the Pretender was surely treason, or would be adjudged treason, with the Whigs in power and the Hanoverian King. But death seemed no great matter. He was not a romantic hero, he had no faith, no cause to die for, and he saw the last scene as a mere horror of pain and shame. Only it must be some relief to come to the end. For he was beset by a hopeless, reckless distrust of himself. Everything that he did must needs go awry. He was born for failure and ignominy. Memories of his wild delight in Alison came stabbing at his heart, and he fought against them, and again they opened the wounds. Yes, for a little while he had been given the full zest of life, all the wonder and the glory--that he might know what it was to live maimed and starving. It was his own fault, faith. He should never have dared venture for her, he, a dull, blundering, graceless fool. How should he content her? Oh, forget her, forget all that and have done. She would be free of him soon, and so best. Best for himself, too; it was a dreary affair, this struggling from failure to failure. Whatever he put his hand to must needs go awry. Save the Pretender from the chance of a fight and deliver him into the hands of Marlborough! Marlborough, who would send him to the scaffold with the noblest air in the world! Why, but for that silly meddling at Kensington, the lad might have won free. Now he and his cause must die together before a jeering mob. So much for the endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher. And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her beauty! Oh, it was good to make an end of life if only he could forget her, forget her as she lay in his arms. The door opened. The guard was beckoning to him. He was marched to a room in which one man sat at a table, a small man of a lean, sharp face. Unbidden, Harry flung himself into a chair. He must have been a ridiculous figure, overwhelmed by the black wig and the rich clothes too big for him. The sharp face opposite stared at him in contemptuous disgust. "Your name?" "La, you now!" Harry laughed. "I don't know you neither. And, egad, I can do without." "I am the Earl of Sunderland." "Then, damme, I am sorry for you." "Your name, I say?" "Why, didn't your fellows tell you? They told me." "Impudence will not serve you. I warn you, the one chance to save yourself is to be honest with me." Harry began to hum a song, and, between the bars, he said, "You may go to the devil. I care not a curse for anything you can do. So think of your dignity, my lord. And hold your silly tongue." Sunderland considered him keenly. A secretary came in and whispered. "I will see him," Sunderland said, and lay back in his chair. It was Colonel Boyce who broke in, Colonel Boyce something flushed and out of breath. "Egad, my lord," he began. Sunderland held up his hand. Colonel Boyce checked and stood staring at his son. Harry began to laugh. "Oh, sir, you're infinitely welcome. It only needed you to complete my happiness." "Od's life, sirrah." Colonel Boyce advanced upon him. "Are you crazy? What damned folly is this?" "You know him then?" says Sunderland. "Oh, my lord, it's a wise father knows his own son. And he is not wise, you know. Are you, most reverend? No, faith, or you would never have begot me. No, faith, nor enlist me to do murder neither. For I do but bungle it, you see. And make a fool of my Lord Sunderland, God bless him." "Is he mad?" says Sunderland. "I profess I begin to think so." Colonel Boyce frowned. "Lud, Harry, stop your ranting. What brought you here?" "You, sir, you. Your faithful striving to do my Lord Sunderland's murders for him. _Imprimis_, that work of grace. But, finally, some good soldiers who assured me I was the man my lord wanted to murder." "You came here with the Pretender?" Harry laughed and began to sing a catch: "'Tis nothing to you if I should do so, And if nothing in it you find, Then thank me for nothing and that will be moe Than ever I designed." "What a pox are you doing in his clothes, sirrah?" Colonel Boyce cried. "Faith, I try to keep them on me. Which is more difficult than you suppose. If I were to stand up in a hurry, my lord, we should all be shamed." "The lad is an idiot," said Sunderland, with a shrug. "Come, Harry, you have fooled it long enough. I had a guess of this mad fancy of yours. But the game is up now, lad. King George is king to-day, and his friends have all power in their grip. There's no more hope for your Jacobites. Tell me now--the Pretender is in your clothes, I see--where did you part from him?" "Why, don't you know?" Harry stared at him. "Oh, faith, that's bitter for you. You who always know everything! And your friends 'with all power in their grip,' Oh, my dear lord, I wonder if there's those who don't trust you?" Some voices made themselves heard from outside. Sunderland and Colonel Boyce looked at each other, and my lord bit his fingers. The Colonel muttered something in Sunderland's ear. Harry laughed. "Do you bite your thumb at me, my lord? No, sir, says he, but I bite my thumb. Odso, I bite my thumb." "Be silent, sirrah," Sunderland cried. The door opened. "Announce me," says a placid voice, and the secretary cried out in a hurry: "His Grace the Duke of Marlborough." Harry went on laughing. The contrast of Marlborough's assured calm and the agitation of the others was too impressive. "Oh, three merry men, three merry men, three merry men are ye," he chanted. "No, damme, it's more Shakespeare. The three witches, egad. And I suppose Duncan is murdered in the next act. When shall you three meet again? In--" "Oh, damn your tongue, Harry," his father exploded. Marlborough was not disturbed. His eye had picked out Sunderland. "Is this the whole conspiracy, my lord?" said he. "I beg your Grace's pardon," Sunderland started up. "You see, I am not private," and he called out: "Guard, guard." "No," Marlborough said, and, as the soldiers came in, dismissed them with "You are not needed." Sunderland fell back in his chair. "Oh, if you please," he cried peevishly. "At your Grace's command." "You have no secrets from Mr. Boyce, my lord." He turned to Harry. "Sir, we have met before," and he bowed. "Yes. The first time your wife was stuck in the mud. Now it's you." "Sir, you have obliged me on both occasions," Marlborough said. "Well, my lord? You had Mr. Boyce under examination. Pray go on." "I don't understand your Grace," Sunderland said sulkily. "I have done with the gentleman." Colonel Boyce thrust forward. "By your Grace's leave, I'll take the lad away. Time presses and--" "You may be silent," said Marlborough. For the first time in their acquaintance Harry saw his father look at a loss. It was an ugly, ignominious spectacle. Marlborough turned to Harry, smiling, and his voice lost its chill: "Well, Mr. Boyce, how far had it gone? Were they asking you what you had done with Prince James?" Harry stared at the bland, handsome condescension and hated it. "Oh, you have always had the devil's own luck," he cried. "Devil give you joy of it, now." "You mistake me, I believe. I can forgive you more easily than some others." He turned upon Sunderland. "I will tell you where Prince James is, my lord. Safe out of your reach. On his way to France." Sunderland made a petulant exclamation and spread out his hands. "Your Grace goes beyond me, I profess. Do you choose to be frank with me?" "Frank?" Marlborough laughed. "You know the word, then? By all means let us be frank. I found Prince James in the palace. He accepted my company. We had some conversation, my lord. I present to you the results. You have used my name to warrant a silly, knavish plot for murdering Prince James in France. You entered upon a silly, knavish plot to murder him on this mad visit to London, and while engaging me to aid your motions against the Jacobites you gave me no advice of this damning folly. To complete your blunders--but for the chance that I came upon him and took him through your guards you would have been silly enough to plant him on our hands in prison. I do not talk to you about honour, my lord, or your obligations. I advise you, I resent my name being confused with these imbecilities." Sunderland, who had been wriggling and become flushed, cried out: "I'll not submit to this. I don't choose to answer your Grace. You shall hear from me when you are cooler." "My compliments," Marlborough laughed. "I do not stand by my friends? I lose my temper? You will easily convince the world of that, my lord. Colonel Boyce!" Before Harry's wondering eyes his father came to attention and, with an expression much like a guilty dog's, waited his reward. "You have had some of my confidence and I think you have not lost by it. You have repaid me with an impudent treachery. I shall arrange that you have no more opportunity at home or abroad." "Pray leave to ask your Grace's pardon," Colonel Boyce muttered. "I swear--" "You may be silent," Marlborough said, and turned away from them. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, will you walk?" Something bewildered by this time, Harry stood up and they went out together. "I require a carriage for this gentleman," said Marlborough to the sergeant of the guard, and with a smile to Harry, "That will be convenient, I think?" "Egad, sir, you might say, decent," says Harry with a wary hand on his breeches. "Spare me a moment while you wait," Marlborough turned into a recess of the corridor. "Prince James expressed himself much in your debt, Mr. Boyce. Consider me not less obliged. Thanks to you, I have freed myself of suspicions which I profess it had irked me to bear." "Your Grace owes me nothing. I never thought of you. Or if I did you were the villain of the piece." Marlborough laughed. "And now you are sorry to find I am not so distinguished. Why is it a pleasure to despise me, Mr. Boyce?" Harry had to laugh too. "It's a hit, sir. I suppose your Grace is so great a man that we all envy you and are eager for a chance to defame you and bring you down to our own level." "You're above that, Mr. Boyce," Marlborough said. "I make you my compliments on your conduct in the affair. And pray remember that I am in your debt. I don't know your situation. If I can serve you, do me the pleasure of commanding me." "Oh, your Grace does everything magnificently," says Harry, with a wry smile, and liked him none the better. CHAPTER XXVII VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD There is reason to believe that the Earl of Sunderland and Colonel Boyce fell out. Sunderland, never an easy man, suspected that he had been ridiculous and was nervously eager to make some one smart for it. Colonel Boyce was in a despondent rage that any one should have heard Marlborough rate him so. They seem to have had some cat and dog business before they parted: each, I infer, blaming the other for their ignominy. But they took it in very different fashions. Colonel Boyce suffered in the more respectable part of his soul. Sunderland merely fumed and felt venomous. For it is certain (if absurd) that Colonel Boyce had a sincere reverence for Marlborough. He much desired (one of his few simple human emotions) that Marlborough should think well of him. If he had tacked Marlborough's name to a dirty business about which Marlborough knew nothing, he had honestly believed that His Grace would be very well content to know nothing of the means, and profit by the end. That his hero should retort upon him disgust and contempt wounded him painfully. Final proof of his devotion--he never thought of questioning Marlborough's judgment. He had no doubt that he had managed the affair with miserable stupidity, and bowed a humiliated head. Unfortunately, he was not ready to bow it before Sunderland. If there was to be scolding between him and Sunderland, he had a mind to give as much as he took. My lord had been art and part in the whole affair, and could have his share, too, in the disaster. But Sunderland had no notion of accepting Marlborough's opinion of him. Sunderland had no reverence for any of God's creatures, and with Marlborough safe out of the room, snarled something about an old fellow in his dotage. This much enlivened the quarrel, and they parted in some exhaustion, but still raging. The night brought counsel. Sunderland might tell himself and believe that Marlborough had become only the shadow of a great name. But the great name, he knew very well, was valuable to himself and his party, and he had no notion of throwing it away for the sake of his injured dignity. In his way, Colonel Boyce was quite as necessary to my lord. The fellow knew too much to be discarded. Moreover, he would still be valuable. His talents for intrigue and even that weakness of his, his fertility in multiplying intrigue, much appealed to Sunderland. So before noon on the next day, Colonel Boyce was reading a civil letter from my lord. He sneered over it, but it was welcome enough. He did not want to be idle, and could rely on Sunderland to find him agreeable occupation. He walked out to wait on my lord, and they made it up, which was perhaps unfortunate for Mr. Waverton. Later in the day my lord heard that a gentleman was asking to speak with him, a gentleman who professed to have information about the Pretender which he could give only to my lord's private ear. Thereupon my lord received a large and imposing young gentleman, who said: "My Lord Sunderland? My lord, I am Geoffrey Waverton of Tetherdown, a gentleman of family (as you may know) and sufficient estate. This is to advise you that I am in need of no private advantage and desire none, but only to do my duty against traitors." "You are benevolent, sir, but I am busy." "I believe you will be glad to postpone your business to mine, my lord," says Mr. Waverton haughtily. "Let me tell you at this moment of anxious doubt," Mr. Waverton hesitated like one who forgets a bit of his prepared eloquence,--"let me tell you the Pretender has come to these shores. He has come to England, to London. He was in Kensington yesterday." "You amaze me, Mr. Waverton." "My lord, I can take you to the house." "You are very obliging. Is he there now?" "I believe not, my lord." "And I believe not too. Mr. Waverton, the world is full of gentlemen who know where the Pretender was the other day. You are tedious. Where is he now?" "My lord, I shall put in your power one who is in all his cunning secrets: one who is the treasonous mainspring of the plot." Sunderland, who was something of a purist, made a grimace: "A treasonous mainspring! You may keep it, sir." "You are pleased to be facetious, my lord. I warn you we have here no matter for levity. I shall deliver to your hands one who is deep in the most dangerous secrets of the Jacobites, art and part of the design which at this moment of peril and dismay brings the Pretender down upon our peace." "Mr. Waverton, you are as dull as a play. Who is he, this bogey of yours?" "He calls himself Boyce," said Mr. Waverton, with an intense sneer. "Harry Boyce, a shabby, scrubby trickster to the eye. You would take him for a starveling usher, a decayed footman. It's a lurker in holes and corners, indeed, a cringing, grovelling fellow. But with a heart full of treason and all the cunning of a base, low hypocrisy. Still a youth, but sodden in lying craft." Sunderland picked up a pen and played with it, and through the flutter of the feather he began to look keenly at Mr. Waverton. "Pray spare me the rhetoric," says he. "What has he done, your friend, Harry Boyce?" "He has this long time past been hand and glove with the Jacobites of Sam's. I have evidence of it. Now mark you what follows. Yesterday betimes he slunk out to Kensington, using much cunning secrecy. And there he made his way to a certain house--I wonder if you know it, my lord? It was close watched yesterday, and a coach that came from it was beset. I wonder if you have been asking yourself how the Pretender evaded that watch. I can dispel the mystery. This fellow Harry Boyce went in with news of the guard about the house. It was in his company that the Pretender rode away." "Why do you stop?" said Sunderland. "Where they went then I cannot tell you. You will please to observe, my lord, that I am precisely honest with you and even to this knave Boyce just. But it is certain that in the evening when Harry Boyce came back to the low tavern where he lodges--and he came, if you please, in a handsome coach--he was wearing the very clothes of the Pretender--aye, even to the hat and wig. I believe I have said enough, my lord. It will be plain to you that the fellow is very dangerous to the peace of the realm and our good and lawful king. If you lay hands on him, which I advise you to do swiftly, you will quench a treason which has us all in peril, and well deserve the favour of King George. For my own part I seek neither favour nor reward, desiring only to do my duty as a gentleman." Mr. Waverton concluded with a large bow in the flamboyant style. "Your name is Waverton?" Sunderland said coldly. Mr. Waverton was stupefied. That such eloquence should not raise a man's temperature! That he should not have made his name remembered! He remained dumb. "Pray when did you turn your coat?" "Turn my coat?" Mr. Waverton gasped. "You once professed yourself Jacobite. You went to France with a certain Colonel Boyce. You quarrelled with him because he was not Jacobite. Now you desire to get his son into trouble. You do not gain upon me, Mr. Waverton." "I can explain, my lord--" "Pray, spare me," says Sunderland. "You are not obscure. I see that you have a private grudge against the family of Boyce. Settle it in private, Mr. Waverton. It is more courageous." Mr. Waverton stared at him and began several repartees which were only begun. "I find you tiresome," Sunderland said. "I advise you, do not make me think of you again," and he struck his bell. But when Mr. Waverton was gone: "I fear he has not the spirit of a louse," my lord remarked to himself with a shrug. Thus Mr. Waverton's virtue was left to seek its own reward. CHAPTER XXVIII IN THE TAP When Harry came back to his tavern, he was, you'll believe, not anxious to be seen. He made one step from the coach to the door, scurried through the tap and upstairs. But the coming of a coach, and a coach of some splendour, to the humble "Hand of Pork" had brought folks to the windows, and at the staircase window Harry bumped into his landlady, who gasped at him and began a "Save your lordship--" which ended in "God help us, it's Mr. Boyce." "Cook me a steak, Meg," Harry said, and went up the stairs three at a time. She screamed after him "Ha' you seen your letter? There's a letter for you in the tap." When Harry came down in his natural clothes, his best and one remaining suit, and shouted for his supper she was quarrelling with the potman and searching the shelves: "Meg, you villain--Meg, where's my steak?" "Lord love you, it's to the fire. I be looking for your letter. Ain't you had it now? Days it's been here, I swear, and I saw it again only this morning. By the black jar of usquebaugh it was, George, Od rot you." "Burn the letter," says Harry. "Go, bring me that steak, you slut." "Oh, God save you," Mrs. Meg cried in a pet, and so for Alison's letter there was no more search. But indeed they would not have found it. Harry, if he ever thought about it, supposed it one of the grumbling screeds of the bookseller for whom he scribbled and was glad to be rid of it so easily. But he was in no case to think usefully of anything. The amazement of his deliverance left him in a queer state of excited lassitude. His nerves were all tremulous, he must needs do everything vehemently, and felt the while as if he were being whirled along, passive, in the grip of some force outside himself One moment he was dreaming himself capable of miracles, the next he was limp with weariness and utterly impotent. And naturally, as soon as he had food inside him, weariness won and he was overwhelmed with great waves of languor. He hardly dragged himself up to his attic before he was asleep. When he woke, the world was grey. He could survey himself cynically and wonder why he had been such a fool as to be in a fluster overnight. Faith, it was a grand exploit to dabble in conspiracies and come out with your head still (for a while) on your shoulders. And that only by a turn of the luck, not any wit of his. Well! Neither winners nor losers would want more of the blundering offices of Mr. Harry Boyce. He was back again after his conversation with royalty--and royal breeches--a hack writer in his garret. And Alison as far away as ever. The wonderful Alison! The beauty of her flashed into his squalor. He felt her passionate life. Be hanged to Alison! Let the hack writer get to his writing. All that day he strove with the fluency of Ovid, and to this hour his labours, much flaccid verse, survive in a decent obscurity. It was late in the afternoon before he yielded to his growing disgust with the whinings of the Tristia and sought relief in the open air. There was not much movement in the air of Long Acre. The day had been warm and languorous, with heavy showers steaming up again in the sun. Clouds were darkening across the twilight for more rain. Harry turned off to stretch his legs and find some freer air across the fields by the Oxford road. But he was soon tired of them. The moist heat oppressed him still and lowering darkness across the sky threatened a storm. He had no desire for a wetting and an evening spent in the Pretender's clothes. He made for his tavern again by St. Martin's Lane and there came full upon his father. Colonel Boyce touched his hat. Harry touched his, gave him the wall and was going by. Then the Colonel laughed and caught his son's arm. "Well met, Harry. I was coming to seek you." (It's not known whether that was true.) "And I, sir--I had no notion of seeking you." "Fie, don't be haughty. I bear no malice." "Egad, sir, that's kind in you," Harry sneered and pushed on. Colonel Boyce linked arms with him. "Why, what's the matter? You went off with the honours. Od's heart, you left us like a pair of whipped dogs." "You've to thank yourself for that, sir. Not me." "No, zounds, you did very well. I profess I was proud of you, Harry." "Then I have to envy you." Colonel Boyce laughed. "You play that game well, you know. But sure, you need not play it all the time. No, but I never knew you could put on such an air, Harry. You carried it off _à merveille_. My lord was a whipper-snapper to you. I allow you were a thought too free of your wit. It's a young man's fault. But in the main you were admirable." "You make me uneasy," Harry said. "I hoped that I had quarrelled with you." "Oh Lud, Harry, why be so bitter? You have won, and sure you can afford to be civil. You have beat me and broken as pretty a plot as ever I knew. Why the devil should you snarl at me?" They were now turning into Long Acre and the coming storm had already brought darkness. Harry stopped and freed himself from his father's arm. "If you please, we'll have no more of this. I've no will to make an enemy of you. But if you seek to be friends, enemies we must be." "Why then? Harry, you are not so mad as to declare Jacobite now? It's a lost cause, boy. There's not a thing in it but noble hole-and-corner work and not a guinea for your pains. You--" "Aye, now we have it!" Harry laughed. "You want to be in my secrets. Sir, I'm obliged to you, and by your leave I'll discontinue your company." "I swear I wish you nothing but well," his father cried. "Dear sir, it's your good wishes that I dread. Pray cut me off without a blessing." He waved his hand to his father and strode off. For a moment Colonel Boyce looked after him--shrugged--went his way. So Harry walked alone upon his danger. He was near the tavern, he was passing the end of a court. From the blackness there men rushed upon him. They managed it well. He was almost borne down by the first onset, but hearing something in time, seeing a glimmer of steel, he swung aside and staggered back into the kennel slashing at them with his stick. They were borne past him by their vehemence, but he carried no sword and their swords were all about him. There was no hope. Two blades seared through his body and he fell. Colonel Boyce heard the clatter of ash and steel and turned at his leisure to look. It was a moment before he made out Harry in the midst of the mêlée. Then he shouted of help and threats and ran on with ready sword. He came too late. Harry was down and the dripping blades again at his body. Colonel Boyce had one fellow pinked before they were aware. The others bore upon him furiously and he was hard beset. He made a good fight--it's the best thing in his life--he understood the sword, and they were but hackers and hewers, they were in a mad hurry to finish him and he had a perfect calm. But he was hampered and overborne. He would not give ground for fear of more thrusts into the body at his feet, and they closed upon him and he could not break them. But now doors were opening and heads out of windows. From Harry's tavern a man came at a run. As Colonel Boyce reeled back with a point caught in his shoulder, gripping at the blade and thrusting at empty air, another sword shot into the fight. One man went down upon Harry's body. The other three broke off and bolted down the court by which they had come. "_Canaille_," says the deliverer mildly, and plucked at the cloak of the man he had overthrown to wipe his sword. "Is that a friend of yours underneath, sir?" "Egad, they have tickled me," quoth Colonel Boyce, feeling at his shoulder. "Pray, lend me your hand, sir." The deliverer looked him over without much sympathy: "And, egad, it's the ancient Boyce," he said. "Oh, you'll survive, _mon vieux_. Who is this in the mud?" He rolled his own victim, who groaned effusively, off Harry's body. "It's the boy, _mordieu_!" he cried. "In effect, Captain McBean, it's the boy," says Colonel Boyce, who was trying to fix a pad of handkerchief on his own wound. McBean was down on his knees beside Harry, handling him gently. "Twice through the body, by God," says he. "What does this mean, Boyce? Damme, did you set your fellows on him?" "I am not an imbecile," Colonel Boyce said fiercely, stared at McBean and laughed his contempt. Then with another manner, he turned to the little crowd which was mustered: "Bring me a shutter, good lads. We've a gentleman here much hurt. And some of you call the watch." McBean rose with bloody hands. "He has it I believe," he muttered. "Hark in your ear, Boyce. If this is your work, I'll see you dead, by God, I will." "Oh, damn your folly," says Colonel Boyce. "I struck in to help him. I know nothing who the knaves were. Your own tail, maybe." "Aye, aye," McBean looked at him queerly. "You would say that. Well, maybe this rogue can speak. He groans loud enough." Down he dropped again by his victim to cry out "Ben! You filthy rogue! Ben! Who a plague set you to this business?" "Oh, you've found a friend, then?" Colonel Boyce sneered. The man who groaned was Harry's old friend, Ben the fat highwayman of the North Road. He rolled his eyes and made hoarse, grievous noises. "Captain! Lord love you, captain, I didn't know you was in it. Oh, gad, and you ha' been the death o' me,' "I shall be if you lie," quoth McBean. "You rogue, who set you on Mr. Boyce?" "How would I know he was a friend of yours? 'Twas a squire out of Hornsey. Squire Waverton of Tetherdown. Paying handsome to have him downed. Oh, gad, captain, don't be hard. I ha' had no luck since you turned me off." Now the constables came running up and Colonel Boyce turned to them: "Secure that fellow. He and some others which have escaped stabbed my son who lies there. I am Colonel Boyce at the Blue House in St. Martin's Lane." The wretched Ben was haled off, groaning. Harry, lifeless still and bleeding, for all McBean's work, they lifted and carried away to his father's lodging. "What's your Waverton in this, sir?" says McBean. "The silly gentleman wanted Harry's wife. Egad, I never thought he had so much gall in him." "I believe I'll be letting some of it out," says McBean. "You'll be pleased to leave that to me," quoth Colonel Boyce. McBean looked up at him oddly. "_Ventrebleu_, I wonder if I'll make you my apologies. Have you bowels after all, sir?" "You're impertinent." "If you like." McBean cocked a wicked eye at him. "You concern yourself with the affairs of my family. I resent it, Captain McBean." "I believe you, _mon vieux_." "You have done me a notable service to-night and I am ready to forget the older injuries, your ill offices with my son. Let us call quits and part, sir." "It won't do," said McBean with a grin. "What now, sir?" "I must know how Harry does and make sure that he has the best there is for him. Surgery and friends--he will need both, sound and sure." "Be satisfied. I shall well provide him." Captain McBean shook his head. "Damn your infernal impudence." Colonel Boyce's temper gave way. "Od's life, sir, this is infamous. You put upon me that I would mishandle my own son as he lies wounded and near death! I shall murder him, I suppose. You had that against me before. Shall I rob him too, or torture him maybe? This is raving. Carry it where you will, I'll none of it. You may go." "Fie, what a heat!" says McBean placidly. They were now come to Colonel Boyce's lodging and he bade the bearers take Harry up to his own room. "I sent a brisk lad for Rolfe," says McBean. "I could but stop the blood. He'll be here soon enough. It's but a step to Chancery Lane. He knows more of wounds than any man in the town." Colonel Boyce was for a moment speechless. "I shall send for Dr. Radcliffe and Sir Samuel Garth," says he majestically. "I wish you good night, sir." "I believe they have sense enough to do no harm," said McBean. "And now, Boyce, a word with you. Not in the street." "I don't desire it, sir," which McBean answered by passing in front of him into the house. Colonel Boyce came after, fuming. "Egad, sir, you presume upon my wound," he cried. "You--" "Not I. Patch yourself up and I'll meet you at your convenience. There's more urgent matter. When the boy comes to himself--if ever he comes to himself--I must have speech of him." Colonel Boyce, who now completely commanded himself, had grown very pale. "You have gone too far, Captain McBean. I desired to forget that I have you in my power. You force me to use it. If you thrust yourself upon me I shall have you arrested as a traitor." McBean flushed. "Odso, then there is some villainy of yours in the affair! Devil take you, I have a mind to finish you now, a wounded man as you are." He had his hand on his sword. "Will you go, sir?" "Not I. If you ha' murdered him, you"--he slapped his sword home again--"no, _mordieu_, I can't touch you so. And you may meddle with me if you dare." "Oh, you have a great devotion to the boy," Colonel Boyce sneered with pallid lips. "You would have him deeper dipped in your mad treasons? I think you have done him harm enough." He struck his bell. "Harm?" McBean cried. "Is it harm? You that begat him for the heir to your damned infamy? You that soured him with your husk of a soul and your cold cunning? You that made a dirt-heap of his life to suit your muddling need? You--" But Colonel Boyce swayed in his seat and fell sideways fainting. A moment McBean surveyed him as if he thought this too a trick. Then, "_Ventrebleu_" says he, "here's Providence takes a hand," and he whistled, and it is not to be denied that he looked covetously at the cabinet which held Colonel Boyce's papers. "The poor old devil," he said with a shrug. "He grows old, in fact. I suppose there's more blood in his shirt now than his damned body," and he knelt down and began to feel about the wound. He was at that when a woman announced the surgeon. "Mr. Rolfe? Never more welcome. Here's old Colonel Boyce with a hole in his shoulder, and young Mr. Boyce with two holes through and through. A street brawl. Pray go up, sir, the lad's in bad case." "Faith, it's Captain McBean," says Rolfe, a brisk, big man, as they shook hands. "What have you to do with Noll Boyce?" "A friend of the family," says McBean. "Away with you to the lad;" and he knelt again and ministered to the unconscious Colonel. "A friend of the family, old gentleman," says he with a grin. CHAPTER XXIX ALISON KNEELS So all this while Alison lacked an answer to her letter. She fretted at the delay, she grew angry soon, but it does not appear that she allowed herself any new pique against Harry. She was angry with circumstance, with herself, and something much more than angry with Mr. Waverton. It was detestable of Geoffrey to dare spy and plot against Harry, intolerable in him to suppose that she would favour the villainy. But she had been a fool and worse to give him any chance of insulting her so. And yet she might have hoped that her letter--sure, she had been humble enough in it--that her letter would bring Harry back in a hurry. It was maddening that some trick of circumstance should have kept it from him or him from her. For she had no notion that he would read the letter and toss it aside or delay to come. There was nothing petty about Mr. Harry, no spite. Nothing of the woman in him, thank God. What had happened that he gave her no answer? For certain the letter had gone safely to the tavern. She could be sure of her servant. Harry was living at the tavern. The people there gave assurance of that. It was strange that he made no sign. The servant, indeed, had waited for an answer late into the night and seen nothing of him. Perhaps he had discovered Geoffrey's spies and gone into hiding. It would be like Geoffrey to devise some mighty cunning villainy and so manage it that it was futile. Perhaps Harry really was at some secret politics, captured again by his father and sent off to France, or too deep in some matter of danger to show himself. Perhaps--perhaps a thousand things, so that she made no doubt of Harry. He would not deny her when she came seeking him. She had no fear either. Her nature could not imagine perils or disasters. There was too proud a force in her life for her to admit a dread of being defeated. Her man must live and be safe, because she needed him. Harry could not fail her. But she was desperately impatient. She wanted him every instant, and even more she wanted to stand before him and accuse herself, confess herself. For the truth is that Geoffrey Waverton had profoundly affected her. When she found Geoffrey daubing her with patronizing congratulations, when he dared to claim her as ally in mean tricks against her husband, she discovered that she must be miserably in the wrong. Approved by Geoffrey, annexed, used by Geoffrey--faith, she must have sunk very low before he could dare venture so with her. She received illumination. She saw herself in the wrong first and last, the sole sufficient cause of their catastrophe, a petty mean creature, snarling and spiteful and passionate for trivialities--just like Geoffrey, just such a creature as she hated most. Pride and honour instantly demanded that she must seek Harry, indict herself and read her recantation. She needed that, longed for it, and to satisfy herself, not him. It is possible that she then began to love. So monsieur must be found instantly, instantly. When she thought of all her tale of sins, she must needs think also of Mrs. Weston. Poor Weston had enough against her too--Weston--his mother. It still seemed almost incredible that poor, grey, puritan Weston should be mother to Harry. But if she was indeed, she might know something of him. At least, it would be good to make peace with her again; it was necessary. And so on the day that Harry fell, Mrs. Alison marched off to the little cottage behind the High Street. It was a room that opened straight from the path, and it seemed very full. Susan was sitting there, who was now Susan Hadley. Her fair placidity admitted no surprise. She smiled and said, "Alison!" Mrs. Weston stood up in a queer frozen fluster. "What do you need, ma'am?" says she. "Oh, Weston, dear, don't take me so," Alison cried, and she edged her way between the little table and the stiff chairs, holding out her hands. Mrs. Weston flushed. "Your servant, ma'am," says she with a curtsy, but she ignored the hands. Then Susan stood up. "I must go, I believe," she smiled, and bent to offer one fair cheek to Mrs. Weston. The other was then given to Alison. She smiled upon them both benignly and made for the door. "Susan! You'll dine with me to-morrow," Alison put in. "Oh. Mr. Hadley will be at home." "But of course you bring him." "Thank you then." The door shut behind her, and the room was larger. "I can't tell why you have come," says Mrs. Weston tremulously. "To say I was wrong and I'm sorry. Oh, Weston, dear, to say I have been a peevish wicked fool." Mrs. Weston sat down again. "Where is Harry?" she said. "I have writ to him to beg him come back to me." "I am asking you to come back to us." "You--" "Where is he?" "Ah, you don't know then?" "I have not seen him since he left your house." "He has been living at a tavern in the Long Acre. I have made sure of that, and I wrote to him there. But he has not answered me. He does not answer me. I can't tell if he has gone away." "Where is his father?" Mrs. Weston asked quickly. "His father? Colonel Boyce? Oh, Weston! Colonel Boyce is his father, then?" "Did you come to pry?" Mrs. Weston flushed. "I do not deserve that," Alison said, and then very gently, "Oh, my dear, but I have been cruel enough to you." "It's very well," Mrs. Weston said faintly. "Where is Colonel Boyce?" "I know nothing. Does it matter, Weston, dear? He cannot help us to Harry." "I am afraid of him. Oh, it's all wrong maybe. I am so weak and stupid. But I am afraid what he may do with Harry." "Indeed, I think Mr. Harry can keep his head even against Colonel Boyce," Alison smiled. "His head?" Mrs. Weston looked puzzled. "I don't mean that, I believe. I am afraid he may win Harry to be like himself. He is so clever and dazzling, and he is full of wickedness. He cares for nothing but his own will and to have power. When I saw him so friendly with Harry I thought I should have died." "My poor Weston," Alison said gently. "But I am not afraid of that. Mr. Harry won't be dazzled." "You dazzled him." "Oh, and am I full of wickedness too?" Alison laughed. "Dear, forgive me." "No, but you are strong and hard as his father was." Alison drew in her breath. "I shall teach you not to call me that, Weston," she said. "And Harry--well, Harry shall find me for him." There was silence for a while, and Alison watched with new emotions the tired, wistful face. "Weston, dear, I want you to come back to me. I want Mr. Harry to find you with me when he comes home." Mrs. Weston cried out, "He does not know who I am!" in anxious fear, and clutched at Alison's hand. "No, indeed. But he loves you already, I think." "But I do not want him to know," Mrs. Weston cried. "I--I was not married to Colonel Boyce." "Weston, dear," Alison pressed the hand. "I lived at Kingston. My father reared us strictly. He was harsh. I think that was because my mother died so young. Mr. Boyce--he was a gentleman in the Blues then, and very fine, much gayer than Harry and more handsome. He used to ride out to Hampton Court to an old cousin of his, who had a charge at the Palace. He met me one day by the river. I don't know why he set himself upon me. I was never much to his taste, I think. But I thought him the most wonderful man in the world. I let him do what he would with me. I don't blame him for that. He never promised me anything. In a while he grew tired. Then Harry came. My father could not forgive me. Afterwards they said that I had killed him. Harry was born. I lay very ill and they believed that I should die. I never knew whether it was my father or my brother sent for Mr. Boyce. My brother boasted afterwards that it was he made him relieve them of the baby. And I--I did not die, you know. When I began to be well again my baby was gone. My father lay dying then. He would not see me. My brother was the head of the family, and he--I could not stay there. I tried to find Mr. Boyce, but he had left the regiment. He had gone to Holland, they said, after the Duke of Monmouth. I could do nothing. And my brother had told me that Mr. Boyce would soon find a way to be rid of my baby. I--I believed that he had. I never saw Harry again till--you know. I never saw his father till that day at Lady Waverton's. He told me afterwards that they had said to him I was dying, and he supposed me dead. I believe that is true. He would not have troubled himself with the child else." "Oh, Weston, dear," Alison murmured, and caressed her. Mrs. Weston pushed back the hair from her wrinkled brow. "Mr. Boyce promised me that Harry need know nothing of me now. I do not know if he has kept his word about that." "There's nothing about Harry that is not safe with me," Alison said. "Oh, my dear, now I know where Harry has his strength from and his gentleness." Mrs. Weston looked at her in a puzzled fashion. "I wonder what he is doing now?" she said wearily. "I think I have told you everything, Alison. Oh! Your father. Your father was very kind to me. When I did not know what to do--I had no money left--they gave me five pounds--I went to him. He used to come to my father's house, you know, when he had business in Kingston. He used to go all over the country about his trading. My father said he was a godless man, but he was always kind to me. I told him everything. He took me into his house, and indeed I did not know where to go for food. I was your mother's servant while she lived, but I think she doubted me. Your father never told her anything, and she--but she let me be." "Oh, Weston, Weston," Alison said. "And you have spent all your life caring for me." "There was nothing else to do. But I was glad to do that." She looked at the girl with strange, puzzled, wistful eyes and saw Alison's eyes full of tears. She put out her hand shyly, awkwardly, and touched Alison's cheek. Alison smiled, laughed with a sob in her voice. "It is a long while since I cried," she said, and put her arms round Mrs. Weston and laid her head on Mrs. Weston's bosom and cried indeed. Mrs. Weston held her close. "Alison! But this isn't like you." "Indeed it is," Alison sobbed. CHAPTER XXX EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON You behold Mr. Waverton exhibiting a high impatience. He was alone in the best room of the "Peacock" at Islington, a well-looking place after its severe old oak fashion. Disordered food upon the table showed that Mr. Waverton had been trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and glower down at its emptiness--and repeat the motions in a different order. He must be theatrical even without an audience. But he had some excuse for his uneasiness. It was the evening of his conversation with my Lord Sunderland, and that fiasco had stimulated him, you know, to a grand exploit. He was waiting for news of it. The twilight darkened early. Mr. Waverton pushed the window open wider, and leaned out only to come in again in a hurry as if he were afraid of being seen. The room was close, and he wiped his large brow and flung himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far away. In a little while came the beat of rain--slow, big drops. That was soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the room, and the storm broke. Candles were brought to Mr. Waverton's petulant appeal, and an excited maid-servant bustled and blundered over clearing his table with pious invocations at each thunder-clap. She fretted Mr. Waverton, who admonished her and made her worse. Upon him and her there came a man cloaked from heel to eye, streaming rain from every angle. He shook a shower from his hat. "Hell! What a night," says he, breathless. "Save you, squire!" "Begone, girl! Begone, I say. Od's life, leave us, do you hear?" says Mr. Waverton, in much agitation. "Bring us a noggin of rum, Sukey, darling," says the wet gentleman, dragging himself out of his sodden cloak. He flung it upon Mr. Waverton's. "Run, girl!" says Mr. Waverton, in a terrible voice. "Go, you fool." He advanced upon her, and she stopped gaping, and got herself out with a great clatter of crockery. "Od burn and blast it! I want it," says the wet gentleman, and collapsed into a chair. "I believe you, squire. I want it." "What is the news with you?" Mr. Waverton said. "Od's bones, ha' you got the megs? The megs, I say. Oh, rot you, the ready, the hundred guineas?" "Is it done then?" Mr. Waverton's voice dropped. "Out with the cole, burn you." Mr. Waverton put a bag of money down on the table. The man snatched at it, tore it open, and began to count. "Is it done, Ned, I say?" Mr. Waverton cried. Ned showed some broken teeth. "I believe you, by God. He has it. He's dead meat. Two irons through and through his guts." Mr. Waverton flung back in his chair. "How then?" he said, in a low voice. "Ned--was it in fight? You brought him into a fight?" Ned went on counting the guineas, and sometimes tried one in his yellow teeth. "Oh, have done with that!" Mr. Waverton cried. "They come straight from my goldsmith, man. Tell me--you said you would force a fight on him. Did he--" "Lay your life!" Ned grinned. "There was a fight, sure. Old Ben knows that, by God. Aye, aye, you're fond of fighting ain't you, squire?" "I fight with gentlemen, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "For such base rogues as this fellow, I must provide otherwise." "Provide my breeches!" says Ned coarsely, and swept up his money. "Where's that damned rum?" "You may take it in the tap." Mr. Waverton rose. "Nay, she'll bring it. Nay, but, Ned--how did he take it?" "Rot you, how would you take an iron in your gizzard?" "He said nothing?" "Now, stap me, do you think we waited for him to say his prayers?" "Prayers!" says Mr. Waverton grandly, "They would little avail him." "Well now, burn me, you're a saint yourself, ain't you?" The rum arrived, and the servant, with frightened eyes upon the bedraggled Ned, went stumbling out of the room again. "You are impertinent, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "The fellow well deserved his end. I may tell you that I was advised to deal with him thus privately by a noble lord in high place." "Then it's worth more than a hundred megs." "You have your pay, I believe. I am satisfied with you." "Damn your airs," says Ned, but something awed by this parade. "Well, I must quit." "It is better," Mr. Waverton agreed. "Oh! There was a letter for my gentleman at his tavern. We pouched that while we were waiting for him. D'ye care for it? It's a pretty, tender thing. I reckon it's cheap for another five pieces." "You are a scoundrel," said Mr. Waverton, and tossed another guinea on the table. "Pot to you," says Ned, but slapped down the letter. "Well, I'll march. Maybe you'll have some more in my way. I won't forget you, squire," and out he went. Mr. Waverton, left alone, fingered the letter contemptuously. His great mind was indeed possessed by thoughts of victory. He had hated Harry rarely with the chief count in his enmity that Harry was a low fellow, hireling, menial. He could have borne defeat with some grace, he might even have sought no revenge for being made ridiculous, if the offender had been of a higher station than his own. But such insolence from a pauper! The fellow must needs be crushed like an insect. Only such ignominious extinction could satisfy Mr. Waverton's dignity. He inclined to despise himself for a shadow of human concern about the manner of Harry's death. Faith, it was an extravagance of chivalry to desire that the rogue should have had a chance to fight--that generous chivalry which had ever been his bane. He felt nothing but exultation at the issue. The wretched creature had been properly punished--stamped out by knaves of his own class in a vulgar street brawl--a dirty hole-and-corner end. Egad, my lord was very right. These petty, shabby knaves should be dealt with privately. Mr. Waverton found revenge very sweet. So Mr. Harry Boyce had gone to his account, and Alison was happily delivered. Dear child! Mr. Waverton felt a pleasant warmth of heroism steal over him, felt himself a knight-errant rescuing his lady from the powers of darkness. Dear Alison! She was free now. To be sure, she need not be told the manner of the deliverance. That would be an outrage on her delicacy. Enough for her that the cunning wretch who had cozened her was dead, and she a happy widow. She had but to show a pretty penitence, and Mr. Waverton proposed to be magnanimous. The prospect much pleased him. He saw himself grandly accepting her; permitting her to be very tender; wittily, but with a touch of magnificence, restraining her from too much humility.... He came out of this golden dream in the end, and was conscious again of the letter, and sneered at it. A nasty, infected thing, to be sure, damp and filthy from Ned's handling. What was it the fellow said? A tender composition? Pah, some blowsy paramour of the knave Boyce. But, perhaps it would be well that Alison should know the fellow had paramours in his own class. She ought to be made to feel how low she had sunk by yielding to him. Mr. Waverton opened the letter and saw Alison's writing: "MR. BOYCE,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have you come for this my asking. Pray, believe it is urgent for us both that we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall which I hope you would not have me bear. "A." Mr. Waverton read with swelling eyes. It was a little while before the meaning came home to him. He was never quick. Then (a sin to which he was not prone) he used oaths. The treacherous, besotted woman! She was still craving for her shabby lover, then. She offered a fair face to her too generous, too faithful Mr. Waverton, only to obtain his confidence and betray him again. Egad, she was too base. Rotten at the very heart of her. Why, some women must lust after a low, common fellow, as dogs after dirt. So she would have saved her Boyce from his master's punishment? Mr. Waverton laughed. She would have had him back in her arms again? Mr. Waverton continued to laugh. But faith, she went too far when she tried to trick Mr. Waverton a second time. Much she had gained by her treachery. Her fine husband was out of her reach now. It would be a pleasure to advise her of his death. Nay, faith, a duty. The miserable creature had been saved from herself. She must be shown that--oh delicately, with something of a cold grandeur, a touch of irony maybe, but always in a lofty manner as became one who moved upon heights far above her grovelling soul. Mr. Waverton, for all his high irony, rode back home through the dregs of the storm very furiously. CHAPTER XXXI CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE Captain McBean, healthily red and brown, showed no sign of having been out of bed all night. From cold water and a razor in his own lodgings he came back at a round pace to St. Martin's Lane. He found his aide, Mr. Mackenzie, taking the air on the doorstep of the Blue House, and rebuked him. "I bade ye bide with the lad, Donald." "The surgeon has him in hand, sir." "_Tiens_. He's a brisk fellow, that Rolfe." "I'm thinking Mr. Boyce will need him." "Eh, is there anything new?" "I would not say so. But he's sore hurt. And I'm thinking he takes it hard." "Aye, you're the devil of a thinker, Donald." Captain McBean grinned. "And the Colonel, has he made a noise?" "He's in the way of calling for liquors, but he's peaceable, the women say." "You'll go get your breakfast and be back again. And bring O'Connor with you. I'll hope to need the two of you." Captain McBean relieved guard on the doorstep till the surgeon came down. "I'm obliged to you, Mr. Rolfe. What do you make of him?" "Egad, Captain, you're devoted. Why, the old gentleman has put in for some fever, but I doubt he will do well enough." "Be sure of it. What of the young one?" Mr. Rolfe pursed his lip. "Faith, there's no more amiss. But--but--why, he was hard hit, I grant you--but you might take the young one for the old one. D'ye follow me? The lad hath no vigour in him." McBean nodded. "I'll be talking to him, by your leave." "Od's life, I would not talk long. I don't like it, Captain, and there's the truth. Go easy with him. I will be here again to-day." Captain McBean went up to the room where Harry lay as white as his pillows. A woman was feeding him out of a cup. "You made it damned salt, your broth," says Harry, in a feeble disgust. "'Tis what you lack, look you." Captain McBean sat himself on the bed and took the cup and waved the woman off. "'Tis the natural, hale salinity and the sanguineous part which you lose by a wound, and for lack of it you are thus faint. Therefore we do ever administer great possets of salt to the wounded, and--" "And pickle me before I be dead," says Harry. "Be hanged to your jargon." "You'll take another sup, my lad, if I hold your long nose to it. And you may suck your orange after." Harry made a wry face, swallowed a mouthful and lay back out of breath. After a while, "You were here all night, weren't you?" he said. "I am body physician to the family of Boyce, _mon brave_." "My father?" "Has a hole in his shoulder, praise God, and a damned paternal temper. He will do well enough." "How do you come into it?" McBean grinned. "Who were they?" "I am here to talk to you, _mon cher_. You will not talk to me, for it is disintegrating to your tissues. _Allons_, compose yourself and attend. Now I come into it, if you please, out of gratitude. Mr. Boyce--I have it in command from His Majesty to present you with his thanks for very gallant and faithful service." "Oh, the boy got off then?" "King James is returned to France, sir," says McBean with dignity. "Look 'e, tie up your tongue. His Majesty charged me to put this in your hands and to advise you that he would ever have in memory your resource and spirit and your loyalty. Which I do with a great satisfaction, Mr. Boyce." Harry fingered a pretty toy of a watch circled with diamonds, and wrought with a monogram in diamonds and sapphires. "Poor lad," says he. "It's his own piece and was his father's, I believe. _Pardieu_, sir, there's many will envy you." Harry's head went back on its pillows. "It's a queer taste." "Mr. Boyce, you may count upon it that when His Majesty is established in power, he--" "He will have as bad a memory as the rest of his family. Bah, what does it matter? You are talking of the millennium." "You will talk, will you?" says McBean. "I'll gag you, _mordieu_, if you answer me back again. Come, sirrah, you know the King better. It's a noble, generous lad. So leave the Whiggish sneers to your father. So much for that. Now, _mon ami_, you have put me under a great obligation. It was a rare piece of work, and to be frank, I did not think you had it in you. But I did count upon you as a gentleman of high honour, and, _pardieu_, I count myself very fortunate I applied to you. I speak for my party, Mr. Boyce, when I thank you and promise you any service of mine." Harry mumbled something like, "Damn your eloquence." But McBean was not to be put off. "You will like to know that the King when he was quit of Marlborough--egad, the old villain hath been a gentleman in this business--made straight for me and was instant that I should concern myself for you. I held it my first duty to get His Majesty out of the country. Between ourselves, I was never in love with this plan of palace trickery and Madame Anne. But the thing was offered us, and we could not show the white feather. _Bien_, His Majesty took assurance from Marlborough of your safety, so I had no great alarm for you. I could not be aware of your private feuds. But now, _mordieu_, I make them my own. I promise you, it touches me nearly that you should be hacked down, and egad, before my eyes." Harry tried to raise himself and said eagerly, "Who was in it? Who were they?" Captain McBean responded with some more of the salt broth. "Now I'll confess that I had some doubts of your father. As soon as I was back in London I made haste to find you. I was waiting at that tavern of yours when I heard the scuffle. You were down before I could reach you, and there was your father fighting across you most heroical. Faith, I did not know the old gentleman had it in him. He had pinked one, I believe, but he is slow, and they were too many for him. He took it badly in the shoulder as I came. But they were not workmen. I put one out at the first thrust, and the rogues would not stand. I tickled one in the ham as he ran, but missed the sinew in his fat. So it ended. Now I'll confess I did the old gentleman a wrong. I guessed the business might be one of his damned superfine plots. It would be like him to have you finished while he made a brag of fighting for you. But I was wrong. _Mordieu_, I believe he has a kindness for you, Harry." "What?" says Harry, startled by the name. "Oh, _mon ami_, you must let me be kindly too. Egad, you command my emotions, sir. No, the old gentleman hath his humanity. He would have died for you, Harry, and faith he is so rheumatic he nearly did. No, it was not he played this damned game. Who d'ye think it was that I put on his back? That rascal Ben--you remember Ben of the North Road? I put the villain to the question who set him on you. _Bien_ he was hired to it by that fine fellow Waverton." "Geoffrey!" Harry gasped. "Even so. Now, Harry, what has Master Geoffrey Waverton against you? If he wanted to murder your father I could understand it. That affair at Pontoise is matter enough for a life or two. Though he should take it gentlemanly. But why must he murder you?" "I am not dead yet," said Harry, and his mouth set. Captain McBean laughed. "Not by fifty year:" and he contemplated Harry's pale drawn face with benign approval. "But why does Mr. Waverton want you dead now?" "That's my affair," said Harry. "_Enfin_." Captain McBean shrugged, with a twist of the lip and a cock of the eye. "Is there more of that broth?" says Harry. Captain McBean administered it. "I go get another cup, Harry." He nodded and went out. His two aides, Mackenzie and O'Connor, were waiting below. "Donald, go up. The same orders. None but Rolfe is to come to him without you stand by. And shorten your damned long face, if you can. Patrick, we take horse." CHAPTER XXXII PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN Captain McBean and Mr. O'Connor halted steaming horses before the door of Tetherdown. The butler announced that Mr. Waverton had gone out, and then impressed by the evidence of haste and the martial elegance of McBean, suggested that my lady might receive the gentleman. "How? The animal has a mother?" says McBean in French, and shrugged and beckoned the butler closer. "Now, my friend, could you make a guess where I should look for Mr. Waverton?" and money passed. "Sir, Mr. Waverton rides over sometimes to the Hall at Highgate. Miss Lam--Mrs. Boyce's house;" the butler looked knowing. "Mrs. Boyce? Eh, is that Colonel Boyce's lady?" The butler smiled discreetly. "No, sir, to be sure. Young Boyce--young Mr. Boyce, sir." Captain McBean wheeled round in such a hurry that the butler was almost overthrown. They clattered off. It was not till they were riding through the wood that McBean spoke: "Patrick, my man, would you say that Harry Boyce is the man to marry wisely and well?" "Faith, I believe he would not be doing anything wisely. That same is his charm." "_Tiens_, it begins now to be ugly. Why must the boy be married at all, _mordieu_?" "It will be in his nature," says O'Connor. "And likely to a shrew." "If that were all! Ah, bah, they shall have no satisfaction in it. But no more will I..." There were at the Hall two women who had almost become calm by mingling their distress and their tears. It's believed that they slept in each other's arms, and slept well enough. In the morning another messenger was sent off to the Long Acre tavern. If he came back with no news it was agreed they should move into town. They said no more of their fears. Each had some fancy that she was putting on a brave face for the other's sake. There is no doubt that they found the stress easier to bear for consciousness of each other's endurance. So Mr. Hadley and his Susan were received by an atmosphere of gentle peace. Much to Mr. Hadley's surprise, who would complain that venture into Alison's house was much like a post over against the Irish Brigade; for a man never knew how she would break out upon him, but could count upon it that she would be harassing. "We are so glad," says Susan. "She loves to march her prisoner through the town. It's a simple, brutish taste." "Oh. I am so, I believe," says Susan, and contemplated Mr. Hadley with placid satisfaction. "She is too honest for you, Mr. Hadley," Alison said. "Oh Lud, yes, ma'am. The mass of her overwhelms me, and it's all plain virtue--a heavy, solemn thing. Look you, Susan, you embarrass madame with your revelations." "It is curious. He is always ill at ease when I am with him." "Because you make me tedious, child." "That's your vanity, Mr. Hadley." Alison tried to keep in tune with them. "Look you, Susan, I am cashiered by marriage. Once I was Charles. Now I am without honour." "Mr. Geoffrey Waverton," quoth the butler. Alison's hand went to her breast and she was white. "Dear Geoffrey!" Mr. Hadley murmured. "I do not know when last I saw dear Geoffrey," and he turned a sardonic face to the door. Susan leaned forward. "Alison, dear--if you choose--" she began in a whisper. "Sit still," Alison muttered. "Stay, stay." Mr. Waverton came in with measured pomp, stopped short and surveyed the company and at last made his bow. "Madame, your most obedient. I fear that I come untimely." Alison could not find her voice, so it was Mr. Hadley who answered, "Lud, Geoffrey dear, you're never out of season: like mutton." "I give Mrs. Hadley joy," says Geoffrey. "Such wit must be rare company." Alison was staring at him. "You have something to say to me? You may speak out. There are no secrets here." "Is it so, faith? Egad, what friendship! But you have always been fortunate. And in fact I bring you news of more fortune. You are free of your Mr. Boyce, ma'am. You are done with him. He has been picked up dead." He smiled at Alison, Alison white and still and dumb. Mrs. Weston gave a cry and fell back in her chair and her fingers plucked at her dress. Mr. Hadley strode across and stood very close to Geoffrey. "Take care," says he in a low voice. "Well. Tell all your story," Alison said. "They found him lying in the kennel in Long Acre," Geoffrey smiled. "Oh, there was some brawl, it seems. He was set upon by his tavern cronies in a quarrel about a wench he had. A very proper end." "Geoffrey, you are a cur," says Mr. Hadley in his ear. "You are lying," Alison cried. Mr. Waverton laughed and waved his hand. "Oh, ma'am, you are a chameleon. The other day you desired nothing better than monsieur's demise. Now at the news of it you grow venomous. I vow I cannot keep pace with your changes. I must withdraw from your intimacy. 'Tis too exacting for my poor vigour. Madame, your most humble." "Not yet," Alison cried. "Let him go, ma'am," Mr. Hadley broke in sharply. "Go home, sirrah. You'll not wait long before you hear from me." "From which hand?" Geoffrey flicked at the empty sleeve. "Nay, faith, it suits madame well, the left-handed champion." Mr. Hadley turned on his heel. "Pray, ma'am, leave us. This is become my affair." "I have not done with him yet," Alison said. But the door was opened for the servant to say: "Captain Hector McBean, Mr. Patrick O'Connor," and with a clank of spurs and something of a military swagger the little man and the long man marched in. Captain McBean swept a glance round the room. "So," says he with satisfaction and made a right guess at Alison. "Mrs. Boyce, I am necessitated to present myself. Captain McBean." "What, more champions!" Geoffrey laughed. "Oh, ma'am, you have too general a charity. My sympathy is in your way," and he made his bow and was going off. "_Mordieu_, you relieve me marvellously," says McBean, and O'Connor put his back against the door. Mr. Waverton waved O'Connor aside. "You'll be Mr. Waverton?" said O'Connor. "Od's life, sir, stand out of my way." But O'Connor laughed and McBean tapped the magnificent shoulder. Mr. Waverton swung round. "Hark in your ear," says McBean. "You're a lewd, cowardly scoundrel, Mr. Waverton." Mr. Waverton glared at him, stepped back and turned on Alison. "Pray, ma'am, control your bullies. I desire to leave your house!" "Let him be, sir," Alison stood up. "Leave us, if you please, I have to speak with him." "You have not," McBean frowned. "The affair is out of your hands. Come, sir, march. There's a pretty piece of turf beyond the gates. Your friend there may serve you." "Not I, sir," Mr. Hadley put in. "I have myself a meeting to require of Mr. Waverton." "So? I like the air here better and better, _pardieu_. Well, Mr. Waverton, we'll e'en walk out alone." "Your bluster won't serve you, sirrah. If you be a gentleman, which you make incredible, you may proceed in order and I'll consider if I may do you the honour to meet you." "Gentleman? Bah, I am Hector McBean, Captain in Bouffiers' regiment. Come, sir, now are you warmer?" He struck Mr. Waverton across the eyes. Mr. Waverton, drawing back, turned again upon Alison: "My God, did you bring your bullies here to murder me?" "I did not bid you here," Alison said. "_Lâche_," says Mr. O'Connor with a shrug. "_En effet_," says McBean and sat down. "Observe, Waverton: I have given you the chance to take a clean death. You have not the courage for it. _Tant mieux_. You may now hang." Mr. Waverton again made a move for the door, but Mr. O'Connor stood solidly in the way. "Attention, Waverton. You have bungled your business, as usual. Your fellow Ned Boon hath been taken and lies in Newgate. He has confessed that he and his gang were hired for this murder by a certain Geoffrey Waverton." "It is a lie!" "Waverton--I have a whip as well as a sword." "I do not concern myself with you, sir," says Mr. Waverton with dignity. "You are repeating a lesson, I see. But I advise you, I shall not permit myself to be slandered. This fellow Ned Bone--Boon--what is his vulgar name? I know nothing of him. If he pretends to any knowledge of me, he lies." "You told me that you had hired men to spy upon Mr. Boyce," Alison said. Mr. Waverton laughed. "Oh, ma'am, I thank you for a flash of honesty. Here's the truth then. In madame's interest, I had arranged with her that a party of fellows should watch her scurvy husband. She suspected him of various villainies, infidelity, what you will. And, egad, I dare to say she was right. But I have no more concern in it. So you may his back to your employers, Captain Mac what's your name, and advise them that I am not to be bullied. I shall know how to defend myself." Alison came nearer Captain McBean. "Sir, this is a confection of lies. It is true the man told me he was planning a watch on Mr. Boyce. But not of my will. And when I knew I did instantly give Mr. Boyce warning." "I shall deal with you in good time," McBean frowned. "_Dieu de dieu!_ I do not excuse you. Attention, Waverton! You lie stupidly. Your bullies, _mordieu_, blunder in your own style. It would not content them to murder Mr. Boyce. They must have his father too. They could not do their business quietly nor finish it. The rogue Ben was caught and the Colonel has only a hole in his shoulder. You may know that he is not the man to forgive you for it. So, Waverton. You have suborned murder and furnished evidence to hang you for it. You must meddle with Colonel Boyce to make sure that his Whiggish party who hold the government shall not spare you. You set every Jacobite against you when you struck at Harry. However things go now there'll be those in power urgent to hang you. Go home and wait till the runners take you off to Newgate. March!" Mr. O'Connor opened the door with alacrity. "I am not afraid of you," Waverton cried. "And you, madame, you, the widow--be sure if I am attacked, your loose treachery shall not win you off. What I have done--you know well it was done for you and in commerce with you." Mr. O'Connor took him by the arm. "Don't presume to touch me!" he called out, trembling with rage. Mr. O'Connor propelled him out. "I believe Patrick will cut the coat off his back," said McBean pensively and then laughed a little. He brushed his hand over his face and stood up and marched on Alison. "Now for you," he said. "I beg leave of the company." He made them a bow and waved them out of the room. "Sir, Mr. Boyce?" Mrs. Weston said faintly. "Madame, Mr. Boyce is not dead. He lies wounded. I make no apology, _pardieu_! It is imperative to frighten the Waverton out of the country--since he would not stand up to be killed. You, madame," he turned frowning upon Alison, "you must have him no more in your neighbourhood." Alison bent her head. Mr. Hadley came forward. "Captain McBean, you take too much upon yourself." "I'll answer for it at my leisure, sir." "Pray go, Charles," Alison said gently. So they went out, Mrs. Weston upon Susan's arm, and Captain McBean and Alison were left alone, the fierce little lean man stretching every inch of him against her rich beauty. "You do me some wrong, sir," Alison said. "Is it possible?" McBean's chest swelled to the sneer. "Pray, sir, don't scold. It passes me by. Nay, I cannot answer you. I have no defence, I believe. Be sure that you can say nothing to make my hurt worse." "How long shall we go on talking about you, madame?" Alison flushed dark, and turned away and muttered something. "What now?" McBean said. In another moment he saw that she was crying. Some satisfaction perhaps, no pity, softened his stare.... She turned, making no pretence to hide her tears. "I beg of you--take me to Mr. Boyce." "I said, madame, Mr. Boyce is not yet dead." The sharp, precise voice spared her nothing. "I do not know whether he will live." Alison gave a choking cry. "I do not now know whether he would desire to live." "What do you mean?" A madness of fear, of love perhaps, distorted her face. "You well know. When I rode out this morning, I had it in mind to kill the Waverton and conduct you to Mr. Boyce. But I did not guess that Waverton would refuse to be killed like a gentleman or that I should find you engaged in the rogue's infamy." "But that is his lie! Ah, you must know that it is a lie. You heard how he turned on me, and his vileness." "_Bien_, you have played fast and loose with him. I allow that. It does not commend you to me, madame." "I'll not bear it," Alison cried wildly. "Oh, sir, you have no right. Mr. Boyce would never endure you should treat me so." "_Dieu de dieu_! Would you trade upon Harry's gentleness now? Aye, madame, he would not treat you so, _mordieu_. He would see nothing, know nothing, believe nothing. And let you make a mock of him again. But if you please, I stand between him and you." "You have no right," Alison muttered. "It is you who have put me there. You, madame, when you played him false with this Waverton." "That is a lie--a lie," she cried. "Oh, content you. You are all chastity. I do not doubt it. But you drove Harry away from you. You admitted your Waverton to intimacy--you let him hope--believe--bah, what does it matter? You were in his secrets. You knew he put bullies upon Harry. Now he has failed and you are in a fright and want your Harry again. Permit me, madame, not to admire you." "What do you want of me?" Alison said miserably. "I cannot tell. I want to know what I am to do with Harry. And you--you are another wound." Alison shuddered. "For God's sake take me to him. I will content him." "Yes. For how long?" "Oh, I deserve it all. I cannot answer you. And yet you are wrong. I am not such as you think me. I have never had anything but contempt for Mr. Waverton. If he were not what he is, he must have known that. He came to me after I left Harry. He told me that he was having Harry spied upon. The moment he was gone I wrote to Harry and gave him warning and begged him come back to me. He has never answered me. And I--oh--am I to speak of Harry and me?" "If you could I should not much believe you. From the first, madame, I have believed you." "It was I who drove him away from me. I have been miserable for it ever since. I humbled myself." Captain McBean held up his hand. "I still believe you. Pray, order your coach." "Where is he?" "He lies at his father's lodging. Observe, madame: I have said--he is not yet dead. Whether he lives rests, I believe to God, upon what you may be to him." "Then he will be well enough," she sobbed as she laughed. "Oh! I believe in your power," says McBean with a twist of a smile. She stayed a moment by the door and flung her arms wide. "What I am--it is all for him." Captain McBean left alone, took snuff. "A splendid wild cat--and that mouse of a Harry," says he. CHAPTER XXXIII REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE Captain McBean was strutting to and fro for the benefit of his impatience when Mr. O'Connor returned to him. "Patrick, you look morose. Had he the legs of you?" "He had not," says O'Connor, nursing his hand. "But he had a beautiful nose. Sure, it was harder than you would think. And I have sprained my thumb." "What, did he fight?" "He did not--saving the tongue of him. But I had broke my whip upon him, so I broke his nose to be even. Egad, he was beautiful before and behind. He cannot show this long while. Neither behind nor before, faith. What will he do, d'ye think?" "Oh Lud, he'll not face it out. He would dream of hangmen. He'll take the waters. He'll go the grand tour. D'ye know, Patrick, there's a masterly touch in old Boyce. To choose that oaf for his decoy at Pontoise! Who could guess at danger in him? No wonder Charles Middleton saw no guile! Yet, you observe, the creature's full of venom." "He bleeds like a pig," says Mr. O'Connor. "What will we be waiting for, sir?" "The lady." "She goes to Harry? Oh, he's the lucky one. What a Venus it is!" "Aye, aye. She should have married you, Patrick. You would have ridden her." "Ah now, don't destroy me with envy and desires," says Mr. O'Connor. "But, sure, there was another, a noble fat girl. Will she be bespoke?" "She belongs to the one-armed hero." "Maybe she could do with another. There's enough of her for two. Oh, come away, sir, before I danger my soul." They heard the wheels of the coach and marched out. Alison was coming downstairs with Mrs. Weston. "What now?" says McBean glowering. "Do you need a duenna to watch you with your husband?" "Madame is Harry's mother, sir," Alison said. For once Captain McBean was disconcerted. "A thousand pardons," says he, and with much ceremony put Mrs. Weston into the coach. As they rode after it, "You fight too fast, sir," says O'Connor with a grin. "I have remarked it before." Captain McBean 'was still something out of countenance. "Who would have thought he had a mother here?" he growled. "Oh, faith, you did not suppose the old Colonel brought him forth--like Jove plucking Minerva out of his swollen head." "I did not, Patrick, you loon. But I did not guess his mother would be here with this gorgeous madame wife." "Fie now, is it the Lord God don't advise you of everything? 'Tis an indignity, faith." Captain McBean swore at him in a friendly way, and they jogged on through the Islington lanes.... So after a while it happened that Colonel Boyce, raising a hot and angry head at the creature who dared open his bedroom door, found himself looking at Mrs. Weston. "Ods my life! Kate! What a pox do you want here?" says he. "You are hurt. I thought you would want nursing." "I do not want nursing, damme. How did you hear of the business?" "That Scotch captain rode out to tell us." "Od burn the fellow! Humph. No. Maybe he is no fool, neither. Us? Who is us, Kate? Mrs. Alison?" "She is gone up to Harry now." Colonel Boyce whistled. "Come up and we will show you a thing, eh? That is Scripture, Kate. You used to have your mouth full of Scripture." "You put me out of favour with that." "Let it be, can't you? What, they will make it up, then?" "Does that hurt you? Indeed, they would never have quarrelled but for you." "Oh, aye, blame it on me. I am the devil, faith. Come, ma'am, what have I done to the pretty dears? She's a warm piece and Harry's a milksop, and that's the whole of it." "With your tricks you made her think Harry was such as you are. And that wife you married came to Alison and told her that Harry was base-born." "Rot the shrew! She must meddle must she? Egad, she was always a blunder, Madame Rachel." He swore at her fully. "Bah, what though? Why should jolly Alison heed her?" "Alison knows everything now. I told her." "Egad, you go beyond me, Kate. You that made me swear none should ever know the boy was yours. You go and blab it out! Damn you for a woman." The woman looked at him strangely. "You have done that indeed," she said. "No, that's too bad. I vow it is." For once Colonel Boyce was stung. He fell silent and fidgeted, and made a long arm for the herb water by his bed. Mrs. Weston gave it him. "Let be, can't you?" he cried, and drank all the same. "Eh, Kate that came over my guard.... She has made you suffer, the shrew. Egad, I could whip her through the town for it." "Yes. Whip her." "Oh, what would you have?" Colonel Boyce shifted under a rueful air, strange in him. "I am what I am. I have had no luck in women. She was a blunder. And you--you have paid to say of me what you will. Egad, you have the chance now." "Are you in pain?" "Be hanged to pain! Don't gloat, Kate. That's not like you, at least." "Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry." "No, nor that neither. Damme, what should I be with you pitying me? Let it be. Come, you want something of me, I suppose. Something for your Harry, eh? What is it?" "I want nothing but that he should live. He has no need of you or me." "Oh Lud, he will live. But you were always full of fears." "Yes. You used to say that long ago." Colonel Boyce winced again. "Eh, you get in your thrusts, Kate, I swear I did what I could to save him." "I could not have borne to come to you else." "Humph. I see no good in your coming. There's little comfort for you or me in seeing each other. I suppose it's your damned duty." "I don't know." "Oh Lud, then begone and let's have done with it all." "I want to stay till you are well." "Aye, faith, it's comfortable to see me on my back and helpless." Mrs. Weston did not answer for a moment. She was busy with setting his table in order. "I want to have some right somewhere. She is with Harry." "By God, Kate, you're a good soul," Colonel Boyce cried. "I am not. I am jealous of her," Mrs. Weston said with a sob. "Does Harry know of you?" "What does it matter? He'll not care now." "Kate--come here, child." "No. No. I am not crying," Mrs. Weston said. CHAPTER XXXIV HARRY WAKES UP Harry lay asleep when Alison came into his room. She made sure of that and sat herself beside him to wait. It was not, you know, a thing which she did well. She looked down at him gravely. Afterwards Harry would accuse her that what first she felt was how little and miserable a man she had taken to herself. He lay there very still and his breath hardly stirred him. Indeed, the surgery of Mr. Rolfe had bound him up so tightly that he was in armour from waist to neck. After a moment, she started and trembled and bent over him and put her cheek close to his lips. She felt his breath and rose again slowly almost as pale as he. That cheating fear had stabbed cruelly, and still it would not let her be. His face was so thin, so white and utterly tired. The life was drained out of him.... She sat beside him, still but for the beat of her bosom, and it seemed that the consciousness in her was falling from a height or galloping against the wind. She seemed to try to stop and could not. She tried to change the fashion of her thought and had no power in that either. It was a strange, half-angry, half-contemptuous pity that moved in her, and a fever of impatience. He was wicked to be struck down so, rent, impotent. Why must the wretch go plunging out into the world and measure himself against these swashbuckling conspirators? He had no equipment for it. He was fated to end it with disaster. Faith, it was a cruel folly to throw himself away and drag up her life by the roots as he fell. She needed him--needed him quick and eager, and there he lay, a shrunken thing that could use only gentleness, help, a tedious, trivial service like a child. He was humiliated, a condition not to be borne in her man. As she watched him, she saw Geoffrey Waverton rise between them, blusterous and menacing, and his lustiness mocked at the still, helpless body. But on that all other feeling was lost in a fever of hate of Mr. Waverton. He was branded with every contemptible sin that she knew, she ached to have him suffer, and (unaware of the contusions and extravasations administered by Mr. O'Connor) tried to console herself by recalling the ignominious condition of Geoffrey in the hands of the truculent gentlemen at Highgate. Bah, the coward was dishonoured for ever, at least. He would never dare show his face in town or country. How could he? Mr. Hadley would spit him like a joint. The good Charles! She found some consolation in the memory of Mr. Hadley's sardonic contempt. Nay, but the others, that fire-eating little Scotsman and his lank friend, they were of the same scornful mind about Mr. Waverton. His blusterous bullying went for nothing with them but to call for more disdain. They had no doubt that he cut a miserable figure, that it was he who was humiliated in the affair. And so all men would think, indeed. It was only a fool of a woman who could be imposed upon by his brag, only a mean, detestable woman who could suppose Harry defeated. Why, Harry must needs have done nobly to enlist these men on his side. He was nothing to Captain McBean, nothing but what he had done, and yet McBean took up his cause with a perfect devotion, cared for nothing but to punish his enemies, and to assure his safety. Faith, the little man would be as glad to thrash her as to overthrow Master Geoffrey. He had come near it, indeed. She smiled a little. The absurd imagination was not unpleasant. Monsieur was welcome to beat her if it would bring Harry any comfort. Aye, it would be very good for her. She would be glad to show Harry the stripes. Nay, but it was Harry who should beat her--only he never would. And these fantastics were swept away in a wave of tenderness. Mr. Harry was not good at making others suffer. He left it to his wife, poor lad, and she--she had done it greedily. Well. There was to be an end of that. Pray God he might ever be strong enough to hurt her. She bent over him in this queer mood, and her eyes were dim, and she kissed him, and whispered to herself--to him. Yes. She must make him hurt her. She must have pain of him to bear.... Harry slept on. She began to caress his pillow, and crooned over him like a mother with her child, and found herself blushing and was still and silent again. Indeed, she was detestable. To make a show of fondling after having driven him to the edge of death! To chatter and flutter about him when he had no more than strength enough for sleep! Why, this was the very way for a light o' love. And, indeed, she was no better, wanting him only for her pleasure, for what he would give, watching greedily till he should be fit to serve her turn again. Yes, that was the only way of love Mrs. Alison understood. It was some satisfaction to scold herself, to make herself believe that she was vile. For she wanted to suffer, she wanted to be humbled. Not so much for the comfort of penance, not even for the luxury of sensation which makes self-torture pleasure, but that she might be sure of realizing her sins against the love which was now in command of all her being, and go on to serve it with a clean devotion. One thing only was worth doing, in one thing only could there be honour and joy, to make him welcome her and have delight in her... And so she fell among dreams.... She saw something glitter on the table by the bed, and idly put out her hand for it. She found herself looking at the diamonds of the Pretender's watch. How did Harry come to such a gorgeous toy? J.R., the diamonds wrote. Who was J.R.? "Alison," Harry said. She started, stared at him, and stood up. His eyes were open, and he frowned a little. "Alison? It is you?" he said, and rubbed at his eyes. "Yes." "Why have you come?" She fell on her knees by the bed. "Oh, Harry, Harry," she murmured, and hid her face. "Is it true?" "I will be true," she sobbed. "I want to see you." She showed him her face pale and wet with tears.... After a while, "Why have you come?" he said again. "Harry, I knew about Geoffrey. He told me." "You--knew?" I wrote you warning. I begged you come back to me. Oh, Harry, Harry, you are proud." "I had no warning. Proud? Oh, yes, I am proud. What were you with Geoffrey?" "Harry! Oh, Harry! No, it's fair. Well. I tried to trick him for your sake to save you." "I am obliged for your care of me." She cried out "Ah, God," and hid her face again. Harry lay still and white as death.... "Oh, Harry, you torture me," she murmured. "You have the right. No man but you has ever had a thought of me. Harry--I want to pray you--oh, I want to lie at your feet. Only believe in me--use me--take me again." "I am a fool," Harry said, and she looked up and saw that he, too, was crying. "Oh, curse the wound," he said hoarsely. "Egad, I am damned feeble, child." "I love you, I love you," she sobbed, and pressed her face to his.... "Oh, Harry, I am wicked." She raised herself. "You are hurt, and I wear you out." "That's a brag." Harry smiled faintly, "It takes more than you can give to kill me, ma'am." "Ah, don't." "Stand up and let me look at you." Which she did, and made parade of her beauty, smiling through tears. "Aye, you're a splendid woman," and his eyes brightened. She made him a curtsy. "It's at your will, sir." "Yes, and why? Why? What made you come back?" "My dear!" She held out her arms to him. "I have wanted you ever since I lost you. And now--now I am nothing unless you want me." "Oh, be easy. There is plenty of you, and I want it all." "Can you say so? Ah, Harry, you have known enough bad that's me, cruel and greedy and hard and cheating. I have always taken, and given nothing back." "Damn your humilities," Harry said. "Oh, sir, but I want them, my new humilities. I have nothing else to cover my nakedness." "You look better without them, ma'am." "Fie, I will stop your mouth." But it was a cup of herb water that she offered him instead of a kiss. "You are a cheat," Harry spluttered. "You presume on my infirmities." "No. No. I have made you talk too much. You must be still and rest again." "Burn your maternal care! I have hardly seen you yet a minute." "A minute! Oh!" She looked at the jewelled watch. "Aye, sir, an hour. And what's this pretty toy?" Harry laughed. "Why, now I have you. Sure, ma'am, it's a love token." "I shall go away, sir." "Not till you come by the secret. I know you." His ear was pinched. "J.R. Who is J.R., sir?" "Jemima Regina. A queen of beauty, ma'am. She fell in love with my nose. And offered me a thousand pound for it." "Harry! I am going to say good night." "Hear the truth, Alison. Do you remember--you told me I was born to be a highwayman--my stand-and-deliver stare--my--" "Oh! Don't play so. I was a fiend when I taunted you so." "Why, child, it's nothing. Come then--J.R., it's Jacobus Rex, the poor lad, Prince James, who will never be a king, God help him. He gave me that for the memory of some little service I did him. McBean brought the toy to-day." Alison nodded. "I will have that story from Captain McBean, sir. You tell stories mighty ill, do you know--highwayman. Yes, Harry, you are that. You pillage us all. Love, honour, you win it from all. And I--I am the last to know you." "Bah, you will never be a wife," Harry said. "You have too much imagination. But you make a mighty fine lover, my dear." 42618 ---- Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 42618-h.htm or 42618-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42618/42618-h/42618-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42618/42618-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/ladyoflynn00besaiala Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs was printed with a line through it, that is, the letters were printed as struck out. [Illustration: "GRATITUDE, MY LORD, TO YOU," HE REPLIED.] THE LADY OF LYNN by SIR WALTER BESANT Author of "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," "The Orange Girl," Etc. With Illustrations New York . Dodd, Mead and Company . . . 1901 Copyright, 1900 By Sir Walter Besant The Caxton Press New York. Contents CHAP. PAGE PROLOGUE 1 I. MY LORD'S LEVEE 15 II. THE LADY ANASTASIA 29 III. THE "SOCIETY" OF LYNN 34 IV. THE GRAND DISCOVERY 42 V. THE PORT OF LYNN 48 VI. THE MAID OF LYNN 55 VII. THE POET 64 VIII. THE OPENING OF THE SPA 70 IX. SENT TO THE SPA 83 X. "OF THE NICEST HONOUR" 97 XI. THE HUMOURS OF THE SPA 104 XII. THE CAPTAIN'S AMBITION 112 XIII. MOLLY'S FIRST MINUET 120 XIV. MOLLY'S COUNTRY DANCE 127 XV. THE CARD ROOM 133 XVI. HIS LORDSHIP'S INTENTIONS 141 XVII. "IN THE LISBON TRADE" 147 XVIII. THE WITCH 157 XIX. A TRUE FRIEND 163 XX. FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 172 XXI. MOLLY'S SECOND APPEARANCE 178 XXII. THE ABDUCTION 185 XXIII. WHICH WAY TO FOLLOW? 196 XXIV. THE PUNISHMENT 201 XXV. A GRATEFUL MIND 209 XXVI. THE LAST STEP BUT ONE 217 XXVII. THE EXPECTED BLOW 224 XXVIII. WARNING 231 XXIX. THE ARDENT LOVER 238 XXX. THE SECRET 246 XXXI. THE "SOCIETY" AGAIN 254 XXXII. A RESPITE 262 XXXIII. A WEDDING 270 XXXIV. A NEW COMPACT 278 XXXV. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? 287 XXXVI. THE DAY OF FATE 293 XXXVII. THE BUBBLE AND THE SKY ROCKET 306 XXXVIII. THE OPINION OF COUNSEL 312 XXXIX. THE FRUITS OF SUBMISSION 320 XL. ON MY RETURN 332 XLI. THE FIRST AND THE SECOND CONFEDERATE 345 XLII. THE THIRD AND THE FOURTH CONFEDERATE 355 XLIII. THE FIFTH AND LAST CONFEDERATE 361 PROLOGUE PROMOTION AND A BASTING The happiest day of my life, up to that time, because I should be the basest and the most ungrateful of men were I not to confess that I have since enjoyed many days far excelling in happiness that day, was the 20th day of June, in the year of grace, seventeen hundred and forty-seven. For on that day, being my nineteenth birthday, I was promoted, though so young, to be mate, or chief officer, on board my ship, _The Lady of Lynn_, Captain Jaggard, then engaged in the Lisbon trade. In the forenoon of that day I was on board and on duty. We were taking in our cargo. Barges and lighters were alongside and all the crew with the barges were hoisting and heaving and lowering and stowing with a grand yohoing and chanting, such as is common, with oaths innumerable, in the lading and the unlading of a ship. It was my duty to see the casks and crates hoisted aboard and lowered into the hold. The supercargo and the clerk from the counting-house sat at a table on deck and entered in their books every cask, box, chest, or bale. We took aboard and carried away for the use of the Portugals or any whom it might concern, turpentine, tar, resin, wool, pig iron and other commodities brought by our ships from the Baltic or carried in barges down the river to the port of Lynn. These were the things which we took out--what we brought home was wine; nothing but wine; barrels, tuns, pipes, hogsheads, casks of all kinds, containing wine. There would be in our hold wine of Malmsey, Madeira, Teneriffe, Canary, Alicante, Xeres, Oporto, Bucellas and Lisbon; all the wines of Spain and Portugal; the sweet strong wines to which our people are most inclined, especially our people of Norfolk, Marshland, Fenland, Lincoln and the parts around. Thanks to the port of Lynn and to the ships of Lynn engaged in the Lisbon trade, there is no place in England where this sweet strong wine can be procured better or at a more reasonable rate. This wine is truly beloved of all classes: it is the joy of the foxhunter after the day's run: of the justices after the ordinary on market day: of the fellows in their dull old colleges at Cambridge: of the dean and chapter in the sleepy cathedral close: of the country clergy and the country gentry--yea, and of the ladies when they visit each other. I say nothing in dispraise of Rhenish and of Bordeaux, but give me the wine that comes home in the bottoms that sail to and from Lisbon. All wine is good but that is best which warms the heart and strengthens the body and renews the courage--the wine of Spain and Portugal. _The Lady of Lynn_ was a three-masted, full rigged ship of 380 tons, a stout and strong built craft, not afraid of the bay at its worst and wildest, making her six knots an hour with a favourable breeze, therefore not one of your broad slow Dutch merchantmen which creep slowly, like Noah's Ark, over the face of the waters. Yet she was full in the beam and capacious in the hold: the more you put into her, the steadier she sat and the steadier she sailed. Man and boy I sailed in _The Lady of Lynn_ for twenty-five years and I ought to know. We made, for the most part, two, but sometimes three voyages in the year, unless we experienced bad weather and had to go into dock. Bad weather there is in plenty: storms and chopping winds in the bay: beating up the channel against east winds: things are always uncertain in the North Sea; sometimes the ship will be tacking day after day, getting a knot or two in four and twenty hours: and sometimes she will be two or three weeks crossing the Wash, which, as everybody knows, is cumbered with shallows, and making way up the Ouse when a wind from the south or southeast will keep a ship from reaching her port for days together. To be sure, a sailor pays very little heed to the loss of a few days: it matters little to him whether he is working on board or in port: he is a patient creature, who waits all his life upon a favourable breeze. And since he has no power over the wind and the sea, he accepts whatever comes without murmuring, and makes the best of it. Perhaps the wind blows up into a gale and the gale into a storm: perhaps the good ship founders with all hands: nobody pities the sailor: it is all in the day's work: young or old every one must die: the wife at home knows that, as well as the man at sea. She knew it when she married her husband. I have read of Turks and pagan Mohammedans that they have no fear or care about the future, believing that they cannot change what is predestined. It seems to me a foolish doctrine, because if we want anything we must work for it, or we shall not get it, fate or no fate. But the nearest to the Turk in this respect is our English sailor, who will work his hardest in the worst gale that ever blew, and face death without a pang, or a prayer, or a touch of fear, because he trusted his life to the sea and the wind, and he has no power to control the mounting waves or the roaring tempest. It is as if one should say "I make a bargain with the ocean, and with all seas that threaten and every wind that blows." I say to them, "Suffer me to make my living on a ship that your winds blow across your seas, and in return I will give you myself and the ship and the cargo--all your own--to take, if you please and whenever you please." It is a covenant between them. Sometimes the sailor gets the best of it and spends his old age on dry land, safe after many voyages: sometimes he gets the worst of it, and is taken, ship and all, when he is quite young. He cannot complain. He has made the bargain and must hold to it. But if one could sweep the bed of the ocean and recover among the tangled seaweed and the long sea serpents and monsters the treasures that lie scattered about, how rich the world would be! Perhaps (but this is idle talk) the sea might some day say, "I am gorged with the things that mankind call riches. My floor is strewn thick with ribs of ships and skeletons of men; with chests of treasure, bales and casks and cargoes. I have enough. Henceforth there shall be no more storms and the ships shall pass to and fro over a deep of untroubled blue with a surface like unto a polished mirror!" Idle talk! And who would be a sailor then? We should hand the ships over to the women and apprentice our girls to the trade of setting sails of silk with ropes of ribbons. I will tell you presently how I was so fortunate as to be apprenticed to so fine a craft as _The Lady of Lynn_. Just now it is enough to set down that she was the finest vessel in the little fleet of ships belonging to my young mistress, Molly Miller, ward of Captain Crowle. There were eight ships, all her own: _The Lady of Lynn_, the ship in which I served my apprenticeship; the _Jolly Miller_, named after her father; the _Lovely Molly_, after herself; the _Joseph and Jennifer_, after her parents; the _Pride of Lynn_, the _Beauty of Lynn_, the _Glory of Lynn_, and the _Honour of Lynn_, all of which you may take, if you like, as named after their owner. Molly owned them all. I have to tell you, in this place, why one day in especial must ever be remembered by me as the most surprising and the happiest that I had ever known. I was, therefore, on the quarter-deck on duty when the boy came up the companion saying that the captain wanted to speak to me. So I followed, little thinking of what they had to say, expecting no more than some question about log or cargo, such as the skipper is always putting to his officers. In the captain's cabin, however, I found sitting at the table not only Captain Jaggard himself, but my old friend and patron, Captain Crowle. His jolly face was full of satisfaction and good humour, so that it gave one pleasure only to look at him. But he sat upright and assumed the air of dignity which spoke of the quarter-deck. A man who has walked that part of the ship in command doth never lose the look of authority. "John Pentecrosse," he began, "I have sent for you in order to inform you that on the recommendation of Captain Jaggard here--" Captain Jaggard gravely inclined his head in acquiescence, "and with the consent of Miss Molly Miller, sole proprietor of this good ship, _The Lady of Lynn_, I have promoted you to the rank of chief officer." "Sir!" I cried, overwhelmed, for indeed, I had no reason to expect this promotion for another two or three years. "What can I say?" "We don't want you to say anything, Jack, my lad,"--the captain came down from the quarter-deck and became my old friend again. "Give me your hand. You're young, but there's never a better sailor afloat, is there, Captain Jaggard?" "None, Captain Crowle--none. For his years." "For his years, naturally. He's salt through and through, isn't he, Captain Jaggard?" "And through, Captain Crowle." My skipper was a man of grave aspect and few words. "Well, then--let us drink the lad's health." And upon that the cabin boy, who needed no further order, dived into the locker, produced a bottle, opened it and placed three glasses. "No better Lisbon," said Captain Jaggard, pouring it out, "goes even to the table of the King--God bless him!" "Now, gentlemen," Captain Crowle pushed a glass to me, "first, a glass to Miss Molly--my little maid. Jack, you've been her playfellow and you're now her servant." "I could ask nothing better, sir." "I know--a good and zealous servant. Drink it off--a full glass, running over, to Molly Miller." We obeyed, nothing loth. "And now, Captain Jaggard, here's the health of your new mate--long to serve under you--your right hand--your eyes open when you are off the deck--your sailing master--the keeper of your log--Jack Pentecrosse, I drink to your good luck." * * * * * That was the event which made this day the happiest in my life. Another event, of which I thought little at the time, was more important still in the after consequences. This was the humiliation of Samuel Semple. In the evening, as soon as I could get ashore, I repaired, as in duty bound, to pay my respects to my young mistress. She lived, being Captain Crowle's ward, in his house, which was the old house with a tower formerly built for some religious purpose. It stands retired from the street, with a fair garden in front, a garden where I had played many hundreds of times with Molly when we were boy and girl together. This evening she was sitting in the summerhouse with some needlework. Beside her sat her good old black woman, Nigra. "Jack!" She dropped her work and jumped up to meet me. "I thought you would come this evening. Oh! Are you pleased?" "You knew I should come, Molly. Why, have I not to thank you for my promotion?" She gave me her hand with her sweet frankness and her smiling face. "I would make you Captain Jack, but my guardian will not hear of it. All in good time, though. I am only waiting. I am proud of you, Jack, because everybody speaks so well of you. I met your father this morning and gave him the good news to rejoice his good old heart. He was too proud to confess his joy. But we know him, don't we, Jack? Well, I confess that I shall not be happy till you are Captain Pentecrosse, with a share in every cargo." "Nay, Molly, the ship is yours and I am but your servant--though a proud and joyful servant." She shook her head. "All you brave fellows," she said, "are going out to sea in storm and tempest to work for me. Why should all these ships bring riches to me? I have done nothing. They ought to bring riches for those who work." This shows her tenderness of heart. Never have I heard of any other woman who complained that her servants worked to make her rich while she did nothing. Yet the vicar would rebuke her, saying that riches and increase were the gifts of Providence, and that she must accept the things plainly intended by heaven. And Captain Crowle spoke to the same effect and my father, the schoolmaster, also pointed out that in the Divine scheme there were rich and there were poor: the former for an example and for an encouragement to industry: the latter for the virtues of duty, discipline and contentment--things pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. But still she returned to her talk about the people who worked for her. And then we sat and talked, while Nigra went on with her work, sitting at the feet of her mistress, whom she watched all the time as a dog keeps one eye always upon his master. At this time, my mistress, as I have said, was already sixteen years of age, a time when many girls are already married. But she was still a child, or a young girl, at heart: being one of those who, like a fine Orleans plum, ripen slowly and are all the better for the time they take. In person, if I may speak of what should be sacred, she was finely made, somewhat taller than the average, her hair of that fair colour which is the chief glory of the English maiden. Lord! If a Lisbon girl could show that fair hair, with those blue eyes, and that soft cheek, touched with the ruddy hue and the velvet bloom of the September peach, she would draw after her the whole town, with the king and his court and even the grand inquisitor and his accursed crew of torturers. I know not how she was dressed, but it was in simple fashion. Though so great an heiress she went to church no more finely dressed than any of the girls belonging to the better sort, save for a substantial gold chain which had been her father's. And this she always wore about her neck. She was of a truly affectionate disposition--her mind being as lovely as her face. In manners she was easy and compliant: in discourse sometimes grave and sometimes merry. As for her great possessions, she was so simple in her tastes and habits, being in all respects like the daughter of a plain merchantman's skipper, that she understood little or nothing of what these possessions meant or what they might bestow upon her. She was, in a word, a plain and unaffected damsel with no pretence of anything superior to those around her. She was skilled in all household matters although so well read: she could brew and pickle and make perfumes and cordials for the still room: she could make cakes and puddings: she knew how to carve at table: she had poultry, her ducks, her pigs and her dairy, in the fields within the walls hard by the Lady's Mount. She was always busy and therefore never afflicted with the vapours or the spleen or the longing for one knows not what which afflict the empty mind of the idle and the fashionable dame. There were other good and comely girls in King's Lynn. I might perhaps,--I say it not with boastfulness--have married Victory, daughter of the Reverend Ellis Hayes, curate of St. Nicholas. She was a buxom wench enough and a notable housewife. Or I might have married Amanda, daughter of Dr. Worship, our physician--she who married Tom Rising, and when he broke his neck hunting the fox, afterwards married the Vicar of Hunstanton. She, too, was a fine woman, though something hard of aspect. But there was never, for me, any other woman in the world than Molly, my mistress. No one, however, must believe that there was any thought or discourse, concerning love between us. I had been her companion and playfellow: I knew her very mind, and could tell at any time of what she was thinking. Sometimes her thoughts were of high and serious things such as were inspired by the sermon; mostly they were of things simple, such as the prospects of the last brew, or the success of the latest cordial. Of suitors she had none, although she was now, as I said, sixteen years of age. There were no suitors. I very well know why, because, perhaps for friendly reasons, Captain Crowle had told me something of his ambition for his ward. She was too rich and too good for the young men of Lynn--what would any of them do with such an heiress? She was too rich and too good even for the gentlefolk of the county, a hearty, rough, good-natured people who hunted and shot and feasted and drank--what would they do with an heiress of wealth beyond their highest hopes--had they any knowledge of her wealth; but I believe that they had none. No one knew how rich she was, except the captain. The girl was intended by her guardian for some great man; he knew not, as yet, how he should find this great man: but he knew that there were very few, even of the noble lords in the House of Peers, whose fortune or whose income would compare with that of his ward--his little maid. And I, who knew this ambition, knew also that I was trusted not to betray confidence, nor to disturb the girl's mind by any talk of love. Now the mind of a young maid piously disposed is like the surface of a calm sea, which looks up to the sky and reflects the blue of heaven, undisturbed: till Dan Cupid comes along and agitates the calm with the reflection of some shepherd swain and ripples the surface with new thoughts which are allowed by heaven, but belong not to any of its many mansions. Therefore we talked of everything except love: of the voyages to the Portugals and their horrid Inquisition: of the yarns told by sailors of the places they had seen, and so forth. There was no talk about books because there were none. A Ready Reckoner; a Manual of Navigation; Mill's Geography; a Wages Book; the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer were the only books belonging to the good old captain. Nor, in all Lynn, save for the learned shelves of the vicar and the curate of St. Nicholas are there any books. It is not a town which reads or asks for, books. Why, even on market days you will not see any stall for the sale of books such as may be seen every week at Cambridge, and at Norwich, and even at Bury St. Edmund's. 'Tis perhaps pity that so many gentlemen, substantial merchants, and sea captains never read books. For their knowledge of the outer world, and the nations, they trust to the sailors who, to tell the truth, know as much as any books can tell them: but sailors are not always truthful. For their wisdom and their conduct of life and manners these honest merchants depend upon the Old and the New Testament: or, since there are some who neglect that Treasury of Divine knowledge, they trust to mere tradition and to proverbs; to the continuation of their forefathers' habits, and to the memory of what their forefathers achieved. The sun went down as we sat talking. The sun went down and the soft twilight of June, the month which most I love because there is no darkness, and a man on watch can discern ahead breakers and ships as well as the vast circle of the rolling sea. And then Nigra gathered her work together and arose. "Come to supper, honey," she said. "Come, Massa Jack," and led the way. I have often, since I learned and understood things, wondered at the simplicity with which Molly's guardian thought it proper to bring up this young heiress whose hand he intended for some great personage, as yet unknown. He lived for choice in a small parlour overlooking his neighbour's garden: it was nearly as narrow as the cabin to which he was accustomed. His fare was that which, as a sailor, he considered luxurious. The staple, so to speak, was salt beef or salt pork, but not quite so hard as that of the ship's barrels. This evening, for instance, we sat down to a supper consisting of a piece of cold boiled beef somewhat underdone; there was a cold chicken; a sallet of lettuce, spring onions and young radishes; and a gooseberry pie afterwards with plenty of strong brown sugar. With these dainties was served a jug of home-brewed--to my mind a more delicious drink than any of the wine brought home by _The Lady of Lynn_--I remember now how it stood beside the captain with its noble head of froth, overtopping the Brown George in which it was drawn. It had been a joyful day. It was destined to conclude with an event neither joyful nor sorrowful--an act of justice. For my own part I could have sung and laughed all through the supper: the more joyful, because Molly looked happy in my happiness. But there was something wrong. When we talked and laughed, the captain laughed with us, but not mirthfully. His face indicated a change of weather, just as in the bay before a storm the waters grow turbid: and I observed also, that Molly's mother, though she laughed with Molly and applauded our sallies, glanced anxiously from time to time at the captain, who was her cousin as well as her husband's executor and her daughter's guardian. And I knew not what to make of these symptoms, because in the midst of fine weather, with an open sea, a fine sky, and a favouring breeze, one does not expect the signs of head winds and driving sleet. What it meant you shall learn, and why I have said that the day was memorable for two reasons. Supper over, the captain, instead of turning round his chair to the fireplace, filling his pipe, and calling for another glass of October, as we expected, pushed back his chair, and rose with dignity. "Jennifer," he addressed Molly's mother, "the persuader." Jennifer was her Christian name. She got up and drew from the corner by the cupboard a stout crab tree cudgel, twisted and gnarled like the old tree from which it came. "Be not revengeful, John," she said. "No, no. I am a justice of the peace. I am captain on my own quarter-deck. Punishment I shall bestow--not revenge." "Well, John. But he is young and you are old." Captain Crowle laughed. "Young, is he? And I am old, am I? We shall see." Some one was going to be tried, judged, found guilty, sentenced and to receive his sentence at once. The thing was not unusual in the house of a justice of the peace. "Come with me, Jack. It shall not be said that I inflicted this punishment without a witness. All the world shall know about it, if so be the culprit desires. Come with me. Jennifer, keep within, and if you hear groans, praise the Lord for the correction of a sinner." Greatly marvelling I followed the captain as he marched out of the parlour. Arrived at the garden he looked around. "So!" he said, "he has not yet come. Perhaps it is light enough for you to read some of his pernicious stuff." With that he put his hand into his pocket and drew forth a paper. "Read that, Jack, I say, read it." I obeyed: the twilight gave sufficient light for reading the manuscript. Besides, the writing was large and in bold characters. "Why," I said, "I know this writing. It is Sam Semple's." "Very good. Go on, therefore----" At the very first words I understood what had already happened and guessed, pretty well, what was going to happen-- "Molly divine! Thy heavenly charms prevail; As when the sun doth rise stars fade and pale." "No need for much more of the rubbish, Jack. Read the last of it. I read it all and it made me sick." "So, matchless maid, thy silence grants consent. See, at thy feet, the poet's knee is bent-- When evening roses scatter fragrance faint And the sad Philomel renews his plaint." "Did ever man hear such stuff, Jack? Go on." "Within this bow'r afar from sight of men; To-morrow, Wednesday, at the hour of ten, That bow'r a shrine of Love and Temple fair, I will await thee--Samuel Semple--there." "What do you think of that, Jack? Samuel Semple! the ragged, skulking, snivelling, impudent son of a thieving exciseman! A very fine lover for my little maid! Ha! Will he? Will he?" The captain grasped his cudgel, with resolution. "Sir," I said, with submission. "What did Molly say to this precious epistle?" "Molly? Dost think that I would let the little maid see such ranting stuff? Not so. The black woman brought the precious letters to me. There are three of them. Wait, Jack. Thou shalt see. Hush! I hear his step. Let us get into the summerhouse, and lie snug to see what happens." We stepped into the summerhouse, now pretty dark, and waited expectant. Like the captain, I was filled with amazement that Samuel, whom I knew well, who was my schoolfellow, should presume to lift his eyes so high. Alas! There is no bound, or limit, I am assured, to the presumption of such as this stringer of foolish rhymes. Yet I felt some compunction for him, because he would most assuredly receive a basting such as would cure him effectually of the passion called Love, so far as this object was concerned. Presently, we heard footsteps crunching the gravel. "Snug, my lad! Lie snug," whispered the captain. We heard the steps making their way along the path between the gooseberry and current bushes. Then they came out upon the grass lawn before the summerhouse. "The grass is as big as a quarter-deck, Jack," said the captain. "It will serve for the basting of a measley clerk. I've knocked down many a mutinous dog on the quarter-deck." The poet came to the summerhouse and stood outside, irresolute. He could not see the two occupants. He hemmed twice, aloud. There was no reply. "Matchless Molly!" he whispered. "Divine Maid! I am here, at thy feet. Nymph of the azure sea, I am here." "The devil you are!" cried the captain, stepping out. "Why, here is a precious villain for you! Jack, cut him off in the rear if he tries to get away. So--so, my young quill driver. You would poach on the preserves of your betters, would you? Would you? Would you?" At each repetition he banged the wooden post of the summerhouse with his cudgel. The poet made no reply, but he looked to right and to left and behind him, for a way of escape, but found none, for I was ready to bar his flight. Wherefore, his shoulders became rounded, and his head hung down, and his knees trembled. Samuel Semple was caught in a trap. Some young fellows would have made a fight of it. But not Samuel: all he thought about was submission and non-resistance, which might provoke pity. "Three times, jackanapes, hast thou presumed to send stuff to my ward. Here they are," he took from me the last sheet of doggerel verse and drew from his pocket two more. "Here they are--one--two--three--all addressed to the Matchless Molly. Why, thou impudent villain--what devil prompted thee to call her Matchless Molly--matchless--to such as you! Take that, sirrah, and that----" They were laid on with a will. The poet groaned but made no reply--again looking vainly to right and left for some way of escape. "Now, sir," said the captain, "before we go on to the serious business, thou wilt eat this precious stuff--eat it--eat it--swallow it all--or by the Lord!" Again he raised the cudgel, "I will stuff it down thy throat." "Oh! Captain Crowle," he murmured, "I will eat them--I will eat them." The poet took the papers. They were dry eating and I fear tasteless, but in a few minutes he had swallowed them all. "They are down," said the captain. "Now comes the basting. And I would have you to understand, lump of impudence, that it is my mercy only--my foolish mercy, perhaps, that keeps me from sending you through the town at the tail of a cart. Kneel down, sir, in token of repentance. What? I say--kneel down." The basting which followed was really worthy of the days when Captain Crowle, with his own hand, quelled a mutiny and drove the whole crew under hatches. The right hand at seventy was as vigorous as at forty. For my own part, I attempted no interference. The captain was wrathful but he had command of himself. If he added to the basting a running commentary of sea-going terms, signifying scorn and contempt, with the astonishment with which a sailor always regards presumption, it was only to increase the terror and the effect of the cudgelling. I am quite certain that he was resolved in his own mind when he should stop; that is to say, when the justice of the case would have been met and revenge would begin. And I hold myself excused for not preventing any portion of this commentary. It was a poor, shrinking, trembling figure full of bruises and aches and pains that presently arose and slunk away. I should have felt sorry for him had he taken punishment like a man. Why, I would maroon any of my crew who would cry and grovel and snivel when tied up for his three dozen. It made one sick and ashamed to see him and to hear him, with his-- "Mercy, captain! Oh! Enough, good captain! Oh! captain, I confess. I deserve it all. Never again, captain. Oh! Forgiveness--forgiveness!" And so on. I say it made me sick and ashamed. When all was over I followed him to the garden gate. "Oh! Jack," he groaned. "You stood by and saw it all. I am a dead man. He shall be hanged for it. You are the witness. I am nothing but a bag of broken bones. Ribs and collar bones and skull. I am a poor, unfortunate, murdered man. I am done to death with a cudgel." "Go home," I said. "You a man? You cry like a whipped cur. Murdered? Not you. Cudgelled you are, and well you deserved it. Go home and get brown paper and vinegar and tell all the town how you have been cudgelled for writing verses to a matchless maid. They will laugh, Sam Semple. They will laugh." The captain went back to the parlour, somewhat flushed with the exercise. "Justice," he said, "has been done, without the cart and the cat. My pipe, Jennifer, and the home-brewed. Molly, my dear, your very good health." A day or two afterwards, we heard that Sam Semple had gone to London to make his fortune. He was carried thither by the waggon that once a week makes the journey to London, returning the following week. But when Sam Semple came back it was in a chaise, with much splendour, as in due course you shall hear. You shall also hear of the singular gratitude with which he repaid the captain for that wholesome correction. The Lady of Lynn CHAPTER I MY LORD'S LEVEE It is three years later. We are now in the year 1750. At twelve o'clock in the morning the anteroom of the town house of the Right Honourable the Earl of Fylingdale was tolerably filled with a mixed company attending his levee. Some were standing at the windows; some were sitting: a few were talking: most, however, were unknown to each other, and if they spoke at all, it was only to ask each other when his lordship might be expected to appear. As is customary at a great lord's levee there were present men of all conditions; they agreed, however, in one point, that they were all beggars. It is the lot of the nobleman that he is chiefly courted for the things that he can give away, and that the number of his friends and the warmth of their friendship depend upon the influence he is supposed to possess in the bestowal of places and appointments. Among the suitors this morning, for instance, was a half-pay captain who sought for a company in a newly raised regiment: he bore himself bravely, but his face betrayed his anxiety and his necessities. The poor man would solicit his lordship in vain, but this he did not know, and so he would be buoyed up for a time with new hopes. Beside him stood a lieutenant in the navy, who wanted promotion and a ship. If good service and wounds in battle were of any avail he should have commanded both, but it is very well known that in the Royal Navy there are no rewards for gallantry; men grow old without promotion: nothing helps but interest: a man may remain a midshipman for life without interest: never has it been known that without interest a ship has been bestowed even upon the most deserving officer and after the most signal service. The lieutenant, too, would be cheered by a promise, and lulled by false hopes--but that he did not know. One man wanted a post in the admiralty: the pay is small but the perquisites and the pickings are large: for the same reason another asked for a place in the customs. A young poet attended with a subscription list and a dedication. He thought that his volume of verse, once published, would bring him fortune, fame, and friends: he, too, would be disappointed. The clergyman wanted another living: one of the fat and comfortable churches in the city: a deanery would not be amiss: he was even ready to take upon himself the office of bishop, for which, indeed, he considered that his qualifications admirably fitted him. Would his lordship exercise his all powerful influence in the matter of that benefice or that promotion? A young man, whose face betrayed the battered rake, would be contented even with carrying the colours on the Cape Coast regiment if nothing better could be had. Surely his lordship would procure so small a thing as that! If nothing could be found for him then--the common side of the King's Bench Prison and rags and starvation until death released him. Poor wretch! He was on his way to that refuge, but he knew it not; for my lord would promise to procure for him what he wanted. So they all waited, hungry and expectant, thinking how best to frame their requests: how best to appear grateful before there was any call for gratitude. Surely a nobleman must grow wearied with the assurances of gratitude and promises of prayers. His experience must teach him that gratitude is but a short-lived plant: a weed which commonly flourishes for a brief period and produces neither flowers nor fruit; while as for the prayers, though we may make no doubt that the fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much, we are nowhere assured that the prayers of the worldly and the unrighteous are heard on behalf of another; while there is no certainty that the promised petition will ever be offered up before the throne. Yet the suitors, day after day, repeat the same promise, and rely on the same belief. "Oh! my lord," they say, or sing with one accord, "your name: your voice: your influence: it is all that I ask. My gratitude: my life-long gratitude: my service: my prayers will all be yours." Soon after twelve o'clock the doors of the private apartments were thrown open and his lordship appeared, wearing the look of dignity and proud condescension combined, which well became the star he wore and the ancient title which he had inherited. His age was about thirty, a time of life when there linger some remains of youth and the serious responsibilities are yet, with some men, hardly felt. His face was cold and proud and hard; the lips firmly set: the eyes keen and even piercing; the features regular: his stature tall, but not ungainly, his figure manly. It was remarkable, among those who knew him intimately, that there was as yet no sign of luxurious living on face and figure. He was not as yet swelled out with wine and punch: his neck was still slender; his face pale, without any telltale marks of wine and debauchery; so far as appearance goes he might pass if he chose, for a person of the most rigid and even austere virtue. This, as I have said, was considered remarkable by his friends, most of whom were already stamped on face and feature and figure with the outward and visible tokens of a profligate life. For, to confess the truth at the very beginning and not to attempt concealment, or to suffer a false belief as regards this nobleman, he was nothing better than a cold-blooded, pitiless, selfish libertine; a rake, and a voluptuary; one who knew and obeyed no laws save the laws of (so-called) honour. These laws allow a man to waste his fortune at the gaming table: to ruin confiding girls: to spend his time with rake hell companions in drink and riot and debauchery of all kinds. He must, however, pay his gambling debts: he must not cheat at cards; he must be polite in speech: he must be ready to fight whenever the occasion calls for his sword, and the quarrel seems of sufficient importance. Lord Fylingdale, however, was not among those who found his chief pleasure scouring the streets and in mad riot. You shall learn, in due course, what forms of pleasure chiefly attracted him. I have said that his face was proud. There was not, I believe, any man living in the whole world, who could compare with Lord Fylingdale for pride. An overwhelming pride sat upon his brow; was proclaimed by his eyes and was betrayed by his carriage. With such pride did Lucifer look round upon his companions, fallen as they were, and in the depths of hopeless ruin. In many voyages to foreign parts I have seen something of foreign peoples; every nation possesses its own nobility; I suppose that king, lords and commons is the order designed for human society by Providence. But I think that there is nowhere any pride equal to the pride of the English aristocracy. The Spaniard, if I have observed him aright, wraps himself in the pride of birth as with a cloak: it is often a tattered cloak: poverty has no terrors for him so long as he has his pride of birth. Yet he tolerates his fellow-countrymen whom he does not despise because they lack what most he prizes. The English nobleman, whether a peer or only a younger son, or a nephew or a cousin, provided he is a sprig of quality, disdains and despises all those who belong to the world of work, and have neither title, nor pedigree, nor coat of arms. He does not see any necessity for concealing this contempt. He lacks the courtesy which would hide it in the presence of the man of trade or the man of a learned profession. To be sure, the custom of the country encourages him, because to him is given every place and every preferment. He fills the House of Commons as well as the House of Lords: he commands our armies, our regiments, even the companies in the regiments: he commands our fleets and our ships: he holds all the appointments and draws all the salaries: he makes our laws, and, as justice of the peace, he administers them: he receives pensions, having done nothing to deserve them; he holds sinecures which require no duties. And the people who do the work--the merchants who bring wealth to the country: the manufacturers; the craftsmen; the farmers; the soldiers who fight the wars which the aristocracy consider necessary; the sailor who carries the flag over the world: all these are supposed to be sufficiently rewarded with a livelihood while they maintain the nobility and their children in luxury and in idleness and are received and treated with contempt. I speak of what I have myself witnessed. This man's pride I have compared with the pride of Lucifer. You shall learn while I narrate the things which follow, that he might well be compared, as regards his actions as well, with that proud and presumptuous spirit. He was dressed in a manner becoming to his rank: need we dwell upon his coat of purple velvet; his embroidered waistcoat; his white silk stockings; his lace of ruffles and cravat; his gold buckles and his gold clocks; his laced hat carried under his arm; his jewelled sword hilt and the rings upon his fingers? You would think, by his dress, that his wealth was equal to his pride, and, by his reception of the suitors, that his power was equal to both pride and wealth together. The levee began; one after the other stepped up to him, spoke a few words, received a few words in reply and retired, each, apparently, well pleased. For promises cost nothing. To the poet who asked for a subscription and preferred a dedication, my lord promised the former, accepted the latter, and added a few words of praise and good wishes. But the subscription was never paid; and the dedication was afterwards altered so far as the superscription, to another noble patron. To the clergyman who asked for a country living then vacant, my lord promised the most kindly consideration and bade him write his request and send it him by letter, for better assurance of remembrance. To the officer he promised his company as only due to gallantry and military skill: to the place hunter he promised a post far beyond the dreams and the hopes of the suppliant. Nothing more came of it to either. The company grew thin: one after the other, the suitors withdrew to feed on promises. It is like opening your mouth to drink the wind. But 'twas all they got. Among those who remained to the last was a man in the dress of a substantial shopkeeper, with a brown cloth coat and silver buttons. He, when his opportunity arrived, advanced and bowed low to my lord. "Sir," said his lordship, with gracious, but cold looks, "in what way may I be of service to you?" "With your lordship's permission, I would seek a place in your household--any place--scullion in the kitchen, or groom to the stable--any place." "Why should I give you a place? Have I room in my household for every broken cit?" "My lord, it is to save me from bankruptcy and the King's Bench. It is to save my wife and children from destitution. There are already many shopkeepers in Westminster and the city who have been admitted servants in the households of noblemen. It is no new thing--your lordship must have heard of the custom." "I do not know why I should save thy family or thyself. However, this is the affair of my steward. Go and see him. Tell him that a place in my household will save thee from bankruptcy and prison--it may be that a place is vacant." The man bowed again and retired. He knew very well what was meant. He would have to pay a round sum for the privilege. This noble lord, like many others of his rank, took money, through his steward, for nominal places in his household, making one citizen yeoman of his dairy; in Leicester Fields, perhaps, where no dairy could be placed; another steward of the granaries, having in the town neither barns nor storehouses nor ricks: a third, clerk to the stud book, having no race horses; and so on. Thus justice is defeated, a man's creditors may be defied and a man may escape payment of his just debts. When he was gone, Lord Fylingdale looked round the room. In the window stood, dangling a cane from his wrist, a gentleman dressed in the highest and the latest fashion. In his left hand he held a snuffbox adorned with the figure of a heathen goddess. To those who know the meaning of fashion it was evident that he was in the front rank, belonging to the few who follow or command, the variations of the passing hour. These descend to the smallest details. I am told that the secrets of the inner circle, the select few, who lead the fashion, are displayed for their own gratification in the length of the cravat, the colour of the sash, the angle of the sword, the breadth of the ruffles, the width of the skirts, the tye of the wig. They are also shown in the mincing voice, and the affected tone, and the use of the latest adjectives and oaths. Yet, when one looked more closely, it was seen that this gallant exterior arrayed an ancient gentleman whose years were proclaimed by the sharpening of his features, the wrinkles of his feet, the crows'-feet round his eyes, and his bending shoulders which he continually endeavoured to set square and upright. Hat in one hand, and snuffbox in the other, he ambled towards his lordship on tiptoe, which happened just then to be the fashionable gait. "Thy servant, Sir Harry"--my lord offered him his hand with condescension. "It warms my heart to see thee. Therefore I sent a letter. Briefly, Sir Harry, wouldst do me a service?" "I am always at your lordship's commands. This, I hope, I have proved." "Then, Sir Harry, this is the case. It is probable that for certain private reasons, I may have to pay a visit to a country town--a town of tarpaulins and traders, not a town of fashion"--Sir Harry shuddered--"patience, my friend. I know not how long I shall endure the barbaric company. But I must go--there are reasons--let me whisper--reasons of state--important secrets which call me there"--Sir Harry smiled and looked incredulous--"I want, on the spot, a friend"--Sir Harry smiled again, as one who began to understand--"a friend who would appear to be a stranger. Would you, therefore, play the part of such a friend?" "I will do whatever your lordship commands. Yet to leave town at this season"--it was then the month of April--"the assembly, the park, the card table--the society of the ladies----" "The loss will be theirs, Sir Harry. To lose their old favourite--oh! there will be lamentations, at the rout---- Perhaps, however, we may find consolations." "Impossible. There are none out of town, except at Bath or Tunbridge----" "The ladies of Norfolk are famous for their beauty." "Hoydens--I know them, "'I who erst beneath a tree Sung, Bumpkinet, and Bowzybee, And Blouzelind and Marian bright In aprons blue or aprons white,' "as Gay hath it. Hoydens, my lord, I know them. They play whist and dance jigs." "The Norfolk gentlemen drink hard and the wine is good." "Nay, my lord, this is cruel. For I can drink no longer." "I shall find other diversions for you. It is possible--I say--possible--that the Lady Anastasia may go there as well. She will, as usual, keep the bank if she does go." The old beau's face cleared, whether in anticipation of Lady Anastasia's society or her card table I know not. "My character, Sir Harry, will be in your hands. I leave it there confidently. For reasons--reasons of state--it should be a character of...." "I understand. Your lordship is a model of all the virtues----" "So--we understand. My secretary will converse with thee further on the point of expenditure." Sir Harry retired, bowing and twisting his body something like an ape. Then a gentleman in scarlet presented himself. "Your lordship's most obedient," he said, with scant courtesy. "I come in obedience to your letter--for command." "Colonel, you will hold yourself in readiness to go into the country. There will be play--you may lose as much as you please--to Sir Harry Malyus or to any one else whom my secretary will point out to you. Perhaps you may have to receive a remonstrance from me. We are strangers, remember, and I am no gambler, though I sometimes take a card." "I await your lordship's further commands." So he, too, retired. A proper well-set-up figure he was, with the insolence of the trooper in his face, and the signs of strong drink on his nose. Any one who knew the town would set him down for a half-pay captain, a sharper, a bully, a roysterer, one who lived by his wits, one who was skilled in billiards and commonly lucky at any game of cards. Perhaps such a judgment of the gallant colonel would not be far wrong. There remained one suitor. He was a clergyman dressed in a fine silk cassock with bands of the whitest and a noble wig of the order Ecclesiastic. I doubt if the archbishop himself had a finer. He was in all respects a divine of the superior kind: a dean, perhaps; an archdeacon, perhaps; a canon, rector, vicar, chaplain, with a dozen benefices, no doubt. His thin, slight figure carried a head too big for his body. His face was sallow and thin, the features regular; he bore the stamp of a scholar and had the manner of a scoffer. He spoke as if he was in the pulpit, with a voice loud, clear and resonant, as though the mere power of hearing that voice diffused around him the blessings of virtue and piety and a clear conscience. "Good, my lord," he said, "I am, as usual, a suppliant. The rectory of St. Leonard le Size, Jewry, in the city, is now vacant. With my small benefices in the country, it would suit me hugely. A word from your lordship to the lord mayor--the rectory is in the gift of the corporation--would, I am sure, suffice." "If, my old tutor, the thing can be done by me, you may consider it as settled. There are, however, I would have you to consider, one or two scandals still outstanding, the memory of which may have reached the ears of the city. These city people, for all their ignorance of fashion, do sometimes hear of things. The little affair at Bath, for instance----" "The lady hath since returned to her own home. It is now quite forgotten and blown over. My innocency is always well known to your lordship." "Assuredly. Has that other little business at Oxford blown over? Are certain verses still attributed to the Reverend Benjamin Purdon?" His reverence lightly blew upon his fingers. "That report is now forgotten. But 'tis a censorious world. One man is hanged for looking over a gate while another steals a pig and is applauded. As for the author of those verses, he still remains undiscovered, while the verses themselves--a deplorable fact--are handed about for the joy of the undergraduates." "Next time, then, steal the pig. Frankly, friend Purdon, thy name is none of the sweetest, and I doubt if the bishop would consent. Meantime, you are living, as usual, I suppose, at great expense----" "At small expense, considering my abilities; but still at greater expense than my slender income will allow. Am I not your lordship's domestic chaplain? Must I not keep up the dignity due to the position?" "Your dignity is costly. I must get a bishopric or a deanery for you. Meantime I have a small service to ask of you." "Small? My lord, let it be great: it cannot be too great." "It is that you go into the country for me." "Not to Bath--or to Oxford?" His reverence betrayed an anxiety on this point which was not quite in harmony with his previous declarations. "Not to either. To another place, where they know not thy name or thy fame. Very good. I thought I could depend upon your loyalty. As for arrangements and time, you will hear from my secretary." So my lord turned on his heel and his chaplain was dismissed. He remained for a moment, looking after his master doubtfully. The order liked him not. He was growing old and would have chosen, had he the power of choice, some fat city benefice with two or three country livings thrown in. He was tired of his dependence: perhaps he was tired of a life that ill became his profession: perhaps he could no longer enjoy it as of old. There was, at least, no sign of repentance as there was no touch of the spiritual life in his face, which was stamped with the plain and visible marks of the world, the flesh and the devil. What is that stamp? Nobody can paint it, or describe it: yet it is understood and recognised whenever one sees it. And it stood out legible so that all those who ran might read upon the face of this reverend and learned divine. When the levee was finished and everybody gone, Lord Fylingdale sank into a chair. I know not the nature of his thoughts save that they were not pleasant, for his face grew darker every moment. Finally, he sprang to his feet and rang the bell. "Tell Mr. Semple that I would speak with him," he ordered. Mr. Semple, the same Samuel whom you have seen under a basting from the captain, was now changed and for the better. His dress was simple. No one could guess from his apparel the nature of his occupation. For all professions and all crafts there is a kind of uniform. The divine wears gown and cassock, bands and wig, which proclaim his calling: the lawyer is also known by his gown and marks his rank at the bar by coif and wig: the attorney puts on broadcloth black of hue: the physician assumes black velvet, a magisterial wig, and a gold-headed cane. The officer wears the King's scarlet; the nobleman his star: the sprig of quality puts on fine apparel and assumes an air and manner unknown to Cheapside and Ludgate Hill: you may also know him by his speech. The merchant wears black velvet with gold buttons, gold buckles, white silk stockings and a gold-laced hat; the shopkeeper substitutes silver for gold and cloth for velvet: the clerk has brown cloth metal buttons and worsted stockings. As for the crafts, has not each its own jacket, sleeves, apron, cap, and badge? But for this man, where would we place him? What calling did he represent? For he wore the flowered waist-coat--somewhat frayed and stained, of a beau, and the black coat of the merchant: the worsted stockings of the clerk and his metal buttons. Yet he was neither gentleman, merchant, shopkeeper, clerk, nor craftsman. He was a member of that fraternity which is no fraternity because there is no brotherhood among them all; in which every man delights to slander, gird at, and to depreciate his brother. In other words he wore the dress--which is no uniform--of a poet. At this time he also called himself secretary to his lordship having by ways known only to himself, and by wrigglings up back stairs, and services of a kind never proclaimed to the world, made himself useful. The position also granted him, as it granted certain tradesmen, immunity from arrest. He had the privilege of walking abroad through a street full of hungering creditors, and that, not on Sundays only, like most of his tribe, but on every day in the week. He obeyed the summons and entered the room with a humble cringe. "Semple," said his lordship, crossing his legs and playing with the tassel of his sword knot, "I have read thy letter----" "Your lordship will impute----" "First, what is the meaning of the preamble?" "I have been your lordship's secretary for six months. I have therefore perused all your lordship's letters. I have also in my zeal for your lordship's interests--looked about me. And I discovered--what I ventured to state in that preamble." "Well, sir?" "Namely, that the Fylingdale estates are gone so far as your lordship's life is concerned--but--in a word, all is gone. And that--your lordship will pardon the plain truth--your lordship's credit cannot last long and that--I now touch a most delicate point to a man of your lordship's nice sense of honour--the only resource left is precarious." "You mean?" "I mean--a certain lady and a certain bank." "How, sir? Do you dare? What has put this suspicion into your head?" "Nay, my lord--I have no thought but for your lordship's interests, believe me." "And so you tell me about the rustic heiress, and you propose a plan----" "I have had the temerity to do so." "Yes. Tell me once more about this girl--and about her fortune." "Her name is Molly Miller: she is an orphan: her guardian is an honest sailor who has taken the greatest care of her property. She was an heiress already when her father died. That was eighteen years ago; she is now nineteen." "Is she passable--to look at? A hoyden with a high colour, I warrant." "A cream-coloured complexion, touched with red and pink: light hair in curls and blue eyes; the face and figure of a Venus; the sweetest mouth in the world and the fondest manner." "Hang me if the fellow isn't in love with her, himself! If she is all this, man, why not apply yourself, for the post of spouse?" "Because her guardian keeps off all would-be lovers and destines his ward for a gentleman at least--for a nobleman, he hopes." "He is ambitious. Now as to her fortune." "She has a fleet of half a dozen tall vessels--nay, there are more, but I know not how many. I was formerly clerk in a countinghouse of the town and I learned a great deal--what each is worth and what the freight of each voyage may produce--but not all. The captain, her guardian, keeps things close. My lord, I can assure you, from what I learned in that capacity and by looking into old books, that she must be worth over a hundred thousand pounds--over a hundred thousand pounds! My lord, there is no such heiress in the city. In your lordship's interests I have enquired in the taverns where the merchants' clerks congregate. They know of all the city heiresses. The greatest, at this moment, is the only daughter of a tallow chandler who has twenty thousand to her name. She squints." "Why have you given me this information? The girl belongs to your friends--are you anxious for her happiness? You know my way of life. Would that way make her happier?" The man made no reply. "Come, Semple, out with it. Your reasons--gratitude--to me--or revenge upon an enemy?" The man coloured. He looked up: he stood upright but for a moment only. Then his eyes dropped and his shoulders contracted. "Gratitude, my lord, to you," he replied. "Revenge? Why what reason should I have for revenge?" "How should I know of any? Let it be gratitude, then." "I have ventured to submit--not a condition--but a prayer." "I have read the clause. I grant it. On the day after the marriage if the plan comes to anything, I will present thee to a place where there are no duties and many perquisites. That is understood. I would put this promise in writing but no writing would bind me more than my word." "Yet I would have the promise in writing." "You are insolent, sirrah." "I am protecting myself. My lord, I must speak openly in this matter. How many promises have you made this morning? How many will you keep? I must not be pushed aside with such a promise." Lord Fylingdale made no reply. "I offer you a fortune of a hundred thousands pounds and more." "I can now take this fortune without your assistance." "With submission, my lord, you cannot. I know too much." "What shall I write, then?" "I am only reasonable. The girl's fortune when you have it will go the same way as your rents and woods have gone. Provide for me, therefore, before you begin to spend that money." "Semple, I did not think you had so much courage. Learn that a dozen times I have been on the point of kicking you out of the house. Now," he rose, "give me paper and a pen--and I will write this promise." Semple placed a chair at the table and laid paper and pen before it. "Let me presume so far as to dictate the promise," he said. "I undertake and promise that on the day after my marriage with the girl named Molly Miller, I will give Samuel Semple such a place as will provide him for life with a salary of not less than £200 a year. So--will your lordship sign it?" He took up this precious paper from the table, read it, folded it and put it in his pocket. "What next?" asked his patron. "I am preparing a scheme which will give a plausible excuse for your lordship's visit to the town. I have already suggested that certain friends should prepare the way. The lady's guardian has prejudices in favour of morality and religion. They are, I know, beneath your lordship's notice--yet still--it will be in fact, necessary that your lordship's character shall be such as will commend itself to this unfashionable old sailor." "We will speak again upon this point. The girl you say has no lover." "She has no lover. Your lordship's rank: your manner: your appearance will certainly carry the day. By contrast alone with the country bumpkins the heart of the girl will be won." "Mr. Semple," his lordship yawned. "Do you suppose that the heart of the girl concerns me? Go and complete your scheme--of gratitude, not revenge." CHAPTER II THE LADY ANASTASIA The Lady Anastasia was in her dressing-room in the hands of her friseur, the French hairdresser, and her maid. She sat in a dishabille which was a loose robe, called, I believe a nightgown, of pink silk, trimmed with lace, which showed the greater part of a very well shaped arm; she had one slipper off and one slipper on, which showed a very small and well shaped foot, but no one was there to see. Her maid was busy at the toilette table which was covered with glass bottles containing liquids of attractive colour; silver patch boxes; powder boxes; powder puffs; cosmetics in pots, and other mysterious secrets into which it would be useless and fruitless to inquire. The artist, for his part, was laboriously and conscientiously building the edifice--object of so much ingenuity and thought--called a "Head." She was in the best temper imaginable. When you hear that she had won overnight the sum of a hundred and twenty guineas you will understand that she had exactly that number of reasons for being satisfied with the world. Moreover, she had received from an admirer a present in the shape of a piece of china representing a monkey, which, she reflected with satisfaction, would awaken in the minds of her friends the keenest feelings of envy, jealousy, hatred, longing, and despair. The Lady Anastasia was the young widow of an old baronet: she was also the daughter of an earl and the sister of his successor. She therefore enjoyed the freedom of a widow; the happiness natural to youth; and all the privileges of rank. No woman could be happier. It was reported that her love of the card table had greatly impaired her income: the world said that her own private dowry was wholly gone and a large part of her jointure. But it is a spiteful world--all that was known for certain was that she played much and that she played high. Perhaps Fortune, in a mood of penitence, was giving back what she had previously taken away. The contrary is commonly the case, viz, that Fortune, which certainly takes away with alacrity, restores with reluctance. Perhaps, however, the reports were not true. She kept a small establishment in Mount Street: her people consisted of no more than two footmen, a butler, a lady's maid, a housekeeper, and three or four maids with two chairmen. She did not live as a rich woman: she received, it is true, twice a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays, but not with any expense of supper and wine. Her friends came to play cards and she held the bank for them. On other evenings she went out and played at the houses of her friends. Except for fashions and her dress--what fine woman but makes that exception?--she had no other occupation; no other pursuit; no other subject of conversation, than the playing of cards. She played at all games and knew them all; she sat down with a willing mind to Ombre, Faro, Quadrille, Basset, Loo, Cribbage, All Fours, or Beggar my Neighbour, but mostly she preferred the game of Hazard, when she herself kept the bank. It is a game which more than any other allures and draws on the player so that a young man who has never before been known to set a guinea on any card, or to play at any game, will in a single night be filled with all the ardour and eagerness of a practised gamester; will know the extremes of joy and despair; and will regard the largest fortune as bestowed by Providence for no other purpose than to prolong the excitement and the agony of a gamester. While the Lady Anastasia was still admiring the china vase set upon the table, so that she might gaze upon it and so refresh her soul, and while the friseur was still completing her head, Lord Fylingdale was announced. The lady blushed violently: she sat up and looked anxiously in the glass. "Betty," she cried, "a touch of red--not much, you clumsy creature! Will you never learn to have a lighter hand? So! that is better. I am horribly pale. His lordship can wait in the morning room. You have nearly finished, monsieur? Quick then! The last touches. Betty, the flowered satin petticoat. My fan. The pearl necklace. So," she looked again at the glass, "am I looking tolerable, Betty?" "Your ladyship is ravishing," said Betty finishing the toilette. In truth, it was a very pretty creature if one knew how much was real and how much was due to art. The complexion was certainly laid on; the hair was powdered and built up over cushions and pillows; there were patches on the cheek: the neck was powdered; eyes naturally very fine were set off and made more lustrous with a touch of dark powder: the frock and petticoat and hoop were all alike removed from nature. However, the result was a beautiful woman of fashion who is far removed indeed from the beautiful woman as made by the Creator. For her age the Lady Anastasia might have been seven and twenty, or even thirty--an age when with some women, the maturity of their beauty is even more charming than the first sprightly loveliness of youth. She swam out of the room with a gliding movement, then the fashion, and entered the morning room where Lord Fylingdale awaited her. "Anastasia!" he said, softly, taking her hand. "It is very good of you to see me alone. I feared you would be surrounded with courtiers and fine ladies or with singers, musicians, hairdressers, and other baboons. Permit me," he raised her hand to his lips. "You look divine this morning. It is long since I have seen you look so perfectly charming." The lady murmured something. She was one of those women who like above all things to hear praises of what most they prize, their beauty, and to believe what they most desire to be the truth, the preservation and perfecting of that beauty. "But you came to see me alone. Was it to tell me that I look charming? Other men tell me as much in company." "Not altogether that, dear lady, though that is something. I come to tell you of a change of plans." "You have heard that the grand jury of Middlesex has presented me by name as a corruptor of innocence, and I know not what, because I hold my bank on Sunday nights." "I have heard something of the matter. It is almost time, I think, to give these presumptuous shopkeepers a lesson not to interfere with the pursuits of persons of rank. Let them confine themselves to the prentices who play at pitch and toss." "Oh! what matters their presentment? I shall continue to keep the bank on Sunday nights. Now, my dear lord, what about these plans? What is changed?" "We thought, you remember, about going to Tunbridge, in July." "Well? Shall we not go there?" "Perhaps. But there is something to be done first. Let me confide in you----" "My dear lord--you have never confided in anybody." "Except in you. I think you know all my secrets if I have any. In whom else can I confide? In the creatures who importune me for places? In friends of the green table? In friends of the race course? My dear Anastasia, you know, I assure you, as much about my personal affairs as I know myself." "If you would always speak so kindly"--her eyes became humid but not tearful. A lady of fashion must not spoil her cheek by tears. "Well, then, the case is this. You know of the condition of my affairs--no one better. An opportunity presents itself to effect a great improvement. I am invited by the highest personage to take a more active part in the affairs of state. No one is to know this. For reasons connected with this proposal I am to visit a certain town--a trading town--a town of rough sailors, there to conduct certain enquiries. There is to be a gathering at this town of the gentry and people of the county. Would you like to go, my dear friend? It will be next month." "To leave town--and in May, just before the end of the season?" "There will be opportunities, I am told, of holding a bank; and a good many sportsmen--'tis a sporting county--may be expected to lay their money. In a word, Anastasia, it will not be a bad exchange." "And how can I help you? Why should I go there?" "By letting the people--the county people, understand the many virtues and graces which distinguish my character. No one knows me better than yourself." The lady smiled--"No one," she murmured. "--Or can speak with greater authority on the subject. There will be certain of our friends there--the parson--Sir Harry--the colonel----" "Pah! a beggarly crew--and blown upon--they are dangerous." "Not at this quiet and secluded town. They will be strangers to you as well as to me. And they will be useful. After all, in such a place you need an opening. They will lead the way." The lady made no response. "I may call it settled, then?" He still held her hand. "If you would rather not go, Anastasia, I will find some one else--but I had hoped----" She drew away her hand. "You are right," she said, "no one knows you so well as myself. And all I know about you is that you are always contriving some devilry. What is it this time? But you will not tell me. You never tell me." "Anastasia, you do me an injustice. This is a purely political step." "As you will. Call it what you please. I am your servant--you know that--your handmaid--in all things--save one. Not for any other woman, Ludovick--not for any other--unfortunate--woman will I lift my little finger. Should you betray me in this respect----" He laughed. "A woman? And in that company? Rest easy, dear child. Be jealous as much as you please but not with such a cause." He touched her cheek with his finger: he stooped and kissed her hand and withdrew. The Lady Anastasia stood awhile where he left her. The joy had gone out of her heart: she trembled: she was seized with a foreboding of evil. She threw herself upon the sofa and buried her face in her hands, and forgetful of paste and patch and paint she suffered the murderous tears to destroy that work of art--her finished face. CHAPTER III THE "SOCIETY" OF LYNN It was about seven o'clock in the evening of early April, at the going down of the sun that I was at last able to drop into the dingy and go ashore. All day and all night and all the day before we had been beating through the shallows of the Wash and the narrow channel of the Ouse. We had laid her to her moorings off the Common Stath and made all taut and trim: the captain had gone ashore with the papers: the customhouse officer had been aboard: we were to begin breaking cargo on the morrow. The ship was _The Lady of Lynn_, 380 tons, Robert Jaggard, master marines, being captain, and I the mate or chief officer. There was no better skipper in the port of Lynn than Captain Jaggard: there was no better crew than that aboard _The Lady of Lynn_, not a skulker or a lubber in the whole ship's company; and though I say it myself, I dare affirm that the mate did credit to his ship as much as the captain and the crew. We were in the Lisbon trade: we had therefore come home laden with casks of the rich strong wine of the country: the Port and Lisbon Sherry and Malaga, besides Madeira and the wine of Teneriffe and the Grand Canary. Our people of the Marshland and the Fens and those of Lincolnshire and Norfolk where the strong air of the east winds kill all but the stoutest, cannot have too much of this rich wine: they will not drink the lighter wines of Bordeaux which neither fire the blood nor mount to the head. A prosperous voyage we had made: the Bay of Biscay suffered us to cross with no more than half a gale: _The Lady of Lynn_, in fact, was known in port to be a lucky ship--as lucky as her owner--lucky in her voyages and lucky in her cargoes. At the stairs of the Common Stath Yard I made fast the painter and shipped the sculls. And there, waiting for me, was none other than my good old friend and patron, Captain Crowle. The captain was by this time well advanced in life, being upwards of seventy: yet he showed little touch of time: his honest face being still round and full; his eyes still free from lines and crows'-feet; his cheek ruddy and freckled, as if with the salt sea breeze and the driving spray. He was also as upright as any man of thirty and walked with as firm a step and had no need of the stout stick which he carried in his hand, as a weapon and a cudgel for the unrighteous, more than a staff for the bending knees of old age. "What cheer--ahoy?" He shouted from the quay as I dropped over the side into the dingy. "What cheer, Jack?" he repeated when I ran up the steps. "I've seen the skipper. Come with me to the _Crown_"--but the proper place for mates was the _Duke's Head_. "Nay, it shall be the _Crown_. A bowl of punch shall welcome back _The Lady of Lynn_." He turned and looked at the ship lying in the river at her moorings among the other craft. "She's as fine a vessel as this old port can show--and she's named after as fine a maid. Shalt see her to-morrow, Jack, but not to-night." "I trust, sir, that she is well and in good spirits." "Ay--ay. Nothing ails her--nothing ails her, Jack," he pointed with his stick. "Look how she flourishes. There are fifteen tall ships moored two and two off the King's Stath and half a dozen more off the Common Stath. Count them, Jack. Six of these ships belong to the little maid. Six of them--and two more are afloat, of which one is homeward bound and should be in port soon if all goes well. Eight noble ships, Jack, are hers. And the income of nigh upon eighteen years and houses and broad lands." "She has a prudent guardian, captain." "May be--may be. I don't deny, Jack, but I've done the best I could. Year after year, the money mounteth up more and more. You love her, Jack, and therefore I tell you these things. And you can keep counsel. I talk not in the market place. No one knows her wealth but you and me. They think that I am part owner. I let them think so, but you and I know better, Jack." He nodded his head looking mighty cunning. "She cannot be too wealthy or too prosperous, captain. I knew full well that her prosperity only increases the gulf between us, but I had long ago understood that such an heiress was not for a mate on board a merchantman." "She is not, Jack," the captain replied, gravely. "Already she is the richest heiress in all Norfolk--perhaps in the whole country. Who is to marry her? There, I confess, I am at a loss. I must find a husband for her. There's the rub. She may marry any in the land: there is none so high but he would desire a wife so rich and so virtuous. Where shall I look for a husband fit for her? There are admirals, but mostly too old for her: she ought to have a noble lord, yet, if all tales be true, they are not fit, most of them to marry a virtuous woman. Shall I give Molly to a man who gambles and drinks and rakes and riots? No, Jack, no. Not for twenty coronets. I would rather marry her to an honest sailor like yourself. Jack, my lad, find me a noble lord, as like yourself as one pea is like another, and he shall have her. He must be as proper a man; as strong a man; a clean liver; moderate in his cups ... find him for me, Jack, and he shall have her." "Well, but, captain, there are the gentlemen of Norfolk." "Ay.... There are--as you say--the gentlemen. I have considered them, Jack. Molly is not a gentlewoman by birth, I know that very well: but her fortune entitles her to marry in a higher rank. Ay ... there are the gentlemen. They are good fox hunters: they are good at horse racing, but they are hard drinkers, Jack: they are fuddled most evenings: my little maid must not have a husband who is put to bed drunk every night." "You must take her to London, captain, and let her be seen." "Ay--ay ... if I only knew where to go and how to begin." "She is young; there is no need for hurry: you can wait awhile, captain." "Ay ... we can wait a while. I shall be loth to let her go, God knows---- Come to-morrow, Jack. She was always fond of you: she talks about you: 'tis a loving little maid: you played with her and ran about with her. She never forgets. The next command that falls in--but I talk too fast. Well--when there is a ship in her fleet without a captain---- But come, my lad." He led the way, still talking of his ward and her perfections, through the narrow street they call Stath Lane into the great market place, where stands the Crown Inn. The room appropriated to the "Society of Lynn," which met every evening all the year round, was that on the ground floor looking upon the market place. The "society," or club, which is never dissolved, consists of the notables or better sort of the town: the vicar of St. Margaret's; the curate of St. Nicholas; the master of the school--my own father: Captain Crowle and other retired captains; the doctor; some of the more substantial merchants; with the mayor, some of the aldermen, the town clerk, and a justice of the peace or two. This evening most of these gentlemen were already present. Captain Crowle saluted the company and took his seat at the head of the table. "Gentlemen," he said, "I wish you all a pleasant evening. I have brought with me my young friend Jack Pentecrosse--you all know Jack--the worthy son of his worthy father. He will take a glass with us. Sit down beside me, Jack." "With the permission of the society," I said. Most of the gentlemen had already before them their pipes and their tobacco. Some had ordered their drink--a pint of port for one: a Brown George full of old ale for another; a flask of Canary for a third: and so on. But the captain, looking round the room, beckoned to the girl who waited. "Jenny," he said, "nobody calls for anything to-night except myself. Gentlemen, it must be a bowl--or a half dozen bowls. Tell your mistress, Jenny, a bowl of the biggest and the strongest and the sweetest. Gentlemen, you will drink with me to the next voyage of _The Lady of Lynn_." But then a thing happened--news came--which drove all thoughts of _The Lady of Lynn_ out of everybody's mind. That toast was forgotten. The news was brought by the doctor, who was the last to arrive. It was an indication of the importance of our town that a physician lived among us. He was the only physician in this part of the country: he practised among the better sort, among the noble gentlemen of the country round about Lynn and even further afield in the northern parts of the shire, and among the substantial merchants of the town. For the rest there were the apothecary, the barber and blood-letter, the bone-setter, the herbalist and the wise woman. Many there were even among the better sort who would rather consult the woman, who knew the powers of every herb that grows, than the physician who would write you out the prescription of Mithridates or some other outlandish name composed of sixty or seventy ingredients. However, there is no doubt that learning is a fine thing and that Galen knew more than the ancient dames who sit in a bower of dried herbs and brew them into nauseous drinks which pretend to cure all the diseases to which mankind is liable. Doctor Worship was a person who habitually carried himself with dignity. His black dress, his white silk stockings, his gold shoe buckles, the whiteness of his lace and linen, his huge wig, his gold-headed cane with its pomander, proclaimed his calling, while the shortness of his stature with the roundness of his figure, his double chin, his thick lips and his fat nose all assisted him in the maintenance of his dignity. His voice was full and deep, like the voice of an organ and he spoke slowly. It has, I believe, been remarked that dignity is more easily attained by a short fat man than by one of a greater stature and thinner person. At the very first appearance of the doctor this evening it was understood that something had happened. For he had assumed an increased importance that was phenomenal: he had swollen, so to speak: he had become rounder and fuller in front. Everybody observed the change: yes--he was certainly broader in the shoulders: he carried himself with more than professional dignity: his wig had risen two inches in the foretop and had descended four inches behind his back: his coat was not the plain cloth which he wore habitually in the town and at the tavern, but the black velvet which was reserved for those occasions when he was summoned by a person of quality or one of the county gentry, and he carried the gold-headed cane with the pomander box which also belonged to those rare occasions. "Gentlemen," he said, looking around the room slowly and with emphasis, so that, taking his change of manner and of stature--for men so seldom grow after fifty--and the emphasis with which he spoke and looked, gathering together all eyes, caused the company to understand, without any possibility of mistake, that something had happened of great importance. In the old town of Lynn Regis it is not often that anything happens. Ships, it is true, come and go; their departures and their arrivals form the staple of the conversation: but an event, apart from the ships, a surprise, is rare. Once, ten years before this evening, a rumour of the kind which, as the journals say, awaits confirmation, reached the town, that the French had landed in force and were marching upon London. The town showed its loyalty by a resolution to die in the last ditch: the resolution was passed by the mayor over a bowl of punch; and though the report proved without foundation the event remained historical: the loyalty and devotion of the borough--the king's own borough--had passed through the fire of peril. The thing was remembered. Since that event, nothing had happened worthy of note. And now something more was about to happen: the doctor's face was full of importance: he clearly brought great news. Great news, indeed; and news forerunning a time unheard of in the chronicles of the town. "Gentlemen," the doctor laid his hat upon the table and his cane beside it. Then he took his chair, adjusted his wig, put on his spectacles, and then, laying his hand upon the arms of the chair he once more looked round the room, and all this in the most important, dignified, provoking, interesting manner possible. "Gentlemen, I have news for you." As a rule this was a grave and a serious company: there was no singing: there was no laughing: there was no merriment. They were the seniors of the town: responsible persons; in authority and office: substantial, as regards their wealth: full of dignity and of responsibility. I have observed that the possession of wealth, much more than years, is apt to invest a man with serious views. There was little discourse because the opinions of every one were perfectly well-known: the wind: the weather: the crops: the ships: the health or the ailments of the company, formed the chief subjects of conversation. The placid evenings quietly and imperceptibly rolled away with some sense of festivity--in a tavern every man naturally assumes some show of cheerfulness and at nine o'clock the assembly dispersed. Captain Crowle made answer, speaking in the name of the society, "Sir, we await your pleasure." "My news, gentlemen, is of a startling character. I will epitomise or abbreviate it. In a word, therefore, we are all about to become rich." Everybody sat upright. Rich? all to become rich? My father, who was the master of the Grammar school, and the curate of St. Nicholas, shook their heads like Thomas the Doubter. "All you who have houses or property in this town: all who are concerned in the trade of the town: all who direct the industries of the people--or take care of the health of the residents--will become, I say, rich." My father and the curate who were not included within these limits, again shook their heads expressively but kept silence. Nobody, of course, expects the master of the Grammar school, or a curate, to become rich. "We await your pleasure, sir," the captain repeated. "Rich! you said that we were all to become rich," murmured the mayor, who was supposed to be in doubtful circumstances. "If that were true----" "I proceed to my narrative." The doctor pulled out a pocketbook from which he extracted a letter. "I have received," he went on, "a letter from a townsman--the young man named Samuel Semple--Samuel Semple," he repeated with emphasis, because a look of disappointment fell upon every face. "Sam Semple," growled the captain; "once I broke my stick across his back." He did not, however, explain why he had done so. "I wish I had broken two. What has Sam Semple to do with the prosperity of the town?" "You shall hear," said the doctor. "He would bring a book of profane verse to church instead of the Common Prayer," said the vicar. "An idle rogue," said the mayor; "I sent him packing out of my countinghouse." "A fellow afraid of the sea," said another. "He might have become a supercargo by this time." "Yet not without some tincture of Greek," said the schoolmaster; "to do him justice, he loved books." "He made us subscribe a guinea each for his poems," said the vicar. "Trash, gentlemen, trash! My copy is uncut." "Yet," observed the curate of St. Nicholas, "in some sort perhaps, a child of Parnassus. One of those, so to speak, born out of wedlock, and, I fear me, of uncertain parentage among the Muses and unacknowledged by any. There are many such as Sam Semple on that inhospitable hill. Is the young man starving, doctor? Doth he solicit more subscriptions for another volume? It is the way of the distressed poet." The doctor looked from one to the other with patience and even resignation. They would be sorry immediately that they had offered so many interruptions. When it seemed as if every one had said what he wished to say, the doctor held up his hand and so commanded silence. CHAPTER IV THE GRAND DISCOVERY "Mr. Sam Semple," the doctor continued, with emphasis on the prefix to which, indeed, the poet was not entitled in his native town, "doth not ask for help: he is not starving: he is prosperous: he has gained the friendship, or the patronage, of certain persons of quality. This is the reward of genius. Let us forget that he was the son of a customhouse servant, and let us admit that he proved unequal to the duties--for which he was unfitted--of a clerk. He has now risen--we will welcome one whose name will in the future add lustre to our town." The vicar shook his head. "Trash," he murmured, "trash." "Well, gentlemen, I will proceed to read the letter." He unfolded it and began with a sonorous hum. "'Honoured Sir,'" he repeated the words. "'Honoured Sir,'--the letter, gentlemen, is addressed to myself--ahem! to myself. 'I have recently heard of a discovery which will probably affect in a manner so vital, the interests of my beloved native town, that I feel it my duty to communicate the fact to you without delay. I do so to you rather than to my esteemed patron, the worshipful the mayor, once my master, or to Captain Crowle, or to any of those who subscribed for my volume of Miscellany Poems, because the matter especially and peculiarly concerns yourself as a physician, and as the fortunate owner of the spring or well which is the subject of the discovery'--the subject of the discovery, gentlemen. My well--mine." He went on. "'You are aware, as a master in the science of medicine, that the curative properties of various spas or springs in the country--the names of Bath, Tunbridge Wells, and Epsom are familiar to you, so doubtless are those of Hampstead and St. Chad's, nearer London. It now appears that a certain learned physician having reason to believe that similar waters exist, as yet unsuspected, at King's Lynn, has procured a jar of the water from your own well--that in your garden'--my well, gentlemen, in my own garden!--'and, having subjected it to a rigorous examination, has discovered that it contains, to a much higher degree than any other well hitherto known to exist in this country, qualities, or ingredients, held in solution, which make this water sovereign for the cure of rheumatism, asthma, gout, and all disorders due to ill humours or vapours--concerning which I am not competent so much as to speak to one of your learning and skill.'" "He has," said the schoolmaster, "the pen of a ready writer. He balances his periods. I taught him. So far, he was an apt pupil." The doctor resumed. "'This discovery hath already been announced in the public journals. I send you an extract containing the news.' I read this extract, gentlemen." It was a slip of printed paper, cut from one of the diurnals of London. "'It has been discovered that at King's Lynn in the county of Norfolk, there exists a deep well of clear water whose properties, hitherto undiscovered, form a sovereign specific for rheumatism and many similar disorders. Our physicians have already begun to recommend the place as a spa and it is understood that some have already resolved upon betaking themselves to this newly discovered cure. The distance from London is no greater than that of Bath. The roads, it is true, are not so good, but at Cambridge, it is possible for those who do not travel in their own carriages to proceed by way of barge or tilt boat down the Cam and the Ouse, a distance of only forty miles which in the summer should prove a pleasant journey.' "So far"--the doctor informed us, "for the printed intelligence. I now proceed to finish the letter. 'Among others, my patron, the Right Honourable the Earl of Fylingdale, has been recommended by his physician to try the newly discovered waters of Lynn as a preventive of gout. He is a gentleman of the highest rank, fashion, and wealth, who honours me with his confidence. It is possible that he may even allow me to accompany him on his journey. Should he do so I shall look forward to the honour of paying my respects to my former patrons. He tells me that other persons of distinction are also going to the same place, with the same objects, during the coming summer.' "You hear, gentlemen," said the doctor, looking round, "what did I say? Wealth for all--for all. So. Let me continue. 'Sir, I would with the greatest submission venture to point out the importance of this event to the town. The nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood should be immediately made acquainted with this great discovery; the clergy of Ely, Norwich, and Lincoln; the members of the University of Cambridge: the gentlemen of Boston, Spalding, and Wisbech should all be informed. It may be expected that there will be such a concourse flocking to Lynn as will bring an accession of wealth as well as fame to the borough of which I am a humble native. I would also submit that the visitors should find Lynn provided with the amusements necessary for a spa. I mean music; the assembly; a pump room; a garden; the ball and the masquerade and the card room; clean lodgings; good wine; and fish, flesh and fowl in abundance. I humbly ask forgiveness for these suggestions and I have the honour to remain, honoured sir, your most obedient humble servant, with my grateful service to all the gentlemen who subscribed to my verses, and thereby provided me with a ladder up which to rise, Samuel Semple.'" At this moment the bowl of punch was brought in and placed before the captain with a tray of glasses. The doctor folded his letter, replaced it in his pocketbook and took off his spectacles. "Gentlemen, you have heard my news. Captain Crowle, may I request that you permit the society to drink with me to the prosperity of the spa--the prosperity of the spa--the spa of Lynn." "Let us drink it," said the captain, "to the newly discovered spa. But this Samuel--the name sticks." The toast was received with the greatest satisfaction, and then, when the punch was buzzed about, there arose a conversation so lively and so loud that heads looked out of windows in the square wondering what in the world had happened with the society. Not a quarrel, surely. Nay, there was no uplifting of voices: there was no anger in the voices: nor was it the sound of mirth: there was no note of merriment: nor was it a drunken loosening of the tongue: such a thing with this company was impossible. It was simply a conversation in which all spoke at the same time over an event which interested and excited all alike. Everybody contributed something. "We must have a committee to prepare for the accommodation of the visitors." "We must put up a pump room." "We must engage a dipper." "We must make walks across the fields." "There must be an assembly with music and dancing." "There must be a card room." "There must be a long room for those who wish to walk about and to converse--with an orchestra." "There must be public breakfasts and suppers." "We shall want horns to play in the evening." "We must have glass lamps of variegated colours to hang among the trees." "I will put up the pump room," said the doctor, "in my garden, over the well." "We must look to our lodgings. The beds in our inns are for the most part rough hewn boards on trestles with a flock bed full of knobs and sheets that look like leather. The company will look for bedsteads and feather beds." "The ladies will ask for curtains. We must give them what they are accustomed to enjoy." "We must learn the fashionable dance." "We must talk like beaux and dress like the gentlefolk of Westminster." The captain looked on, meanwhile, whispering in my ear, from time to time. "Samuel is a liar," he said. "I know him to be a liar. Yet why should he lie about a thing of so much importance? If he tells the truth, Jack--I know not--I misdoubt the fellow--yet--again--he may tell the truth----And why should he lie, I say? Then--one knows not--among the company we may even find a husband for the girl. As for taking her to London--but we shall see." So he shook his head, not wholly carried away like the rest, but with a certain amount of hope. And then, waiting for a moment when the talk flagged a bit, he spoke. "Gentlemen, if this news is true--and surely Samuel would not invent it, then the old town is to have another great slice of luck. We have our shipping and our trade: these have made many of us rich and have given an honest livelihood to many more. The spa should bring in, as the doctor has told us, wealth by another channel. I undertake to assure you that we shall rise to the occasion. The town shall show itself fit to receive and to entertain the highest company. We tarpaulins are too old to learn the manners of fashion. But we have men of substance among us who will lay out money with such an object: we have gentlemen of family in the country round: we have young fellows of spirit," he clapped me on the shoulder, "who will keep up the gaieties: and, gentlemen, we have maidens among us--as blooming as any in the great world. We shall not be ashamed of ourselves--or of our girls." These words created a profound sigh of satisfaction. The men of substance would rise to the occasion. Before the bowl was out a committee was appointed, consisting of Captain Crowle, the vicar of St. Margaret's, the curate of St. Nicholas--the two clergymen being appointed as having imbibed at the University of Cambridge some tincture of the fashionable world--and the doctor. This important body was empowered to make arrangements for the reception and for the accommodation and entertainment of the illustrious company expected and promised. It was also empowered to circulate in the country round about news of the extraordinary discovery and to invite all the rheumatic and the gouty: the asthmatic and everybody afflicted with any kind of disease to repair immediately to Lynn Regis, there to drink the sovereign waters of the spa. "It only remains, gentlemen," said the doctor in conclusion, "that I myself should submit the water of my well to an examination." He did not think it necessary to inform the company that he had received from Samuel Semple an analysis of the water stating the ingredients and their proportions as made by the anonymous physician of London. "Should it prove--of which I have little doubt--that the water is such as has been described by my learned brother in medicine, I shall inform you of the fact." It was a curious coincidence, though the committee of reception were not informed of the fact, that the doctor's analysis exactly agreed with that sent to him. It was a memorable evening. For my own part,--I know not why--during the reading of the letter my heart sank lower and lower. It was the foreboding of evil. Perhaps it was caused by my knowledge of Samuel of whom I will speak presently. Perhaps it was the thought of seeing the girl whom I loved, while yet I had no hope of winning her, carried off by some sprig of quality who would teach her to despise her homely friends, the master mariners young and old. I know not the reason. But it was a foreboding of evil and it was with a heavy heart that I repaired to the quay and rowed myself back to the ship in the moonlight. They were going to drink to the next voyage of _The Lady of Lynn_. Why, the lady herself, not her ship, was about to embark on a voyage more perilous--more disastrous--than that which awaited any of her ships. Cruel as is the ocean I would rather trust myself--and her--to the mercies of the Bay of Biscay at its wildest--than to the tenderness of the crew who were to take charge of that innocent and ignorant lady. CHAPTER V THE PORT OF LYNN This was the beginning of the famous year. I say famous because, to me and to certain others, it was certainly a year eventful, while to the people of the town and the county round it was the year of the spa which began, ran a brief course, and terminated, all in one summer. Let me therefore speak for a little about the place where these things happened. It is not a mushroom or upstart town of yesterday but on the other hand a town of venerable antiquity with many traditions which may be read in books by the curious. It is important on account of its trade though it is said that in former days its importance was much greater. I have sailed over many seas: I have put in at many ports: I have taken in cargoes of many countries--the ways of sailors I have found much the same everywhere. And as for the food and the drink and the buildings I say that Lynn is behind none. Certainly the port of London whether at Wapping or at Limehouse or Shadwell cannot show anything so fine as the market place of Lynn or St. Margaret's church or our customhouse. Nor have I found anywhere, people more civil of speech and more obliging and well disposed, than in my own town; in which, apart from the sailors and their quarters, the merchants and shipowners are substantial: trade is always brisk: the port is always lively: continually there is a coming and a going: sometimes, week after week, one ship arrives and another ship puts out: the yards are always busy: the hammer and the anvil resound all day long: carpenters, rope makers, boat builders, block makers, sail makers, all the people wanted to fit out a ship--they say that a ship is like a woman, in always wanting something--are at work without intermission all the year round from five in the morning till eight in the evening. They stand at good wages: they live well: they dress warm: they drink of the best. It is a city of great plenty. Wine there is of the most generous, to be had at reasonable price--have I not myself brought home cargoes from Lisbon of Spanish and Portuguese--strong and heady--rich and sweet; and from Bordeaux of right claret? All the things that come from abroad are here in abundance, brought hither by our ships and distributed by our barges up the river and its tributaries through eight countries at least, serving the towns of Peterborough, Ely, Stamford, Bedford, St. Ives, Huntingdon, St. Neots, Northampton, Cambridge, Bury St. Edmund's, and Thetford. We send them not only wine but also coals (which come to us, sea-borne, from Newcastle), deal and timber from Norway and the Baltic, iron and implements; sugar, lemons, spices, tea (but there is little of that infusion taken in the county), turpentine, and I know not what: and we receive for export wheat, barley, oats and grain of all kinds. In other places you may hear lamentations that certain imported luxuries have given out: the lemons will fail so that the punch is spoiled: or the nutmegs give out--which is a misfortune for the pudding: or the foreign wine has been all consumed. Our cellars and our warehouses, however, are always full, there is always wine of every kind: there are always stores of everything that the cook can want for his most splendid banquet. Nor are we less fortunate in our food. There is excellent mutton fattened in the Marshland: the bacon of Norfolk is famous: there are no geese like the geese of the fens--they are kept in farmhouses, each in its own hutch, and all driven out to feed in the fens and the ditches of the fens. Every day you may see the boy they call the gozzard driving them out in the morning and bringing them home in the evening. Then, since all the country on the west side is lowland reclaimed from the sea, it is, like all such land, full of ponds and haunted by starlings and ducks, widgeon, teal and other wild birds innumerable, which are shot, decoyed, and caught in great numbers. Add to this that the reclaimed land is most fertile and yields abundantly of wheat and barley, fruit and vegetables: and that fish are found in plenty in the Wash and outside and you will own that the town is a kind of promised land, where everything that the heart of man can desire is plentiful and cheap and where the better sort are rich and comfortable and the baser sort are in good case and contented. Another circumstance, which certain scholars consider fortunate for Lynn, is that the modern town abounds with ancient buildings, walls, towers, arches, churches, gateways, fragments which proclaim its antiquity and speak of its former importance. You think, perhaps, that a plain and simple sea captain has no business to know anything about matters which concern scholars. That is a reasonable objection. The Lord forbid that I should speak as if I knew anything of my own reading. I am but a plain sailor: I have spent most of my life navigating a merchantman. This is an honourable condition. Had I to choose another life upon the world I would desire of Providence no higher station and no happier lot. A sea captain is king: his vessel is an island over which he rules: he is a servant yet not in a state of servitude: he is a dependent yet is independent: he has no cares about money for he is well paid: he keeps what hours he pleases: dresses as he likes: eats and drinks as he likes: if he carries passengers he has society. No. Let me not even seem to be pretending to the learning of a scholar. I do but repeat the things which my father was wont to repeat in my hearing. He was for forty years master of the Grammar school; a master of arts of Christ's college, Cambridge: a learned scholar in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Chaldee: and, like many of his calling, an antiquary and one who was most happy when he was poring over old manuscripts in the Archives of the Guildhall, and amassing materials which he did not live to put together for the history of Lynn Regis, sometime Lynn Episcopi. The collections made by him still lie among the chests where the corporation keep their papers. They will doubtless be found there at some future time and will serve for some other hand engaged upon the same work. It is not to be expected that among a trading and a shipping community there should be much curiosity on such matters as the past history of their borough: the charter which it obtained from kings; the creation of a mayor: the destruction of the monasteries when the glorious Reformation restored the sunlight of the gospel and of freedom to this happy land. For the most part my father worked without encouragement save from the vicar of St. Margaret's, the Reverend Mark Gentle, S.T.P., to whose scholarly mind the antiquities and charters and leases of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were of small account indeed compared with a newly found coin of an obscure Roman usurper, or an inscription on a Roman milestone, or the discovery of a Roman urn. Yet my father would willingly discourse upon the subject and, indeed, I think that little by little he communicated to me the whole of his knowledge, so that I became that rare creature, a sailor versed in antiquity and history: one to whom the streets and old buildings of Lynn spoke in a language unknown by the people, even unheard by them. It pleases me to recall the tall form of my father: his bent shoulders: his wig for the most part awry: his round spectacles; his thin face. In school he was a figure of fear, always terrible, wielding the rod of office with justice Rhadamanthine, and demanding, with that unrelenting alternative, things impossible in grammar. In school hours he was a very Jupiter, a thundering Jupiter: our school was an ancient hall with an open timber roof in which his voice rolled and echoed backwards and forwards. Nor did he spare his only son. In consequence of some natural inability to cope with the niceties of syntax I was often compelled to become a warning and an admonition to the rest. I have sometimes, since those days, in considering things during the night-watch, asked myself why men of tender hearts force their children to undergo this fierce discipline of grammar--a thing instantly forgotten when a boy goes to sea: and I have thought that perhaps it was invented and encouraged by divines in order that boys might learn something of the terrors of the law divine. Out of school, however, no child ever had a parent more indulgent or more affectionate. The post of schoolmaster is honourable and one that should be desired, yet I have sometimes wished, when the disagreeable moments of swishing were upon me, that the hand of the executioner had belonged to some other boy's father--say, the father of Sam Semple. I will tell you how he used to talk. I remember one day--it might be yesterday--he was standing on the Lady's Mount and looking down upon the gardens and fields which now lie between the ancient walls and the modern town. "Look, boy," he said, "you see fields and gardens: on those fields stood formerly monasteries and convents: these gardens were once enclosed--you may still discern some of the stone walls which surrounded them, for monk and friar. All the friars were here, so great was the wealth of the town. On that green field behind the church of St. Nicholas was the house of the Austin Friars: some fragments of these buildings have I discovered built into the houses on the west side of the field: I should like to pull down the modern houses in order to display those fragments: almost at our feet lay the house of the Black Friars, yonder to the south, between the road to the gate and the river Var, was the friary of the White Friars or Carmelites: there is the tower of the Grey Friars, who were Franciscans. On the south side of St. Margaret's there are walls and windows, with carved mullions and arches--they belong to a college of priests or perhaps a Benedictine House--there must have been Benedictines in the town; or perhaps they belonged to a nunnery: many nunneries stood beside parish churches. "This is part of the wall of the town. 'Tis a pity that it should fall into decay, but when walls are no longer wanted for defence they are neglected. First the weather loosens the stones of the battlements; or perhaps they fall into the moat: or the people take them away for building. I wonder how much of the wall of Lynn is built into the churches and the houses and the garden walls; then the whole face of the wall disappears; then if it is a Roman wall there is left a core of concrete as in London wall which I have seen here and there where the houses are not built against it. And here is a point which I cannot get over. The wall of Lynn is two miles long: that of London is three miles long, as I am credibly informed by Stow and others. Was then, the town of Lynn at any time able to raise and to defend a wall two miles in length? It seems incredible. Yet why build a wall longer than could be defended? Were these fields and gardens once streets between the religious houses? Certain it is that Lynn Episcopi, as it was then called, was formerly a very busy place yet, I apprehend, more busy than at present in proportion only to the increased wealth and population of the country." So he would talk to me, I suppose, because he could never find anybody else who would listen to him. Those who read this page will very likely resemble the company to whom my father ventured upon such discourse of ancient things. They would incline their heads; they would take a drink: they would sigh: they would say, "Why, sir, since you say so, doubtless it is so. No one is likely to dispute the point, but if you think upon it the time is long ago and ... I think, neighbours, the wind has shifted a point to the nor'east." The town preserves, in spite of neglect and oblivion, more of the appearance of the age than most towns. The Guildhall, where they show the sword and the silver cup of King John, is an ancient and noteworthy building: there are the old churches: there are almshouse and hospitals: there is a customhouse which the Hollanders enviously declare must have been brought over from their country and set up here, so much does it resemble their own buildings. Our streets are full of remains: here a carving in marble: here a window of ancient shape, cut in stone: here a piece of carved work from some ancient chantry chapel: here a deserted and mouldering court: here a house overhanging, gabled, with carved front: here a courtyard with an ancient house built round it; and with the narrow streets such as one finds only in the most ancient parts of our ancient cities. We have still our winding lanes with their irregularities: houses planted sideways as well as fronting the street: an irregular alignment: gables instead of a flat coping: casement windows not yet transformed by the modern sash: our old taverns; our old walls; our old market places; and the ancient bridges which span the four streams running through the midst of our town. By the riverside you may find the sailors and the craftsmen who belong to a seaport: at the customhouse you may meet the merchants and the shippers: in the market places you may find the countrymen and countrywomen--they talk an uncouth language and their manners are rough, but they are honest: and if you go to the church of St. Margaret's or St. Nicholas any day for morning prayers but especially on Sunday you may find among the congregation maidens and matrons in rich attire, the former as beautiful as in any town or country may be met; the latter stately and dignified and gracious withal. CHAPTER VI THE MAID OF LYNN My earliest recollection as a child shows me Captain Crowle, full-wigged, with a white silk cravat round his neck, the lace ends hanging down before, a crimson silk sash to his sword, long lace ruffles, his brown coat with silver buttons, his worsted hose, and his shoes with silver clocks. In my memory he is always carrying his hat under his arm; a stout stick always dangled from his wrist, in readiness; and he always presents the same honest face, weather-beaten, ruddy, lined, with his keen eyes under thick eyebrows and his nose long and broad and somewhat arched--such a nose as lends authority to a man. In other words, I never saw any change in the captain, though, when I first remember him he must have been fifty-five, and when he ceased to be seen in his old haunts he was close upon eighty. I have seen, however, and I remember, many changes in the captain's ward. She is a little thing of two or three at first; then she is a merry child of six; next she is a schoolgirl of ten or eleven; she grows into a maiden of sixteen, neither girl nor woman; she becomes a woman of eighteen. I remember her in every stage. Strange to say I do not remember her between those stages. Molly had the misfortune to lose her father in infancy. He was carried off, I believe, by smallpox. He was a ship owner, and general merchant of the town, and was generally reputed to be a man of considerable means. At his death he bequeathed the care of his widow and his child to his old servant, Captain John Crowle, who had been in the service of the house since he was apprenticed as a boy. He directed, further, that Captain Crowle should conduct the business for the child, who by his will was to inherit the whole of his fortune whatever that might prove to be, on coming of age, after subtracting certain settlements for his widow. It was most fortunate for the child that her guardian was the most honest person in the world. He was a bachelor; he was bound by ties of gratitude to the house which he had served; he had nothing to do and nothing to think about except the welfare of the child. I would have no secrets with my reader. Let it be known, therefore, that on looking into the position of affairs, the executor found that there was a much greater fortune for his ward than any one, even the widow, ever guessed. There were houses in the town; there were farms in Marshland; there were monies placed out on mortgage; there were three or four tall ships, chiefly in the Lisbon trade; and there were boxes full of jewels, gold chains, and trinkets, the accumulation of three or four generations of substantial trade. He kept this knowledge to himself: then, as the expenses of the household were small and there was always a large balance after the year in favour of the house, he went on adding ship to ship, house to house, and farm to farm, besides putting out monies on the security of mortgage, so that the child, no one suspecting, grew richer and richer, until by the time she was eighteen, if the captain only knew it, she became the richest heiress not only in the town of Lynn, but also in the whole county of Norfolk and even, I verily believe, in the whole country. I think that the captain must have been what is called a good man of business by nature. A simple sailor, one taught to navigate; to take observations; to keep a log and to understand a chart, is not supposed to be thereby trained for trade. But it must have been a far-seeing man who boldly launched out into new branches, and sent whalers to the Arctic seas; ships to trade in the Baltic; and ships into the Mediterranean, as well as ships in the old trade for which Lynn was always famous, that with Lisbon for wine. He it was who enlarged the quay and rebuilt the Common Stath Yard: his countinghouse--it was called his and he was supposed to be at least a partner--was filled with clerks, and it was counted good fortune by the young men of the place to enter his service whether as prentices on board his ships, or as bookkeepers in his countinghouse, or as supercargoes or pursers in his fleet. For my own part it was always understood between us that I too was to enter his service, but as a sailor, not as a clerk. This I told him as a little boy, with the impudence of childhood: he laughed; but he remembered and reminded me from time to time. "Jack is to be a sailor--Jack will have none of your quill driving--Jack means to walk his own quarter-deck. I shall live to give Jack his sword and his telescope" ... and so on, lest perchance I should forget and fall off and even accept the vicar's offer to get me a scholarship at some college of Cambridge, so that I might take a degree, and become my father's usher and presently succeed him as master of the Grammar school. "Learning," said the captain, "is a fine thing, but the command of a ship is a finer. Likewise it is doubtless a great honour to be a master of arts, such as your father, but, my lad, a rope's end is, to my mind, a better weapon than a birch." And so on. For while he knew how to respect the learning of a scholar, as he respected the piety of the vicar, he considered the calling of the sailor more delightful than that of the schoolmaster, even though not so highly esteemed by the world. There were plenty of children in the town of Lynn to play with: but it came about in some way or other, perhaps because I was always a favourite with the captain, and was encouraged to go often to the house, that Molly became my special playfellow. She was two years younger than myself, but being forward in growth and strength the difference was not a hindrance, while there was no game or amusement pleasing to me which did not please her. For instance, every boy of Lynn, as soon as he can handle a scull, can manage a dingy; and as soon as he can haul a rope, can sail a boat. For my own part I can never remember the time when I was not in my spare time out on the river. I would sail up the river, along the low banks of the sluggish stream up and down which go the barges which carry the cargoes of our ships to the inland towns and return for more. There are also tilt boats coming down the river which are like the waggons on the road, full of passengers, sailors, servants, soldiers, craftsmen, apprentices and the like. Or I would row down the river with the current and the tide as far as the mouth where the river flows into the Wash. Then I would sail up again watching the ships tacking across the stream in their slow upward progress to the port. Or I would go fishing and bring home a basket full of fresh fish for the house: or I would paddle about in a dingy among the ships, watching them take in and discharge cargo: or receive from the barges alongside the casks of pork and beef; of rum and beer and water, for the next voyage: happy indeed, if I could get permission to tie up the painter to the rope ladder hanging over the side and so climb up and ramble over every part of the ship. And I knew every ship that belonged to the port: every Dutchman which put in with cheese and tallow, hardware and soft goods; every Norwegian that brought deal: I knew them all and when they were due and their tonnage and the name of the captain. More than this, Molly knew as much as I did. She was as handy with her sculls; she knew every puff of wind and where to expect it at the bend of the river; she was as handy with the sails. While her mother made her a notable housewife and taught her to make bread, cakes, puddings and pies; to keep the still-room; to sew and make and mend; to brew the ale, both the strong and the small; and the punch for the captain's friends at Christmas and other festivals--while, I say, this part of Molly's education was not neglected, it was I who made her a sailor, so that there was nowhere in the place any one, man or boy or girl, who was handier with a boat or more certain with a sail than Molly. And I know not which of these two accomplishments pleased her guardian the more. That she should become a good housewife was necessary: that she should be a handy sailor was an accomplishment which, because it was rare in a girl, and belonged to the work of the other sex, seemed to him a proper and laudable object of pride. The captain, as you have already learned, nourished a secret ambition. When I was still little more than a boy, he entrusted his secret to me. Molly's mother, the good homely body who was so notable a housekeeper, and knew nothing, as she desired to know nothing concerning the manners and customs of gentlefolk, was not consulted. Nor did the good woman even know how great an heiress her daughter had become. Now, the captain's ambition was to make his ward, by means of her fortune, a great lady. He knew little--poor man!--of what was meant by a great lady, but he wanted the heiress of such great wealth to marry some man who would lift her out of the rank and condition to which she was born. It was a fatal ambition, as you shall learn. Now, being wise after the event and quite able to lock the door after the horse has been stolen I can understand that with such an ambition the captain's only plan was to have taken the girl away; perhaps to Norwich, perhaps to London itself; to have placed her under the care of some respectable gentlewoman; to have had her taught all the fashionable fal-lals, with the graces and the sprawls and the antics of the fashionable world; to let it be buzzed abroad that she was an heiress, and then, after taking care to protect her against adventurers, to find a man after his own mind, of station high enough to make the girl's fortune equal to his own; not to overshadow it: and not to dazzle him with possibilities of spending. However, it is easy to understand what might have been done. What was done, you understand. At nineteen, Molly was a fine tall girl, as strong as any man, her arms stout and muscular like mine; her face rosy and ruddy with the bloom of health; her eyes blue and neither too large nor too small but fearless; her head and face large; her hair fair and blowing about her head with loose curls; her figure full; her neck as white as snow; her hands large rather than small, by reason of the rowing and the handling of the ropes, and by no means white; her features were regular and straight; her mouth not too small but to my eyes the most beautiful mouth in the world, the lips full, and always ready for a smile, the teeth white and regular. In a word, to look at as fine a woman, not of the delicate and dainty kind, but strong, tall, and full of figure, as one may wish for. As to her disposition she was the most tender, affectionate, sweet soul that could be imagined; she was always thinking of something to please those who loved her; she spared her mother and worked for her guardian; she was always working at something; she was always happy; she was always singing. And never, until the captain told her, did she have the least suspicion that she was richer than all her friends and neighbours--nay--than the whole town of Lynn with its merchants and shippers and traders, all together. You think that I speak as a lover. It is true that I have always loved Molly: there has never been any other woman in the world for whom I have ever felt the least inclination or affection. She possessed my whole soul as a child; she has it still--my soul--my heart--my whole desire--my all. I will say no more in her praise, lest I be thought to exaggerate. Let me return for a moment to our childhood. We ran about together: we first played in the garden: we then played in the fields below the wall: we climbed over what is left of the wall: from the top of the Grey Friars' Tower; from the chapel on the Lady's Mount; we would look out upon the broad expanse of meadows which were once covered over at every high tide: there were stories which were told by old people of broken dams and of floods and inundations: children's imagination is so strong that they can picture anything. I would pretend that the flood was out again; that my companion was carried away in a hencoop and that I was swimming to her assistance. Oh! we had plays and pretences enough. If we went up the river there was beyond--what we could never reach--a castle with a giant who carried off girls and devoured them; he carried off my companion. Heavens! How I rushed to the rescue and with nothing but the boathook encountered and slaughtered him. Or if we went down the river as far as the mouth where it falls into the Ouse, we would remember the pirates and how they seized on girls and took them off to their caves to work for them. How many pirates did I slay in defence and rescue of one girl whom they dared to carry off! Or we rambled about the town, lingering on the quays, watching the ships and the sailors and the workmen, and sometimes in summer evenings when from some tavern with its red curtain across the window came the scraping of a fiddle, and the voices of those who sang, and the stamping of those who danced, we would look in at the open door and watch the sailors within who looked so happy. Nobody can ever be so happy as sailors ashore appear to be: it is only the joy of a moment, but when one remembers it, one imagines that it was the joy of a life-time. You think that it was a bad thing for children to look on at sailors and to listen to their conversation if one may use the word of such talk as goes on among the class. You are wrong. These things do not hurt children, because they do not understand. Half the dangers in the world, I take it, come from knowledge: only the other half from ignorance. Everybody knows the ways and the life of Jack ashore. Children, however, see only the outside of things. The fiddler in the corner puts his elbow into the tune; the men get up and dance the hornpipe; the girls dance to the men, setting and jetting and turning round and round and all with so much mirth and good nature and so much kindness and so much singing and laughing, that there can be no more delightful entertainment for children than to look on at a sailors' merrymaking behind the red curtain of the tavern window. I recall one day. It was in the month of December, in the afternoon and close upon sunset. The little maid was about eight and I was ten. We were together as usual; we had been on the river, but it was cold and so we came ashore and were walking hand in hand along the street they call Pudding Lane which leads from the Common Stath Yard to the market-place. In this lane there stands a sailors' tippling house, which is, I dare say, in all respects, such a house as sailors desire, provided and furnished according to their wants and wishes. As we passed, the place being already lit up with two or three candles in sconces, the door being wide open, and the mingled noise of fiddle, voices, and feet announcing the assemblage of company, Molly pulled me by the hand and stopped to look in. The scene was what I have already indicated. The revelry of the evening had set in: everybody was drinking: one was dancing: the fiddler was playing lustily. We should have looked on for a minute and left them. But one of the sailors recognised Molly. Springing to his feet, he made a respectful leg and saluted the child. "Mates," he cried, "'tis our owner! The little lady owns the barky. What shall we do for her?" Then they all sprang to their feet with a huzza for the owner, and another for the ship--and, if you will believe it, their rough fo'c'sle hands in half a minute had the child on the table in a chair like a queen. She sat with great dignity, understanding in some way that these men were in her own service, and that they designed no harm or affright to her but only to do her honour. Therefore she was not in any fear and smiled graciously; for my own part I followed and stood at the table thinking that perhaps these fellows were proposing some piratical abduction and resolving miracles of valour, if necessary. Then they made offerings. One man pulled a red silk handkerchief from his neck and laid it in her lap; and another lugged a box of sweetmeats from his pocket: it came from Lisbon but was made, I believe, in Morocco by the Moors. A third had a gold ring on his finger--everybody knows the extravagancies of sailors--which he drew off and placed in her hand. Another offered a glass of punch. The little maid did what she had so often seen the captain do. She looked round and said, "Your good health, all the company," and put her lips to the glass which she then returned. And another offered to dance and the fiddler drew his bow across the catgut--it is a sound which inclines the heart to beat and the feet to move whenever a sailor hears it. "I have often seen you dance," said Molly; "let the fiddler play and you shall see me dance." I never thought she would have had so much spirit. For, you see, I had taught her to dance the hornpipe: every boy in a seaport town can dance the hornpipe: we used to make music out of a piece of thin paper laid over a tortoise-shell comb--it must be a comb of wide teeth and none of them must be broken--and with this instead of a fiddle we would dance in the garden or in the parlour. But to stand up before a whole company of sailors--who would have thought it? However, she jumped up and on the table performed her dance with great seriousness and so gracefully that they were all enchanted: they stood around, their mouths open, a broad grin on every face: the women, neglected, huddled together in a corner and were quite silent. When she had finished, she gathered up her gifts--the silk handkerchief--it came from Calicut, the sweetmeats from Morocco, the gold ring from I know not where. "Put me down, if you please," she said. So one of them gently lifted her to the ground. "I thank you all," she curtseyed very prettily. "I wish you good-night, and when you set sail again, a good voyage." So she took my hand and we ran away. At the age of thirteen I went to sea. Then for ten years I sailed out and home again; sometimes to the Baltic; sometimes to Bordeaux; sometimes to Lisbon. After every voyage I found my former companion grown, yet always more lovely and more charming: the time came when we no longer kissed at parting; when we were no longer brother and sister; when, alas! we could not be lovers, because between us lay that great fortune of hers, which it would be improper to bestow upon the mate of a merchantman. Said my father to me once by way of warning, "Jack, build not hopes that will be disappointed. This maiden is not for thee, but for thy betters. If she were poor--but she is rich--too rich, I fear me, for her happiness. Let us still say in the words of Agur, 'Give me neither poverty nor riches.' Thou art as yet young for thoughts of love. When the time comes, my son, cast your eyes among humbler maidens and find virtues and charms in one of them. But think no more--I say it for thy peace--think no more of Molly. Her great riches are like a high wall built round her to keep thee off, Jack, and others like unto thee." They were wise words, but a young man's thoughts are wilful. There was no other maiden in whom I saw either virtues or charms because Molly among them all was like the silver moon among the glittering stars. You have heard of the great and unexpected discovery, how the town found itself the possessor of a spa--and such a spa!--compared with which the waters of Tunbridge were feeble and those of Epsom not worth considering. That was in the year 1750, when Molly was already nineteen years of age and no longer a little maid, but a woman grown, as yet without wooers, because no one so far had been found fit, in the captain's eyes, for the hand and the purse of his lovely ward. CHAPTER VII THE POET You have heard the opinions of the "Society" as to Sam Semple. You have also witnessed the humiliation and the basting of that young man. Let me tell you more about him before we go on to relate the progress of the conspiracy of which he was the inventor and the spring. He was the son of one John Semple who was employed at the customhouse. The boy could look forward, like most of us, to a life of service. He might go to sea, and so become in due course, prentice, mate, and skipper; or he might be sent on board as supercargo; or he might enter the countinghouse of a merchant and keep the books; or he might follow his father and become a servant of the customhouse. He was two years older than myself and therefore, so much above me at school. Of all the boys (which alone indicates something contemptible in his nature) he was the most disliked, not by one or two, but by the whole school; not only by the industrious and the well-behaved, but also by the lazy and the vicious. There is always in every school, one boy at least, who is the general object of dislike: he makes no friends: his society is shunned: he may be feared, but he is hated. There are, I dare say, many causes for unpopularity: one boy is perhaps a bully who delights to ill-treat the younger and the weaker; one is a braggart: one plays games unfairly: one is apt to offend that nice sense of honour and loyalty which is cultivated by schoolboys: another is treacherous to his comrades; he tells tales, backbites and makes mischief: perhaps he belongs to an inferior station and has bad manners: perhaps he takes mean advantages: perhaps he is a coward who will not fight: perhaps he cannot do the things which boys respect. Sam Semple was disliked for many of these reasons. He was known to be a telltale; he was commonly reported to convey things overheard to the usher, by means of which that officer was enabled to discover many little plots and plans and so bring their authors to pain and confusion. He was certainly a coward who would never fight it out, but after a grand pretence and flourish would run away at the first blow. But if he would not fight he would bear malice and would take mean revenges; he was a most notorious liar, insomuch that no one would believe any statement made by him, if it could be proved to be connected with his own advantage; he could not play any games and affected to despise the good old sports of cocking, baiting the bear, drawing the badger, playing at cricket, hockey, wrestling, racing, and the other things that make boys skilful, courageous and hardy. He was, in a word, a poor soft, cowardly creature, more like a girl--and an inferior kind of girl--than an honest lad. He was much addicted to reading: he would, by choice, sit in a corner reading any book that he could get more willingly than run, jump, row, or race. When we had holidays he would go away by himself, sometimes on the walls, if it were summer, or in some sheltered nook, if it were winter, contented to be left alone with his printed page. He borrowed books from my father who encouraged him in reading, while he admonished him on account of his faults, and from the vicar, who lent him books, while he warned him against the reports of his character which were noised abroad. Now--I know not how--the boy became secretly inflamed with the ambition of becoming a poet. How he fell into this pitfall, which ended in his ruin, I know not. Certainly it was not from any boys in the school, or from any friend in the town, because there are no books of poetry in Lynn, save those which belong to the parson and the schoolmaster. However, he did conceive the ambition of becoming a poet--secretly, at first, because he was naturally ashamed of being such a fool, but it came out. He read poetry from choice, and rather than anything else. Once, I remember, he was flogged for taking a volume of miscellany poems into church instead of the Book of Common Prayer. The boys were astonished at the crime, because certainly one would much rather read the Book of Common Prayer, in which one knows what to expect, than a book of foolish rhymes. I myself was the first to find out his ambition. It was in this way. Coming out of school one day I picked up a paper which was blown about the square. It was covered with writing. I read some of it, wondering what it might mean. There was a good deal and not a word of sense from beginning to end: the writing was all scored out and corrected over and over again. Thus, not to waste your time over this nonsense, it ran something like this: When the refulgent rays of Sol =began= prevail early =Day= Morn To =A=waken=ed= all the maidens of the dale Lawn Drove Morpheus =shrieking from the beds= away --from the maids and swains. and so on. One is ashamed to repeat such rubbish. While I was reading it however, Sam Semple came running back. "That paper is mine," he cried, with a very red face, snatching it out of my hands. "Well--if it is yours, take it. What does it mean?" "It's poetry, you fool." "If you call me a fool, Sam, you'll get a black eye." He was three inches taller than myself as well as two years older--but this was the way all the boys spoke to him. "You can't understand," he said, "none of you can understand. It's poetry, I tell you." I told my father, who sent for him and in my presence admonished him kindly, first ordering him to submit his verses for correction, as if they were in Latin. It was after school hours: the room was empty save for the three of us--my father sat at his desk where he assumed authority. Outside the schoolroom he was but a gentle creature. "Boy," he said, "as for these verses--I say nothing. They are but immature imitations. You would be a poet. Learn, however, that the lot of him who desires that calling is the hardest and the worst that fate can have in store for an honest man. There are many who can write rhymes: for one who has read Ovid and Virgil, the making of verse is easy. But only one or two here and there, out of millions, are there whose lips are touched with the celestial fire: only one or two whose verses can reach the heart and fire the brain of those who read them." "Sir, may not I, too, form one of that small company?" His cheek flamed and his eyes brightened. For once Sam was handsome. "It may be so. I say nothing to the contrary. Learn, however, that even if genius has been granted, much more will be required. He who would be a great poet must attain, if he can, by meditation and self-restraint, to the great mind. He must be sincere--truthful--courageous--think of that, boy; he must meditate. Milton's thoughts were ever on religious and civil freedom; therefore he was enabled to speak as a prophet." He gazed upon the face of his scholar: the cheek was sallow again; the eyes dull; upon that mean countenance no sign of noble or of lofty thought. My father sighed and went on. "It seems, to a young man, a great thing to be a poet. He will escape--will he?--the humiliations of life. He thinks that he will be no man's servant; he will be independent; he will work as his genius inclines him. Alas! he little knows the humiliations of the starveling poet. No man's servant? There is none--believe me--not even the African slave, who has to feel more of the contempts, the scorns, the servitude of the world. Such an one have I known. He had to bend the knee to the patron, who treated him with open scorn; and to the bookseller, who treated him with contempt undisguised. One may be a poet who is endowed with the means of a livelihood. Such is the ingenious Mr. Pope; or one who has an office to maintain him: such was the immortal John Milton; but, for you and such as you, boy, born in a humble condition, and ordained by Providence for that condition, there is no worse servitude than that of a bookseller's hack. Go, boy--think of these things. Continue to write verses, if by their aid you may in any way become a better man and more easily attain to the Christian life. But accept meanwhile, the ruling of Providence and do thy duty in that station of life to which thou hast been called." So saying he dismissed the boy, who went away downcast and with hanging head. Then my father turned to me. "Son," he said, "let no vain repinings fill thy soul. Service is thy lot. It is also mine. It is the lot of every man except those who are born to wealth and rank. I do not envy these, because much is expected of them--a thing which mostly they do not understand. And too many of these are, truth to say, in the service of Beelzebub. We are all servants of each other; let us perform our service with cheerfulness and even with joy. The Lord, who knows what is best for men, hath so ordained that we shall be dependent upon each other in all things. Servants, I say, are we all of each other. We may not escape the common lot--the common servitude." Let me return to Sam. At the age of fourteen he was taken from school and placed in a countinghouse where his duty was to clean out, sweep, and dust the place every morning; to be at the beck and call of his master; to copy letters and to add up figures. I asked him how he liked this employment. "It is well enough," he said, "until I can go whither I am called. But to serve at adding up the price of barrels of tarpaulin all my life! No, Jack, no. I am made of stuff too good." He continued for three years in this employment. We then heard that he had been dismissed for negligence, his master having made certain discoveries that greatly enraged him. He then went on board ship in the capacity of clerk or assistant to the supercargo, but at the end of his first voyage he was sent about his business. "It is true," he told me, "that there were omissions in the books. Who can keep books below, by the light of a stinking tallow candle, when one can lie on the deck in the sun and watch the waves? But these people--these people--among them all, Jack, there is not one who understands the poet, except your father, and he will have it that the poet must starve. Well, there is another way." But he would tell me no more. That way was this. You know, because it led to the basting. The day after the adventure in the captain's garden, Sam put together all he had, borrowed what money his mother would give him and went off to London by the waggon. After a while a letter came from him. It was addressed to his mother, who brought it to the school because she could not understand what was meant. Sam (I believe he was lying) said that he had been received into the Company of the Wits; his verse, he said, was regarded with respect at the coffee house; he was already known to many poets and booksellers; he asked for a small advance of money and he entreated his mother to let it be known in the town that he was publishing a volume of verse by subscription. His former patrons, he said, would doubtless assist him by giving their names and guineas. The book, he added, would certainly place him among the acknowledged poets of the day--even with Pope and Gay. There was much difference of opinion as to sending the guineas: but a few of the better sort consented, and in due course received their copies. It was a thin quarto with a large margin. The title page was as follows: "MISCELLANY POEMS _by SAM SEMPLE, Gentleman_." "Gentleman!" said the vicar. "How long has Sam been a gentleman? He will next, no doubt, describe himself as esquire. As for the verses--trash--two-penny trash! Alas! And they cost me a guinea!" CHAPTER VIII THE OPENING OF THE SPA The wonderful letter from Sam Semple was received in April. No one from the outset questioned his assertions. This seems wonderful--but they could only be tried by a letter to London or a journey thither. Now our merchants had correspondents in the city of London, but not in the fashionable quarters, and nothing is more certain than that the merchants of this city concerned themselves not at all with the pursuits of fashion or even with the gatherings of the wits in the coffee house. As for the journey to London no one will willingly undertake it unless he is compelled----You may go by way of Ely and Cambridge--but the road nearly all the way to Cambridge lies through the soft and treacherous fen when if a traveller escape being bogged, a hundred to one he will probably acquire an ague which will trouble him for many days afterwards. Or you may go by way of Swaffham and East Dereham through Norwich. By this way there are no fens, but the road to Norwich is practicable only by broad wheeled waggons or on horseback, and I doubt if the forty miles could be covered in less than two days. At Norwich, it is true, there is a better road and a stage coach carries passengers to London in twelve hours. It is therefore a long and tedious journey from Lynn to London and one not to be undertaken without strong reasons. Then--even if the society had entertained suspicions and deputed one or more to make that journey and to inquire as to the truth of the letter, how and where, in so vast a city, would one begin the enquiry. In truth, however, the letter was received without the least suspicion. Yet it was from beginning to end an artfully concocted lie--part of a conspiracy; an invention devised by the desire for revenge; an ingenious device--let us give the devil his due--by one whose only weapon was his cunning. Every man of the "Society" went home brimful of the discovery. The next day the doctor's garden was crowded with people all pressing together, trampling over his currant and gooseberry bushes, drawing up the bucket without cessation in order to taste the water which was to cure all diseases--even like the Pool of Bethesda. Many among them had used the water all their lives without discovering any peculiarity in taste--in fact as if it had been ordinary water conferred upon man by Providence for the brewing of his beer and the making of his punch and the washing of his linen. Now, however, so great is the power of faith, they drank it as it came out of the well--a thing abhorrent to most people who cannot abide plain water. They held it up to the light, admiring its wonderful clearness: they called attention to the beads of air rising in the glass, as a plain proof of its health-giving qualities; they smacked their lips over it, detecting the presence of unknown ingredients: those who were already rheumatic resolved to drink it every day at frequent intervals: after a single draught they felt relief in their joints; they declared that the rheumatic pains were subsiding rapidly: nay, were already gone, and they rejoiced in the strength of their faith as if they were driving an unwelcome guest out through an open door. The doctor made haste to issue and to print his own examination of the water. In this document as I have told you, he very remarkably agreed with the analysis sent down by the egregious Samuel. He appended to his list of ingredients certain cases which he indicated by initials in which the water had proved beneficial: most of them at the outset, were the cases of those who, on the first day, found relief from a single glass. Many more cases afterwards occurred. After the town, the country. The report of the valuable discovery spread rapidly. The farmer folk who brought their produce, pigs, sheep, poultry and cattle to our markets carried the news home with them: the whole town--indeed, in a few hours was as they say, all agog with the discovery and eager, even down to the fo'c'sle seamen to drink of a well which was by this time reported among the ignorant class not only to cure but also to prevent diseases. Then gentlemen began to ride in; on market day there are always gentlemen in the town; they have an ordinary of their own at the _Crown_; they were at first incredulous but they would willingly taste of the spring. As fresh water was comparatively strange to them it is not surprising that some of them detected an indescribable taste which they were readily persuaded to believe was proof of a medicinal character. They were followed by ladies also curious to taste, to prove, and, in many cases, to be cured. Meantime everybody, both of the town and of the country, rejoiced at hearing that it had been decided to take advantage of the discovery in order to convert Lynn Regis, previously esteemed as on the same level as Gosport in the south of England or Wapping by the port of London, into a place of fashionable resort and another Bath or Tunbridge Wells. It was difficult, however, to believe that the old town with its narrow and winding streets, its streams, its bridges, its old decayed courts and ancient pavements could accommodate itself to the wants and the taste--or even the presence of the polite world. Then the news spread further afield. The reverend canons in their secluded close beside their venerable cathedral--whether at Peterborough, Lincoln, Ely or Norwich, heard the story magnified and exaggerated, how at Lynn had been found a spring of water that miraculously healed all wounds, cured all diseases and made the halt to run and the cripple to stand. Better than all it restored the power of drinking port wine to the old divines who had been compelled by their infirmities to give up that generous wine. In their great colleges, a world too wide for the young men who entered them as students, the fellows heard the news and talked about the discovery in the dull combination rooms where the talk was ever mainly of the rents and the dinners, the last brew at the college brewery, yesterday's cards, or the approaching vacancy in a college living. They, too, pricked up their ears at the news because for them as well as their reverend brethren of the cathedral gout and rheumatism were deadly enemies. If only Providence would remove from mankind those two diseases which plague and pester those to whom their lives would otherwise be full of comfort and happiness, cheered by wine and punch, stayed and comforted by the good things ready to the hand of the cook and the housewife. And from all the towns around--from Boston, Spalding, Wisbeach, Bury, Wells, there came messengers and letters of inquiry all asking if the news was true--if people had been already treated and already cured--if lodgings were to be had and so forth. And then the preparations began. The committee went from house to house encouraging and stimulating the people to make ready for such an incursion as the place had never before known even at fair time, and promising a golden harvest. Who would not wish to share in such a harvest? First, lodgings had to be got ready--they must be clean at least and furnished with necessaries. People at the spa do not ask for great things in furniture--they do not desire to sit in their lodgings which are only for sleeping and dressing--a blind in the window or a curtain to keep out the sun and prying eyes,--a bed--a chair--a cupboard--a looking-glass--a table--not even the most fashionable lady asks for more except that the bed be soft and the wainscot and floor of the room be clean. The better houses would be kept for the better sort: the sailors' houses by the Common Stath and the King's Stath would do for the visitors' servants who could also eat and drink in the taverns of the riverside. Houses deserted and suffered to fall into decay in the courts of the town were hastily repaired, the roofs patched up, the windows replaced, the doors and woodwork painted. Everywhere rooms were cleaned: beds were put up, all the mattresses, all the pillows, all the blankets and sheets in the town were brought up and more were ordered from Boston and other places accessible by river or by sea. Certainly the town had never before had such a cleaning while the painters worked all night as well as all day to get through their orders. It was next necessary to provide supplies for the multitude, when they should arrive. I have spoken of the plenty and abundance of everything in the town of Lynn. The plenty is due to the great fertility of the reclaimed land which enables the farmers to grow more than they can sell for want of a market. There is sent abroad, as a rule, to the low countries, much of the produce of the farms. There was therefore no difficulty in persuading the farmers to hold their hands for a week or two, and when the company began to arrive, to send into the town quantities of provisions of all kinds--pork, bacon, mutton, beef, poultry, eggs, vegetables and milk. Boats were engaged for the conveyance of these stores down the river. There would be provided food in abundance. And as for drink there was no difficulty at all in a town which imported whole cargoes of wine every year. I must not forget the preparation made in the churches. There are two in Lynn, ancient and venerable churches both. I believe that they were always much larger than was ever wanted considering the number of the people, but in Norfolk the churches are all too large, being so built for the greater praise and glory of God. However, both in St. Margaret's and in St. Nicholas, the congregations had long since shrunk so that there were wide spaces between the walls and the pews. These spaces were now filled up with new pews for the accommodation of the expected invasion of visitors. I confess that I admire the simple faith in the coming success of the spa which at this time animated not only those most interested as the doctor himself, but also the people of the town who knew nothing except what they were told, namely that the well in the doctor's garden had properties, which were sovereign against certain diseases, and that all the world had learned this fact and were coming to be cured. There were next the public preparations. The necessity of despatch caused the structures to be of wood which, however, when brightly painted, may produce a more pleasing effect than brick. First, there was the pump room. This was built, of course, over the well in the doctor's garden, which it almost covered: it was a square or oblong building, having the well in one corner, and containing a simple room with large sash windows, unfurnished save for a wooden bench running round the wall and two others in the middle of the room. The water was pumped up fresh and cool--it was really a very fine well of water always copious--into a large basin; a long counter ran across the room in front of the basin: the counter was provided with glasses of various sizes and behind the counter were two girls hired as dippers. The doctor's door opened out of the pump room so as to afford readiness and convenience for consultation. Lastly it was necessary to provide for the amusement of the visitors. Everybody knows that for one person who visits a spa for health, there are two who visit it for the amusements and the pleasures and entertainments provided at these places. I have mentioned the open fields within the walls of the town which were anciently covered with the buildings and the gardens of the monks and friars and the nuns. They are planted in some places with trees: for instance below the Lady's Mount, in which is the ancient chapel, there lie fields on which now stand many noble trees. The committee chose this spot for the construction of the assembly rooms. They first enclosed a large portion with a wooden fence: they then laid out the grounds with paths: this done they erected a long room where the assembly might be held, with a smooth and level floor fit for dancing. This room was also to be the resort of the company in the mornings and when the weather was rainy: adjoining the long room was the card room, with one long table and several small tables: and the tea room, where that beverage could be served with drinks and cordials to counteract its (possibly) evil effects. A gallery at one end was ready for the music--outside there was another building for the music to play on fine evenings. I must not forget the decoration of the trees. Nothing could be more beautiful than this avenue after nightfall: lamps of various colours hung on festoons from branch to branch: across the avenue in arches, and from tree to tree in parallel lines: these in the evening produced an appearance of light and colour that ravished the eye of every beholder. Those who knew London declared that in the daytime this place could compare favourably with the Mall in St. James's Park, and in the evening after dark even with the Marylebone Gardens or Vauxhall. All these preparations were pushed forward with the utmost diligence, so that everything, might be ready by the first of May, on which day it was hoped that the season of the spa would commence. Musicians and singers were engaged: they came from London, bringing good recommendation from some of the pleasure gardens where they had performed with credit. They were to play for the dancing on the nights of the assembly; they were also to play in the morning when engaged or bespoke by the gentlemen. They brought with them two or three fiddlers; players on various instruments of brass, and the horns. A dancing master, Mr. Prappit, came from Norwich: he was busy for three weeks before the opening, with the young folks of the town, who had never before danced anything more ambitious than a hey or a jig or a country dance, or a frolic round the May pole. Mr. Prappit was also engaged as master of the ceremonies, a post of great responsibility and distinction. A theatre is a necessary part of every public place: therefore a troop of strolling players received permission to perform three evenings in the week in the large room of the _Duke's Head_ inn: I know not what reputation they had as actors, but I can bear witness that they made as much as they could out of a passion, tearing it, so to speak, to rags, and bawling themselves hoarse, so that at least they earned their money, which was not much, I fear. The cock pit was newly repaired for the lovers of that manly and favourite sport to which the gentlemen of Norfolk are, as is well known, much addicted. For those who prefer the more quiet games there was the bowling green. And lastly, for those who incline to the ruder sports, there were provided masters of fence who could play with quarter staff or cudgel, jugglers and conjurers, with rope dancers, tumblers, merry andrews and such folk, together with a tent for their performance. These details are perhaps below the dignity of history. I mention them in order to let it be understood that the invention--the lying invention of Sam Semple, was bearing the fruit which he most desired in the deception of the whole town. There was never, I believe, so great a deception attempted or carried into effect. Meantime, the work of the town continued as usual. The port had nothing to do with the spa. For my own part I was discharging cargo from _The Lady of Lynn_, and making ready to take in a new cargo. All day I was engaged on board: I slept on board: but in the evening I went ashore and looked on at the preparations, and at this new world of fashion and pleasure the like of which I had never seen before. And, as usual, the ships came into port and dropped anchor off the Stath: or they cleared out and went down the river with the current and the tide. There were two kinds of life in the place when there had never before been more than one: and while the people in one part of the town had nothing to think of but amusement, those at the other part were as usual, engaged in their various work. The clerks ran about with their quills behind their ears; the porters rolled the casks, the bargemen brought their unwieldy craft alongside with many loud sounding oaths and the yohoing without which they can do nothing; and in the taverns the sailors drank and danced and sang, quite unmindful of the people in the streets behind them. The first arrivals were the gentlefolk from the country round Lynn. They learned when everything would be ready and they came in as soon as the gardens were laid out, the long room finished and the first evening announced--they had but a few miles to travel; they engaged the best lodgings and demanded the best provisions. As for wine, they could not have better because there is no better wine than fills the cellars of our merchants or our vintners. As these good people came to the spa it was thought necessary to drink the waters and this they did with much importance, every morning. The natives of Norfolk are, I verily believe, the longest lived and the most healthy people in the whole world. With the exception of ague--they call it the bailiff of Marshland--the people in this county seldom suffer from any disorder and live to a good old age. Yet all with one consent began the day by drinking a glass of the cold bright water served in the pump room. Very few of them, I say, were troubled with any kind of complaint: though the gentlemen are hard drinkers, they are also hard riders and the open air and cold winds of the morning drive out and dissipate the fumes of the evening and its wine. For this reason, though many of our sea captains drink hard at sea, they are never a bit the worse for the fresh salt air is the finest restorative, and a sailor may be drunk once every twenty-four hours and yet live to a hundred and be none the worse. Most of those who drank the waters had never felt any symptoms of gout or rheumatism, lumbago, sciatica, pleurisy, consumption or asthma, or any other disease whatever. They flocked to the pump room in order to drive away even the possibility of these symptoms. To drink the waters for a month, or even for a fortnight, was considered sovereign for the keeping off of all kinds of sickness for at least a whole year to come. It was strange how quite young men and young maidens suddenly conceived this superstitious belief--I can call it nothing but superstition--that those who were perfectly well would be maintained in health--_although_ young people of this age do not commonly contract the diseases above enumerated--by drinking a glass of water every morning. That old men, who will catch at anything that offers to restore health, should resort to this newly discovered universal medicine was not so strange. Captain Crowle, who, to my certain knowledge, had never suffered a day's sickness in the seventy years of his life; who kept his teeth firm and sound; whose hair had not fallen off; who stood firm on his legs and square in his shoulders; who still drank free and devoured his rations as eagerly as any able-bodied sailor, marched every morning to the pump room and took his glass. "Jack," he said, "the discovery is truly miraculous. By the Lord! it will make us all live to be a hundred. Already I feel once more like a man of thirty. I shall shake a leg, yet, at the wedding of Molly's grandchildren." They all consulted the doctor--the sick and the well alike--the former in order to be cured and the latter in order to guard against disease. Now that one knows the foundation of the whole business it is wonderful to reflect upon the number of cures the doctor was able to register in his book: cures about which there could be neither doubt nor dispute, so that one is fain to think that faith alone may be sufficient to drive out rheumatism. The prescription of the worthy doctor rested entirely on the curative power of the water. "You will take," he said to every one who came to him, "every morning before breakfast for choice, a glass of the water. Or, if you prefer first to take a dish of tea, a cup of chocolate, or a draught of beer, do so by all means. In that case take your glass an hour--not more--after breakfast. I prescribe in your case, a dose in a glass numbered A or B--or C"--as the case might be. "It contains seven ounces and six drachms"--or some other weight as the case might be. He was very exact in the size of the glass and the weight of the dose. "This is the exact quantity which operates efficaciously in your case. Do not take more which will not expedite your cure: nor less which will hinder it. Seven ounces and six drachms." The doctor's dignity and gravity indeed were a credit to the town. Out of London, I believe, there was no physician with such outward tokens of science. The velvet coat he now wore habitually: a new wig greatly delayed had been brought from Norwich: his lace and his linen were clean every morning: his fingers became curly from the continual clasp of the guinea. No one, I am sure, expected to find so grave and dignified a physician in a town occupied mainly by rude tarpaulins and their ladies. Where nothing better than a mere apothecary could be expected there was found a physician in manner and in appearance equal to the most fashionable doctor of medicine in London itself. "Before breakfast, madam," he repeated. "Fasting, if possible. If that is not convenient, after breakfast. Think not to hasten the operation of the waters by too generous a use of them. Seven ounces and six drachms in weight. Let that be your daily allowance: that and no more. For your diet, let it be ample, generous, and of the best quality that the market supplies. It is providentially, considering the wants of the spa--the best market in Norfolk, provided with birds of all kinds, both wild and of the farmyard: with beef and mutton fattened on the pastures of Marshland; and with fruit and other things of the very best. Partake plentifully, madam. Do not deny yourself. Tea, you may take if you desire it: very good tea can be obtained of the apothecary at a guinea a pound. For my own part I allow the beverage to be sometimes useful in clearing the brain of noxious vapours and the body of corrupt humours. For wine I recommend Port, Malmesey, Madeira or Lisbon--but not more than one measured pint in the day. You must take exercise gently by walking in the gardens, or in the long room, or by dancing in the evening. And you may maintain cheerfulness of mind, which is beneficial in any case whether of sickness or of health, by taking a hand in the card room." To the gentlemen who had not as yet fallen victims to any of the prevalent diseases he would discourse much after the same fashion. "Put out your tongue, sir--I believe it to be furred---- So.... Dear me! Worse than I suspected. And your pulse? I believe it to be strong. So. As I thought. A little too strong, perhaps even febrile. Your habits, I suppose, include a hearty appetite and a full allowance of strong ale and wine. You ride--you hunt--you attend races, cockpit and sport of all kinds; you are not addicted to reading or to study, and you sometimes play cards." "The doctor," said his patients afterwards, "knew exactly and could tell by my pulse and my tongue my daily way of living. 'Tis wonderful!" "It is my duty to warn you, sir, that you have within you the seeds of gout--of inflammatory gout--which will fix itself first upon the big toe and thus become like a bag of red hot needles. Afterwards it will mount higher--but I will spare you the description of your dying agonies. You may, however, avert this suffering, or postpone it, so that it will only seize upon you should you live to a hundred and twenty, or thereabouts. The surest method is by drinking these waters every year for a week or two. One tumbler every morning fasting. You will take a measured weight of seven ounces and six drachms--" or as I said before some other weight. "I prescribe in your case, no other medicine. Let your diet be generous. Confine yourself to a single bottle of wine a day. Ride as usual and, in fact, live as you are accustomed. Nature, sir, abhors a revolution: she expects to perform her usual work in the usual manner." If any came to him already afflicted with gout or rheumatism he prescribed for them in a similarly easy and simple fashion. "You have been taking colchicum--" or whatever it might have been. "I recommend you on no account to discontinue a medicine to which you are accustomed. Gout is an enemy which may be attacked from many points. While it is resisting so far successfully the attack by the drugs which have been administered to you, I shall attack it from an unsuspected quarter. Ha! I shall fall upon the unguarded flank with an infallible method. You will take, sir, three glasses of water daily; each before meals. Each glass contains the measured weight of seven ounces and six drachms," or some other weight was carefully prescribed. "You will, in other respects, follow the diet recommended by your former physicians." "The doctor," said his patients, "is not one who scoffs at his brethren. On the contrary, he continues their treatment, only adding the water. And you see what I am now." "Observe," the doctor continued, "my treatment is simple. It is so simple that it must command success. I shall expect therefore, to find in you, for your own share in the cure, that faith which assists nature. Nothing so disconcerts an enemy as the confidence of victory on the other side. Before that faith, gout flies, terrified; and nature, triumphant, resumes that nice balanced equilibrium of all the functions which the unlearned call health." The doctor also encouraged his dippers, one of whom was a young woman of attractive appearance and great freedom of tongue, to relate for the benefit of those who drank the waters, cases of cure and rapid recovery. This encouragement caused the girl who had a fine natural gift of embellishment or development, to sing the praises of the spa with a most audacious contempt for the structure of fact. "Lawk, madam!" she would say, using the broad Norfolk accent which I choose to convert into English, because her discourse would be unintelligible save to the folk of the county. "To think what this blessed water can do! That poor gentleman who has just gone out--you saw yourself that he now walks as upright as a lance and as stiff as a recruiting sergeant. He first came to the pump room, was it a fortnight ago or three weeks, Jenny? Twelve days? To be sure. You ought to know--Jenny dipped for him, madam. He was carried in: his very crutches were no good to him; and as for his poor feet, they dangle for all the world like lumps of pork. And his groans,--Lawk!--they would move a heart of stone. Jenny here, who has a feeling heart, though but a humble dipper at your service, madam, like myself and pleased to be of service to so fine a lady, burst into tears when she saw him--didn't you, Jenny, my dear? Before all the people, she did. Well, he drank three tumblers every day--each exactly seven ounces and six drachms in weight--oh! the doctor knows what to do for his patients--did your ladyship ever see a wiser doctor? On the third day he left off groaning: on the fourth he said, 'I feel better, give me my third tumbler.' Didn't he say those very words, Jenny? 'Give me my third,' he said. On the fifth day he walked in by himself. It was on crutches, it is true, for even this water takes its time. Lord forbid that I should tell your ladyship anything but gospel. On the sixth day he used a walking stick: on the seventh, he said, walking upright, his stick over his shoulder, 'If it was not Sunday,' he said, 'I should cut a caper--cut a caper,' he said. Jenny heard him. And now he talks of going home where a sweet young lady, almost as beautiful as your ladyship, waits for him with a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. She couldn't marry a man, could she, madam, with both feet, as a body might say, in the grave? Nobody except the doctor and us dippers, knows the secrets of the spa. If we could talk--but there we are bound to secrecy, because ladies would not let the world know that they have had ailments--but if we could talk, you would be astonished. Tell her ladyship, Jenny, about the old gammer of ninety, while I attend to the company. Yes, sir, coming, sir." And so she rattled on, talking all day long and never tired of inventing these stories. The people listened, laughed, affected disbelief, yet believed. They drank the waters, and put down their twopences, which went into a box kept for the doctor. What with the patients' guineas and the daily harvest of this box he, at least, was in a fair way of proving the truth of his own prophecy that everybody in Lynn would be enriched by the grand discovery. CHAPTER IX SENT TO THE SPA At the outset, though the pump room was full every morning and the gardens and long room in the evening were well attended, the spa lacked animation. The music pleased, the singers pleased, the coloured lamps dangled in chains between the branches and pleased. Yet the company was dull; there was little noise of conversation, and no mirth or laughter; the family groups were not broken up; the people looked at each other and walked round and round in silence; after the first round or so, when they had seen all the dresses, the girls yawned and wanted to sit down. The master of the ceremonies exerted himself in vain. He had hoped so much and promised so much that it was sad to see him standing in front of the orchestra and vainly endeavouring to find couples for the minuet. How should they dance a minuet when there were no leaders to begin? And where were the gentlemen? Most of them were at the tavern or the cockpit, drinking and cockfighting, and making bets. What was the use of calling a country dance when there were none to stand up except ladies and old men? Mr. Prappet, in a blue silk coat and embroidered waistcoat, hat under arm, and flourishing his legs as a fencing master flourishes his arms, fell into despondency. "I make no progress, Mr. Pentecrosse," he said. "I cannot begin with the beaux of the town; they are nautical or rustical, to tell the truth, and they are beneath the gentry of the county. If I begin with them none of the gentry will condescend either to dance with them or to follow them, and so the character of the assembly will be gone. We must obey the laws of society. We want rank, sir. We want a leader. We want two or three people of fashion, otherwise these county families, none of whom will yield precedence to any other, and will not endure that one should stand up before the other, will never unbend. They are jealous. Give me a leader--a nobleman--a baronet--a lady of quality--and you shall see how they will fall in. First, the nobility, according to rank; after them, the gentry; then the town degrees must be observed. But, in order to observe degrees, sir, we must have rank among us. At present we are a mob. An assembly in the polite world should be like the English Constitution, which, Mr. Pentecrosse, consists of Lords and Commons--Ladies, and the wives and daughters of commoners." To me it was amusing only to see the people in their fine dresses marching round and round while the music played, trailing their skirts on the floor, swinging their hoops, and handling their fans; for the lack of young men, talking to the clergy from the cathedrals and the colleges, and casting at each other glances of envy if one was better dressed, or of scorn when one was worse dressed than themselves. "As for the men, Jack," said Captain Crowle, "I keep looking about me. I try the pump room in the morning, the ordinary at dinner, the taverns after dinner. My lad, there is not one among them all who is fit to be mated with our Molly. Gentlemen, are they? I like not the manner of these gentlemen. They are mostly young, but drink hard already. If their faces are red and swollen at twenty-five, what will they be at forty? My girl shall marry none of them. Nor shall she dance with them. She shall stay at home." In fact, during the first week or two after the opening of the spa, Molly remained at home and was not seen in the long room or in the gardens. The town was nearly full, many of the visitors having to put up with mean lodgings in the crazy old courts, of which there are so many in Lynn, when the first arrival from London took place. It was that of a clergyman named Benjamin Purdon, Artium Magister, formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a man of insignificant presence, his figure being small and thin, but finely dressed. His head was almost hidden by a full ecclesiastical wig. Apparently he was between forty and fifty years of age; he looked about him and surveyed the company with an air of superiority, as if he had been a person of rank. He spoke with a loud, rather a high voice; his face was pale and his hands, which he displayed, were as white as any woman's, on one finger he wore a large ring with a stone on which were carved three graces, or Greek goddesses, standing in a row. To some the ring was a stumbling-block, as hardly in accordance with the profession of a divine. "Art," however, he was wont to say, "knows nothing of Eve's apple and its consequences. Art is outside religion;" and so forth. Fustian stuff, it seems to me, looking back; but at that time we were carried away by the authority of the man. He came to us down the river by a tilt boat from Cambridge, and accepted, contentedly, quite a humble lodging, barely furnished with a chair and a flock bed. "Humility becomes a divine," he said, in a high, authoritative voice. "The room will serve. A coal fire and an open window will remove the mustiness. Who am I that I should demand the luxuries of Lucullus? The Cloth should daily offer an example. We must macerate the flesh." He was thin, but he certainly practised not maceration. "We must subdue the body. To him who meditates a hovel becomes a palace. There is an ordinary, you say, daily at the 'Crown'--At two shillings? For the better subjugation of the carnal appetite it should have been one and sixpence. Nevertheless, I have heard of the green goslings of Lynn. Perhaps I shall now be privileged to taste them. There were excellent ruffs and reeves when I was at college that came to the market-place from the fens in the May time. You have a Portuguese trade I am told--in wine, I hope, otherwise we are not likely to get anything fit for a gentleman to drink. It is, indeed, little that I take; were it not for my infirmities, I should take none. Your port, I hope, is matured. More sickness is caused by new wine than by any other cause. Give me wine of twenty years--but that is beyond hope in this place. If it is three, four, or five years old, I shall be fortunate beyond my expectation." He did not say all these fine things at once, or to one person; but by bits to his brother clergyman, the vicar of St. Margaret's; to Captain Crowle, to the mayor, to the landlady of the Crown Inn, to the ladies in the long room. "You see me as I am, a poor scholar, a humble minister of the church--_servus servorum_, to use the style and title of the Pope; one who despises wealth." Yet his cassock was of thick silk and his bands were laced. "I live in London because I can there find, when I want it, a lectureship for my preaching, and a library--that of Sion College--for my reading, study, meditation, and writing. I leave behind me, unfinished, my work--my _magnum opus_--forgive the infirmity natural to man of desiring to live in the memory of men. I confess that I look forward with pleasure to future fame: my 'History of the Early Councils' will be a monument--if I may be permitted so to speak of it--a monument of erudition. I come here by order of my physician. Ladies, this sluggish body, which gives us so much trouble, must be kept in health (as well as in subjection) if we would perform the tasks laid down for us. The waters which I am about to drink will, under Providence, drive away those symptoms which have made my friends, rather than myself, anxious. As for me, what cause have I for anxiety? Why should I not be ready to lay down pen and book, and teach no more?" He was, perhaps--though we must allow a good deal to his profession--too fond of preaching. He preached in the morning at the pump room. Holding a glass of water to the light, he discoursed on the marvels of Providence in concealing sovereign remedies under the guise of simple water, such as one may find in any running brook to all appearance, and yet so potent. He would preach in the gardens. He would show the piety of his character even when taking supper--a cold chicken and a bottle of Lisbon--in an alcove beside the dancing platform. In this way he rapidly acquired a great reputation, and drew after him every day a following of ladies; there are always ladies who desire nothing so much as pious talk on matters of religion with one who has a proper feeling for the sex, and is courteous and complimentary, deferent and assiduous, as well as learned, pious, and eloquent. The good man, for his part, was never tired of conversing with these amiable ladies, especially with the younger sort; but I believe there were jealousies among them, each desiring the whole undivided man for herself, which is not uncommon even among ladies of the strictest profession in religion. It was presently learned that Mr. Purdon had offered to take the services at St. Nicholas for a few weeks in order to enable the curate to attend the bedside of a parent. He undertook this duty without asking for any fee or pay, a fact which greatly increased his reputation. He continued the morning services, now held in a well-filled church, and delivered a sermon on Sunday morning. Never before had the good people who sat in the church heard discourses of so much eloquence, such close reasoning, such unexpected illustrations; with passages so tender and so pathetic. The women wept; the men cleared their throats; the sermons of his reverence drew after him the whole company, except those who spent their Sunday morning at the tavern, and also excepting the clergymen of the cathedrals and the colleges. These, for some reason, looked upon him with distrust. Among those who thus regarded him was the vicar of St. Margaret's, the Rev. Mark Gentle. He was, to begin with, the very opposite of the other in all respects. He lived simply, drinking no wine; he was a silent man, whose occasional words were received with consideration; he was a great scholar, with a fine library. His discourses were not understood by the congregation, but they were said to be full of learning. He did not make himself agreeable to the ladies; he never talked of religion; he never spoke of his own habits or his own learning. He was a tall spare man with a thin face and a long nose, of the kind which is said to accompany a sense of humour; and he had sometimes a curious light in his eye like the flash of a light in the dark. "The Reverend Benjamin Purdon," he said, with such a flash, "interests me greatly. He is a most learned person--indeed, he says so, himself. I quoted a well-known passage of a Greek tragedy to him yesterday, and he said that his Hebrew he left behind him when he came into the country. We must not think that this proves anything. A man's ear may be deceived. I offered him the use of my library, but he declined. That proves nothing, either, because he may not wish to read at present. I hear that the women weep when he preaches; and that proves nothing. Sir, I should like the opinion of Sion College, which is a collection of all the rectors and vicars of the city churches, as to the learning of this ecclesiastic. He is, doubtless, all that he proclaims himself. But, after all, that means nothing. We shall probably learn more about him. Whatever we learn will, we may confidently expect, redound to his credit, and increase his reputation." This he said in my presence, to my father. "I know not," he replied, "how much this learned theologian professes, but humility is not one of his virtues. I offered, meeting him in the Herb Market yesterday, to show him the school as a venerable monument erected for the sake of learning three hundred years ago. 'Pedagogue!' he answered. 'Know thy place!' So he swept on his way, swelling under his silken cassock." Captain Crowle, however, with many others, was greatly taken with him. "Jack," he said, "the London clergyman shames our rusticity. Learning flows from him with every word he speaks. He makes the women cry. He is full of pious sentiment. If we have many visitors so edifying, this discovery is like to prove for all of us the road to heaven as well as the means of wealth." Alas! the road to heaven seldom, so far as I understand, brings the pilgrim within reach of the means of wealth. But this the captain could not understand, because he had been amassing wealth for his ward, not for himself, and therefore knew not the dangers of the pursuit. The Reverend Benjamin Purdon was only a forerunner. He was followed by the rest of the company--the delectable company--brought together for our destruction. I would not willingly anticipate the sequel of these arrivals among us, but there are moments when I am fain to declare a righteous wrath. As for revenge--but it would be idle to speak of revenge. When a man has taken all that he can devise or procure in the way of revenge--bodily pain, ruin, loss of position, exposure, everything--the first injury remains untouched. This cannot be undone; nor can the injury be atoned by any suffering or any punishment. Revenge, again, grows more hungry by what should satisfy it; revenge is never satisfied. Revenge has been forbidden to man because he cannot be trusted. It is the Lord's. In this case it was the Lord who avenged our cause, and, I believe, turned the injury into a blessing, and made our very loss a ladder that led to heaven. A day or two after Mr. Purdon's arrival came a carriage and four containing a very fine lady indeed, with her maid and her man. She drove to the Crown, the people all looking after her. A large coat of arms was emblazoned on the door of her carriage, with a coronet and supporters; her man was dressed in a noble livery of pale green with scarlet epaulettes. A little crowd gathered round the door of the Crown while the footman held the door open and the lady spoke with the landlord. "Sir," she said, inclining her head graciously and smiling upon the crowd, "I have been directed to ask for thy good offices in procuring a lodging. I am a simple person, but a body must have cleanliness and room to turn about." "Madam," said the landlord, "there is but one lodging in the town which is worthy of your ladyship. I have, myself, across the market-place, a house which contains three or four rooms. These I would submit to your ladyship's consideration." This was an excellent beginning. The lady took the rooms at the rent proposed and without haggling; there were two bedrooms, for herself and her maid, and one room in which she could sit; the man found lodgings elsewhere. It appeared from his statement that his mistress was none other than the Lady Anastasia, widow of the late Lord Langston, and sister of the living Earl of Selsey. It was, therefore, quite true, as Sam Semple had announced, that persons of quality were coming to the spa. The Lady Anastasia, at this time was about twenty-six years of age, or perhaps thirty, a handsome woman still, though no longer in the first flush of her beauty. Her dress, as well as her manner, proclaimed the woman of fashion. I confess that, as a simple sailor, one who could not pretend to be a gentleman and had never before seen a woman of rank, much less conversed with one, I was quite ready, after she had honoured me with a few words of condescension and kindness, to become her slave. She could bear herself with the greatest dignity and even severity, as certain ladies discovered who presumed upon her kindness and assumed familiarity. But while she could freeze with a frown and humiliate with a look, she could, and did, the next moment subdue the most obdurate, and disarm the most resentful with her gracious smile and with her voice, which was the softest, the most musical and the most moving that you can imagine. She had been a widow for two or three years, and, having now put off the weeds, she was rejoicing at the freedom which the world allows to a young widow of fortune and of rank. You may be sure that the news of her arrival was speedily spread through the town. On the first night Lady Anastasia remained in her lodgings; but the ringers of St. Margaret's gave her a welcome with the bells, and in the morning the horns saluted her with a tune and a flourish under her windows. To the ringers she sent her thanks, with money for a supper and plenty of beer, and to the horns she sent out a suitable present of money, also with thanks. Later on, a deputation, consisting of the mayor in his robes and his gold chain, accompanied by the aldermen in their gowns, the vicar in his cassock and gown, the doctor in his best velvet coat and his biggest wig, and Captain Crowle in his Sunday suit of black cloth, waited on the Lady Anastasia. They marched along the street from the town hall, preceded by the beadle in his green coat with brass buttons and laced hat, carrying the borough mace, all to do honour to this distinguished visitor. They were received by the lady reclining on the sofa. Beside her stood her maid in a white apron and a white cap. At the door stood her man in his green livery--very fine. As for the Lady Anastasia's dress, I will attempt on another occasion a more particular description. Suffice it to say that it was rich and splendid. The reception which she accorded to the deputation was most gracious and condescending, in this respect surpassing anything that they had expected. They looked, indeed, for the austerity and dignity of rank, and were received by the affability which renders rank wherein it is found, admired and respected. Indeed, whatever I shall have to relate concerning this lady, it must be acknowledged that she possessed the art of attracting all kinds of people, of compelling their submission to her slightest wishes and of commanding their respectful affection. So much I must concede. The mayor bade her welcome to the spa. "Madam," he said, "this town until yesterday was but a seaport, and we ourselves for the most part merchants and sailors. We are not people of fashion; we do not call ourselves courtiers; but you will find us honest. And we hope that you will believe in our honesty when we venture, with all respect, to declare ourselves greatly honoured by this visit of your ladyship." "Indeed, worshipful sir, and reverend sir--and you, gentlemen, I am grateful for your kind words. I am here only in the pursuit of health. I want nothing more, believe me, but to drink your sovereign waters--of which my physician speaks most highly--and when my health allows me, to attend your church." "We hope to offer your ladyship more than the pump room," the mayor continued. "We have devised, in our humble way, rooms for the entertainment of the company with music and gardens, and we hope to have an assembly for dancing in the long room. They are not such entertainments as your ladyship is accustomed to adorn, but such as they are, we shall be deeply honoured if you will condescend to join them. You will find the gentry, and their ladies, of the county and others not unworthy of your ladyship's acquaintance." "Sir, I accept your invitation with great pleasure. These gaieties are, indeed unexpected. I look forward, gentlemen, to making the acquaintance, before many days, of your ladies as well." So she rose and dropped a curtsey, while her man threw open the door and the deputation withdrew. The doctor remained behind. "Madam," he said, "you have been ordered--advised--by your physician to try the waters of our spa. Permit me, as the only physician of the town, an unworthy member of that learned college, to take charge of your health during your stay. Your ladyship will allow me to feel your pulse. Humph! It beats strong--a bounding pulse--as we of the profession say. A bounding pulse. To be sure your ladyship is in the heyday of life, with youth and strength. A bounding pulse. Some of my brethren might be alarmed as at febrile indications; they would bleed you--even _ad plenum rivum_--forgive the Latin. For my own part I laugh at these precautions. I find in the strength of the pulse nothing but the ardour of youth. I see no necessity for reduction of strength by blood letting. Your ladyship will perhaps detail the symptoms for which this visit to the spa was ordered." The lady obeyed. "These symptoms," said the doctor, "are grave. As yet they are menacing only. Nature has given warning. Nature opens her book so that we who know her language may read. We meet her warnings by sharp action. Your ladyship will, therefore, while continuing the course recommended by my learned brother, take one glass of the water daily; in the morning, before breakfast, fasting. Each dose must contain seven ounces and six drachms. I shall have the honour to visit your ladyship daily, and we will regulate the treatment according to the operation of the water." "And must I give up the innocent pleasures offered me by your friends, doctor? Surely, you will not be so cruel." "By no means, madam. Partake of all--of all--in moderation. Cards are good, if you like them. Dancing, if you like it--with your symptoms you must, above all things, nourish the body and keep the mind in cheerfulness." The doctor withdrew and proceeded to relate to the pump room some particulars, with embellishments, of his interview with the Lady Anastasia. "Nothing," he said, "can be imagined more gracious than her manner. It is at once dignified and modest. 'I trust myself entirely to your hands,' she said. What an example to patients of lower rank! 'I rely entirely on your skill and knowledge,' she added. It should be a lesson for all. I confess that it is gratifying even though the compliment was not undeserved, and the confidence is not misplaced. We may look for her ladyship in the long room this evening. I hope to present to her many of the ladies of the company. It is a great thing for the visitors and patients of the spa, that this accession of rank and fashion has arrived. Her beauty will prove more attractive to the gentlemen than the cockpit and the tavern; her manners and her dress will be the admiration of the ladies. She will lead in the dance, she will be queen of the spa. The widow of the right honourable the Lord Langston, the daughter and the sister of the right honourable the Earl of Selsey"--he rolled out the titles as if he could not have too much of them or too many--"has come among us. We will restore her to health by means of our spa; she will instruct our young folk in the manners of the polite world." In the evening the lady came to the long room soon after the music commenced. Mr. Prappet, bowing low, invited her to honour the evening by dancing a minuet. He presented a gentleman, the son of a Norfolk squire, who, with many blushes, being still young, led out this lady, all jewels, silk, ribbons, and patches, and with such grace as he could command, performed the stately dance of the fashionable assembly. [Illustration: "HE PRESENTED A GENTLEMAN, THE SON OF A NORFOLK SQUIRE."] This done, the master of the ceremonies presented another gentleman, and her ladyship condescended to a second dance--after which she retired and sat down. The first gentleman then danced with another lady; the second gentleman succeeded him, and dance followed dance. Mr. Prappet presented to Lady Anastasia those of the ladies who belonged to the gentry, and she was presently surrounded by a court or company, with whom she discoursed pleasantly and graciously. The spa had found a leader; the assembly was no longer frigid and constrained; everybody talked and everybody laughed; the family groups were broken up; none of the younger gentlemen deserted the assembly for the cockpit; and when the country dance began and Lady Anastasia led, dancing down the middle, taking hands and freely mixing with ladies who had no pretensions to family, being perhaps the daughters of merchants, and those in Lynn itself, the barriers were broken down, and without setting themselves apart on account of family pride, the whole company gave itself up to pleasure. When the music ceased, there was a run upon the supper tables, and you could hear nothing but the drawing of corks, the clicking of knives and forks, the music of pleasant talk, and the laughter of girls. When, at midnight, the Lady Anastasia called for her chair, a dozen young gentlemen sprang up to escort her home, walking beside the chair to her lodgings, and bowing low as she ran up the steps of her house. The next arrival from London was a person of less consequence. He was quite an old gentleman, who was brought, it appeared, by easy stages in a post-chaise. The roughness of the road, especially towards the end, had shaken him to such an extent that he was unable even to get out of the chaise, and was carried into the house, where they found him a lodging and put him to bed. His man told the people that this was Sir Harry Malyns, a baronet and country gentleman, whose life was wholly devoted to the pleasures of town. Those who had seen the withered old anatomy carried out of his carriage laughed at the thought of this ancient person still devoted to the pleasures of the town. "Nay," said the varlet, grinning, "but wait till you see him dressed. Wait till he has passed through my hands. You think he is at his last gasp. Indeed, I thought so myself when I gave him his sack posset and put him to bed, but he will recover. Sir Harry is not so old but he can still bear some fatigues." And, indeed, you may imagine the surprise of those who had seen him the day before, when, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, Sir Harry came out of the house and walked along the street. In place of a decrepit old man they saw the most gallant and the most bravely dressed beau that you can imagine. He appeared from the back and from either side--where his face was not visible--a young gentleman in the height of fashion. To be sure there was a certain unsteadiness of gait, and if his foot struck against an uneven piece of pavement you might perceive his knees knocking together and his legs beginning to tremble. But he rallied bravely, and went on. He carried his hat under his arm, a coloured cane dangled from his right wrist, his left hand carried a gold snuffbox with a lady painted on the outside. He walked with an affected step, such as we call mincing, and when he came to the pump room he entered it upon his toes, with his knees bent and his arms extended. For an example of the manners which mean nothing but affectation and pretence, there was no one at the spa who could compare with old Sir Harry. The pump room was tolerably full of people who came in the forenoon to talk. Sir Harry, pretending not to observe the curiosity with which he was regarded, introduced himself to a gentleman by means of his snuffbox. "Sir," he said, "have we any company at the spa?" He looked round the room as if disdainfully. "Fine women, of course, we have. Norfolk is famous for fine women and fat turkeys; but as for company?" "Sir, we have many of the country gentry of Norfolk and Lincolnshire; we have divines from the cathedral cities, and scholars from Cambridge." "But of company--such as a gentleman may call company?" "Why, sir," said the other, himself a plain gentleman of Norfolk, "if you are not satisfied with what you see, you had better find some other place for your exalted society." "Pray, sir, forgive me. I am but recently arrived from London. No doubt the assembly is entirely composed of good families. I am myself but a country gentleman and a simple baronet. I used the word company in a sense confined to town." "Well, sir, since you are no better than the rest of us, I may tell you that we have among us a certain lady of rank--the Lady Anastasia Langston----" "Pray, sir, pray--excuse me. Not a 'certain' Lady Anastasia. If you have the Lady Anastasia, you have, let me tell you, the very pearl of highest fashion. If she is here, you are indeed fortunate. One woman of her beauty, grace, wealth, rank, and goodness is enough to make the fortune of the spa. Bath worships her; Tunbridge prays for her return; there will be lamentation when it is known that she has deserted these places for the newly discovered waters of Lynn." "Indeed, sir, we ought to feel greatly honoured." "You ought, sir. Your ladies of Norfolk will learn more from her, as concerns the great world and the world of fashion, in a week than they could learn at the assembly of Norwich in a year. The Lady Anastasia carries about with her the air which stamps the woman of the highest fashion. She walks like a goddess, she talks like an angel, and she smiles like a nymph--if there are such nymphs, woodland or ocean nymphs--who wear hoops, put on patches, build up headdresses, and brandish fans." There was another whose arrival from London caused no ringing of bells and salutations by the horns. This was a certain Colonel Lanyon, who wore the king's scarlet, having served and received promotion in the king's armies. He was about forty years of age; a big, blustering fellow who rolled his shoulders as he walked along and took the wall of everybody. He began, as he continued, by spending his time in the card room, at the cockpit, at the badger drawing, bull baiting, horse racing, cudgel playing--wherever sport was going on or betting to be made. He drank the hardest, he played the deepest, he swore the loudest, he was always ready to take offence. Yet he was tolerated and even liked, because he was good company. He sang songs, he told anecdotes, he had seen service in the West Indies and in many other places, he had passed through many adventures; he assumed, and successfully, the manner of a good sportsman--free with his money, who played deep, paid his debts of honour at once, and expected to be paid in like manner. Now the gentlemen of Norfolk esteem a good sportsman above all things, and readily pass over any little faults in a man who pleases them in this respect. As for the ladies, the colonel made no attempt to win their good graces, and was never seen either in the long room or the gardens or the assembly. CHAPTER X "OF THE NICEST HONOUR" Last of all came the prince of this company, whom I now know was the arch villain, Lord Fylingdale himself. We were prepared for his arrival by a letter from Sam Semple. He wrote to the doctor informing him that my lord was about to undertake his journey to Lynn, that he hoped to complete it in three days, and that he would probably arrive on such a day. He further stated that the best rooms at the Crown Inn were to be engaged, and that he, himself, namely, Sam, would accompany his lordship in the capacity of private secretary and, as he put it, confidential companion. To write such a letter to the doctor was to proclaim it as from the house-top. In fact, the good doctor made haste to read it aloud in the pump room and to communicate the news to the mayor and aldermen. Sir Harry, being asked if he knew his lordship, shook his head. "We of the gay world," he said, speaking as a young man, "do not commonly include Lord Fylingdale among the beaux and bucks. There is in him a certain haughtiness which forbids the familiarities common among ourselves." "Is he, then, a saint?" "Why, sir, I know nothing about saints. There are none, I believe, among my friends. I have, however, seen Lord Fylingdale on the race-course at Newmarket, and I have seen him at the tables when the game of hazard was played. And I have never yet seen saint or angel at either place." "Then how is Lord Fylingdale distinguished?" "Partly by his rank, but that is not everything. Partly by his wealth, but that is not everything. Partly by his superiority, which is undoubted. For he has none of the foibles of other men; if he sits down to a bottle he does not call for t'other; if he plays cards he wins or he loses with equal composure, caring little which it may turn out; his name has never been mentioned with that of any woman. Yet the world is eager after scandal, and would rejoice to whisper something concerning him." "He will condescend to despise us, then," said the vicar of St. Margaret's, "seeing that our world is wholly addicted to sport, and takes fortune with heat and passion." "Not so, reverend sir. He will, perhaps, attend our entertainments, but his mind is set above such vanities. As for me, sir, I own that I live for them. But my Lord Fylingdale lives for other things." "He is ambitious, perhaps. Has he thoughts of place and of the ministry?" Sir Harry took snuff. "Pardon me, sir. The world talks. I love the world, but I do not always talk with the world. It may be that there are reasons of state which bring him to this neighbourhood. I say nothing." But he pointed over his shoulder and nodded his head with meaning. It will be remembered that Houghton, the seat of Sir Robert Walpole, then the minister all powerful, is but a few miles from Lynn. The crowd heard and whispered, and the rumour ran that under pretence of seeking health, Lord Fylingdale was coming to Lynn in order ... here the voice dropped, and the rest fell into the nearest ear. The Rev. Mr. Purdon was more eloquent. "What?" he cried, "Lord Fylingdale coming here? Lord Fylingdale? Why, what can his lordship want at Lynn?" "We have heard that he is sent here to drink the waters." Mr. Purdon shook his head wisely. "It may be. I do not say that.... There is perhaps gout in the family.... But with a personage--a personage, I say, there are many reasons which prompt to action. However----" "Pray, sir, if you know him, inform us further as to his lordship." "Madam, I was his tutor. I accompanied him on the grand tour. I therefore knew him intimately when he was a young man of eighteen. I have been privileged with his condescension since that time. He is at once a scholar, a critic, and a connoisseur; he hath a pretty taste in verse and can discourse of medals and of cameos. He is also a man of fashion who can adorn an assembly just as he adorns, when it pleases him, the House of Lords. Yet not a fribble like certain persons"--he looked at Sir Harry--"nor a beau, nor a profligate Mohock. Pride he has, I allow. What do you expect of a man with such birth and such ancestry? His pride becomes him. Lesser men can be familiar. He is said to be cold towards the fair sex--I can contradict that calumny. Not coldness but fastidiousness is his fault. 'My Lord,' I have said to him often, 'to expect the genius of Sappho, the beauty of Helen, and the charms of Cleopatra, is to ask too much. Not once in an age is such a woman created. Be content, therefore,' I ventured to add. 'Genius will smile upon you; loveliness will languish for you; dignity will willingly humble herself at your feet.' But I have spoken in vain. He is fastidious. Ladies, if I were young; if I were a noble lord; if I were rich; it is to Norfolk, believe me, that I should fly, contented with the conquests awaiting me here. This is truly a land of freedom where to be in chains and slavery is the happy lot." This was the kind of talk with which we were prepared to await the coming of this paladin. He arrived. Late in the day about seven o'clock, there came into the town, side by side, his lordship's running footmen. They were known by the white holland waistcoat and drawers belonging to their calling, the white thread stockings, white caps, and blue satin fringed with velvet. In their hands they carried a porter's staff tipped with a silver ball, in which I suppose was carried a lemon. The rogues trotted in, without haste, for the roads were bad behind them, and placed themselves at the door of the Crown Inn, one on each side. The landlord stood in the open door, his wife behind him; and speedily half the town gathered together to witness the arrival of the great man. His carriage came lumbering heavily along the narrow streets. Within, beside his lordship, sat, as grand as you please, our poet Sam Semple. It was admirable to remark the air with which he sprang out of the carriage, offered his arm for the descent of his patron, followed him into the inn, demanded the best rooms, ordered a noble supper, and looked about him with the manner of a stranger and a gentleman, as if the host of the "Crown" had never boxed his ears for an idle good-for-nothing who could not even make out a bill aright. The bells were set ringing for Lord Fylingdale as they had been for the Lady Anastasia; in the morning the horns saluted the illustrious visitor; and about eleven o'clock, when his lordship was dressed, the mayor and aldermen, preceded by the bearer of the mace and accompanied by the clergy of the town and the doctor, offered a visit of welcome and congratulation. They retired overwhelmed by the condescension of their guests. "One does not expect," said the doctor, "the gracious sweetness of a lady; but we received every possible mark of politeness and of consideration. As for the mayor, his lordship treated him as if he were the lord mayor of London itself. And for my own part, when I remained on the departure of the rest, I can only say that I was overwhelmed with the confidence bestowed upon me. There has been talk in this pump room," he looked around him, "of other reasons--reasons of state--and of pretended sickness. The company may take it from me--from ME, I say--that whatever may be the reasons of state, it is not for us to offer any opinion as to those reasons, the symptoms which have been imparted to me in confidence are such that a visit to the spa is imperative; and treatment, with drinking of the waters, is absolutely necessary." "This Lord Fylingdale, Jack," said Captain Crowle, who was one of the deputation, "is a mighty fine gentleman, well favoured and well mannered. I have not yet learned more about him. They say at the pump room many things. He received us with condescension and was good enough to promise attendance at our assembly, though, he said, these occasions do not afford him so much pleasure as other pursuits. 'Tis a fine thing, Jack, to be a nobleman and to have so much dignity; since I have spoken with the Lady Anastasia I find myself trying to look condescending. But the quarter-deck is one place and the House of Lords is another. The captain of a ship, Jack, if he were affable, would very quickly get knocked o' the head by his crew." Meantime Sam Semple showed good sense in going round to visit his old friends. Among others he called upon Captain Crowle, to whom he behaved, with singular discernment, in such a way as would please the old man. For on board ship we like a cheerful sailor, one who takes punishment without snivelling, and bears no malice thereafter. A ship is like a boys' school, where a flogging wipes out the offence, and master and boy become good friends after it, whatever the heinousness of the crime. "Sir," said Sam, standing before the captain, modestly, "you will understand, first of all, that I am reminded, in coming here, of the last time that I saw you." "Ay, my lad, I have not forgotten." The captain did not rise from his armchair, nor did he offer Sam his hand. He waited to learn in what spirit the young man approached him. "Believe me, sir," said Sam, "I am not unmindful of a certain lesson, rough perhaps, but deserved. The presumption of youth, ignorance of the world, ignorance of the prize to which I aspired, may be my excuse--if any were needed. I was then both young and ignorant." It must be admitted that Sam possessed the gift of words. "Indeed, I was too young to understand the humble nature of my origin and my position, and too ignorant to understand my own presumption. Therefore, sir, before I say anything more, I beg your forgiveness. That presumption, sir, can never, I assure you, be repeated. I know, at least, my own place, and the distance between a certain young lady and myself." "Why, my lad," said the captain, "since you talk in that modest way, I bear no malice--none. Wherefore, here is my hand in token of forgiveness. And so, on that head we will speak no more." He extended his hand, which Sam took, still in humble attitude. "I am deeply grateful, captain," he said. "You will, perhaps, before long find out how grateful I can be." Time, in fact, did show the depth of his gratitude. "Well, sir, I am now in high favour with my Lord Fylingdale, on whom you waited this morning." "I hope his favour will end in a snug place, Sam. Forget not the main point. Well, your patron is a goodly and a proper man to look at. Sit down, Sam. Take a glass of home brewed--you must want it after the ale of London, which is, so far as I remember, but poor stuff. Well, now, about your noble lord. He is a married man, I suppose?" "Unfortunately, no. He is difficult to please." "Ah! and, I suppose, like most young noblemen, something of a profligate--eh, Sam? Or a gambler, likely! one who has ruined many innocents. Eh?" The captain looked mighty cunning. "Sir, sir!" Sam spread out his hands in expostulation. "You distress me. Lord Fylingdale a profligate? Lord Fylingdale a gambler? Lord Fylingdale a libertine? Sir!--Captain Crowle!" He spoke very earnestly; the tears came into his eyes; he laid his hand upon the captain's knee. "Sir, I assure you, he is, on the contrary, the best of men. There is no more virtuous nobleman in the country. My tongue is tied as his lordship's secretary, else would I tell of good deeds. Truly, his right hand knoweth not what his left hand doeth. My lord is all goodness." "Ay, ay? This is good hearing indeed." "Lord Fylingdale a gambler? Why he may take part at a table; but a gambler? No man is less a gambler. What doth it matter to him if he wins or loses a little? He neither desires to win, nor does he fear to lose. You will, I dare say, see him in the card room, just to encourage the spirit of the company." "A very noble gentleman, indeed." The captain drank a glass of his home brewed, "a very noble gentleman truly. Go on, Samuel." "Also, he is one who, captain, if there is one thing in the world that my patron abhors, it is the man who ruins innocency and leaves his victim to starve. No, sir; his lordship is a man of the nicest honour and the highest principle." "He has a secretary who is grateful, at least," observed the captain. "His sword is ever ready to defend the helpless and to uphold the virtuous. Would to heaven there were more like the right honourable the Earl of Fylingdale!" "Look ye, Master Sam," said the captain. "Your good opinion of your patron does you credit. I honour you for your generous words. I have never so far, and I am now past seventy, encountered any man who was either saint or angel, but in every man have I always found some flaw, whether of temper or of conduct. So that I do not pretend to believe all that you make out." Sam Semple sighed and rose. "I ask not for your entire belief, sir. It will be sufficient if you learn, as I have learned, the great worth of this exalted and incomparable nobleman. As for flaws, we are all human; but I know of none. So I take my leave. I venture to hope, sir, that your good lady and your lovely ward--I use the word with due respect--are in good health." So he departed, leaving the captain thoughtful. And now they were all among us, the vile crew brought together for our undoing by this lord so noble and so exalted. And we were already entangled in a whole mesh of lies and conspiracies, the result of which you have now to learn. CHAPTER XI THE HUMOURS OF THE SPA And now began that famous month--it lasted very little more--when the once godly town of Lynn was delivered over to the devil and all his crew. We who are natives of the place speak of that time and the misfortunes which followed with reluctance; we would fain forget that it ever fell upon us. To begin with, the place was full of people. They came from all the country round; not only did the gentlefolk crowd into the town and the clergy from the cathedral towns and the colleges, but there were also their servants, hulking footmen, pert lady's maids, with the people who flock after them, creatures more women than men; the hairdressers, barbers, milliners, dressmakers, and the creatures who deal in things which a fashionable woman cannot do without, those who provide the powder, patches, cosmetics, _eau de Chypre_, and washes for the complexion, the teeth, the hands, and the face; the jewellers and those who deal in gold and silver ornaments; the sellers of lace, ribbons, gloves, fans, and embroidery of all kinds. Our shops, humble enough to look upon from the outside, became treasure houses when one entered; and I verily believe that the ladies of the spa took greater pleasure in turning over the things hidden away behind the shop windows, and not exposed to the vulgar gaze, than in any of the entertainments offered them. Every other house in Mercer Street and Chequer Row was converted into a shop for the sale of finery; at the door of each stood the shopman or the shopwoman, all civility and assurance, inviting an entrance. "Madam," said one, "I have this day received by the London waggon a consignment of silks which it would do you good only to see and to feel. Enter, madam; the mere sight is better for the vapours than all the waters of the pump room. Look at these silks before they are all sold. John, the newly arrived silks for their ladyships," and so on, all along the streets while the ladies walked slowly over the rough paving stones, followed by their footmen with their long sticks, and their insolent bearing. Indeed, I know not which more attracted the curiosity of the countrywomen--the fine ladies or the fine footmen. These gallant creatures, the footmen with their worsted epaulettes and their brave liveries, did not venture into the streets by the riverside--Pudding Lane, Common Stath Lane, or the like--the resort of the sailors, where the reception of those who did venture was warmer and less polite than they expected. For the gentlemen there were the taverns; every house round the market-place became a tavern, where an ordinary was held at twelve. And the gentlemen sat drinking all the afternoon. Nay, they began in the morning making breakfast of a pint of Canary with a pennyworth of bread, a slice of cheese, and after the meal a penny roll of tobacco. These were the gentlemen belonging to the country families. The attractions of the spa to them were the tavern, the cockpit, the field where they raced their horses, the badger baiting, and sport of all these kinds that can be obtained in the spring and summer, when there is no shooting of starlings in the reeds of marshland, and the decoy of ducks, for which this country is famous. Rooms had to be found for the servants; a profligate and deboshed crew they were, of whose manners it may be said that they were insolent, and of their morals, that they had none. Two or three of them, however, getting a drubbing from our sailors, the rest went in some terror. It was as if the birds of the air had carried the news of this great discovery north and south, east and west, so that not only was a great multitude attracted to the place in search of health and pleasure, but also another multitude of those who came to supply every kind of want, real or imaginary. A thousand wants were invented, especially for the ladies, so that whereas many of the damsels from quiet country houses had been content with homespun, linsey woolsey, or, at best, with sarcenet, a few ribbons for their straw hats, and thread for their gloves, now found themselves unable to appear abroad except with heads made up on wires and round rolls, their hair powdered and pinned to large puff caps, with gowns of silk, flounced sleeves, and a laced tippet. And when they went home they were no longer contented with the things of their own making, the cordials of ginger, cherries, and so forth, the distilled waters, the home-brewed ale, the small beer, the wines made with raspberries, currants and blackberries. They murmured after tea and coffee, the wine of Lisbon and Canary, the rosolio and the ratafia, the macaroons, the chocolate, the perfumes, and the many gauds of the dressing-table. And they scorned the honest red and brown of cheek and hands that cared nothing for the sun, as if they would be more beautiful in the eyes of their lovers by having cheeks of a pale white with a smudge of paint, and hands as white as if just out of bed and a long illness. The way of the company was as follows: They met at the pump room about ten; they called for the water; they exchanged the latest scandal; they talked about dress; they bemoaned their losses at cards; they then walked off to morning prayers, chiefly at St. Nicholas's, where, as you have heard, Mr. Benjamin Purdon read them with honeyed words and rolling voice. From the church they repaired to a confectioner's called Jonathan's--I know not why--where they all devoured a certain cake made expressly for them; from the confectioner's some went to the draper, the milliner, or the haberdasher; some to the long room, where there were generally public breakfasts of tea, chocolate, and coffee; a few, but these were mostly men, went to the bookseller's, where, for half-a-crown a month, they could read all day long and what they pleased. The bookseller came from Norwich, and when the season ended went back to Norwich. Dinner was served at twelve or one. At five o'clock or thereabouts the company began to arrive at the gardens and the long room, where, with music, cards, conversation, and walking among the coloured lamps, the evening was quickly spent. Twice a week there was an assembly for dancing, when refreshments were provided at the cost of the gentlemen. For the gentlemen there were also the coffee houses, of which two at least sprang into existence. One laid down twopence on entering, and could call for a dish of tea, a cup of coffee, or one of chocolate. In one of them were found the clergy, the lawyers, and the justices of the peace; they settled the affairs of the nation and decided the characters of the ministers. In the other were those who affected to be beaux and wits. Among the latter set one found Sam Semple, now a person of great authority, as the secretary of Lord Fylingdale and the author of a book of verse. He pretended to be an arbiter. "Sir," he would say, "by your leave. The case is quite otherwise. The matter was lately discussed at Will's. A certain distinguished poet, who shall be nameless, whose opinion carries weight even in that august assemblage, was of opinion that...." And so forth, with an air of profound wisdom. As regards wit in conversation, it consists, I believe, in finding different ways, all unexpected, of saying: "You are a fool. You are an ass. You are a jackanapes. You are an ignorant clown. You are a low-born upstart." This kind of wit was cultivated with some success at first, but as it was not always relished by those to whom it was directed, it led to the pulling of noses and the discharge of coffee or tea in the face of the ingenious author of the unexpected epigram. So that its practice languished and presently died out altogether. The most astonishing change, however, was in the market-place. Here, instead of one market day in the week, there was a market day all the week long. The stalls were never removed; every day the country people crowded into the town--some riding, some walking, some in boats, some in barges, bringing poultry, ducks, eggs, butter, cream, milk, cheese, honey, lettuce for sallet, and everything that a farm, a dairy, and a stillroom can provide. Some sat on upturned baskets, their wares spread out before them; some stood at stalls with white hangings to keep off the sun; the fine ladies went about among them chaffering and bargaining, their maids following with baskets. It was a pretty sight, and to my mind the rustic damsels, for good looks, got the better of the fine ladies and their maids. Many of the beaux and young bloods were of the same opinion, apparently, for they, too, went round among the stalls, with compliments not doubtful, and talk more free than polite, chucking the girls under the chin and pinching their cheeks. To be sure these freedoms do a body no harm, and I believe our Norfolk girls can look after themselves as well as any. And every day outside the stalls there assembled such a motley crowd as had never before been seen in Lynn. It was a perpetual fair, at which you could buy anything. Gipsies went about leading horses for sale, the cheap Jack stood on the footboard of his cart and bawled his wares; the rogue stood up, with voice and cheeks of brass, and offered his caps, knives, scissors, cups and saucers, frying pans, saucepans, kettles, every morning. His store could never be exhausted; he took a quarter of what he asked; and he went on day after day. Nor must we forget the travelling quack, the learned doctor in a huge wig and black velvet; as like to Dr. Worship himself as one pea is like another. He had his stage and his tumbling clown, who twisted himself upon the tight-rope, turned somersaults, walked on his head, grinned and made mouths and was as merry a rogue as his master was grave. After the Tom Fool had collected a crowd and made them merry, the doctor advanced, his face full of wisdom, and explained that he came among them newly arrived from Persia, that land famous for its learned physicians; that he was not an ordinary physician, seeking to make money by his science; that, on the other hand, what he offered was given, rather than sold, the charge made being barely sufficient to pay for the costly ingredients used in the making of these sovereign remedies. He had his pills and his draughts; his balsams and his electuary; he had his plaster against rheumatism; his famous _Pulvis Catharticus_ against fever; his _Carduus Benedictus_ against ague; and, in a word, his infallible remedies against all the ills to which flesh is liable. So he played his part, not every day, but often, for the crowd in the market-place changed continually, and every change brought him new patients. Or there was the tooth drawer. You knew him by the string of teeth which hung round his neck like a string of pearls over the neck of a lady or a collar of SS. round the neck of the worshipful the mayor. He pulled teeth at half a crown each, and if that was too much, at a shilling. Not only did he bawl his calling among the crowd, but he went through the streets from house to house asking if his services were wanted. The town crier added to the noise and the animation of the scene. Almost every day he had something to bawl. He was known by his dress and his bell. He wore a green coat with brass buttons; a broad laced hat, he had a broad badge with the arms of the town upon his arm; in one hand he carried a staff and in the other his big bell. And being by nature endowed with a loud voice, and a good opinion of himself, he magnified his office by ringing more loudly and longer than was necessary, by repeating his "O yes! O yes! O yes!" at the end as well as the beginning of his announcement, and by proclaiming this twice over. Towards the hour of noon, when every tavern had its ordinary, and the sausages and black puddings were hissing in the cooks' stalls, there arose a fragrance--call it an incense of gratitude--which pleasantly engaged the senses. It was a hogo of frying fish, chops, steaks, sausages, bacon, ham and onions; it included the smell of gosling and duckling and chicken, roasted rabbit fricasseed; of roast pork, lamb, mutton, and beef; of baked pies--all kinds of pies--custards, cheese cakes, dumplings, hasty pudding. Then the feet of those who could afford it turned to the tavern; those who could not pay the ordinary at two shillings, or that at one shilling, dived into the cellar, where they could dine for sixpence, or stood about the stalls where they fried the sausages; those who brought their dinner with them sat on their baskets and devoured their food, or bought of the street criers who now went up and down ringing bells and crying: Hot black puddings, hot, Smoking hot, Just come out of the pot. or, Here, dainty brave cheese cakes, Come, buy 'em of me; Two for twopence, One for a penny; Come along, customers, if you'll buy any. It pleased me to recall the humours of the town at that time. Except for the rows of booths, one would have thought it Stourbridge Fair at Cambridge, which once I saw. The weather was fine and clear, the cold east winds gone. There was so much money flying about that everybody was buying as well as selling; in spite of all that was brought into the town by the visitors, nothing was left when they went away, because all had been spent. We thought that the harvest would last forever. We looked to a season like that of Bath, which goes on all the year round. If our people took more money in one day than they had before taken in a whole month, they thought that it would go on day after day, and they spent it all without restraint. Nay, the wives and daughters of those who had kept humble shops and been content with fat bacon and hot milk for breakfast, and more bacon for dinner; who had been clad in homespun, now drank tea with bread and butter for breakfast like the Lady Anastasia herself; dined off ducks and goslings; drank fine ale and even Canary and Lisbon; and ventured to attend the assembly where they stood up to the country dance in silk like any gentlewoman. I have mentioned the company of players; they acted three times a week. We who work for our living are apt to despise these mummers and their calling; to pretend every day to be some one else is not, we think, an occupation worthy of a man, while the painting, the disguise, the representation, either in dumb show or in words, of all the passions in turn, must surely leave the actor no real passions of his own. Yet I heard, while this company was with us, cases of such generosity and Christian charity one towards the other when the money ceased to come in, that I am constrained to allow them at least the great Christian virtue of love for one another. Besides the players, there were the singers and the musicians of the spa; and there were jugglers, mountebanks, tumblers, tight-rope dancers, ballad-singers, fortune-tellers, conjurers, pedlars and hawkers of all kinds. The town of Lynn, formerly so quiet and retired, with no other disturbance than that caused by a brawl among drunken sailors, became suddenly transformed into the abode of all the devils disengaged at the moment. There were sharpers busy at the races and the cocking; men who laid bets, and if they lost, ran away, but loudly demanded their money when they won; there was gambling; there was drinking; there was fighting; the servants were as corrupt as their masters; there were fresh scandals continually; a reputation lost every day; there were duels fought over drunken quarrels, about women, about bets and wagers; the clerks of the counting-houses were filled with the new spirit of gambling; there were lotteries and raffles in which everybody took tickets, even if they got the money for them dishonestly. In a word, the pursuits of pleasure proved a mad race, down a broad and flowery path, on each side of which were drinking booths, and music, and dancing, while at the end there opened wide.... You shall speedily learn what this was. CHAPTER XII THE CAPTAIN'S AMBITION "Jack," said the captain, "I am now resolved that Molly shall make her appearance at the assembly, and that as the heiress that she is. Not lowly and humbly. She shall take her place at once among the fine ladies." "But she is not a gentlewoman, captain," I objected. "She shall be finer than any gentlewoman of the whole company--just as she is better to look at without any finery." "Will the company," I asked, "welcome her among them?" "The women, Jack, will flout and slight her--I have watched them. They flout and slight each other. That breaks no bones. She shall go." He went on to explain his designs. As you have heard, they were ambitious. "I have this day acquainted Molly, for the first time, with the truth. She now knows that she is richer than any one believed. As for herself, she never thought about her fortune, knowing, she says, that it was safe in my hands. I have opened her father's strong place--it is in the cellar, behind a stone, and I have taken out the treasures that even her mother never saw, because her father wished to lead a homely life, and concealed his treasures. There are jewels and gold chains, bracelets, necklaces, rings--all kinds of things--Molly has them all--she is even now hugging them all in her lap and trying them on before her looking-glass. She shall go to the assembly covered with jewels." "Is there any one among the whole company fit for her?" I asked. "There is one, Jack. He is the noble Lord--the Lord Fylingdale--a very great man, indeed." "Lord Fylingdale? Captain, are you serious?" "Why, Jack, who can be too high and too grand for my Molly? He is said to be of a virtuous character and pious disposition; he neither gambles nor drinks, nor is a libertine, as is too common among many of his rank." "But, captain, he will marry one of his own rank." "Ta-ta! he will marry a fine girl, virtuously brought up, made finer by her fortune. What more can he expect than beauty, modesty, virtue, and a great--a noble fortune? If the girl pleases him--why, Jack, come to think of it, the girl must please him--she would move the heart of an ice-berg--then, I say, I shall see my girl raised to her proper place, and I shall die happy." "But, captain, you will raise her above her mother and above yourself, and above all her old friends. You will lose her altogether." "Ay, there's the rub. But I shall be contented even with that loss if she is happy." I can see even now the honest eyes of the good old man humid for a moment as he contemplated his own loss, and I can hear his voice shake a little at thinking of the happiness he designed for his ward. No one would believe that the captain could be so cunning. No one who reads this history would believe, either, that a man could be so ignorant and so simple. We were all as ignorant and as simple. We all believed what these lying people--these creatures of the devil--(when I say the devil I mean Lord Fylingdale)--told us. Sir Harry said that he was too virtuous and too serious for the world of fashion; the parson said that he was the most cleanly liver of all young men; the poet swore that he was all day long doing and scheming acts of charity and goodness towards the unfortunate. They were all in a tale--these villains--and we were simple and ignorant folk, credulous sailors and honest citizens living remote from the vices of town, who knew nothing and suspected nothing. As for myself, I was carried away, as much as the old captain, with the thought of the honour and glory that awaited our Molly. I concluded, in my simplicity, that the mere appearance and sight of the lovely girl would make all the men fall madly in love with her, without considering the hundred thousand additional charms held in trust for her by her guardian. After this talk with the captain I sought Molly. She was in the summerhouse up the garden with her treasures spread out before her. It was a most wonderful sight--but it filled me with madness. I never imagined such a pile of gold and of precious stones. There were diamonds, and rubies, and blue sapphires; there were all kinds of gems, with chains of gold and bracelets--a glittering pile of gold and jewels. Yet my heart sank at the spectacle. "Look, Jack, look," she cried. "They are all mine! All mine!" She gathered up a handful, and let them roll through her fingers. "All mine! Only think, and yesterday I was thinking how delightful it must be to have even one gold chain to hang round my neck! All mine!" "Has your mother seen them, Molly?" "Yes; she knew that there were things somewhere, but my father kept them put away. Mother didn't want jewels and chains. They came to us from grandfather, who sailed to the East Indies and brought them home. Look at the dainty delicate work!" She held up a chain most wonderful for its fine small work. "Did you ever see anything more beautiful?" I turned away. The sight of the treasures made me sick. For, you see, they showed me how wide was the gulf between Molly and me. "You want no jewels, Molly. I wish you were poor with all my heart." "Oh! Jack! and so not to have these lovely things? That is cruel of you. And oh! Jack, I am to go to the assembly to-morrow evening." "So the captain tells me." "At last. Victory and Amanda"--Victory was the daughter of the curate of St. Nicholas, and Amanda was the daughter of the doctor--"have been already, and I have been kept at home. The dear, bewitching assembly! The music! The dancing! The fine ladies!" "There will be none finer than you, Molly." "That is what the captain says. I am to wear my gold chains and my jewels. My dress is waiting to be tried on. It came from Norwich. I shall not let you see it till the evening. The hairdresser is engaged for to-morrow afternoon. Victory says that the fine ladies turn up their noses and hide their faces with their fans when the girls of the place pass before them. Why? Victory does not thrust her company upon them. Nor shall I. As for that, I can bear their disdainful looks and their flouts with patience, I dare say." "If these are the manners of the Great," I said, "give me our own manners." "We are not gentlefolk, Jack, you and I and the captain. We must not complain. If we intrude upon the Quality they will show what they think of us. To be sure, the captain says that I could buy up the whole room. But I don't want to buy up anybody. I would rather let them go their own way, so that I may go mine. Jack, if I were a great lady I think I would be kind to a girl who was not so well born, if only she knew her place." "You need not be humble, Molly. When they know who you are, and what is your fortune, you will make these fine ladies ashamed." "The captain wants me to marry some great person," she laughed. "Oh! If the great person could see me making the bed and baking the apple pie and beating the eggs for the custard, with my sleeves turned up and my apron tied round my waist! What a fine lady I shall make, to be sure!" "Well, but, Molly, remember that you are rich. You cannot marry anybody in Lynn. You must look higher." "Jack, it makes me laugh. How shall I learn to be a great lady? How should I command an army of servants who have had but my faithful black? How should I sit in a gilded coach, who am used to ride a pony or to sail a boat?" "You will soon get accustomed, Molly, even to a coach and six and running footmen, such as Lord Fylingdale has. You are not like Victory and Amanda, and the rest of the girls of Lynn, portionless and penniless. You must remember the station to which your fortune calls you." "Money makes not a gentleman," she returned. "Nor a gentlewoman. I know my station. It is here, with my guardian, among my old friends. Well, perhaps I shall not take my place in what you call my station this year--or next year." Her face cleared, and became once more full of sunshine. "Jack," she said, "has the captain told you? No one is to dance with me to-morrow except yourself. We are to have the last minuet and first country dance together. None of the pretty fellows at the assembly are to speak to me. It is arranged with Mr. Prappet. They may look on with admiration and longing, Mr. Prappet says." Since the arrival of our master of the ceremonies, Mr. Prappet, the dancing master of Norwich, he had been giving Molly lessons in those arts of dancing and the carriage of the body, the arms, the face, the head, which are considered to mark the polite world. As for myself, I was called upon to be her partner. Truth to say, I was always better at a hornpipe or a jig than in any of the fashionable dances; but, in a way, I could make shift to go through the steps. "Now," she said, "let us practise once more by ourselves." So we stepped out upon the grass, and there--she in her stuff frock, her apron, her hair lying about her neck and shoulders, and I in my workaday garb--we practised the dance which belongs to the assembly, to courts, to stately ladies and to gentlemen of birth and rank. The captain was more cunning than one could have believed possible. He would produce this girl before the astonished company. They should see that she was more beautiful than any other woman in the whole room; more finely dressed; covered with gold chains and jewels; thus proclaiming herself as an heiress of great wealth. She should dance, at first, with none but one of her own station, or near it, and her old companion. She would first make all the world talk about her; but she should be kept apart. It should be understood that she was not for any of the young fellows of the company. Then, if she attracted the attention of this young nobleman, so virtuous, so pious, and of such rare qualities of heart and head--the thing which most he desired--her marriage with some man of high position, fit for such a girl, might take place. That was his design, thinking of Lord Fylingdale. If it failed he would withdraw the girl from the company and cast about for some other way. While we were practising he came into the garden and stood leaning on his stick to look at us. "Body and bones!" he said; "you've caught the very trick of it. Prappet has taught you how they do it. Sprawl, Jack; sprawl with a will. Twist and turn your body. Shake your leg, man. It's a fine leg; better than most. Shake it lustily. Slide, Molly, slide; slide with zeal. Slide and bend and twist, and shake your fan. I don't call that dancing! Why, there isn't a lad in any fo'k'sle couldn't do it better. Give them the hornpipe, Jack, when the sliding and sprawling is finished. Stand up and say, 'Ladies, your most obedient. I will now show a dance that is a dance.'" When we finished he went on with his discourse. "Molly has told you, I suppose. She will dance to-morrow evening with none but you. After the country dance lead her to her chair, and we will walk home beside her." "Jack will look very fine among all the beaux," said Molly, laughing. Truly, I had not considered the matter of dress, and I stood in my workaday things--to wit, a brown frieze coat with black buttons, a drugget waistcoat, shag breeches, and black stockings. I remembered the grand silk and velvet of the beaux and stood abashed. "Show him, captain," said Molly, laughing, "what we have got for him." The captain shook his head. "My mind misgives me," he said. "That boy will feel awkward in this new gear. However, fine feathers make fine birds. Also fine birds flock together. Since thou art to dance with Molly, my lad, thy rig must do credit to her as well as thyself, so come with me." If you believe me, the captain, who thought of everything, had provided such a dress as might have been worn by any gentleman in the room without discredit. It consisted of a blue coat with silver buttons and silver braid; a waistcoat of pink silk, velvet breeches, and white silk stockings. There was added a gold laced hat with lace for throat and sleeves. "So," said the captain when I stood before him arrayed in this guise, "'tis a gentleman born and bred, to look upon. Powder thy hair, my lad; tie it with a white ribbon and a large bow. There will not be a fribble in the whole company, even including the poor old atomy, Sir Harry, to compare with you." [Illustration: "'TIS A GENTLEMAN BORN AND BRED, TO LOOK UPON."] Molly clapped her hands. "Jack!" she cried, "if I pretend to be a great lady you must pretend to be an admiral, at least. Why, sir, I feel as if we had never known you before. As for me--but you shall see." She sighed. "It is only for the evening," she said. "We shall come home and I shall put on my old homespun again and you your shag and your frieze. I am Cinderella and you are Cinderella's brother, and the captain is the Fairy." So we laughed and made merry. Yet still I felt that sinking of the heart which weighed upon me from the first night of the great discovery and never left me. There are sailors--I have known such--I think that I am myself one--who know beforehand by such a premonitory sinking when the voyage will be stormy. Nay, there are some who know and can foretell when the ship will be cast away and all her crew drowned in the sea or broken to pieces against the rocks. I looked into the parlour and found Molly's mother. She sat with her work in her hands, her lips moving, her eyes fixed. And I saw that she was unhappy. She was a homely body always. One could understand that her husband was right in judging that she was not likely to want jewels and gold chains or to show them to advantage. Like many women of the station in which she was born (which was beneath that of her husband) she was unlearned, and could not read; but she was a notable housewife. "Jack," she said, coming to herself, "Molly has told you, I suppose." "I have seen her treasures, and have heard that she is to go to the assembly." "She is richer than I suspected. Oh, Jack, she will marry some great man, the captain says--and so I shall lose my girl--and she is all I have in the world--all I have--all I have!" She threw her apron over her head--and I slipped away, my heart full of forebodings. It is wonderful to remember these forebodings because they were so fully justified. Patience! You shall hear. CHAPTER XIII MOLLY'S FIRST MINUET I have now to tell you how Molly made her first public appearance at the assembly, and how she delighted and pleased the kindly ladies who formed the company. It was a crowded gathering. Lord Fylingdale, it was known, would be present. Many gentlemen, therefore, who would otherwise have been at the coffee house, the tavern, or the cockpit, were present in honour of this distinguished visitor, or in the hope of being presented to him. And all the ladies visiting the spa were there as well, young and old, matrons and maids; the latter, perhaps, permitting themselves dreams of greatness. His lordship arrived brave in apparel, tall, handsome, proud, still in early manhood, wearing his star upon his breast. Every girl's heart beat only to think of the chance should she be able to attract the attention and the passion of such a man. He was accompanied (say, followed) by his secretary, our poet--the only poet that our town has produced. The master of the ceremonies received him with a profound bow, and, after a few words, conducted him to the chair or throne on which sat the Lady Anastasia with a small court around her. Then the music began, and Lord Fylingdale led out that lady for the minuet. And the company stood around in a circle, admiring. He next danced with the young wife of a Norfolk gentleman and member of Parliament, after which he retired and stood apart. Sir Harry followed, dancing twice with a fine show of agility. After him others of lower rank followed. Towards the conclusion of the minuet Molly entered the room, led by her guardian, Captain Crowle, and followed by myself in my new disguise. The captain was no better dressed than if he were sitting in the Crown Inn, save that he had exchanged his worsted stockings for white silk. He looked what he was--a simple sailor and commander of a ship. But no one regarded him or myself, because all eyes were turned upon Molly. She appeared before the astonished assembly clothed, so to speak, with diamonds and precious stones, glittering in the light of the candles like a crowd of stars. She was covered with jewels. Diamonds were in her headdress; they were also hanging from her neck; there were rubies and emeralds, sapphires and opals in her necklace and her bracelets; heavy gold chains, light gold chains, gold chains set with pearls were hanging about her. She was clothed, I say, from head to foot with gold and with precious stones. The intention of the captain was carried out. On her first appearance she proclaimed herself as she stood before them all as an heiress who was able to carry a great fortune upon her back, as the saying is, and to have another great fortune at home. Never before had the company beheld so strange a sight; a girl wearing so much wealth and such splendid jewels for a simple assembly. Then from lip to lip was passed the words, "Who is she? What is her name? Where does she come from? What is her family? What is the meaning of this resplendent show of gems and gold? Are they real? Why does she wear them?" And for the whole of that evening, while Molly was in the room, no one thought of anything except this wonderful vision of dazzling jewels. The eyes of the whole company followed her about, and in their conversation they talked of nothing else. For, of all things, this was the most unexpected, and, to all the other maidens, the most disconcerting. They were plain country girls, while Molly was a goddess. To say that she outshone them all is to say nothing. There was no comparison possible. Truly the captain was right. There was no one in that room who could compare with Molly--either for beauty or for bravery of apparel. As for her beauty, it was of the kind the power of which women seem not to understand. Men, who do understand it, call it loveliness. Venus herself--Helen of Troy--Fair Rosamond--Jane Shore--all the fair women of whom we have heard, possessed, I am sure, this loveliness. Your regular beauty of straight features of which so much is made doth never, I think, attract mankind so surely, or so quickly; doth never hold men so strongly; doth never make them so mad with love. It is the woman of the soft eyes, the sweet eyes, the eyes that are sometimes hazel and sometimes blue, the eyes full of light and sunshine, the eyes where Cupid plays; the lips that are always ready to smile; the lips so rosy red; so round and small; the cheek that is like a peach for softness and for bloom, touched with a natural pink and red; the rounded chin; the forehead white and not too large; the light brown hair that is almost flaxen, curling naturally but disposed by art. Such a woman was Molly. Yet not a weakly thin slip of a girl. She was tall and strong; her arms were round and white as a woman's should be, but they were big as well, as if they could do man's work--they were strengthened and rounded by the oars which she had handled from childhood. Her ample cheek wanted no daub of paint; it had a fine healthy colour, like a damask rose, but more delicate; her eyes were full and bright; there was no girl in the place, not even among the country ladies, could show a face and figure so strong, so finely moulded, of such large and generous charms. When the men gazed upon her they gasped; when the women gazed upon her their hearts sank low with envy. How am I to describe her dress? I know that her head was made in what they called the English fashion, with a structure of lace, thin wires and round rolls on cushions, with ringlets at the sides and pinned to a small cap on the top. All I can safely say about her dress is that she wore a gown of cherry-coloured silk, with gold flowers over a petticoat of pink silk adorned by a kind of network of gold lace; that her sleeves were wide with a quantity of lace--I have never carried a cargo of lace, and therefore I know not its value; that her gloves were of white silk; that her arms were loaded with bracelets which clanged and clashed when she moved; and that chains of gold hung round her neck and over her shoulders. The master of ceremonies received us with distinction. "Captain Crowle," he said, loudly, "you have too long withheld your lovely ward from the assembly of the spa. I would invite her to dance the last minuet with Mr. Pentecrosse." All this had been arranged beforehand. The people gazed curiously, and began to press around us as I advanced with Molly's hand in mine. "Be not abashed, Jack," whispered the old captain. "They know not what to think. Show them how the dance should be done. Slide and sprawl, my lad. Sprawl with a will and both together," he added, hoarsely, "with a yo-heave-ho!" Then the music began again, and Molly stood opposite to me--and the dance began. For my own part I obeyed the captain's admonition. I endeavoured to forget the people who were looking on--I tried to think that we were rehearsing in the garden--and feeling confidence return, I began to slide and sprawl with a will. All the people were gathered round us in a circle. The ladies, holding their fans before their faces, tittered and giggled audibly. The men, for their part, laughed openly, making observations not intended to be good-natured. They were laughing at me! And I was getting on, as I believed, so well. However, I did not know the cause of their merriment, and carried on the sprawling with a greater will than ever. I am sorry now, whenever I think upon it, that Molly had not a better partner. For my performance, which was quite correct, and in every particular exactly what Mr. Prappet had taught me, was distinguished, I learned afterwards, by a certain exaggeration of gesture due to my desire to be correct, which made the dance ridiculous. If only I had been permitted to give them a hornpipe! What had I, a mere tarpaulin, as they say, to do with fine clothes, fashionable sliding and sprawling, and the pretence of fashionable manners? You must not think that Molly, though it was her first appearance in public, though she wore these fine things for the first time, though all eyes were upon her, was in the least degree abashed. She bore herself with modesty and an assumed unconsciousness of what people were saying and how they were looking at her, which certainly did her great credit. And I am quite sure that, whatever my own performance, hers was full of grace and ease, and the dignity which makes this dance so fit for great lords and ladies and so unfit for rustic swains and shepherdesses. She smiled upon her partner as sweetly as if we were together in the garden; she played her fan as prettily as if we were rehearsing the dance with mirth and merriment--it was a costly fan, with paintings upon it and a handle set with pearls. The dance was finished at last, and I led my partner to the end of the room, where the maids sat all in a row with white aprons and white caps--among them Molly's woman, Nigra--to repair any disorder to the head or to the dress caused by the active movements of the dance. And then they all began to talk. I could hear fragments and whole sentences. They were talking about us. "Who is she, then?" asked one lady, impatiently. "Where does she come from?" "Perhaps a sea nymph," replied a gentleman, gallantly, "brought from the ocean by the god Neptune, who stands over yonder. One can smell the seaweed." "And the gems and chains come, I suppose, from old wrecks." "Or," said the ancient beau, Sir Harry, "a wood nymph from the train of Diana. In that case the old gentleman may be the god Pan. The nymphs of Diana, it appears, have lately taken lessons in the fashionable dance. As yet, unfortunately----" He shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot choose but hear, Jack," said Molly. "Let us make as if we heard nothing." "She is an actress," said another lady. "I saw her last night in the play. She personated an impudent maidservant. The chains and gems are false; one can see that with half an eye. They are what those vagabond folk call stage properties." Yet another took up the parable. "She should be put to the door, or she should stand in a white apron with the maids. What? We are decent and respectable ladies, I hope." "They are not gems at all," observed a young fellow, anxious to display his wit. "They are the lamps from the garden. She has cut them down and hung them round herself. See the pretty colours--red--green--blue." "Let her put them back again, then, and leave the company into which she dares to intrude." This was the spiteful person who had seen her on the stage and knew her for one of the strollers. The resentment of the ladies against a woman who presumed to be more finely dressed than themselves, and to display more jewels than they themselves possessed, or even hoped to possess, was deeper and louder than one could believe possible. Yet this was a polite assembly, and these ladies had learned the manners which we are taught to copy, at a distance--we who are not gentlefolk. "Jack," said Molly, "these are the flouts of which the captain warned us. Lead me round the room. Right through the middle of them, so that they may see with half an eye how false are my jewels." I obeyed. They fell back, making a lane for us, and talking about us after we passed through them, without the least affectation of a whisper. They had an opportunity, however, of seeing the dress and the trappings more closely. "My dear," said one, "the jewels are real. I am sure they are real. On the stage they wear large glass things. Those are brilliants of the first water in her hair, and those are true pearls about her neck." "And her dress," said another, "is of the finest silk; and did you see the gold lace in front of her petticoat? The dress and the jewels, they must be worth--oh! worth a whole estate. Who can she be?" "Such a woman," observed an elderly matron very sweetly, "would probably be ashamed to say where she found those things. Oh! But the master of the ceremonies must be warned. She must not be tolerated here again." "How kind they are, Jack!" whispered Molly. "Who is the fellow with her?" I heard next. "He sells flounders and eels in the market. I have seen him in a blue coat and long white sleeves and an apron." "No. He is a clerk in a counting-house." "Not at all. The fellow, like the girl, belongs to the strollers. I saw him last night laying a carpet on the stage." "A personable fellow, with a well turned leg." This compliment made me blush. "It is his misfortune that he must be coupled with so impudent a baggage." "You see, Jack," said Molly, "it all comes back to me." So we went on walking round the room, pretending to hear nothing. We met Victory, also walking round the room with her beau, a young merchant of the town. She, fortunate girl! had no jewels with which to excite the envy, hatred, and malice of the ladies. She was unmolested, though not a gentlewoman by station. "Molly," she said, "you are splendid. I have never seen such a show of jewels. But you will drive them mad with envy. Hateful creatures! I see them turning green. The minuet was beautiful, my dear. Oh! Jack, you made me laugh. Never was seen such posturing. The men are angry, because they think you meant to make them ridiculous." Thus may one learn unpalatable truth, even from friends. My "posturing," then, as the girl called it, was ridiculous. And I thought my performance correct, and quite in the style of the highest fashion! Then the captain joined in. "Famous!" he said. "Jack, you rolled about like a porpoise at the bows. Never believe that a sailor cannot show the way at a dance. Molly, my dear, you were not so brisk as Jack. But it was very well, very well, indeed. The women cannot contain themselves for spite and envy. What did I tell you, my dear?" CHAPTER XIV MOLLY'S COUNTRY DANCE Meantime another kind of conversation was going on, which we could not hear. "My lord," the poet bustled up, with his cringing familiarity. "Yonder is the heiress of whom I spoke." "Humph! She is well enough for a rustical beauty. Her shape is good, if too full for the fashion; her cheeks bespeak the dairy, and her shoulders tell of the milking pail. Why does she wear as many jewels and charms as an antiquated duchess at a coronation? I suppose they are real. But there are too many of them." "They are real. I would vouch for them, my lord," he added earnestly. "All that I have told you is most true. A greater heiress you will not find in the whole country. Even with the jewels upon her she could buy up all the women in the room." "I would make sure upon that point. They say that she has ships, lands----" "And money. Accumulations. My lord, if you will not take my word for it--why should you?--ask her guardian. There he stands." "The old salt now beside her, like a Cerberus of the quarter-deck? Who is the other--the fellow who danced with her--his actions like those of a graceful elephant? Is he one of her lovers?" "She has no lovers. Her guardian permits none. The young lady has been kept in the house. That man is her servant; he is nothing but a mate in one of her ships. Captain Crowle would not allow a fellow of that position to make love to his ward." "Humph!" said his lordship. "Bring the old man here." The captain obeyed the summons somewhat abashed. But my lord put him at his ease. "You may retire, Mr. Semple. I would converse with Captain Crowle." Then he turned to the captain with the greatest affability. "Our good friend, Mr. Semple, tells me, captain, that yonder beauty--the toast, if I mistake not, of our young gentleman to-night--is none other than your ward." "At your service, my lord." "Nay, captain. It is I who should be at her service. Frankly, she does honour to your town. Had we discovered Miss Molly there would have been no need to discuss the magical waters of the spa. May I inquire into the name and conditions of her family?" "As for her name, sir, it is plain Molly Miller. As for her parentage, her father was a ship owner and a merchant. Though a citizen and a free man of Lynn, he was as substantial a man as may be found in the port of London. Her mother, my first cousin, was the daughter and the granddaughter and the sister and the cousin of men who have been captains in the merchant service of Lynn--for many generations. Most of them lie at the bottom of the sea. We are plain folk, my lord, and homely. But Providence hath thought fit to bless our handiwork, and--you see my ward before you--I hope she does not shame the company?" "On the contrary, Captain Crowle, she adorns and beautifies the company not only with her good looks, which are singular and extraordinary, but also with her fine dress and her jewels, which have won for her already the envy of every woman in the assembly. "There are as many jewels in the locker as have come out of it for to-night," said the captain sturdily. "Ay? Ay? And there are ships, I hear--many ships. Our friend Mr. Semple speaks of the lady's wealth with as much respect as he speaks of her beauty." "He well may--Molly is the greatest shipowner of Lynn. She is also owner of many houses in the town and of many broad acres outside the town. And she will have, when she marries, in addition, a fortune of many thousand pounds." "She is, then, indeed, an heiress. I wish her, for your sake, Captain Crowle, a worthy husband. But it is a grave responsibility. There are hawks about always looking for a rich wife--to restore fortunes battered by evil courses. You must take care, Captain Crowle." "I mean to take care." "Perhaps among the merchants of this port." The captain shook his head. "Or among the gentlemen of Norfolk." The captain shook his head. "They drink too hard--and they live too hard." "Perhaps among the scholars and divines of Cambridge." "They are not fit mates for a lively girl." "Captain, I perceive that you are difficult to please. Even for your charming ward you must not expect a miracle in the creation of a new Adam fit for this new Eve. Be reasonable, Captain Crowle." His lordship spoke so pleasantly and laughed with so much good nature that the captain was encouraged, and spoke out his mind as to an old friend. "No, no, I want no miracle. I desire that my girl, who is a loving girl, with a heart of gold, should be wooed and married by a gentleman whom she will respect and honour--not a drinker nor a gambler nor a profligate. She will bring him a fortune which is great even for persons of quality." My lord bowed gravely. "You are right, Captain Crowle, to entertain these opinions. Do not change them under any temptations. One would only wish that the lady may find such a mate. But, captain, remember--I say it not in an unfriendly spirit--class weds with class. Sir, they are about to begin the country dance, let us look on." The company began to take their places. "Captain Crowle," Lord Fylingdale pointed to the dancers, repeating his words: "Class weds with class--class dances with class. At the head of the set stands Sir Harry the Evergreen. His partner is a lady of good family. Next to them are others of good family. Those young people who are now taking their places lower down are---- What are they?" "Two of them are the daughters of the doctor and the vicar--good girls both." "Good girls, doubtless. But, Captain Crowle, not gentlefolk, and there, I observe, your lovely ward, Captain Crowle, takes her place modestly and last of all. Who dances with her?" "It is young John Pentecrosse, son of our schoolmaster, mate on board one of Molly's ships. He is her playfellow. They have been together since childhood." "Perhaps he would be more. Take care, captain--take care." So he turned away as if no longer interested in the girl. But Sam Semple remained behind. "Sir," he said to the captain, "his lordship took particular notice of your ward. 'Miss Molly,' said my lord, 'is a rustic nymph dressed for the court of Venus. Never before have I seen a face of more heavenly beauty.' Those were his lordship's very words." But Sam Semple was always a ready liar. "Ay, my lad. They are fine words; but fine words butter no parsnips. 'Class weds with class,' that's what he said to me." "Surely, captain, with such a face and such a fortune Miss Molly is raised to the rank ... say, of countess. Would a coronet satisfy you for your ward? I mean nothing"--here he glanced at the figure of his lordship. "Nothing--of course not--what could I mean? How well a coronet, captain, would become that lovely brow!" Everybody knows that the country dance should continue until the couple at the bottom have arrived at the top and have had their turn. Everybody knows, too, that the country dance, unlike the minuet, is joined by the whole company, with only so much deference to rank as to give the better sort the highest places at the beginning. They were given this evening to the ladies of the county who could boast of their gentility, and, to do them justice, did boast loudly of it, comparing their own families and that of their husbands with those of other ladies present. It seems to me, indeed, that it is better to have no coat of arms and no grandfathers if the possession leads to so much jealousy, backbiting, and slander. All these ladies, however, united in one point, viz, that of scorn and contempt for those girls of Lynn who ventured to join the assembly or to walk in the gardens. They showed this contempt in many ways, especially by whispering and giggling when one of the natives passed them. "Is it tar that one smells so strong?" if one of the sea captain's daughters was standing near, they would ask. Or "Madam, I think there must be an apothecary's shop in the assembly," if it was the doctor's daughter, Amanda Worship. And at the country dance they refused to take the hand of these girls. Their greatest possible insult, however, was offered to Molly. It was a good dance tune, played with spirit--the tune they call "Hey go mad!" We moved gradually higher up. At last we stood at the top, and our turn came to end the dance. Imagine our discomfiture at this point when the whole of these kind ladies and their partners left their places and so broke up the dance. We were left alone at the top, while at the bottom were the other two girls of Lynn, Victory and Amanda, with their partners. "It's a shame!" cried Victory, aloud. "Do they call these manners?" "Never mind," said Amanda, also aloud; "it's because you outshine them all, Molly." But the mischief was done, and the dance was broken up. Molly flushed crimson. I thought she would say something sharp. Nay, I have known her cuff and box the ear of man or maid for less, and I feared at this moment that she would in like manner avenge the insult. But she restrained herself, and said nothing. Meantime, the ladies who had committed this breach of polite manners stood together and laughed aloud, pretending some great joke among themselves; but their eyes showed the nature of the joke and this triumph over a woman who, as Amanda said, outshone them all. "Your turn will come," I said. "I think, Jack," said my girl, quickly, "that my chair must be waiting. The captain said that I was to go after the first country dance." But a great surprise awaited her and the ladies who had played her this agreeable and diverting trick, for Lord Fylingdale stepped forward, the people falling back to make way for him. He drew himself up before Molly and made her a profound bow. The captain walked beside him, evidently by invitation. "Miss Molly," he said loudly, "your worthy guardian has informed me of your name and quality. We wanted, in the company at the spa, to make it complete--the heiress of Lynn. It is fitting that this borough, which is always young and flourishing, should be represented by one graced with so many charms." Molly curtsied with more dignity than one could have expected. See what a dancing master can effect in a fortnight. "Your lordship," she said, "does me too much honour. The reception which I have met with from these ladies had not, I confess, prepared me for your kindness." "I shall humbly ask the favour of a dance with you, Miss Molly, on the next occasion." The fans were now all agitation; 'twas like a flutter in a dovecot. "We shall see if we shall be deserted when our turn comes." Some of the ladies hid their faces with their fan; some blushed for shame; some bit their lips with vexation; all darted looks of envy and hatred upon the cause of the open rebuke. "Sir"--Lord Fylingdale turned severely to the master of the ceremonies--"the rules of polite society should be obeyed at Lynn as much as at Bath and Tunbridge Wells. Look to it, sir; I request you." So saying, he took Molly's hand, and led her to the chair outside. CHAPTER XV THE CARD ROOM When Molly's chair was carried away, Lord Fylingdale returned to the assembly. The music had begun another moving and merry tune--that called "Richmond Ball"--the couples were taking their places, the young fellows dancing already as they stood waiting, with hands and feet and even shoulders all together, their partners laughing at them, and, with hands upon their frocks, pretending to set in the joy and the merriment of their hearts. And I believe that the withdrawal of Molly made them all much happier. Two or three of the ladies standing apart were discussing the public rebuke just administered. They were angry, being ladies who conceited themselves on the score of manners, and were proud of their families. "Not the whole House of Lords," said one, loud enough for his lordship to hear, "shall make me give my hand to a sailor's wench. Let her stick to her tar and her pitch. A pretty thing, indeed!" "I hope," said another, agitating her fan violently, "that his lordship does not put the ladies of Norfolk on the same level as the girls of King's Lynn." "Dear madam," said a third, "Lord Fylingdale called her an heiress--the heiress of Lynn. An heiress does not carry all her fortune on her back. Do you not think--some of us have sons--that we might, perhaps, receive this person with kindness?" "No, madam. I will not be on any terms with this creature. In my family we consort with none but gentlefolk." "Indeed, madam! But a hundred years ago your family, if I mistake not, were ploughing and ditching on the farms of my family." Molly seemed like to prove a firebrand indeed. Lord Fylingdale, however, passed through them without any sign of hearing a word. He looked round; he observed that the next dance had begun, and that every lady was touching the hands of those who were not of her own exalted family. So that his admonition was bearing fruit. He then left the long room and went into the card room. Here he found the Lady Anastasia sitting at a table, surrounded by a little crowd of players. She held the bank. In the excitement of the play her eyes sparkled; her bosom heaved; her colour went and came visibly beneath the paint on her cheeks; her lips became pale and then returned to their proper colour; she rapped the table with her fingers. She was enjoying, in fact, the rapture which fills the heart of the gambler and makes play the only thing desirable in life. Perhaps the preacher could imagine no greater misery for the gamester than a heaven in which there were no cards. The game which the Lady Anastasia introduced to these country gentlemen and the company generally was one called hazard, which is, I believe, commonly played by gamesters of fashion. Indeed, as was afterwards learned, this very lady had been by name presented by the grand jury of Middlesex for keeping a bank at the game of hazard on Sundays against all comers. At Lynn she kept the bank every evening except Sunday. It is a game which, more than any other, is said to lure on the player, so that a man who, out of simple curiosity, sets a guinea and calls a main, finds himself, after a few evenings of alternating fortune, winning and losing in turn, so much attracted by the game that he is only happy when he is playing. I know not how many gamblers for life were made during the short time when this lady held the bank. Wonderful to relate, no one seemed to consider that she was doing anything wrong. She was seen at morning prayers every day; she drank the waters of the spa; she walked in the gardens, taking tea and talking scandal with the greatest affability; and in the evenings, when she kept the bank, it was with a face so full of smiles, with so much appearance of rejoicing when a player won, and so much kindness and sympathy when a player lost, that no one asked whether she herself won or lost. For my own part, I do not understand how the bank can be held without great risks and losses. But I have been assured, by one who knows, that the chances are greatly in favour of the bank, and that this lady, so highly placed, and of such charming manners, was simply playing to win, and did win very largely, if not every evening, then in the course of a week or a month. "We are all friends here," she said, taking her place and dividing the pile of money, which constituted her bank, into two heaps, right and left. At her right hand stood a man of cold and harsh appearance, who took no interest in the game, but, like a machine, cried the main and the chance, and gave or took the odds, and, with a rake, either swept the stakes into the bank when the player lost, or pushed out the amount won by the player to his seat. They called him the _croupier_, which is, I believe, a French word. He came from London. "Since we are all friends here," Lady Anastasia went on, "we need not observe the precautions that are necessary in London, where players have been known to withdraw part of their stakes when they have lost, and to add more when they have won." Among the players seated at the table--there were many others standing, who ventured a guinea or so, and, having won or lost, went away--was the ancient youth of fashion, Sir Harry, who had now exchanged the dance for the card room. There was also the gentleman of loud voice and boisterous manners, called Colonel Lanyon. Sir Harry was the first to call for the dice box, and the dice. "Seven's the main," he cried, laying as many guineas on the table. He then rattled the dice and threw. "Five!" he cried. "Five!" repeated the croupier. "Seven's the main, five is the chance." The rule of the game is that the player throws again and continues to throw. If he throws seven first, he loses; if he throws five first, he wins. But there are introduced certain other rules, so that the game is not so easy and simple as it seems. Some throws are called "nicks," and some are called "crabs." If a nick is thrown, the caster pays to the bank one main. If crabs, the dice box goes to another player. But any bystander may bet on the odds. I know not myself what the odds are, but the regular player knows, and the croupier calls them; in some cases the bystanders may not bet against the bank, but I do not know these cases. I know only the simple rules, having seen it played in the card room. Lord Fylingdale looked on with an air of cold indifference. He saw, if he observed anything, that Colonel Lanyon and Sir Harry were playing high, but that the rest of the company were timidly venturing single guineas at each cast. Some of them were women, and these were the fiercest and the most intent upon the game. Most of them were young men, those who commonly spent their days in all those kinds of sport which allow of bets and the winning and losing of money. We have heard of gaming tables in London at which whole fortunes are sometimes lost at a single sitting; of young men who sit down rich and rise up poor--even destitute. The young men of Norfolk certainly do not gamble away their estates in this blind fashion; but it must be owned that their chief pleasures are those on which they can place a wager, and that the pastimes which do not allow of a bet are not regarded with favour. For the ladies of the towns a game of quadrille or whist is the amusement whenever two or three can be got together. It must, however, be confessed that the gentlemen are fonder of drinking away their evenings than of playing cards. The games of ombre, hazard, basset, faro, and others in which large sums of money are staked, are commonly played by the people of the town, not of the country. Lord Fylingdale stood for a while looking over the table. Then he pulled out his purse--a long and well-filled purse--and laid down twenty guineas, calling the main "Nine." He threw. "Nick," cried the croupier in his hard, monotonous note. His lordship had lost. He took out another handful of guineas and laid them on the table. Again he lost. The players looked up, expectant. They wanted to see how a noble lord would receive this reverse of fortune. In their own case it would have been met with curses on their luck, deep and loud and repeated. To their astonishment he showed no sign of interest in the event. He only put up his purse and resumed his attitude of looking on. At eleven o'clock the music stopped; the dancing was over. Nothing remained but the punch with which some of the company concluded the evening. It was provided at the expense of the gentlemen. The players began to recount their experiences. Fortune, which had smiled on a few, seemed to have frowned on most. Then Lord Fylingdale offered another surprise. "Ladies," he said, "I venture to offer you the refreshment of a glass of punch. Gentlemen, may I hope that you will join the ladies in this conclusion to the evening? I would willingly, if you will allow me, drink to your good luck at the card table. Let the county of Norfolk show that Fortune which has favoured this part of the country so signally in other respects has also been as generous in this. I am not myself a Norfolk, but a Gloucestershire man. I come from the other side of the country. Let me, however, in this gathering of all that is polite and of good family in the county be regarded as no stranger, but a friend." By this time the punch was brought in, two steaming great bowls. The gentlemen ladled it out for the ladies and for themselves and all stood expectant. "I give you a toast," said his lordship. "We are entertained by the ancient and venerable borough of Lynn; we must show our gratitude to our entertainers. I am informed that these rooms, these gardens, the music and the singers, together with the pump room, have all been designed, built, collected, and arranged for the company, namely, ourselves. Let us thank the good people of Lynn. And, since the town has sent to our assembly to-night its loveliest flower, the young heiress whom I shall call the Lady of Lynn, let us drink to her as the representative of her native place. Gentlemen, I offer you as a toast, 'Sweet Molly, the Lady of Lynn!'" The gentlemen drank it with enthusiasm, the ladies looked at each other doubtfully. They had not come to Lynn expecting to hear the beauty of a girl of the place, the town of sailors, ships, quays, cargoes, casks, cranes, and merchants, the town of winding streets and narrow courts where the deserted houses were falling to pieces. The county families went sometimes to Norwich, where there is very good society; and sometimes to Bury, where there are assemblies in the winter; but no ladies ever came to Lynn, where there were no assemblies, no card parties, and no society. After this toast, the Lady Anastasia withdrew with the other ladies. Lord Fylingdale led her to her chair and then called for his own. The gentlemen remained sitting over their punch and talking. "Who," said one, "is this sweet Molly? Who is this great heiress? Who is the Lady of Lynn?" "I never knew," said another, "that there was a lady in Lynn at all." "You have been in the card room all the evening," said another. "She danced the last minuet. Where can she be hidden that no one has seen her before? Gentlemen, 'twas a vision of Venus herself, or the fair Diana, in a silk frock and a flounced petticoat, with pearls and diamonds, and precious stones. An heiress? An heiress in Lynn?" The poet, Sam Semple, who was present, pricked up his ears. The punch had begun to loosen his tongue. "Gentlemen," he said, "by your leave. You are all strangers at Lynn Regis. Norwich you know, and Bury and Swaffham, and perhaps other towns in the county. But, with submission, Lynn you do not know." "Why, sir, as for not knowing Lynn, what can a body learn of the place that is worth knowing?" "You think that it is a poor place, with a few colliers and fishing smacks, and a population of sailors and vintners." The poet took another glass of punch and drank it off to clear his head. "Well, sir, you are mistaken. From Lynn goes forth every year a noble fleet of ships. Whither do they go? To all the ports of Europe. From Lynn they go out; to Lynn they return. To whom do these ships belong? Is a ship worth nothing? To whom do their cargoes belong? Is the cargo of a tall three-master worth nothing? Now, gentlemen, if most of these ships belong to one girl; if they are freighted for one girl; if half the trade of Lynn is in the hands of this girl's guardian; if for twenty years the revenues from the trade have been rolling up--what is that girl but a great heiress?" "Is that the case with--with sweet Molly?" asked a young fellow who had been drinking before the punch appeared, and now spoke with a thick voice. "Is she the heiress and the Lady of Lynn?" "She is nothing less," Sam Semple replied. "As for her fortune, I believe, if she wished it, she could buy up half this county." "And she is unmarried.... Egad!" it was the same young fellow who spoke, "he will be a lucky man who gets her." "A lucky man indeed," said Sam, "but she is above your reach, let me tell you," he added, impudently, because the other was a gentleman. "Above my reach? Take that," he threw the glass of punch in the poet's face. "Above my reach? Mine? Who the devil is this fellow? The owner of a ship, or a dozen ships, with their stinking cargoes and their cheating trade, above my reach? Why----" Here he would have fallen upon the offender, but was restrained by his friends. Sam stood open-mouthed, looking about him dumfoundered, the punch streaming over his cheeks. "You'd best go, sir," said one of them. "I know not who you are. But, if you are a gentleman you can send your friend to-morrow. If not"--he laughed--"in our country if a gentleman falls out with one whom he cannot fight with swords, he is not too proud to meet him with stick or fist. In any case you had better go--and that without delay." The poet turned and ran. No hostile meeting followed. Sam could not send a challenge, being no gentleman, and, as you have already seen, he was not naturally inclined for the ordeal by battle in any other form. The young man was one Tom Rising, whose estates lay near Swaffham. He was well known as the best and most fearless rider in the whole county; he was the keenest sportsman; he knew where to find fox, hare, badger, ferret, stoat, or weasel; he knew where to put up a pheasant or a cover of partridges; he could play at all manly sports; he was a wild, fearless, reckless, deboshed young fellow, whom everybody loved and everybody feared; always ready with a blow or an oath; afraid of nothing if he set his heart upon anything. You shall see presently that he set his heart upon one thing and that he failed. For the rest, a comely, tall, and proper young man of four-and-twenty or so, whose careless dress, disordered necktie, and neglected head sufficiently indicated his habits, even if his wanton rolling eyes, loose lip, and cheeks always flushed with wine, did not loudly proclaim the manner of his life and the train of his thoughts. When Sam was gone he turned again to the bowl. In the morning it was reported that there had been wagers, and that a great deal of money had been won and lost. Some said that Colonel Lanyon, one of the gentlemen from London, had lost a great sum; others said that Tom Rising was the heaviest loser. I judge from what I now know that Tom Rising lost, that evening, more than his estates would bring him in a whole quarter. And I am further of opinion that Colonel Lanyon did not lose anything except a piece of paper with some figures on it, which he handed, ostentatiously proclaiming the amount, which was very large, to his honourable friend, Sir Harry Malyus, Baronet. CHAPTER XVI HIS LORDSHIP'S INTENTIONS In the morning the newly laid out gardens were the resort--after prayers, the pump room, the pastry cook, the bookseller, and the draper--of all the ladies and of many of the men--those, indeed, who preferred the pleasures of society and the discourse of the ladies, to the dull talk of the Cambridge fellows and the canons of Ely in the coffee house, or the noisy disputes and the wagers of the tavern, or the sport of the cockpit. The gardens became the haunt of scandal and of gossip; here a thousand stories were invented; here characters were taken away and reputations dragged in the mud; the ladies in their morning dress walked about under the trees and in the alleys, diverting themselves as best they could. At eleven the music played in the gallery outside the long room. On some days a public breakfast was offered; on other days there was a lottery or raffle, in which everybody took a huge interest. Sometimes the company were content to walk or sit under the trees, talking; sometimes there was singing in the long room; or perhaps the Rev. Mr. Purdon would read aloud to a small circle from some book of verse or of romance; or there were parties made up for voyages up the river; or a play was bespoke by the general consent. In a word, it was the resort of a multitude who had nothing to do but to divert themselves; they were full of scandal about each other; a young fellow could not squeeze a girl's hand but it was whispered all over the place that he had run away with her; and though one would think, to hear them, that every woman of the company was ready to tear to pieces every other woman, yet they assumed so pretty a disguise, and professed so much interest and affection and friendship for each other, that one was inclined to believe the scandal and gossip to be a pretence or masque to hide their true feelings. It was natural that in walking about the gardens the people should divide themselves into parties of two, or three, or more. But in the morning, after Molly's first appearance, these parties consisted of groups, each of half a dozen and more, talking about last night's unexpected apparition of a woman more finely dressed than any of them, with jewels and gold chains which made the hearts of all who beheld to sink with envy. "The men, they say, admired her face. Lord Fylingdale himself, they say, toasted her by name as an heiress. What kind of heiress can she be? And there was a quarrel about her over the punch. Tom Rising poured the whole of the punch bowl upon the head of a gentleman said to be his lordship's secretary. This morning they met outside the walls. The gentleman is run through the body and cannot live. No, through the shoulder and will recover. I heard that it was in the arm, and that he will be well again in a week. But the heiress--who is the heiress?" And so they went on. You may be sure that Sam Semple found it prudent to keep out of the way. There was, therefore, no one to tell these curious ladies who the heiress was, or what her fortune might be. Mostly they inclined to the belief that a thousand pounds would cover the whole of her inheritance, and that Lord Fylingdale meant no more than an act of politeness to the town, which certainly had done its best to entertain the company. And so on. Presently there appeared, walking side by side, Lord Fylingdale himself and Lady Anastasia. He carried his hat under his arm, and his cane dangled from his right wrist; his face was as cold and as devoid of emotion as when the night before he had rebuked the company. They passed along under the trees, conversing. When they passed or met any others they lowered their voices. Their conversation--I will tell you in due course how I learned it--was important and serious. It was of greater importance to Molly and to me, had I known it, than one could imagine or suspect. And this was, in effect, the substance of their discourse. "I know," she said, "that you have some design in coming to Lynn, and that you intend me to assist you. Otherwise, why should you drag me here, over vile roads, to a low lodging, in the company of fox hunters and their ladies? Otherwise, indeed, why should you come here yourself?" "The healing waters of the spa," he suggested gravely. "You have nothing the matter with you. Nothing ever hurts you. If other men drink and rake all night they show it in their faces and their swollen bodies. But you--why you look as if you lived like a saint or a hermit in a cell." "Yet--to prevent disease--to anticipate, so to speak." "Ludovick, you have no longer any confidence in me. You tell me to come here--I come. You order me to set up a bank here every night. I have done so. What has happened? Sir Harry and the colonel lose and win with each other and with me. You look in and throw away fifty guineas with your lofty air as if they mattered nothing. These country bumpkins look on and wonder. They are lost in admiration at a man who can lose fifty guineas without so much as a word or a gesture. And then they put down--a simple guinea. To please you, Ludovick, I have become a guinea hunter. And I am standing at great expense, and I am losing the profits of my London bank." "The change of air will do you good, Anastasia. You were looking pale in town. Besides, there were too many rumours afloat." "If I had your confidence, I should not care for anything. I am willing to be your servant, Ludovick, your tool. I endure the colonel and I tolerate Sir Harry, with his nauseous old compliments. For your sake I suffer them to bring discredit on my name and my play. But I do not consent to be your slave." "My mistress, not my servant," he murmured, touching her fingers. She laughed scornfully. "Will you tell me, then, if you wish me to do anything more for you? Am I to continue picking up the guineas of these hard-fisted rustics? Am I to figure in their stupid minuets, whenever they have their assembly? How long am I to stay here?" "You ask too many questions, Anastasia. Still, to show you that I place confidence in you, although you mistrust me, I will answer some of them. Of course it is no news to you that I have at this moment no rents--nothing to receive and nothing to sell." "I have known that for two years. You best know how you continue to keep up your establishment." "Partly by the help of your table, dear Anastasia. I am not ungrateful, believe me." Again he touched her fingers, and again she drew herself away. "You have remarked upon the danger of having the colonel and old Sir Harry about you. Both are a good deal blown upon. I would not suffer them to be with you again at Bath or Tunbridge Wells. In this place they are safe. Both of them will encourage the play and set an example of high play and great winnings. One of them will also be ready to challenge any who refuses to pay. The colonel has his uses. As for Harry, he is useful to me in other ways. Like his reverence." "The odious, vile, crawling worm!" "Quite so. Sir Harry and the Reverend Mr. Purdon are useful in assuring the world of my own virtuous character." "Why do you want to appear virtuous? You, whose character is notorious." "I have my reasons. Anastasia, I will place my whole confidence in you. Perhaps you saw at the assembly the other night a certain bourgeoise--a citizen's daughter--a girl dressed in the clothes of the fashion, her face as red as her hands----" "I saw a very remarkable woman, Ludovick--her face and her figure fine enough to make her fortune. She was covered with jewels, which they told me were false." "They told you wrongly, Anastasia. They are real--diamonds, pearls, rubies, gold chains and all--real. The girl is a great heiress. The people here do not know how great, or the whole country would be on bended knees before the goddess. But I know. And on her account--look you--on her account am I here." The Lady Anastasia changed her manner suddenly. She glanced at his face. It was impassive; it showed no sign of any emotion at all. "Well? What is this heiress to me? Can I get her diamonds?" "I want you to become her friend, Anastasia. I desire this favour very greatly." The Lady Anastasia stopped suddenly. She lowered her face; her cheek flushed; her lip trembled. "Ludovick," she said, "I am a woman after all. You may command me in anything--anything else. But not in this. If you insist upon this, I will go home at once." He looked surprised. "Why?" he began. "Surely my Anastasia is not jealous--not jealous, after all the proofs that I have given her of fidelity?" "Jealous?" she repeated. "What have you to do with the girl, then?" [Illustration: "JEALOUS?" SHE REPEATED. "WHAT HAVE YOU TO DO WITH THE GIRL, THEN?"] "My dear mistress, I care nothing about the girl, or about any woman in the world, except one. Who should know this except the one herself? It is the girl's fortune that I want--not the girl herself." "How will you get it without the girl?" "That is the very point I am considering. I came here in order to get this fortune. My secretary--the fellow Semple--told me of the girl. I sent you here in order to help me to secure this fortune. I sent his reverence here--the colonel--Sir Harry--all of them--here with the same object, which they must not know. I came here. I have made a friend of the girl's guardian." "If this is true----" "Of course, it is true," he replied coldly. "Let me go on. You shall not charge me again with want of confidence. The guardian is a simple old sailor. He is a fool, of course, being a sailor. He thinks to marry his ward to a man of rank." "Yourself, perhaps?" "Perhaps. He also believes in the virtue and piety which my friends here have ascribed to me." "How will you get the fortune without the girl?" "I tell you again--there is the difficulty. Anastasia, if you have ever promised to assist me, give me your assistance now. I must win the confidence of the old man and the girl. Everybody must speak well of me. I will learn how the money is placed and where. I will get possession of it somehow." "And then--when you have it?" "My difficulties will be at an end. I shall leave the town and the gaming table and everything. You will come with me, Anastasia." This time he took her hand. "We will be Alexis and Amaryllis, the shepherd Strephon and the maiden Daphne. My Anastasia, believe me, I am tired of the world and its noisy pleasures. I sigh for rest and repose." "And the girl?" "She will do better without this huge fortune. Ye gods! to give such a girl--this sailor wench--this red and pink bourgeoise--the fortune that should have been yours, Anastasia! 'Tis monstrous! It cuts her off from her own people. She would do better to marry the young sailor fellow who stumbled and rolled through the minuet with her, thinking he was on his deck rolling in the bay of Biscay. I will set this matter right. I will relieve her of her fortune and throw her into those arms which reek of pitch and tar and rope. Happy girl!" The Lady Anastasia sighed. "There will never be any rest--or any repose--or any happiness for you or for me. Have it your own way. I will make the girl my friend. I will tell her that you are the best of men and the most virtuous. Yes," she laughed a little, but not mirthfully, "the most virtuous. And now, I think, you may walk with me through their narrow lanes with a bridge and a stream for every one, to the small and dirty cabin where my maid makes shift to dress me every day, so that I may turn out decent at least." CHAPTER XVII "IN THE LISBON TRADE" I was greatly surprised, being on duty aboard in the forenoon, to see Lord Fylingdale on our quay, which adjoins the Common Stath, in company with Captain Crowle. In truth, the nobleman looked out of his element--a fish on dry land--in a place of trade. His dress was by no means suitable to the collection of bales and casks and crates with which the quay was piled, nor did his look resemble that of the merchant, who may be full of dignity, as he is full of responsibility, but is never cold and haughty. His secret purpose, as I afterwards understood, was to ascertain the true nature of Molly's fortune, which he could not believe to be so great as had been represented to him. His professed purpose was to see what Captain Crowle was anxious to show him. The good old man, in fact, played the very game which this virtuous gentleman desired; he threw the girl--money, and lands, and ships, and all--at the feet of the very man who wanted the fortune, and for the sake of it would not scruple to bring misery upon the girl. "I have heard," his lordship was saying, as he looked around and marked the crowd of porters, lightermen, and clerks running about, "of ships and shipping. There is a place near London, I believe, where they have ships. But I have never seen that part of town. My own friends own farms, not ships." "Ships may be better than farms," the old sailor replied, stoutly. "You have frosts in May; hail in August; drought in spring--where are your farms then?" Lord Fylingdale laughed pleasantly. "Nay, captain, but there is another side to your picture also. Storms arise; the waves become billows; there are hidden rocks--where are your ships then?" "The underwriters pay for all. There may be better money, I say, in ships than in land." "Then the merchants should be richer than the landowners." "Not always, by your leave, my lord. For there are too many merchants; and of landowners, such as your lordship, there are never more than a few. But some merchants are richer than some landowners. Of these my ward is one." "I should like to know, captain, what you mean by rich. Your ward owns ships, and brings home their cargoes--turpentine and tar--a fragrant trade." "The farmer's muck heap smells no sweeter, and pig-styes, my lord, are no ladies' bowers." "Show me one of your ships, captain. If you have one in port, take me on board. Make me understand what this trade means. I doubt not that before long we shall all turn our ploughs into rudders, our maypoles into masts, and our oaks into ships, and so go a trading up and down the seas, and get rich like the merchants of Lynn Regis." I do not know how far he spoke truthfully; I am, on the whole, inclined to believe that he was actually ignorant of trade and shipping of any kind. He and his class build up a wall between themselves and those who carry on the trade which pours wealth into the country and push out their fleets into far distant seas; and he and his class imagine that they are a superior race to whom Providence hath delivered the work of administering the kingdom, with all the offices, prizes, places, and honours belonging to that work. They will not admit the merchants to any share; they fill the House of Commons--which should be an assembly containing the merchants, and who make the country rich--with placemen (their servants), and their own cousins, sons, and brothers. They command our armies and our navies; they are our judges and our magistrates; for them the poet writes, the player acts, the artist paints. They do not condescend to penetrate into the ports where the ships lie moored and the quays contain the treasures brought home and the treasures sent out. They grow continually poorer instead of richer; their gambling, their troops of servants, their drinking, their pleasant vices impoverish them; they sell their woods and pawn their revenues. All this time the merchants are growing richer; they live in places where they never see anything of the fashionable world--in villages outside London; in towns like Bristol, Lynn, Southampton, Newcastle, where there are no noble lords; they do not concern themselves about the government if only the seas are kept open. Again, if these noblemen meet the merchants on any occasion their carriage is cold and proud. Perhaps they show an open scorn of trade; in any case, they treat them with scanty consideration, as people who have no rank. Even when they desire to conciliate these inferiors their manner is haughty, and they speak from a height. One man is not better than another because he makes his living out of fields while this other makes his out of ships. And I do not find that one man makes a better sailor than another because he is the son of a gentleman while the other is the son of a boat builder or a rope maker. However, I am talking likely enough as a fool. It is not for me to question the order of the world. If the merchants go on getting rich they may, some time or other, look down upon the House of Lords as much as the House of Lords, with their ladies, their sons, their daughters, their nephews, and their cousins, now look down upon merchants and all who earn their livelihood by honest work, and by enterprises which demand courage and resolution, knowledge, patience, and skill. Presently I saw them both get into a dingey, which the captain rowed out into the river, making for _The Lady of Lynn_. He made fast the painter to the companion and climbed up the rope ladder, followed by his lordship, who, with some difficulty, landed on the deck, looking at his tarred hands with curiosity rather than disgust. I must say that he made no complaint, even though his dress, which was not adapted for rope ladders, showed also signs of the tar. "My lord," said the captain, "this is one of my ward's ships, and there is the mate of the ship, Mr. Pentecrosse, at your service." "At your service, sir," said my lord, from his superior height, and with that cold condescension which I should try in vain to imitate and cannot attempt to set down in words. It is not the voice of authority--every skipper knows what that is and every sailor. It is a manner which is never found except among people of rank. However, I pulled off my hat and bowed low. His lordship took no further notice of me for awhile, but looked about him curiously. "A strange place," he said. "I have never before been on a ship. Tell me more about this ship, captain." "She is called _The Lady of Lynn_. She is three hundred and eighty tons burden, and she is in the Lisbon trade." "In the Lisbon trade? Captain, neither the amount of her tons nor the nature of her occupation enlightens me in the least." "She sails from here to Lisbon and back again. She takes out for the Portuguese things that they want--iron, lead, instruments of all kinds, wool, and a great many other things--and she brings back what we want--the wine of the country. She comes laden with port wine, Sack, Malmsey, Canary, Teneriffe, Lisbon, Bacellas, Mountain--in a word, all the wines of Spain and Portugal. My ward is an export and import merchant as well as a shipowner; she fills her ships with wine. The country round Lynn is a thirsty country; the gentlemen of Norfolk, Lincoln, and the Fen countries, not to speak of the University of Cambridge, all drink the wines of Spain and Portugal, and a great deal of it. We send our wine in barges up the river and in waggons across the country; we send our wine to Newcastle and Hull by ships. The trade of Lynn Regis in Spanish and Portuguese wine is very considerable, and most of it is in the hands of my ward." "This is the Lisbon trade. I begin to understand. And what may such a ship as this be worth?" "To build her, to rig her, to fit her for sea, to provision her, would cost a matter of £1,500 or £2,000." "And I suppose she earns something by her voyages?" The captain smiled. "She makes two voyages every year; sometimes five in two years. She must first pay her captain and the ship's company; then she must pay for repairs--a woman and a ship, they say, are always wanting repairs--then she must pay for provisions for the crew; there are customs dues and harbour dues at both ends. When all is paid the ship will bring to her owners a profit of £500 or £600. It is a bad year when she does not bring in £600." His lordship's eyebrows lifted. "How many ships did you say are owned by this fortunate young lady?" "She has eight. They are not all in the Lisbon trade. Some sail to Norway; some to the Baltic--that is, to Revel and Dantzig--and bring home what you saw on the quay, the turpentine, deal, skins, fur, and so forth." "Eight ships and a bad year when every single ship does not bring in a profit of £600. Then, Captain Crowle, we may take it that your ward has an income of £4,800 a year." The captain smiled again. "If it were only that I should not be so anxious about her future. But consider, my lord. For eighteen years she has lived with me--she and her mother--we live in a plain and homely way, according to our station. We are respectable, but not gentle-folk. We live on about £150 a year. The rest is money saved. Some of it is laid out in land. My ward has a good bit of land, here and there, chiefly in marshland, which is fat and fertile; some of it is laid out in houses--a good part of Lynn belongs to her--some of it is lent on mortgage. Since your lordship hath kindly promised to give me your advice on the matter, it is proper to tell you the truth. The girl, therefore, will have an income of over £12,000 a year." A strange and sudden flush rose to his lordship's cheek; for a few moments he did not reply. Then in a harsh and constrained voice he said: "It is a very large income, captain. Many members of the Upper House have much less. You must be very careful. At six per cent. it is actually £200,000 or thereabouts. You must be very careful." "I have been, and shall be, very careful. With such a fortune, my lord, may not my girl look high?" "She may look very high. There are some families which would not admit, even for so great a fortune, a _mésalliance_, but they are few. There are the jewels, too, of which she wore so many last night. What may they be worth?" "I do not know. They have been lying in a chest for fifty years and more. They were brought from India by Molly's grandfather, who sailed there, and made the acquaintance of an Indian prince, to whom he rendered some service. They were too grand for him and his wife; and they were too grand for Molly's mother, who is but a homely body. Therefore they have been locked up all this time. Nobody has ever worn them until Molly put them on last night." "I am a poor judge of such things, but, captain, I believe that what the lady wore last night must be worth a very large sum--a very large sum indeed." "It may be so. It may be so," said the captain. "There are as many in the box as we took out of it. Well, my lord, will her diamonds add to her attractions?" "Captain Crowle, no one knows or can understand the extraordinary beauty of a woman who is worth £200,000 and has, besides, diamonds and pearls fit for a duchess. You must, indeed, be very careful." I who stood beside him humbly, hat in hand, wondered within myself as to what his lordship would say if the captain should suddenly or inadvertently reveal his secret ambitions. Indeed, he looked so commanding and so noble that these ambitions appeared to me ridiculous. I felt happier in thinking that they were ridiculous. How, indeed, should our girl, who must appear homely to one who knew courts and the charms and splendour of great ladies, attract this cold and fastidious nobleman? He turned suddenly upon me. "This," he said, "is one of your crew?" I was dressed in my workaday frieze and shag, and looked, I dare say, to unpractised eyes, more like a fo'k'sle hand than the chief officer. "It is our mate. I told your lordship before. He is second in command." "Oh! sir," he said, bowing, a gesture which politeness demanded and difference of rank allowed to be a slight inclination only, "I beg your pardon. The strangeness of this place made me forget. Stay, is not this the--the gentleman who attempted a minuet last night with the fair Miss Molly?" The question threw me into confusion. The captain answered for me. "Gad! He did it rarely." "Rarely, indeed. Well, sir, you are lucky. You dance with the lady; you are in the service of the lady; by faithful service you help to make her rich. What greater marks of favour can Providence bestow upon you?" I made no answer, because, indeed, I knew not what to reply. "And now, sir, if you will show me your ship, I shall be obliged to you. Teach me the economy of a merchant man." I obeyed. We left the captain on deck, and I took him over the whole of the ship. He wanted to see everything; he inspected the two carronades on the quarter-deck and the stand of small arms. I showed him the binnacle and explained how we steered and kept her in her course. I took him below and showed him the lower deck, and let him peer into the hole. He saw the galley and the fo'k'sle, and everything. I observed that he was extremely curious about all he saw. He wanted to know the value of things; the wages; the cost of provisioning the ship; the purchase and the sale of the cargo. It was wonderful to find a man of his rank so curious as to every point. "I suppose," he said, "that the old man states the mere facts as to these ships--and the lands--and--and the rest of it." "No man knows better than the captain," I replied. "He has worked for nearly twenty years for his ward." "And for himself, as well, I doubt not." "No, my lord, not for himself. All for his ward. He has taken nothing for himself, though he might have done so. It has been all for his ward." "A virtuous guardian, truly. Young man, he should be an example to you. Would that there were many guardians so prudent and so careful!" Then I invited him into the cabin, and showed him how the log is kept, and the ship's course set down day by day. There was nothing which he did not wish to understand. "I never knew before," he said, "that ships could mean money. Pray, Captain Crowle, could a ship, such as this, be sold and converted into ready money like a forest of oak or a plantation of cedars, or an estate of land?" "Assuredly, my lord. If I put up _The Lady of Lynn_ for sale to-morrow there would be a score of bids for her here in this town. If I sold her in London she would command a higher price." "Your ward could, therefore, sell her whole fleet if she chose." "Her fleet and her business as a merchant, and her lands and her houses and her jewels--she could sell them all." It seems trifling to set down this conversation, but you will understand in due course the meaning of these questions, and what was in the mind--the corrupt and evil mind--of this deceiver. "But," he went on, "the ship may be cast away." "Ay! She may be cast away. Then this lad and the whole of the ship's crew would be drowned. That happens to many tall ships. We sailors take our chance." "The crew might be drowned. I was thinking, however, of the cargo and the ship." "Oh! as to them, the underwriters would pay. Underwriters, my lord, are a class of people who, between them, take the risk of ships for a percentage." "Then under no circumstances, not even that of ship-wreck, or of fire, or of pirates, can the owner lose." "The underwriters would pay. But look you, my lord, there are risks in every kind of business. There is the cargo. The owner of this ship is also a merchant. She loads a cargo of wine on her own ship; unloads it on her own quay, and sends it about the country to the inn-keepers and the merchants of the towns. They may not want her wine--but they always do. They may not be willing to pay so much as usual, but they generally do. These are our risks. But it is a safe business on the whole--eh, Jack?" "We have never lost much yet, to my knowledge, captain." Lord Fylingdale sat down carelessly on the cabin table dangling his leg. "I have had a most instructive visit, captain. I do not mind the tar on my hands or that on my small clothes, which are ruined. I have learned a great deal. Captain," he added solemnly, "Miss Molly has, beside the charms of her person and her conversation--out of so fine a mouth pearls only--pearls as fine as those around her neck would drop--twelve thousand charms a year. I do not know her equal in London at this moment. The daughter of a retired tallow chandler was spoken of, some time ago--said to have fifty thousand pounds--with a squint. No, sir, Miss Molly in London would take the town by storm." He paused and fell into a short meditation. "Jack," said the captain, "there is, I am sure, a bottle in the locker. His lordship must not leave the ship without tasting some of the cargo." I produced a bottle and glasses. "Your very best, Jack?" "The king himself has no better," I replied stoutly, "because no better wine is made." "I give you a toast, captain," said his lordship. "The fair Miss Molly!" We drank it with enthusiasm. "I have this morning learned a great deal. For one who, like myself, proposes to serve his country, all kinds of knowledge are useful--even the smallest details may be important. I have a good memory, and I shall not readily forget the things which you have taught me. We of the Upper House, perhaps, keep too much aloof from the trading interests of the country." "Your lordship," said the captain, "should present an example of the better way." "I shall endeavour to do so." He put on his hat and stood up. "Before leaving the ship, Mr. Pentecrosse--you seem to have an honest face--I would exhort you to persevere in faithful service and to deserve the confidence of your employer. I wish you, sir, a successful voyage and many of them." He took a step towards the cabin door, but stopped and turned again to me. "Mr. Pentecrosse, let me add another word of advice. Do not again attempt to enact the part of a fine gentleman. Believe me, sir, the part requires practice and study, unless one is born and brought up a gentleman. Stick to your quarter-deck, friend, and to your ship's log, and leave, for the future, minuets, heiresses, and polite assemblies to your betters." So saying he walked out of the cabin and climbed down the ladder, followed by the captain. As for me, I stood gaping at the open door, looking, as they say, like a stuck pig, being both ashamed and angry. CHAPTER XVIII THE WITCH All that day I remained in a state of gloom. I was ashamed to think that I had brought ridicule upon Molly by my clumsy dancing, and I was gloomy because I understood that Molly must certainly marry some great man, and that there would be an end of her so far as I was concerned. I was her servant; I was her faithful servant; what could I want more? I was never again to attempt the part of a fine gentleman--and she would live wholly among fine gentlemen. I know now that it was more than the common gloom of humiliation. That I should have thrown off with ease. It was the terror of something evil--the consciousness which seizes the soul without any cause that can be ascertained, and fills it with trembling and with terror. Certain words--harmless words--kept recurring to my mind; words uttered by Lord Fylingdale--"Can a ship be sold like a farm?" or words to that effect. Why did these simple words disturb me? The captain had no thought of selling any of the ships. And why, when I thought of these words, did I also remember the curious change that came over his face when he understood the great wealth of this young heiress? I seemed to see again the strange flush of his pale, cold cheek; I seemed to see a strange smile upon his unbending lips and a strange light in his eyes. There was never, surely, any gentleman with a face so cold and calm as that of my Lord Fylingdale. It was as if a perpetual peace reigned in his mind; as if he was disturbed by none of the passions and emotions of ordinary men. Therefore the smile and the strange look must have been in my imagination only. Was it possible that the captain's secret prayers were to be granted? They were ambitious prayers. I have heard it said that the Lord sometimes grants to men the thing they most desire in order that they may learn how much better it would have been for them had their prayers been refused. You shall learn how this lesson was driven into my mind--line upon line--precept upon precept. For my own part, while I honestly desired for Molly the best of husbands, the thought of her marrying this cold, stately, proud young nobleman filled me with pity. And I must tell you, moreover, of a strange thing. It happened some three or four years before these events, but I have never forgotten it. It is connected with Molly's black woman whom we called Nigra. Like all black women she was esteemed a witch. In earlier times she would have been burned at the stake for her magic and sorcery. Yet she was only a white witch, as they call them; it was very well known that she worked no mischief and cast no spells. Nobody was afraid of her. If a child fell into fits the mother, so far from thinking Nigra to be the cause, brought her to the black woman to be cured. Nobody could look at her kindly, wrinkled old face, which was always smiling through her white teeth; nobody could see those smiles upon her face, which shone in the sun as if it was of burnished metal; nobody could talk with her, I say, and believe that she was of the malignant stuff that makes the witch of the village. She had a great reputation for telling fortunes; she could show girls their future husbands; she could find out lucky days for them, and tell them how to avoid unlucky days; she could make charms to be hung round the necks of infants which would keep them from croup, fits, and convulsions, and carry them safely through measels and whooping cough. She had sovereign remedies against toothache, chilblains, earache, growing pains, agues, fevers, and all the diseases of boys and girls, and with the ailments which fall upon the maids, such as megrims, headache, swoonings, giddiness, vapours, and melancholy. It was believed that even Dr. Worship himself could not compare with this black woman from the Guinea coast. One evening, long before the events that I am relating, I surprised her while she was engaged in her harmless spells and magic rites. It was in the kitchen, where she sat alone at a table before the fire. There was no candle, and the red light of the blazing coal made her face shine like copper and her eyes like two flames, and transformed her red cloth turban into rich crimson velvet. She had on the table before her a string of shells, a monkey's skull--but it looked like the skull of a baby--a thick round stick, painted with lines of red and blue, two or three rags of cloth, a cocoanut shell cut in two to make a cup, and many other tools or instruments which I forget; and, indeed, it matters nothing, because no one would be any the wiser if I set down the whole furniture of this old sorceress. She was bending over the table, arranging in some kind of order these mysterious means for learning the future, and murmuring the while gibberish of the kind which serves these poor blacks for their language. She was so busy that she did not hear my footsteps, till I stole behind her and clapped both my hands over her eyes. Then she jumped up with a shriek, letting her magical tools drop, and turned round. "Shoo!" she cried, bursting into a laugh. "Shoo! It's Massa Jack. I thought it was de debble come to look on." This was the way she talked. I believe that if you take a negro as a baby and bring him up with Christians, so that he hears no word of his own gibberish, in the end he will always speak in this way. It is part of his nature; it is one of the things which belong to his race--wool instead of hair; black skin instead of white; thick speech instead of clear; the shin rounded instead of the calf; a projecting heel, and a big jaw with white, strong teeth. "Does the devil often come here, Nigra?" "Massa Jack," she replied, with as much solemnity as she could command, "don't you nebber ask if the debble comes here." "What is he like, Nigra?" She sat down and began to laugh. She laughed till her mouth nearly reached her ears; she laughed till her turban nodded and shook, and her shoulders shook, and she shook all over. She laughed, I know not why. "What he like? Ho! Ho! Ho! Massa Jack--what he like?" "Well, but, Nigra, tell me how you know him when you see him." "Massa Jack," she became serious as suddenly as she had fallen into her fit of laughter. "Look ye here. When you see de debble--then you know de debble." So saying, she turned to the table again and began to gather up her unholy possessions. "Well, but Nigra, I am not the devil, and so you may as well tell me whose fortune you are telling." "Missy's fortune." "What is it?" She shook her head. "Can't tell you, Massa Jack. Mustn't tell you." "Why not? Come, Nigra, you know that I desire the very best fortune for her that can be given to any one." She hesitated. Then she laid her hand on mine. "Massa Jack," she said, "I tell her fortune your people's way, by the cards, and my people's way, by the gri-gri and the skull. It's always the same fortune." "What is it?" "Always the same. They say--trouble for Missy--great big trouble--she dunno yet what trouble is. Bimeby she find out, and then all de trouble go--like as if de sun come out and de rain leave off. All the same fortune." "I don't understand it at all, Nigra. Why should trouble come to Miss Molly?" "Cards don' tell that. Sometimes, Jack, de head"--she laid her hand on the skull of the monkey, or was it the skull of a child?--"de head tells me things. Befo' you come in de head was talking fine. He say, 'Lose to gain; lose to gain. Him no good. Bimeby bery fine man come along.' Dat's what de head said to-night." "Nonsense, Nigra--a fleshless skull cannot speak." "Dat's what de head say to me dis night," she replied, doggedly. I looked at the skull, but it remained silent, grinning with the dreadful mockery of the death's head. "Bimeby--bery fine man come along," Nigra repeated. I laughed incredulous. Then she laid her hand upon my eyes for a moment--only for a moment. "Listen, then." It was like a voice far away. I opened my eyes again. Before me sat, or stood unsupported, the skull, and nothing else. The room had vanished, Nigra and her tools and everything. The eyes of the skull were filled with a bright light, and the teeth moved, and the thing spoke. It said: "Lose to gain! Lose to gain! By and by a better man will come." I shivered and shook. I shut my eyes for the brightness of the light. I opened them again immediately. Everything was as before; the old black woman beside me at the table; the skull and the rest of the things; the red light of the fire. "Nigra," I cried, "what have you done? You are a witch." "What did de skull say, Massa Jack?" "How did you do it? What does it mean?" To this day I know not how she contrived this witchcraft. She would talk no more, however. I suppose she read the signs and tokens according to the rules of her witchcraft, and knew no more. I am not one of those who believe that these black women can penetrate the clouds of the future and can foresee, that is, see clearly, before they happen, the things that are coming. It would be too much to expect of a mere black. Why should Providence, who has manifestly created the black man to be the slave of the white, confer upon the black woman so great a gift as that of prophecy? It is not credible. All that day, after Lord Fylingdale climbed down by the rope ladder, I kept hearing over again the words of the black woman, which came back to me, though I had long forgotten them, "By and by. By and by, a better man will come." Some there are who laugh at these things, which they call superstitions. I have heard my father and the vicar arguing learnedly that the time for witchcraft has passed away, with that of miracles, demoniac possessions, and the casting out of devils. Well, it is not for me to speak of things that belong to the landsman. There may be no such thing as witchcraft; there may be no overlooking; the moon and the planets cannot, perhaps, strike children. But as for what the sailor believes--why, he knows. All the Greek and all the Hebrew in the world will not shake out of his mind what he knows. He learns new knowledge with every voyage, and new experience with every gale, and when those words of poor old Nigra came back to me, and would not leave me, keeping up a continual sing-song in my head, I knew very well, indeed, that some trouble was brewing--and that the trouble had to do with Molly. CHAPTER XIX A TRUE FRIEND When Molly came out of church after morning prayers she stood in the porch to see the company pass out. It was a fashionable company, consisting entirely of ladies who came from the pump room to hear the Reverend Benjamin Purdon, _locum tenens_ for the curate of St. Nicholas, read the prayers of the morning service. This he did with an impressiveness quite overwhelming, having a deep and musical voice, which he would roll up and down like the swelling notes of an organ, insomuch that some ladies wept every morning, while he pronounced the absolution with so much weight that every sinner present rose from her knees in the comfortable faith that her sins were absolved and washed away, and that she could now begin a new series of sins upon a clean slate. Happy condition, when without penance, which the papists enforce; and without repentance, which is demanded by the Protestant faith, a sinner can every morning wipe off the sins of the last twenty-four hours and so begin another day with a robe as white as snow, no sins upon their conscience, and a sure and certain hope. "Let us accept," said this reverend divine, "with gratitude and joy all that Holy Church gives us; above all, her absolution. We have not the sins of yesterday to weigh us down together with the sins of to-day. Madam, your silk apron becomes you highly, pink silk with silver matches the colour of your cheeks. It is the colour of Venus herself, I vow. Ah! there are moments when I could wish I was not an ecclesiastic!" As a rule the morning prayers at our two churches are but poorly attended. The merchants and the captains are at this hour in the counting-houses on the quay, or assembled at the customhouse, which is a kind of exchange for them; the craftsmen and the sailors and the bargemen are at their work; the shopkeepers are standing behind their counters; the housewives and the girls are in the kitchen, pantry, or stillroom; there is no one left to attend the morning service, except a few bedesmen and poor old women. But in the company assembled at the spa there were many ladies of pious disposition, though of fashionable conversation, who, having no duties to perform, after drinking the waters and exchanging the latest gossip at the pump room, were pleased to attend the daily prayers--all the more because they were read by a clergyman from London who could talk, when he pleased, like a mere man of the world, or, also when he pleased, with the gravity and the piety of a bishop. The church was, further, a place where one could gather together, so to speak, all the ladies' dresses and receive suggestions and hints by the example of others what to choose and what to avoid. Among those who came out of the church that morning was the Lady Anastasia, in a long hood lined with blue silk, looking, as she always did, more distinguished than any of the rest. She stopped in the porch, seeing Molly, and laughed, tapping her on the cheek with her fan. The other ladies, recognising the girl who wore the chains and the strings of jewels with so fine a dress at the assembly, passed on their way, sticking out their chins, or sniffing slightly, or giggling and whispering, or even frowning. These gestures all meant the same thing; scorn and contempt for the girl who presumed, not being a gentlewoman, to have so much money and so much beauty. Envy, no doubt, was more in their minds than scorn. They were agreed, without speaking, to treat the poor girl with every sign of resentment. And then, to their confusion, the greatest lady among them stopped and laughed and patted the impudent baggage on the cheek! "Child," said the Lady Anastasia, "you were at the assembly the other night. I saw you dancing a minuet, and I heard that you were rudely treated at the country dance. I have heard Lord Fylingdale speak about you. He has made the acquaintance of your guardian, Captain Crawle or Crowle. Come, child. Let us be better acquainted. Where are you going?" "I am going home, madam." "Take me with you, then. Let me see your home." Molly blushed to the ears and stammered that it was too great honour, so she walked away, Lady Anastasia with her, while the ladies stood in little groups watching in wonder and indignation, through the churchyard and so to the captain's house in Hogman's Lane, close to the fields and gardens. Molly led her noble guest into the parlour. The Lady Anastasia looked round. "So," she said, "this is the home of the heiress." There was truly very little to indicate this fact. The floor was clean and sanded; a few chairs stood round the walls; one of them was an armchair; on the walls hung certain portraits--for my own part I always considered these as very fine works of art, but I have since heard that the limmer was but a sorry member of the craft. He was an itinerant painter, who drew these portraits in oils at half a guinea each. They represented Molly's parents and Captain Crowle as a young man. On the mantel-shelf stood a row of china cups and over them a dozen samplers. There was a table and there was no other furniture. "You are an heiress, are you not, child?" "The captain tells me so, madam." "The captain's views as to the nature of a fortune may be limited. What is your fortune?" "There are ships, and lands, and houses. I know not how many of each. And I believe there is money, but I know not how much." "Strange! Is it in such a house that an heiress should be brought up? Have you servants of your own?" "I have my black woman, Nigra." "Humph! Have you a coach? or a chair? or a harpsichord?" "I have none of these things." "Have you friends among the gentlefolk? Who are the people that you visit?" "There are no gentlefolk in Lynn. I know the vicar and the curate of St. Nicholas and their families, and the schoolmaster and his son." "And the parish clerk, I suppose; and the man who plays the organ. Have you been educated?" Molly blushed. "The captain says that I have had the best education possible for a woman. I can read and write and cast up accounts; and I can make cakes and puddings, and brew the beer and make the cordials; and I can embroider and sew." "Heavens! What a preparation for an heiress! But, perhaps, it is not so great a fortune after all. And do you go about daily dressed like this--in stuff or linsey woolsey?" "It is my workaday dress. I have a better for Sunday." "I dare say--I dare say. What do they call you? Molly? It is a good name for you. Molly. There is something simple about it--something rustical yet not uncouth, like Blousabella. Your face will pass, Molly. It is a fair garden of red and white. Your eyes are good; they can be soft and affectionate. I should think they could also be hard and unforgiving. Your hair is delightful; even the tresses of Amaryllis are coarse and thick compared with yours. Your hand, my dear, is a soft and warm hand, but it is too red--you work with it." "Why, what else should I work with?" "The only work you should do is the shuffling and the dealing of cards--your hands were made for this purpose--or to handle a fan, or to wear gloves; but not to work, believe me." Molly looked at her hand. It was a workwoman's hand, being, though small, thick and strong, with fingers square rather than long. She looked and laughed. "What would you say, madam, if you saw me rowing a boat or handling the sail while Jack Pentecrosse steers? I have done much rougher work in a boat than in the stillroom." "These confessions amaze me, my dear. With ships--actually the plural of the word ship!--and lands--what lands?--and houses, and that sum of money, that you should live in a house like this, without servants, without dress--your clothes are not dress--without a coach--and that you should be allowed.... Pray, Molly, what does your mother think of it?" "My mother teaches me to do what she herself does." "Yet you came the other night in a costly dress, and you danced the minuet." "The director of the ceremonies, Mr. Prappet, taught me the dance." "You acquitted yourself tolerably, considering your partner, who made everybody laugh. There was, however, too much of the dancing school in your style. A minuet, child, should convey the idea of gesture unstudied. Not natural. Heaven forbid that the world of fashion should ever be natural! No, but springing out of the courtesy of the situation, in accordance with the practice of the polite world. The cavalier woos the maiden, not in the country fashion of swain and shepherdess, whose wooing is a plain and direct question with a plain and direct answer, but with formal advances according to well understood rules, which demand certain postures and gestures. Who dressed you?" "The dressmaker from Norwich who has a shop in Mercers' Row. She had the dress from London." "The dress was passable. For most girls it would have been too costly. But it proclaimed the heiress. It also awakened the envy, hatred, and malice of the whole assembly--I mean of the ladies. Then there were the jewels. Child, are you really possessed of all those jewels? Are they truly your own? Are they truly real?" "I suppose so. They have been locked up for fifty years. My grandfather, who was a ship's captain, brought them from India. They were given to him in return for some service by a native prince. No one has ever worn them except myself. The captain wanted to make the whole world understand that I have these fine things. That is why I took some of them out and put them on." "The world received this intelligence, child, with envy unspeakable. Since the assembly the ladies have been entirely occupied in taking away your character. You are a strolling actress; your jewels are coloured glass; your silk dress is a stage costume; I will not repeat the many kind things said concerning you." "Oh! But what have I done? What am I to do?" "Be not alarmed. Everybody's character is taken away in turns, and nobody is one whit the worse. With a girl like you, so innocent of the world, the more your character is taken away the better it becomes." "Yet I would rather----" "Tut, tut. What matters their talk. But about those jewels, my dear. I am curious about them. Will you let me see them all? If you only knew how jewels carry me away!" Molly went away, and presently returned with a large casket of wood carved with all kinds of devices, such as figures, flowers, fruit, and leaves. Within there were trays lined with red velvet, the colour now somewhat decayed; on these trays reposed the jewels she had worn, and many more. There were strings of pearls; coils of gold chains; bracelets and necklaces; rings, brooches; all kinds imaginable, set with precious stones, diamonds, emeralds, pearls, rubies, turquoise, sapphires, opals--every jewel that is known to men and prized by women. The Lady Anastasia gazed upon them with hunger and longing; she took up the chains and strings of pearls and rubies and suffered them to fall gently through her fingers, as if the mere touch was sovereign against all ills; she sighed as she laid them down. She sprang to her feet and began to hang them about Molly's neck and arms; she twisted the pearls in and about her hair; she strung the gold chains about her neck; she covered her again, as she had been covered at the assembly, with the glittering gauds. "Oh!" she cried, sinking into her chair. "'Tis too much! Take them off again, Molly, I burst--I faint--I die--with envy. Oh! that you, who care so little for them, should have so many, and I, who care so much, should have so few. Women have risked their honour, their name, their immortal souls, for a tenth part of the treasures that you have in this casket. And yet you wonder why they take away your character!" Molly laughed and shut the box. "As I never saw them before yesterday I do not understand their envy." "No--you do not understand. Ah! how much happiness you lose in not understanding. For you know not the joy of seeing all faces grow black and all looks bitter. Well, put them away, out of my sight." Then she turned to another subject. "Tell me, Molly, what your guardian designs for you. Are you to marry some merchant who distributes casks of turpentine about the country? Or a sailor who pretends to be a fine gentleman and dances like an elephant. The handling of this noble fortune is surely above the ambition of such gentry as these." "Indeed I do not know. The captain says that he must look higher than a merchant or a sailor of Lynn. And he will not think of any gentleman of the country, neither, because they are all hard drinkers." "The captain is difficult to please. Methinks a gentleman would at least bestow promotion. Your children would be gentlefolk, I dare say, with the help of this great fortune. What does he want, however?" "He talks about finding a young man of position, who is also virtuous." "Oh! He is indeed ambitious. My dear, a young man of position who wants a fortune is easily found. He grows and flourishes in the park, like blackberries on a hedge. But when you speak of virtue, the virtuous young man is not so common. 'Tis a wicked world, my dear." "The captain has spoken on the subject to Lord Fylingdale." "I believe he has done so. He may, indeed, entirely depend upon his lordship's advice, whether it concerns the placing of your fortune or the bestowal of your hand." "The captain, I know, thinks very highly of Lord Fylingdale's judgment." "I hope also of his virtue. Indeed, but for his virtue, his lordship would be even as other men, which would be a pity for other men--I mean, for him." She then began to give Molly advice about her next appearance at the assembly. "You must come again; you must come often; I will take care that you find partners. You must not show that you are moved in the least by the treatment you have received. But I would advise a more simple dress. Come to me, my dear, and my maid shall dress you. A young girl like yourself ought not to wear so much silk and lace, and the addition of the gold network was more fitting for a matron of rank than a young unmarried woman. And as for the jewels, I would recommend one gold chain or a necklace of pearls and a bracelet or two--I saw one with sapphires, very becoming--and do not put the diamonds in your hair. And you must on no account come with the bear who flopped and sprawled with you before." "Poor Jack!" "Jack? Is he your brother?" "No. He is my old friend. And he is mate on one of my ships--_The Lady of Lynn_." "I dare say he would like to command the other Lady of Lynn. But, Molly, pray be careful. A Jack-in-the-box is apt to jump up high. Take care." So saying she rose to go, but stopped for a few last words. "Well, my dear, you must seriously prepare yourself to take the place that belongs to you by right of your fortune. After all, what is rank compared with wealth? I have no doubt that some sprig of quality will be found to take your hand--with your fortune. At first the women will flout you. Keep up your courage. You can buy their kindness; you can buy it by judicious gifts, or by finding out their secrets. I will help you there, my dear. I know secrets enough to crack the reputation of half the town." Molly shuddered. "You make me afraid," she said. "Am I never to have friends?" The Lady Anastasia shook her head. "Friends, my dear? What does the girl mean? We are all friends; of course we are friends, and we all backbite each other and carry scandal and intrigue. Friends, my dear? In the world of fashion?" "I shall never like the world of fashion." "Not at first. But the liking will come. There is no other way of life that can be compared with it. You will rise at noon after a cup of chocolate; you will spend the afternoon in dressing; you will go out in your coach or your chair to breathe the air of the park; you will take dinner at four; you will go to the theatre or the opera at six; you will sit down to cards at ten. My simple native, you know not half the joys that await you in the dear, delightful, scandalous town." So she went on, and before she departed she had made Molly promise to visit her and to receive a continuation of those lessons by which she hoped, in the interests of Lord Fylingdale, to make the girl discontented and ready to throw herself, fortune and all, into the arms of herself and her associates. As yet she had made little impression. Molly was not anxious for any change. She would be content to go on as before--the darling of the old guardian--with her friends and the people among whom she had lived all her life--simple in their tastes, homely in their manners; to be like her mother, a maker of bread, cakes, and puddings; a brewer of ale; the mistress of the still-room. "Why, Jack," she said, telling me something of this lesson in politeness. "I am to go away; to live in London; to leave my mother; never to see the captain any more; never to do anything again; not to make any more puddings--such as you like so much; to play cards every night; to have no friends; and to backbite and slander everybody I know. If this is the polite world, Jack, let me never see it. 'Tis my daily prayer." You shall hear how her prayer was granted, yet not in the way she would have asked. And this, I say again, is the way in which many of our prayers are granted. We get what is good for us--if we pray for that good thing--but not by the way we would have chosen. CHAPTER XX FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING It was the custom with some of the high flyers, or the bucks, as they were called, when the card room was closed, to go off together to a tavern, there to finish the evening drinking, singing, gambling, and rioting the whole night through and long after daylight. Truly the town of Lynn witnessed more profligacy and wickedness during this summer than all its long and ancient history had contained or could relate. The assembly was held twice a week--on Tuesday and on Friday. It was on Tuesday night that a certain statement was made in a drunken conversation which might have awakened suspicion of some dark design had it been recorded. A small company of the said high flyers, among whom were Colonel Lanyon and the young man named Tom Rising, marched off to the tavern most frequented by them, after the closing of the rooms, and called for punch, cards, and candles. Then they sat down to play, with the ungodly and profane discourse which they affected. They played and drank, the young men drinking fast and hard, the colonel, after his custom, keeping his head cool. The night in May is short; the daylight presently began to show through the red curtains of the tavern window; then the sun rose; the players went on, regardless of the dawn and of the sun. One of them pulled back the curtains and blew out the candles. But they went on noisily. One of them fell off his chair, and lay like a log; the rest drew close, and continued to drink and to play. Among them no one played higher or more recklessly than Tom Rising. It was a game in which one holds the bank and takes the bets of the players. Colonel Lanyon held the bank, and took Tom's bets, which were high, as readily as those of the others which were low. At five in the morning he laid down the cards. "Gentlemen," he said, "we have played enough, and taken more than enough, I fear. Let us stop the game at this point." "You want to stop," said Tom Rising, whose face was flushed and his speech thick, "because you've been winning. I want my revenge--I will have my revenge." "Sir," said the colonel, "any man who says that I refuse revenge attacks my honour. No, sir. To-morrow, that is to say, this evening, or any time you please except the present, you shall have your revenge, and as much as you please. I appeal to the company. Gentlemen, it is now five o'clock, and outside broad daylight. The market bells have already begun. Are we drunk or sober?" "Drunk, colonel, drunk," said the man on the floor. "If we are drunk we are no longer in a condition fit for play. Let us therefore adjourn until the evening. Is this fair, gentlemen, or is it not? I will go on if you please." "It is quite fair, colonel," one of them replied. "I believe you have lost, and you might insist on going on." "Then, let us look to the counters." They played with counters each representing a guinea or two or five, as had been agreed upon at the outset. So every man fell to counting and exchanging until all had done except Tom Rising, who sat apparently stupid with drink. Then they began to pay each other on the differences. "Twenty-five guineas, colonel." The colonel passed over the money with cheerfulness. "Forty-three guineas, colonel." He paid this sum--and so on with the rest. He had lost, it appeared, to every one of the players except Tom Rising, whose reckoning was not made up. They were all paid immediately and cheerfully. Now the gentlemen of Norfolk are as honourable in their sport as any in the kingdom, but they seldom lose without a curse or two. This cheerfulness, therefore, under ill fortune surprised them. The colonel turned to Tom, whose eyes were closing. "Mr. Rising, we will settle, if you please, after we have slept off the punch." Tom grunted and tried to speak. He was at that point of drunkenness when he could understand what was said, but spoke with difficulty. It is one of the many transient stages of intoxication. "Then, gentlemen," said the colonel, "we can meet again whenever you please. I only hope that you are satisfied with me for stopping the play at this point." "We are, colonel. We are quite satisfied." So they pushed back their chairs and rose somewhat unsteadily. But they had all won, and therefore had reason to be satisfied. "I'm not--not satisfied." Tom Rising managed to get out these words and tried to, but without success, to sit square and upright. "Well, sir," said the colonel, "you shall have your revenge to-morrow." "I want it now--I'll have it now. Bring another bowl." His head dropped again. "The gentleman," said the colonel, "is not in a condition to play. It would be cruel to play with him in this state." "Come, Tom," one of them shook him by the arm, "wake up and be reasonable." "I've lost again, and I want revenge." "To-morrow, Tom, the colonel will give you as much revenge as you please." Tom made no reply. He seemed asleep. "He shall have as much revenge as he pleases. Meantime, gentlemen, we have been pleasant together, so far. But this young gentleman plays high--very high. I am ready to meet his wishes; but, gentlemen--far be it from me to hint that he is not a gentleman of large estate--but the fact is that he has lost pretty heavily and wants to go on continually." "Yesterday," Tom spoke with closed eyes, "it was eight hundred. To-day it's--how much to-day?" They looked at each other. "Gentlemen," said the colonel, "you have heard what he says. I hope you will believe me when I assure you that the high play was forced upon me." They knew Tom to be the owner of a pretty estate of about £1,200 a year, and they knew him to be a sportsman, eager and reckless. Eight hundred pounds is a large sum to raise upon an estate of £1,200, even if there were no other demands upon it. "Say, rather, had a good estate," said another. "I need not point out, gentlemen," the colonel observed, severely, "the extreme injustice of admitting to our circle those who venture to play beyond their means. Play demands, above all things, jealousy in admittance. If men of honour meet for a few hours over the cards, the least they can demand is that, since they have to pay at sight, or within reasonable time, no one shall be admitted who is not able to pay within reasonable time, whatever losses he may make. You and I, gentlemen," he continued, "have not forced this high play upon our friend here." "No. Tom would always fly higher than his neighbours." "I think, colonel," said one of them gravely, "that this matter concerns the honour of the place and the county. You come among us a man of honour; you play and pay honourably. We admit Tom Rising into our company. He must raise the money. But you will grant him time. Eight hundred pounds and more----" "Perhaps a thousand," said the colonel. "Cannot be raised in a moment. We are not in London; there are no money lenders with us; and I know not how much has been already raised upon the estate. But, colonel, rest assured that the money shall be duly paid. Perhaps it will be well not to admit poor Tom to our table in future, though it will be a hard matter to deny him." Then Tom himself lifted his head. "I can hear what you say, but I am too drunk to talk. Colonel, it's all right. Wait a day or two." He struggled again to sit upright. One of his friends loosened his cravat, another took off his wig and rubbed his head with a wet cloth. "Why," he said, "I am sober again. Let's have another bowl and another game." "No, no," his friends cried out together. "Enough, Tom; get up and go to bed." "Colonel Lanyon," he said, "and friends all--gentlemen of this honourable company"--he ran his words together as men in liquor use--but they understood him perfectly. "I will play as high as I like; and as deep as I like; and as long as I like. I will play till I have stripped every man among you to the very bones. Why do I say this? Because, gentlemen, after Friday night I shall be the richest man in the county. D'ye hear? The richest man in the county. You don't know how? Very well. Do you think I am going to tell you? Ho! ho! when you hear the news, you'll say, 'twas only Tom--only Tom Rising--had the courage to venture and to win." "He means the hazard table," said the colonel. "No; not the hazard table," Tom went on. "Oh! I know the table and the woman who keeps the bank, and pretends to weep when you lose. I know about her. I've heard talk about her. What is it? Don't remember. Tell you to-morrow." "He should stop talking," said the colonel, "we must not listen to his wanderings." "Richest man in the county," he repeated. "Colonel, I like your company. You lay down your money like a man. In a week, colonel, I'll have it all; there shan't be a guinea left among you all. Richest man in county--make--guineas--fly." His head sunk down again. He was once more speechless. His friends looked from one to the other. What did Tom Rising mean? "Gentlemen," said the colonel, "he has been drinking for many days. He has some kind of a fit upon him. After a sleep he will be better. Just now he dreams of riches. I have known men in such a condition to see animals, and think that they are hunted by rats and clawed by devils." Again Tom lifted his head and babbled confusedly. "The richest man--the richest man in the whole county. After Friday night--not to-night--after Friday night. I have found out a short way to fortune. The richest man in the county." So they left him sleeping in his chair, with his head on the table among the glasses and the spilt punch. It was not long, however, before they discovered what his words had meant. It was not the raving of a drunken man, but the betrayal in his cups--unfortunately only a partial revelation of the abominable wickedness by which he proposed to acquire sudden wealth. Said I not that Tom Rising was never one to be balked or denied when he had set his heart upon a thing; nor was he to be restrained by any consideration of law, human or divine; or of consequences in this world or the next? You shall now hear what he designed and what he called the shortest way, and how he was going to become the richest man in the county. CHAPTER XXI MOLLY'S SECOND APPEARANCE Molly's first appearance was at the assembly of Tuesday; her second on that of Friday. Between these two days, as you have seen, a good many things happened, not the least important of which was Lady Anastasia's "adoption," so to speak, of Molly. On Tuesday she came with the captain, whose appearance betrayed the old sailor, followed by the young sailor, transformed, for one night only, into a fine gentleman. On that occasion she was dressed with an extravagant display of jewels which might have suited an aged duchess at court, but was entirely unfitting to a young girl in the assembly of a watering place; she then danced as if every step had been recently taught her (which was indeed the case) and as if every posture was fresh from the hands of the dancing-master. This evening she came in the company and under the protection of the Lady Anastasia herself, whose acceptance of her right to appear could not be questioned, save in whispers and behind the fan. The former partner in the minuet, he who sprawled and trod the boards like an elephant; the sailor who would pass for a gentleman--in a word, her old friend, Jack Pentecrosse (myself)--was not present. I had proposed to accompany her, but in the morning I received a message from Lady Anastasia, "Would Mr. Pentecrosse be so very good as to call upon her immediately?" I went. I found her the most charming lady, with the most gracious manner, that I had ever seen. She was, indeed, the only lady of quality with whom I have ever conversed. It seemed as if she understood perfectly my mind as regards Molly, because while she humiliated me, at the same time she made me feel that the humiliation was necessary in the interests of Molly herself. In a word, she asked me not to accompany Molly again to the assembly, nor to present myself there; and, therefore, not to remind the company that Molly's friends were young men who were not gentlemen. "You have the face and the heart, Mr. Pentecrosse," she said, laying her white hand on my arm, "of a man of honour. With such a man as yourself, one does not ask for a shield and a pedigree. But where women are concerned some things are necessary. You love our Molly"--she said "our" Molly, and yet she was in league with the arch villain, the earl among lost souls. "You love her. I read it in your betraying blush and in your humid eyes. Therefore you will consent to this sacrifice with a cheerful heart. And, Mr. Pentecrosse--I would willingly call you Jack, after Molly's sisterly fashion--come to see me again. It does me good--a woman of fashion, which too often means of hollow hearts--to converse with a young man so honest and so simple. Come again, Jack. I am here nearly every morning after prayers." I obeyed, of course. Who could resist such a woman? Well, Molly appeared under her protection. She was now dressed with the simplicity that belongs to youth, yet with a simplicity only apparent and not real. For the cloth of gold and the embroidery had vanished; the bracelets, heavy with rubies and emeralds, had disappeared; the golden cestus, the diamonds, the gold chains, all were gone. But the pink silk gown and the white silk petticoat which she wore were costly; the neck and the sleeves were edged and adorned with lace such as no other lady in the room could show; round her neck lay a necklace of pearls as big as cobnuts; on her wrists hung a fan whose handle was set with sapphires; and in her hair, such was the simplicity of the maiden, was placed a white rose. Her head was not built after the former manner, but was covered now with natural curls, only kept in place by the art of the friseur. In a word, it was Molly herself, not an artificial Molly; Molly herself, just adorned with the feminine taste which raised the Lady Anastasia above the blind laws of mere fashion who now entered the room. She proclaimed herself once more as the heiress with a more certain note and with less ostentation. "With her ladyship! With the Lady Anastasia!" they whispered behind their fans. "What next? Are there no ladies in the room but she must pick up this girl out of the gutter?" But they did not say these things aloud; on the contrary they pressed around her ladyship, gazing rudely and curiously upon the intruder. "Ladies," said Lady Anastasia, "let me present my young friend, Miss Molly, the heiress of Lynn. I entreat your favour towards Miss Molly, who deserves all the favours you can afford, being at once modest, as yet little acquainted with the world of fashion, and endowed by fortune with gifts which are indeed precious." They began with awkwardness and some constraint to express cold words of welcome; but they could not conceal their chagrin, and two or three of them withdrew from the throng and abstained altogether after that evening from the society of her ladyship, and, as they were but plain wives of country gentlemen, this abstention cost them many pangs. For my own part, now that I know more about the opinions of gentlefolk, I confess that I think they were right. If there is an impassable gulf, as they pretend, between the gentleman and the mere citizen or the clown, then they stood up for their principles and their order. Why there should be this impassable gulf I know not; nor do I know who dug it out and set one class on one side and one on the other; whereas it is most true that there are many noble families whose ancestors were either merchants or were enriched by marriages with the daughters of merchants. Of such there are many witnesses. If, on the other hand, a girl can be received and welcomed among the Quality simply because she has a great fortune, there can be no such gulf, and the passage from one class to the other is matter of worldly goods only. There are also cases in which the sons of noble and gentle houses have entered into the service of merchants, and have themselves either succeeded and made themselves rich, or have sunk down to the levels of retail trade and of the crafts. Another humiliation was in store for these ladies. When Lord Fylingdale entered the assembly he walked across the room, saluted Lady Anastasia, and bowed low to Molly, who blushed and was greatly confused at this public honour. "Miss Molly," he said, "permit me to salute the town of Lynn itself in your fair person. The town of Lynn is our hostess; you are the queen of Lynn; let me invite your Majesty to open the ball with me." So saying, he took her hand and led her out to the middle of the room, while the music struck up and the company formed a ring. As for me, you have seen that I made a promise. I kept it in the spirit but not in the letter. That is to say, I went in my ordinary Sunday clothes, and stood at the door with the crowd and looked in at the gay scene. Molly danced with his lordship. My heart sank when I saw the ease and dignity of his steps, and the corresponding grace of hers. There was neither sliding nor sprawling. Then after the dance I saw her standing beside the Lady Anastasia, her eyes sparkling, her cheek flushed, smiling and laughing, while a whole troop of gentlemen surrounded her with compliments. She seemed quite happy with them. As for me, I felt that I was no longer of any use to her; she was flying far above me; my place was at the door with those who had no right to enter. So I stole away out of the gardens and into the silent streets, while the music followed me, seeming to laugh and to mock me as I crept along with unwilling feet and sinking heart. "Go home! Go home!" it said. "Go home to your cabin and your bunk! This place is not for you. Go home to your tarpaulin and your salt junk and your rum!" I did not obey immediately. I went to the captain's. Molly's mother was sitting there alone. Nigra was at the assembly to look after her mistress; the captain was there also, looking on from a corner; Molly's mother was alone in the parlour, her work in her hands, stitching by the light of a single tallow candle; and while she stitched her lips moved. She looked up. "Jack," she cried, "where is Molly?" "She is enjoying herself with her new friends. I am no longer wanted. So I came away." "My poor Jack!" She laid down her needlework and looked at me. "You can't make up your mind to lose her. What do you think I feel about it, then? Sure, a mother feels more than a lover. If she goes, Jack, she will never come back again. We shall lose her altogether. She will never come back." With this the tears rolled down her cheek. "We ought not to grumble and to grutch," she went on. "Why, it is for her own good. The captain has told us all along that she was too great a catch for any of the folk about here. There is never a day but he tells me this, again and again. Not a man, he says, is worthy of such a fortune! Jack, when I think of the days when my man and me were married; he never wanted me to know how rich he was. What did I want with the money? I wanted the man, not his fortune. The jewels and the chains lay in the cupboard--the foolish glittering things! He followed simple ways, and lived like his neighbours. And as for Molly, I've brought her up as her poor father would have had it; there is no better housewife anywhere than Molly; no lighter hand with the crust; no surer hand with the home-brewed; no safer hand with the poultry. And all to be thrown away because she's got such a fortune as would be wasted on an honest lad like you, Jack, or some good gentleman from the country side." "We can do nothing, mother--except to wish her happiness." "Nothing; not even to find out the kind of man she is to marry. The captain is all for taking this Lord Fylingdale's advice. Why his lordship should take to the captain I cannot understand. Sammy Semple was here to-day--a worm, a wriggling worm--saying how soft and virtuous his lordship is. Well, Jack, I thought--if he has no masterfulness in him he isn't any kind of man to advise about a woman. Now, Molly's father had a fine quick temper of his own, and Molly needs a master. Then this lady Anastasia, who seems kindly, offers to take her to town, where she will learn cards and wickedness. But I doubt, Jack--I doubt. My mind is full of trouble. It is a dreadful thing to have a rich daughter." "Would to God," I said, "she had nothing." "For the men they will come around her; and the women they will hate her--and she will be too good for her own folk, and too low for the folks above, and they will all want her money, and they will all scorn her." "Nay," I said, "she is too beautiful." "Beauty! Much women care about beauty! I have dreams at night, and I wake up terrified and the dreams remain with me still in the waste of the night like ghosts. Oh, Jack, Jack, I am a miserable woman!" I left her. I rowed off to the ship and sought my cabin. After dancing with his lordship, who then offered his hand to a lady of the county, Molly stood up with the young man called Tom Rising, who was by this time as sober as could be expected after such a night. He, in the hearing of everybody, loaded her with compliments of the common kind, such as would suit a milkmaid, but were not proper for a modest woman to hear. To these, however, Molly returned no reply, and danced as if she heard them not. She then rejoined Lady Anastasia, and, with her, retired to the card room, whither many of the young men followed her. She stood beside her ladyship, and obliged the young men by choosing cards for them, which they lost or won. Tom Rising followed her, and stood beside her with flushed face and trembling hands. It was remarked afterwards that he seemed to assume the care of her. He kept gazing upon Molly with fierce and ravenous looks, like a wolf who hungers after his prey and lives to wait for it. He played the while, however, and lost during the evening, I believe, some hundreds of pounds; but, for reasons which you will presently hear, he never paid that money. When the country dances began Lord Fylingdale led out Molly once more, and placed her at the head. It was too much. Some of the ladies refused to dance at all. Those who did were constrained and cold. But Molly was triumphant. She was not an angel. One could not blame her for resenting the flouts and scorn with which she had been treated. Now, however, she was the first lady of the company next to Lady Anastasia, because she had been taken out both for the minuet and the country dance by the first gentleman present. I do not think that his lordship paid her any compliments. He danced as he moved, and spoke with a cold dignity which stiffened his joints. Now, in a country dance, Molly, for her part, danced all over, her feet and her body moving together, her hands and arms dancing, her eyes dancing, her hair dancing. They danced quite down the lines until every couple had had their turn. "Miss Molly," said her partner, "you dance with the animation of a wood nymph, or, perhaps, a nymph of the ocean. I would that the ladies of London possessed half the vivacity of the Lady of Lynn." He offered her the refreshment of wine or chocolate, but she declined, saying that the captain now would be wishing her to go home, and that her chair would be waiting. So his lordship led her to the door, where, indeed, her chair was waiting but no captain, and, bowing low, he handed her in and shut the door, and he returned to the assembly, and Molly's chair was immediately lifted up and borne rapidly away, she sitting alone, thinking of the evening and of her great triumph, suspecting no evil and thinking of no danger. A minute later the captain came to the door. There he saw Molly's chairmen, waiting with her chair. He looked about him. Where was Molly? He returned to the assembly. The girl was not there. He looked into the card room. His lordship was standing at the table looking on. "My lord," said the captain, in confusion, "where is my ward?" "Miss Molly? Why, captain, I put her into her chair five minutes ago. She is gone." "Her chair?" The captain turned pale. "Her chair is now at the door with her chairmen." "What devilry is forward?" cried Lord Fylingdale. "Come with me, captain. Come with me!" CHAPTER XXII THE ABDUCTION The daring attempt to carry off this heiress and to marry her by force proved in the end the most effective instrument in the success of Lord Fylingdale's schemes that could possibly be desired or designed. So great is my mistrust of the man that I have sometimes doubted whether the whole affair was not contrived by him. I dismiss the suspicion, however, not because it is in the least degree unworthy of his character, but because it is unworthy of the character of Tom Rising. To carry off a girl is not thought dishonourable, especially as it can always be made to appear that it was with the consent of the girl herself. But to enter into a conspiracy for the furtherance of another man's secret designs would be impossible for such a man. Besides, his subsequent conduct proves that he was not in any way mixed up with the grand conspiracy of which most of the conspirators knew nothing. The chair into which Molly stepped without suspicion, and without even looking for the captain, who should have walked beside her, stood, as I have said, before the entrance of the long room. Outside, the trees were hung with coloured lamps; the place was as bright as in the sunshine of noon--one would think that nothing could be done in such a place which would not be observed. There is, however, one thing which is never observed; it is the personal appearance of servants. No one regards the boatman of the ferry; or the driver of the hackney coach; or the postboy; or the chairmen. The chair, then, stood with its door open opposite to the entrance of the long room. The chairmen stood retired, a little in the shade, but not so far off as to need calling, when Lord Fylingdale handed in the lady. This done, he stood hat in hand, bowing. The chairmen stepped up briskly, seized the poles, and marched off with the quick step of those who have a light burden to carry. No one observed the faces of the chairmen, or, indeed, thought of looking at them; no one remarked the fact that Tom Rising walked out of the long room directly afterwards and followed the chair. Within, Molly sat unsuspecting, excited by the triumphs of the evening. The chair passed through the gardens and the gates recently erected; instead of turning to the right, which would lead into Hogman's Lane, the chairmen turned to the left, through the town gate, and so, turning northwards, into the open fields. Yet Molly observed nothing. I think she fell asleep; when she came to herself she looked out of the window. On the right and on the left of her were open fields. It was a clear evening. Towards the middle of May there is no black darkness, but only a dimmer outline and deeper shadows. Molly, who knew the country round Lynn perfectly well, understood at once that she had been carried outside the town; that she was no longer on the high road but on one of the cross tracks--one cannot call them roads which connect the villages--so that there was very little chance of meeting any passengers or vehicles. And by the stars she saw that they were carrying her in a northerly direction. She perceived, therefore, that some devilry was going on. Now, she was not a girl who would try to help herself in such a deserted and lonely spot by shrieking; nor did she see that any good purpose would be served by calling to the chairmen to let her out. She sat up, therefore, her heart beating a little faster than usual, and considered what she should do. No one is ignorant that an heiress goes in continual peril of abduction. To run away with an heiress; to persuade her; threaten her; cajole her; or terrify her into marriage is a thing which has been attempted hundreds of times, and has succeeded many times. Nay, there are, I am told, women of cracked reputation and in danger of arrest and the King's Bench for debt who will visit places of resort in order to pass themselves off as heiresses to great fortunes, hoping thereby to tempt some gallant adventurer to carry them off, and so to take over their debts instead of the fortunes they expected. And there are stories in plenty of adventurers looking about them for an heiress whom they may carry off at the risk of a duello, which generally follows, at the hands of the lady's friends. Molly, therefore, though not a woman of fashion, understood by this time her value, especially in the eyes of the adventurer. And she also understood quite clearly at this moment that she had been carried away without the knowledge of her guardian, and that the intention of the abductor was nothing more or less than a forced marriage and the acquisition of her fortune. "Jack," she told me afterwards, "I confess that I did wish, just for a little, that you might be coming along the road with a trusty club. But then I remembered that I was no puny thread paper of a woman, but as strong as most men, and I took courage. Weapon I had none, except a steel bodkin gilt stuck in my hair--a small thing, but it might serve if any man ventured too near. And I thought, besides, that there would be a hue and cry, and that the country round would be scoured in all directions. They would most certainly grow tired of carrying me about in a chair; they must stop somewhere and put me into some place or other. I thought, also, that I could easily manage to keep off one man, or perhaps two, and that it would be very unlikely that more than one would attempt to force me into marriage. Perhaps I might escape. Perhaps I might barricade myself. Perhaps my bodkin might help me to save myself. I would willingly stab a man to the heart with it. Perhaps I might pick up something--a griddle would be a weapon handy for braining a man, or even a frying pan would do. Whatever happened, Jack, I was resolved that nothing, not even fear of murder, should make me marry the man who had carried me off." There are found scattered about the byroads of the country many small inns for the accommodation of persons of the baser sort. Hither resort, on the way from one village to another, the sturdy tramp, whose back is scored by many a whipping at the hands of constable and head-borough. What does he care? He hitches his shoulders and goes his way, lifting from the hedge and helping himself from the poultry yard. Here you may find the travelling tinker, who has a language of his own. Here you will find the pedlar with his pack. He is part trader, part receiver of stolen goods, part thief, part carrier of messages and information between thieves. Here also you will meet the footpad and the highwayman; the smuggler and the poacher, and the fugitive. If an honest man should put up at one of these places he will meet with strange companions in the kitchen, and with strange bedfellows in the chamber. If they suspect that he has money they will rob him; if they think that he will give evidence against them they will murder him. In a word, such a wayside inn is the receptacle of all those who live by robbery, by begging, by pretence, and lies and roguery. It was before such a wayside inn that the chairmen stopped. Molly knew it very well. It was at a place called Riffley's Spring; the inn is "The Traveller's Rest"; it stood just two and a half miles from Lynn, and one mile from the village of Wootton. It was a small house, gloomy, and ill-lighted at the best; there was a door in the middle. The diamond panes of the windows were mostly broken in their leaden frames; the woodwork was decaying; the upper floor projecting darkened the lower rooms; in the dim twilight, when the chair stopped, the house looked a dark and noisome place, fit only for cutthroats and murderers. The poles were withdrawn and the door thrown open. Molly, looking out, saw before her, hat in hand, her late partner, the young fellow they called Tom Rising. "Oh!" she cried. "Is it possible? I thought I was in the hands of some highwayman. Is this your doing, sir? I was told that you were a gentleman." He bowed low, and began a little speech which he had prepared in readiness: "Madam, you will confess that you are yourself alone to blame. Fired with the sight of so much loveliness, what wonder if I aspired to possess myself of these charms. Sure a Laplander himself would be warmed, even in his frozen region." "Sir, what nonsense is this? What do you mean?" "I mean, madam, that your lovely face and figure are sufficient excuse, not only in the eyes of the world, but in your own eyes, for an action such as this. The violence of the passion which----" "Sir, will you order your fellows to take me back?" "No, madam, I will not." "Then, sir, will you tell me what you propose to do?" "I intend to marry you." "Against my consent?" "I have you in my power. I shall ask your consent. If you grant it we shall enter upon married life as a pair of lovers should. If you refuse--I shall be the master, but you will be the wife." Molly laughed. "You think that I am afraid? Very well, sir. If you persist you shall have a lesson in love-making that will last your lifetime." "Everything is fair in love. Come, madam, you will please to get out of the chair." "What a villain is this!" said Molly. "He is in love with my fortune and he pretends it is my person. He thinks to steal my fortune when he runs away with me. You are a highwayman, Mr. Rising; a common thief and a common robber. You shall be hanged outside Norwich Gaol." Tom Rising swore a great oath, calling, in his blasphemous way, upon the Lord to inflict dire pains and penalties upon him if he should resign the lovely object of his affection now in his possession. You have heard that he had the reputation of a reckless dare devil who stuck at nothing, was daunted by nothing, and was like a bulldog for his tenacity. "Understand, madam," he concluded this declaration, "I am resolved to marry you. Resolved. Bear that in mind." "And I, sir, am resolved that I will not marry you. Resolved. Bear that in mind." "Never yet did I resolve upon anything but I had it. No; never yet." "Mr. Rising, you think you have me in your power. You shall see. Once more I ask you, as a gentleman, to send me back. Remember I have many friends. The whole town, high and low, will be presently out after me. scouring the country." "In an hour you will be at Wootton. The parson hath promised to await us there. You will be my wife in one short hour's time." "You waste words, sir." "You will have to alight, madam. The post-chaise is here to carry us to Wootton, where the parson waits to marry us. In an hour, I say, you shall be my wife." Molly looked out of the other window. The post-chaise was there with its pair of horses, and the postboy waiting at the horses' heads. She would have to make her stand at once, therefore. To get into the post-chaise with that man would be dangerous, even though she was as strong as himself, and, since she was not a drinker of wine, she was in a better condition. "I looked round at the house," she told me afterwards. "I thought that if I could get into the house I might gain some time--perhaps I could bar the door--perhaps I could find that griddle or the frying pan of which I spoke. Or if it came to using the bodkin, there would be more room for my arm in a house than in a chair or a chaise. So I had one more parley, in order to gain time, and then slipped out." "Sir," she said, "I give you one more chance of retaining the name and reputation of gentleman. Carry me back, or else await the vengeance of my friends. I warn you solemnly that murder will be done before I marry you. Understand, sir, murder of you, or your confederates, or myself." She spoke with so much calmness and with so much resolution that she aroused all his native obstinacy. Besides, it was now too late. The news of the abduction would be all over Lynn--he must carry the thing through. He swore another loud and blasphemous oath. Heavens! how he was punished! How swiftly and speedily! Molly stepped out of the chair. Tom Rising, his hat in hand, again bowed low. "Madam," he said, "you are well advised. Pray let me hand you into the chaise." She made no reply, but, rushing past him, darted into the house. She stumbled down one step and found herself in a room where the twilight outside could not penetrate. It was quite dark. She closed the door behind her and bolted it, finding a bolt in the usual place. Then she waited a moment, thinking what she could do next. A rustling and a footstep showed that she was not alone. "Who is there?" she cried. "Is there no light?" She heard the striking of flint and steel; she saw the spluttering yellow light of a match, and by its flickering she discerned an old woman trying to light a candle--a rushlight in a tin frame, with holes at the sides. Molly looked quietly round the room. A knife lay on the table. She took it up. It was one of the rough clasp knives, used by rustics when they eat their dinners under the hedge. She stepped forward and took the light from the old woman's hand. "Quick!" she said, "who is in the house?" "No one, except myself. He said the house was to be kept clear to-night." "Can they get in?" "They can kick the house down if they like, it's so old and crazy." "Is there an upper room?" The old woman pointed to the far corner. Molly now perceived that the place was the kitchen, the tap-room, the sitting-room, and all. A table was in the middle; a settle was standing beside the fireplace; there was a bench or two; mugs and cups of wood, pewter and common ware stood on the mantelshelf; a side of bacon hung in the chimney. In the corner, to which the old woman pointed, was a ladder. Molly ran across the room. At the top of the ladder there was a square opening large enough for her passage. She went up, and found herself, by the dim rushlight, in an upper chamber, the floor of which was covered with flock beds laid on the boards. There was one small frame of glass in the roof, which was not made to open. The place reeked with foul air, worse than the orlop deck or the hold after a voyage. Down below she heard her captor kicking at the door. Apparently, the old woman drew back the bolt, for he came in noisily, swearing horribly. Apparently, the old woman pointed to the ladder, or perhaps the glimmer from the room above guided him. He came to the ladder and tried persuasion. "Molly, my dear," he cried, "come down, come down. I won't harm you. Upon my honour I will not. I want only to put you into the chaise and carry you off to be married. Molly, you are the loveliest girl in the county. Molly, I say, there is nobody can hold a candle to you. Molly, I will make you as happy as the day is long. Molly, I love you ten times as well as that proud lord. He will not marry you. There isn't a man in all the company I will not fight for your sake. Don't think I will let any other man have you. Damn it, Molly, why don't you answer?" For now she kept silence. The more he parleyed, the more time she gained. But she found one or two loose boards that had been used for laying in trestles for the support of the flock beds. She laid them across the trapdoor, but there was nothing to keep them down. Then Tom Rising began to swear at the old woman. "You fool! You blundering, silly, jenny ass of a fool. What the devil did you give her the candle for?" "I didn't give it. She took it." "Go, get another candle, then." "There are no more candles, master," said the old woman in her feeble voice. "She's got the only one." "Molly, if you won't come down I shall force my way up." Still she kept silence. He took two steps up the ladder and lifted the boards, showing the fingers of his left hand. Molly applied her knife, gently but dexterously; but it touched the bone, and taught him what to expect. He drew back with a cry of rage. "Come down," he said, "or it will be worse for you. Come down, I say." He had not reckoned on a knife and on the girl's courage in using it. "Molly," he said again, more softly, "come down." She still maintained silence. "You have no food up there," he went on. "Your window is only a light in the roof looking away from the road. No one from Lynn will come this way. If they do they will see nothing. You had better come down. Molly, I shall wait here for a month. I shall starve you out. Do you hear? By the Lord, I will set fire to the thatch and burn you out. By the Lord, you _shall_ come down." So he raved and raged. Meantime the two chairmen, who were his own servants, stood, pole in hand, one in front of the house and one behind, to prevent an escape. But this was impossible, because the room, as you have heard, had no other window than a small square opening in the roof, in which was fitted a piece of coarse, common glass. "Jack," she told me, "when he talked of setting fire to the thatch I confess I trembled, because, you see, my knife would not help me there. And, indeed, I think he would have done it, because he was like one that has gone mad with rage. He was like a mad bull. He stormed, he raged, he cursed and swore; he called me all the names you ever heard of--such names as the sailors call their sweethearts when they are in a rage with them--and then he called me all the endearing names, such as loveliest of my sex, fairest nymph, tender beauty. What a man!" Meantime she made no answer whatever, and the darkness and the silence and the obstinacy of the girl were driving the unfortunate lover to a kind of madness, and I know not what would have happened. "Molly," he said, "willy nilly, down you come. I shall tear down the thatch. I would burn you out, but I would not spoil your beauty. I shall tear down the thatch, and my men shall carry you down." Then Molly made answer. "I have a knife in my possession. Do not think that I am afraid to use it. The first man who lays hands on me I will kill--whether it is you or your servants." "That we shall see. Look ye, Molly, you are only a merchant's daughter, and I am a gentleman. Do you think I value that compared with marrying you? Not one whit. When we are married I will buy more land; I will be the greatest landowner of the whole county. Sir Robert will make me sheriff. I will go into Parliament, Molly; he will make me a peer. Come down, I say." But she spoke no more. Then he lost control of himself, and for a while stamped and swore, threatened and cursed. "You will have it, then? Here, John, go and look for a ladder. There's always a ladder in the back yard. Put it up against the thatch. Tear it down. Make a hole in the roof. Tear off the whole roof." The man propped his chair pole against the door, and went round to look for the ladder and to obey orders. "So," Molly told me, "I was besieged. Mr. Rising was below, but I had my knife, and he was afraid to venture up the steps. I heard the men clumping about outside. I heard them plant the ladder and climb up. Now a countryman who understands a thatch is able to tear it off very quickly, either to make or mend a hole, or to tear down the roof altogether. And I feared that I must use my knife seriously. Was ever woman more barbarously abused? Well--I waited. By the quick tearing away of the straw I saw that the fellow on the ladder knew how to thatch a rick or a cottage. In a few minutes there would be a hole big enough for half-a-dozen men to enter. Jack," her cheek flushed and her eye brightened. "God forgive me! But I made up my mind the moment that man stepped within the room to plunge my knife into his heart." If a woman's honour is dearer than her life, then surely it is more precious than a dozen lives of those who would rob her of that treasure. However, this last act of defence was not necessary. "Master," cried the postboy, who was waiting with the chaise. "Master, here be men on horseback galloping. I doubt they are coming after the lady." Tom Rising stepped to the door and looked down the road. The day was already beginning to break. He saw in the dim light a company of horsemen galloping along the road; it was a bad road, and there had been rain, so that the horses went heavily. They were very near; in a few moments they would be upon him. He looked at the chaise. He made one more effort. "Molly," he said, "come down quick. There is just time. Let us have no more fooling." Again she made no reply. Knife in hand, with crimson cheek and set lips, she watched the hole in the thatch and the man tearing it away. Tom Rising swore again, most blasphemously. Then, seeing that the game was lost, he loosened his sword in its scabbard and stepped into the middle of the road. CHAPTER XXIII WHICH WAY TO FOLLOW? I must admit that in the conduct of this affair Lord Fylingdale showed both coolness and resolution. The news that the heiress of Lynn had been abducted spread immediately through the rooms; the whole company flocked to the doors, where Lord Fylingdale stood, calm and without passion, while beside him the old captain stamped and cursed the villains unknown. He called Molly's chairmen. What had those fellows seen? They said that they were waiting by order; that another chair stood before them at the door, the bearers of which were strangers to them, a fact which at this crowded season occurred constantly; that a gentleman whose name they knew not, but whom they had seen in the streets and at the assembly, mostly drunk, had come out hastily and spoken to these chairmen; that his lordship himself had handed the lady into the chair and closed the doors, to their astonishment, because they were themselves waiting for the lady; and that the chair was carried off instantly, leaving them in bewilderment, not knowing what to do. He asked them, next, for a closer description of the gentleman. He was young, it appeared; he was red in the face; he looked masterful; he cursed the chairmen in a very free and noble manner; one of the chairmen gave him his sword to wear, which is not permitted in the assembly; he was swearing all the time as if in great wrath. "My lord," a gentleman interrupted, "the description fits Tom Rising." "Has Mr. Rising been seen in the assembly this evening?" "He was not only here, but he danced with the lady." "Is he here now? Let some one look for Mr. Rising." There was no need to look for him, because the rooms--even the card room--was now empty, all the people being crowded about the doors. "Where does he lodge? Let some one go to his lodgings." "With submission, my lord," said another. "It is not at his lodgings that he will be found. After the assembly, he goes to the 'Rose Tavern,' where he drinks all night." "Let some one go to the 'Rose Tavern,' then, and quickly. Captain Crowle, we will go to the 'Crown' while inquiries are made. Gentlemen, there is great suspicion that an abominable crime hath been committed, and that this young lady hath been forcibly carried away for the sake of her fortune. I take blame to myself for not making sure that I was placing her in her own chair. This is my business. But I ask your help for the honour of the spa and the company." A dozen gentlemen stepped forward and offered their help and their swords, if necessary. Among them was Colonel Lanyon. "Come, then. Let us adjourn to the 'Crown' and make inquiries. Be of good cheer, captain. We will find out which way they took. If they have nothing but the chair to carry her away we can easily catch them up." "I know my girl," said the captain. "It is not one man who can daunt her, nor will a dozen men force her to marry against her will. If they try there will be murder." "If we cannot find the way they took, we must scour the country." At the gates of the garden they learned that the keeper had seen the chair go out, and observed that it was closely followed by a gentleman whom he could only describe by his height, which was taller than the average. Now, Tom Rising was six feet at least. At the "Crown," in Lord Fylingdale's room, they held a brief consultation, after which the gentlemen who had volunteered their help went out into the town to make inquiries. In a few minutes they began to return. It was ascertained that Tom Rising was not at his lodging; nor was he at the "Rose Tavern"; nor could he be found at any of the taverns used by gentlemen; this strengthened the suspicion against him. Then one remembered the strange words of the Tuesday night, in which Tom Rising had promised his friends that he would, before the week was done, be the richest man in the county; rich enough to play with them until he had stripped every man as bare as Adam. Those words were taken as mere drunken ravings. But now they seemed to have had a meaning. Where was Tom Rising? Another discovery was that of the two men belonging to the chair in which Molly was carried off. They were found in one of the low taverns by the riverside, drinking. One of them was already too far gone to speak. The other, with a stronger head, was able to give information, which he was quite ready to do. A gentleman, he said, had engaged the chair, and had given them a guinea to drink if they would suffer him to find his own chairmen. His description of the gentleman corresponded with that already furnished. He spoke of a tall gentleman with a flushed face and rough manner of speech. He knew nothing more, except that two men, strangers to himself, had taken the chair and carried it off. "Gentlemen," said his lordship, "there can be, I fear, no doubt the abduction of Miss Molly has been designed and attempted by Mr. Rising. Fortunately, he cannot have gone very far. It remains for us to find the road which he has taken." They fell to considering the various roads which lead out of the town. There is the high road to Ely, Cambridge, and London; but to carry a chair with an unwilling lady in it on the high road, frequented by night as well as by day with travellers of all kinds and strings of pack horses, would be ridiculous. There was the road which led to the villages on the east side of the Wash; there was also the road to Swaffham and Norwich; another was also the road to Hunstanton. "I am of opinion," said one of the gentlemen, "that he has fixed on some lonely place not far from Lynn, where he could make her a prisoner until she complies with his purpose and consents to marry him." Captain Crowle shook his head. "She would never consent," he repeated. "My girl is almost as strong as any man, and quite as resolute. There will be murder if this villain attempts violence." Just then the landlady of the "Crown" threw open the door and burst in. "Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen!" she cried, "I have found out where they are gone. Ride after them. Ride after them quick, before worse mischief is done. I have ordered all the horses in the stables to be saddled. There are eight. Quick! gentlemen, for the love of the Lord, ride after them." "Quick! Quick!" said his lordship. "Where are they? Where are they?" The captain sprang up. "They are on their way. They cannot be there yet." "But where? Where?" "Mr. Rising ordered a post-chaise to wait for him at ten o'clock." "He left the gardens," said his lordship, "about that time. Go on." "He ordered it at the Duke's Head. The postboy told the ostler his orders. He was to wait for Mr. Rising at 'The Travellers' Rest,' at Riffley Spring, on the way to Wootton." "'The Travellers' Rest'? What kind of place is that?" "It is a bad place, my lord--a villainous place--on a lonely road up and down which there is little travelling. It is a resort of pedlars, tinkers, and the like--gipsies, vagabonds, footpads, and rogues. It is no place for a young lady." "It is not, indeed," said one of the gentlemen. "Gentlemen," the landlady repeated, "ride after him! Ride after them! Oh! the sweet Miss Molly!" "Are the horses ready?" "They will be ready in a minute." "Gentlemen, there are, you hear, eight horses. Captain Crowle will take one, I will take another. The remaining six are at your disposal. I shall feel honoured if you will accompany me; but on one condition, if you will allow me to make a condition. The man will fight, I suppose?" "Tom Rising," one of them replied, "would fight the devil." "One could desire nothing better. The condition is that when we overtake Mr. Rising you will leave him to me. That is understood?" "My lord, we cannot, by your leave, allow your valuable life to be at the hazard of a duel with a man both desperate and reckless." "I shall take care of myself, I assure you. Meantime, if I fall I name Colonel Lanyon to succeed me, and after him, should he, too, unhappily fall, you will yourselves name his successor. Gentlemen, we must rescue the lady and we must punish the abductor. I hear the horses. Come." CHAPTER XXIV THE PUNISHMENT The postboy, foreseeing events which might require a clear stage, warily drew his chaise off the road, which here widened into a small area trodden flat by many feet, into the grassy field at the side, and stood at his horses' heads in readiness. The men on the ladder, who were pulling away at the thatch with zeal, stopped their work. "What's that, George?" asked one. "Seems like horses. They're coming after the young lady, likely;" so he slid down the ladder followed by the other, and they ran round to the front, seizing their poles in case of need. At elections, and on the occasion of a street fight, the chairman's pole has often proved a very efficient weapon. Handled with dexterity it is like a quarter staff, but heavier, and will not only stun a man, but will brain him, or break arm, leg, or ribs for him. "For my part," Molly told me, "I saw them suddenly desist from their work, though in a few minutes the hole in the thatch would have been large enough to admit of a man's passing through. I was waiting within, knife in hand. Do you think I would have suffered one of those fellows to lay hand upon me? Well, in the midst of their work they stopped, they listened, and they stepped down the ladder. What did this mean? There was no window to the loft except a single frame with half-a-dozen small diamond shaped panes too high up to serve any purpose except to admit a little light. I put my head through the hole in the thatch. And I heard--imagine my joy--the clatter of horses and the voices of the horsemen. And then I knew, and was quite certain, that my rescue had arrived. 'Jack,' I said to myself, 'has found out the way taken by this villain, and is riding after him.'" Alas! I, who should have been riding in the front of all, was at that moment unconsciously sleeping in my bunk aboard _The Lady of Lynn_. "I thought that at such a moment Mr. Rising would be wholly occupied with defending himself. I therefore withdrew the boards from the top of the stair and looked down. No one was in the room below, that I could see. I cautiously descended. In the corner of the settle by the fireplace there was the old woman of the house. "'They are coming after you, Missy,' she said. 'I knew how it would end. I warned him. I told him that everything was against it. I read his luck by the cards and by the magpies, and by the swallows. Everything was against it. They are coming. Hark! They are very close now, and they will kill him!' "I ran to the open door. Mr. Rising was in the middle of the road without his hat, his sword in his hand; behind him stood his chairmen. He was not going to give me up without a fight. The postboy had drawn the chaise into the field, and the sedan chair was standing beside it. And down the road, only a little way off, I saw, in the growing light of daybreak, Lord Fylingdale leading, the captain beside him, and half-a-dozen gentlemen following, all on horseback." "There she is! There is Molly!" cried the captain. "What cheer, lass? What cheer?" Lord Fylingdale held up his hand. The whole party drew rein and halted. Then their leader dismounted. They were now about twenty yards from the men. He threw his reins to the nearest of the little troop. "Gentlemen," he said, "we must proceed with this business without hurry or bluster, or threats. Mr. Rising will, perhaps, threaten and bluster. We are here to rescue a lady and to punish a villain. Let both be done without the appearance of wrath or revenge. Captain Crowle, do not dismount, I entreat you, until the conclusion of the next act. Miss Molly is, as you see, apparently safe and unhurt." They obeyed. "I shall now measure swords with the young gentleman who thinks that he can carry off heiresses with impunity. I would advise you to advance a little closer to the house. He must understand that punishment awaits him, if not from me, then from some other of this company." "Look at Tom," said one of them. "His blood is up. He is now all for fighting. He means mischief, if ever he has meant mischief. I remember at Swaffham when he fought the young squire of Headingley. That was about a girl, too. A mere worthless drab of a tavern servant. Tom broke down the man's guard and ran him through in half a minute. I wish we were well out of this job." Tom stood in the road, as I have said, his sword in his hand, his hat lying on the ground before him. If flaming cheeks and eyes as fiery as those of a bull brought to bay mean mischief, then Tom's intention was murderous. "To thwart Tom in anything," the gentleman went on, "is dangerous; but to take away his girl--and such a girl--to rob him of that great fortune just at the moment of success--would madden the mildest of men. He looks like a madman. Should one warn his lordship? And he has got two chairmen with their poles in readiness. We should ride in upon them before they can do any mischief." So they whispered. Said Captain Crowle: "Kill him, my lord; kill the villain. Kill him." "Let me warn your lordship," said the gentleman who had last spoken, "his method will be a fierce attack; he will try to break down your guard." "I know that method," Lord Fylingdale replied, coldly. Then he stepped forward and took off his hat. "Mr. Rising," he said, "this affair might very well be settled by two or three sailors or common porters. We are willing, however, to treat you as a gentleman, which, sir, you no longer deserve." "Go on, go on," said Tom. "'Twill be all the same in five minutes." "I am therefore going to do you the honour of fighting you." "I shall show you how I appreciate that honour. Stop talking, man, and begin." "I must, however, warn you that if you are to fight as a gentleman you must try to behave as one, for this occasion only. Should you attempt any kind of treachery my friends will interfere. In that case you will certainly not leave the field alive." "What do you want then?" "You must send away those two hulking fellows behind you. I am willing to fight you with swords, but I am not going to fight your lackeys with clubs." Tom turned round. "Here, you fellows, get off. Go and stand beside the chair. Whatever happens don't interfere. Well, my lord, the sooner this comes off the better." He laid down his sword and took off coat and waistcoat, turning up the sleeve of his right arm. Then he turned to Molly and saluted her. "Mistress Molly," he said, with a grin, "you are going to have a very fine sight. Perhaps, when it is over you will be sorry for your shilly-shally stand off--no, I won't say it. You're not worth carrying off. If I'd known. Now, my lord." Lord Fylingdale had also removed his coat and waistcoat, and now stood in his shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, hat-less. Just at that moment the sun rose swiftly, as is his manner in this flat country. It was as if the sky had leaped into light in order to give these swordsmen a clearer view of each other. They were a strange contrast. Molly's champion erect, pale, and calm; his adversary bent, as if with passion, grasping his sword with eager hand. "He means mischief," repeated the gentlemen of the troop. "I would this business was ended. I wonder if the noble lord can fight. He does not look afraid, anyhow." "He looks as if he could feel neither fear nor anger, nor love, nor any passion at all. He is an iceberg. Ha! they are beginning." They faced each other. The swords crossed. "Look to yourself," said Tom. "I will spit you like a pigeon." He stamped and lunged. The thrust was parried, easily and lightly. Tom lunged again, and again, with a slight turn of the wrist, the thrust was parried. But as yet Lord Fylingdale seemed to stand on the defensive. "He knows how to fence," they whispered. "See! he means to tire his adversary. He parries everything. Tom thrusts like a madman. Why, he exposes himself at every lunge. See! he has lost his head. One would think he was fighting with an automaton who could only parry." At the door stood the object and cause of the encounter, the girl, namely, who had brought all this trouble upon Tom Rising's head. She stood motionless, hardly breathing, watching the duel, as they say the Roman women used to watch the fight of the gladiators in the amphitheatre, and as I have seen the Spanish women watch the men who fight the bull in their circus. I believe that women, in spite of their tender hearts, are carried away out of themselves by the sight of mere fighting. It is a spectacle which they cannot choose but gaze upon; it shows the true nature of man as opposed to that of woman. He stands up and risks his life, trusting sometimes to his skill, as in a duel with swords, and sometimes to chance, as on a battlefield where the bullets are flying. Molly, therefore, watched the fight with gleaming eyes and parted lips. She was almost ready to forgive the man who had attempted this injury for the sake of his courage, and she could not sufficiently admire his adversary for the cold and impassive way in which he met every furious attack, just with a simple turn of the wrist, as it seemed to her. Tom was a strong and lusty fellow, and he could fight after his fashion, which was with thrust upon thrust, fast and furious, as if reckless of himself, so that he could engage his adversary wholly in defence until he found a moment of weakness. He had fought many times, and hitherto without a scratch or a wound, the fight always ending with his adversary lying prostrate before him. On this occasion, however, he found that every thrust was parried; that his adversary yielded not so much as an inch of ground, and that he had to do with a wrist of iron and the eye of a hawk. "Jack!" said Molly. "I hope that I desired not the death of the young man. But I did desire his defeat. It was splendid to see him stamping on the ground and attacking like lightning. But it was more splendid to see his adversary immovable. He stood like a rock; he showed neither passion nor excitement. He parried every thrust with just a turn of his wrist." The gentlemen on horseback closed in and looked on holding their breath. There was no longer any fear on account of their champion. For the first time in their lives they saw as fine a master of fence as ever came out of the schools of Paris. Meantime, the other man was as one maddened. He drew back; he roared like a bull; he rushed upon his enemy; he panted and gasped; but he continued the fight undaunted. Suddenly, his sword flew out of his hand, and fell in the field beside the chaise. "Pick up your master's sword," Lord Fylingdale ordered the chairmen. The spectators looked to see Tom run through on the spot. On the contrary, Lord Fylingdale remained in his attitude of defence; he was playing with his enemy. "Take your sword," he said. "You are at my mercy. But take your sword, man; we have only just begun." Tom received his sword, and wiped off the mud upon his shirt. Then he renewed the attack; but it was with less confidence. That one should refuse to finish the duel when he had disarmed his adversary was a thing beyond his experience. "Tom is dashed," said one of the company. "It is all over with Tom." It was. After a few more lunges, parried with the same quiet skill and calmness of manner, Tom's sword once more flew out of his hand. Then the duel was over, for Lord Fylingdale made one thrust and his sword passed clean through the right arm at the shoulder, passing out at the other side. Tom reeled; one of his chairmen ran to his help, and he fell upon the ground, fainting in a small pool of blood. Lord Fylingdale paid no attention to him. He wiped his sword on the grass, replaced it in the scabbard, and put on his coat and waistcoat. This done, he advanced to Molly. "Madam," he said, "we are fortunate, indeed, in being able to effect a rescue. This is not a place for a lady, nor is this a sight that one would willingly offer you. I trust that no violence has been used." "I thank your lordship. It was a horrid sight. Oh! do not let the poor man die. He is a villain, but he has failed. Be merciful." Then the captain came running up. "Molly!" he cried, with the tears running down his face. "Molly! We are not too late? They haven't married you? The villain is paid. He is paid, I take it. He hasn't married you yet? By the Lord, if he has I will brain him with my cudgel, so you shall be a widow as soon as a wife." "Captain, can you ask me? The man had a chaise waiting here and would have forced me into it; but I ran into the house, and so to the upper floor, whither he could not follow. He set his men to pull off the thatch. What he would have done next I know not. But I could defend myself." "What is that in your hand, Molly?" It was the knife, which she still held in readiness. She threw it away. "I shall not need it now," she said. "What do you think I should have done with it?" "Molly, I know what you would have done. I said that there was no man in England who could marry you against your will. It was his heart and not his shoulder that would have received the knife. My dear, I knew my Molly. I knew my girl." Then the other gentlemen crowded round, offering their congratulations, no one taking the least notice of the unlucky Tom, who still lay pale and bleeding on the ground. It was Lord Fylingdale who came to his assistance. "Here, fellows," he ordered the chairmen, "take up your master and put him in the chaise--so. And as for you," he addressed the postboy, "here is a guinea. Drive as fast as you can back to Lynn. Put him to bed in his lodgings and send for a surgeon or a wise woman, or some one to look after the wound." "Will he die?" asked one of the bystanders. "I should think it not unlikely. His wound is dangerous, and if I know anything about a man from his appearance I should say that he would be inclined to fever. But we are not concerned with his fate. Whether he dies or lives, he has attempted a villainous act and has met with a fitting punishment." The carriage, with the wounded man in it, went rattling along the road, the jerks and bumps among the ruts being enough to keep the wound open and the blood flowing. Then Lord Fylingdale called the chairmen. "Who are you?" he asked. "Do you belong to the town of Lynn?" They looked at each other. Then one said, "No; we be from Swaffham. Squire Rising sent for us to do his job." "Put in your poles. You must now carry the lady back." "We have done our work," said his lordship. "It remains for us to escort Miss Molly home again. Madam, you can leave this foul den with the consciousness that you are avenged." "Indeed, I want no revenge." "Justice has been done. Justice is not revenge. You can now, madam, go back in the chair in which you were brought here. The villain who made the attempt is already on his way back. Since you desire mercy rather than revenge we must hope that his wound is not fatal." So Molly reëntered the chair. Then she was brought home in triumph. The captain rode on one side; her champion on the other; before and behind her rode her mounted escort. If she had been a queen they could not have shown her greater deference and respect. CHAPTER XXV A GRATEFUL MIND The news of the abduction, you may be sure, formed, next day, the only topic of talk in the pump room and the gardens. There are many rumours and reports. Mr. Rising was allowed to be a villain of the deepest dye. He was also allowed to be a gentleman of the greatest courage and resolution. The duel was described with such embroideries and additions as the feminine imagination could invent. Lord Fylingdale was desperately wounded; no, only slightly wounded; no, he was not touched. Mr. Rising was brought home dead, in a pool of blood; no, he was wounded and not expected to live; and so on. He lay, indeed, at his lodgings in a fever, which held him for some days; but being young and strong, and in good health, except that his habit of drinking had inflamed his blood, he recovered, and, as you shall presently learn, escaped from certain toils and snares that had been laid with skill, and were promising success. I am sorry to say that the opinion of the ladies remained adverse to Molly. It was universally acknowledged that she was a forward minx; that she ought to have known her place; that, had she not given encouragement, Mr. Rising could never have attempted his rash adventure. "She wants to marry a gentleman. Naturally; she thinks that money will buy anything. What is the good of having all these fine things--if, indeed, they are hers--if she is to marry in her own class, a quill driver, a shopkeeper, a tarpauling? As everybody knows, Mr. Rising is a gentleman of good family and good estate; could she look higher? She ought to feel honoured at being carried away by a gentleman. As for any rumour, connecting her with Lord Fylingdale, one would be sorry for the poor wench if that was true, because nothing could be more impossible. Yet the ambition of a girl ignorant of the world may soar to heights incredible, like the soap bubble, only to burst, or the sky-rocket, only to fall ignobly to the ground. It is not likely that his lordship, said to be so fastidious, would bestow a serious thought upon the girl, save as representing the town of Lynn." And so on ... with whispers from one to the other at morning prayers, and louder talk in the pump room, and at the confectioner's and in the gardens. Meantime, the captain made haste to wait upon his lordship, in order to thank him more formally than in the turmoil and agitation of the evening had been possible. "Captain Crowle," said his lordship, "there needs no thanks. The honour of the spa--of the company--was at stake. Could we look on unmoved when such a crime was committed under our very eyes? Sir, there were with me, as you saw, half-a-dozen gallant gentlemen, all pledged to take my place should I fall. Their swords were as much at the service of insulted virtue as my own." "You fought a desperate man, my lord. Had you lost hand or eye for a moment, you would now be dead." "Captain, I do not lose my eye nor my hand. Nevertheless, to die for the honour of such a woman as Miss Molly should be happiness enough for any man." Said I not that the abduction was the very best thing that could possibly happen to Lord Fylingdale? Whether he understood the captain's ambitions as regards himself, or not, I cannot say. We know, however, that the old man aimed at nothing short of a great alliance for his ward, a dream that was justified by the noble fortune which would go with her. Lord Fylingdale knew, besides, that he himself had made a most favourable impression upon this simple sailor, who believed everything that he was told. And now, by the rescue of the girl, he had not only raised himself still higher in the estimation of the captain, but he stood before Molly as a hero and a fearless avenger of insult and violence. Nothing could have been more fortunate. "Sir," he added, "if you will carry me to Miss Molly herself, I would offer her my congratulations on the happy ending of her adventure. She is perhaps overcome by the terrors of the night." "Molly felt no terrors. She had a knife in her hand which might have proved more formidable to the young man than your lordship's sword. But if you will honour my humble house, both Molly and I shall be still more grateful." Molly was in the kitchen making a beefsteak pie, with her sleeves rolled up and her apron on. "Shall I go to my lord as I am?" she said. "Let me wash my hands and roll down the sleeves at least." She presented herself, therefore, in her plain morning dress, that in which she performed her domestic work. Perhaps she showed to greater advantage thus than in her silks and jewels. "Miss Molly, your obedient servant." His lordship bowed as low as if he was addressing a countess at least. "I have ventured to inquire after your health. Last night's adventure may have proved too great a shock." "I am quite well, my lord, thanks to your bravery and your generosity, which I can never forget--never--not even if I wished to forget." "Never," said the captain. "Whenever I hear of a brave man I shall think of your lordship, and whenever I think of a gallant fight, it will be your lordship fighting." "You think too highly of a simple affair, Miss Molly. Nevertheless, I am proud to have been of service to you." "At least we must continue grateful, because we have nothing that we can do in return." "I am not so sure of that." He smiled kindly. "We shall see. Meantime, Miss Molly, there is one thing which you might do to please me." "Oh, what is that?" "You wore at your first appearance a large quantity of gold chains and precious stones. I am curious about such gauds. Will you allow me to see your treasures?" It was an unexpected favour to ask. Molly laughed, however, and ran to fetch the box. She poured out the whole of the glittering contents upon the table. "There, my lord, and if I could venture to offer any of these things that would please you." He laughed. "You are kindness itself, Miss Molly. But I am not a lady, and jewels are of no use to me. I have, however, at my poor house in Gloucestershire, my family jewels. Let me look at yours." He sat down and began to examine them closely. Apparently he understood jewels. It was as if he apprised their value. He placed some on one side; some on the other. "This," he said, "is a diamond of the first water. Keep it very carefully. This has a slight flaw, yet, with more careful cutting, it might become a valuable stone. This chain is fashioned by an Indian workman. None but an Indian can make a chain so fine and so delicate. See, it is no thicker than a piece of twine, and yet how careful and how intricate the workmanship! The man's fingers must have been more delicate than our craftsmen can imagine." And so on through the whole of the treasure. "Well, Miss Molly," he said, "there are few ladies, indeed, even of the highest rank, who can show so good a collection. I congratulate you with all my heart. Some day, I hope to see you at court wearing these jewels and bearing--who knows?--a name as honourable as these are precious." "Your lordship always encourages," said the captain. "You hear, Molly? At court and bearing an honourable name." She blushed and gathered up her treasures. Her visitor looked round the room. It was the parlour. The homely appearance of the room, plainly furnished, as might be expected of a man in the captain's position, was strangely inconsistent with the mass of treasure which he had just examined. The plain linsey woolsey of the girl who owned the treasure was also out of proportion, so to speak, for he understood that this glittering pile of jewels represented a vast sum of money, and that the girl was far richer than the poet knew or even the captain guessed. At the mere thought of getting possession of this treasure his blood quickened; but he remained, to all appearance, save for a slight and unwonted colour in his cheek, unmoved. I have never heard, nor can I guess, the value of these jewels, save that they were worth many thousands. "These jewels," he said, coldly, "should belong to a great lady. They deserve to be seen. They are thrown away, save as portable property, unless they can be used to grace the court. However, ... let me hope that they will not be thrown away. I think, Miss Molly, that your mother lives with you in this house. Perhaps this treasure is hers--or is it all your own?" The captain made answer. "Molly's mother has no share. A modest sum of money, sufficient for her needs, is paid her out of the estate. The rest--all the rest belongs to Molly." "Truly she is first favourite with Dame Fortune, who, I hope, will not turn her wheel. Miss Molly, will you present me to madam, your mother?" "With all my heart; but my lord, my mother is not used to being called madam." So saying, Molly retired to the kitchen, and presently returned, bringing her mother with her. She came in red faced from stooping over the kitchen fire, wiping her fingers, which she had hurriedly washed, on her apron, wearing at her side her great housekeeper's pocket, in which she carried a vast quantity of things necessary, useful, and handy, such as scissors, pins, a needle-case, the nutmeg grater, a corkscrew, a few weights, a thread paper, a yard measure, stockings to be darned, a ball of twine, a skein or two of silk, ends of ribbon, fragments and rags of cloth, lint for wounds, a box of goose fat for ointment, and many other articles indispensable for the complete housewife. Jennifer Miller, Molly's mother, was indeed a homely body, low in stature, inclined to stoutness, somewhat short of breath, and, in appearance, exactly what she was in fact, namely, a woman whose whole delight and study was in housewifery. When she was young I have heard that she possessed some share of beauty, as a rosy cheek, red lips, bright eyes, and so forth. But her daughter took after the father, who was a tall and proper man, as those testify who knew him. His lordship treated her with the respect due to a great lady, bowing as low to her as he had done to Molly. "Madam, I come to congratulate you on the escape of your daughter. 'Twas providential." "With your help, sir. Oh! I know a gentleman's modesty. Well, sir--my lord, I mean--we are humble folk, but I hope we know how to be grateful. I said to Molly this morning: 'Look out,' I said, 'among your fine trinkets the very finest thing you've got, and take it yourself with your humble respects to his lordship,' and I would have sent with it some of my last year's ginger cordial to warm the stomach. I warrant it is poor stuff that they give you. Servants don't give their minds to cordials. But Molly wouldn't go. She was never one of your shy and shamefaced girls, neither. 'Go and thank his honour, do,' I said to her, 'What will he think of your manners? Don't leave it to the captain. Go yourself.' That's what I said." "Indeed, madam, Miss Molly has already thanked me more than enough. I am most fortunate in being of some service to her." "John," the good lady added, "where are your manners, pray? His honour has nothing to drink. A glass of home-brewed, now, or a little of my ginger cordial? Unless you will take a bottle home with you. Or a glass of Lisbon? We are not so poor as to miss it." "Nothing, madam, nothing, I assure you." So saying, his lordship, with his most profound bow, quitted the room and the house. His mind was now made up. There was no longer any doubt possible as to the girl's great fortune. He had satisfied himself in every particular. He knew the value of her fleet, and the income of her business. He now knew the value of her jewels. He would make the girl his wife, provided he could do it without the settlement of her fortune upon herself. There must be no settlement. What he proposed to do with her after his marriage I do not know. Perhaps he would send her to his country house, from which he had already sold the furniture, the pictures, the books, and everything. It stood, I have been told, in a desert, which had once been a lovely wood. But the wood was felled, and only the stumps were left. There were gardens around, but they had gone to wrack and ruin. The farmers, his tenants, paid their rent to the lawyers; his name was a by-word and a proverb in his own county for mad gambling, for raking, and ungodly living. I say that he might have proposed to take her to this deserted spot, and to leave her there. Or he might have taken her to London, there to associate with I know not what kind of women or what kind of men. It is certain, however, that no good woman and no honest man would consort with the wife of the Earl of Fylingdale. He walked away, however, his mind made up. He would marry the girl if he could get her without settlements. And as he thought of that treasury of precious stones, his unholy heart glowed within him. Molly went back to the kitchen and resumed the making of the beefsteak pie. "John," said her mother, "does that young man mean anything?" "He gives me advice. He knows my design as regards Molly. He is a very virtuous young gentleman, as well as courageous." "John, do nothing hastily. He did not look at Molly in a way--well, I can remember--what I call a hungry way. Take care, John. Perhaps he only wants her money." "Why, Jennifer, he is the most fastidious man in the world. Do you think he can be taken with Molly?" "Try him. Offer him Molly without a farthing. He would turn away. I am sure he would, John. I know what a lover's looks should be. Offer him Molly with her fortune. Ah! then you shall see. John, do nothing rash. Remember, Molly is ignorant of gentlefolk and their ways. I've heard of their ways. Molly is like me; she will expect the whole of her husband, not a part of him." "Don't I tell the woman that he is a man of the nicest honour?" "You say so. How do you know, John?" "Did he not rescue the girl at the risk of his own life? Why, Jennifer, what more do you ask?" "Ay. That he did. Perhaps he was not willing to let her fortune go to some other man. Molly is worth fighting for. Well, if he means something, why did he go on board the dirty ship with you--and he so fine? Why was he so anxious to know what the girl has in ships and things? Why did he ask to see her jewels if it was not to find out what they are worth? I tell you, John, I could see in his eyes what he was thinking about." "Ay, ay; trust a woman for seeing into a millstone." "He was thinking 'Is she worth it?' And he was calculating how it all mounted up. Oh! I saw it in his eyes. John, be very careful. If she is taken from us let her go to a man who will make her happy and then I will bear it. But not among them that drink and gamble, nor make a woman mad with jealousy and sick with fear. John, John, be very careful with that man." CHAPTER XXVI THE LAST STEP BUT ONE You shall now hear more of the cunning by which this noble and virtuous person--this adornment and boast of the peerage--laid his plans for securing the fortune and the hand of our Molly. He had persuaded the simple old sailor to believe anything he chose to advance; he had shown himself in the eyes of the girl, that which women admire more than anything else in the world, fearless and skilled in fence and ready to fight; he had also shown himself ready to place his courage and his skill at the service and for the rescue of a woman. So far, everything was prepared and in readiness for the next step. But there were certain obstacles still in the way. These he proceeded to remove. The Lady Anastasia, after the morning prayers, at which she was a regular attendant, generally returned to her lodging, where she sat with her maid engaged in the important affairs of the toilette until dinner. This day, after his examination of the jewels, Lord Fylingdale was carried to Lady Anastasia's lodging in the market-place. The Lady dismissed her maid. "You have something to tell me, Ludovick," she said. "I cannot tell from your face whether you are going to deal truthfully. I have had, as you know, a large experience of the other way. Now, what is it?" "What I have come to say is important. Anastasia, in this matter I have given you my entire confidence. There have been, I own, occasions when I have been compelled--but all that is over. I now confide absolutely in you and in you alone. My interests are yours." "You have already given me that assurance on other occasions." She implied, perhaps, by these words that the assurance and the fact were not identical. "What can I give you except my assurance?" "Nothing, truly. But pray go on. I hear that you have been playing the part of knight errant and fighting for distressed damsels. I laughed when I heard of it. You to fight on the side of the angels? Where are your wings, my Ludovick?" "The thing happened exactly as I could have wished. The country bumpkin who carried her off had no knowledge of fence. He could only lunge, and he was half drunk. There was a great appearance of desperate fighting--because he was mad with drink and disappointment. I played with the fellow long enough to make a show of courage and danger. Then I pinked him." "Is he dead?" "I believe that he is in some kind of fever. Perhaps he is by this time dead. What matters? Well, Anastasia, the result of the affair is that I have now arrived at perfect confidence on the part of my old friend the guardian." "And with the girl?" "The girl matters nothing. The first part of the business is done. You can now go back to London." "Go back to London?" she repeated, suspiciously. "You have done all I wanted done here. You have given me a very good character; you have charmed the people of the spa; you have flattered the girl and inspired her with discontent. Why should you stay any longer?" "To be sure I am living at great expense, and the bank is in a poor way. But what are you going to do?" "Anastasia"--he sat down and took her hand--"I have inquired carefully into the whole business. There is no doubt, none whatever, that the girl is far richer than even her guardian understands. She has a huge income--a great accumulation of money--and, what is more, a collection of jewels which is in itself a large fortune. Go back to London to-morrow or next day; then sit down and write a letter inviting the girl to stay at your house. Bid her bring with her all her jewels and finery. I, for my part, will urge the captain to let her accept the invitation." "All this is very circumstantial. What then?" "I will promise the captain to find her a husband--a man of position, a man of rank, and, above all, one as virtuous as myself." He said this without the least blush or even a smile. "Where is that husband to be found?" "As yet I do not know. He must be a creation of our own. He must not know; he must simply obey. We shall find such a person somewhere. I have, I believe, a good many of my former friends in the fleet or the King's Bench. Now, Anastasia, to find one of these unfortunates; to offer him an allowance, say a guinea a week, in return for a power of attorney to administer the property. True, there are the creditors; but we might take over the detainers. He must not be suffered to get out." He went on suggesting deceits and villainies. "You said 'we.' What have I to do with the scheme? It is, you must confess, Ludovick, one of those arrangements or understandings which the world calls a conspiracy." Lord Fylingdale released her hand. Her words pained his sensitive soul. "If at this time, after all that we have done together, we are to talk of conspiracies, we had better act separately," he said coldly. "No, I am your servant, as you know. Sometimes your most unhappy servant, but always at your command. Only now and then it pleases me to call things by their proper names. At such times, Ludovick, I look in my glass and I see, not the Lady Anastasia in a company of fashion, but a poor wretch sitting in a cart with her arms tied down, a white nightcap on her head and a prayer-book in her hand. There is a coffin in the cart." "Anastasia! You are ridiculous. What have we done that all the world would not do if it could? These scruples are absurd, and these visions are fantastic. What is your share? You know that half of mine--all that is mine--is yours as well. You shall have my hand and my name. These you should have had long ago had they been worth your picking up. Alas! Anastasia, no one knows better than you the desperate condition of my affairs." "Well, I will obey you. I will go back to town. I will go to-morrow. The other partners in our innocency--they will also go back, I suppose." "They will have done their part--Sir Harry and the colonel and the parson--they will all go back. They cost a great deal to keep, and they have done their work." "Should I see the girl before I go?" "Perhaps not. Write to her from London. Invite her to stay with you. For my own part, I will look about me for the man we want. A prisoner--on the poor side--a gentleman; one who will do anything for a guinea a week. The girl will not know that he is a prisoner--it will be quite easy----" This he said, concealing his real intentions, and only anxious to get this lady out of the way. But he left her suspicious and jealous. That is to say, she had already become both, and this intricate plot of getting a husband from the fleet, and the rest of it, made her still more suspicious and jealous. At the "Crown" Lord Fylingdale found Colonel Lanyon waiting for him. "I have inquired, my lord, after Tom Rising. He is in a fever this morning." "Will he die? What do they think?" "Perhaps. But he is young. They think that he will recover. What are your lordship's commands?" "We have stayed here long enough, colonel." "With submission, my lord. Although business has been very bad, it would be as well to wait for the event in Tom Rising's case. My position is very secure if he recovers. The gentlemen of the company have acknowledged that he forced high play upon me; they are unanimous in that respect. It means over a thousand pounds. If he recovers he must pay the money." "Yes. In that case it may be best to wait. If he dies----" "Then, my lord, we know not what his heirs and executors may resolve upon. The feeling concerning debts of honour is, however, very strong among the gentlemen of Norfolk. I am sorry that they are not richer." "If the man dies you can refer to me, perhaps, as arbitrator with the executors. Meantime, make the best of your opportunities and lose no more money. Lady Anastasia goes home in a few days, perhaps to-morrow." The man retired. Lord Fylingdale sat down and reflected. The great thing was to get Lady Anastasia out of the way; the rest might stay or not, as they pleased. Yet he would warn them that their departure would not be delayed long. He took pen and paper and wrote to Sir Harry. "DEAR BEAU,--I think that the air of Lynn after a few weeks is not wholesome for one no longer in his first youth. I would therefore advise that you should think about going back to town. Settle immediately your affairs, gaming and others. Leave the hearts you have broken and return to mend those which are only cracked. In a word, the ladies of London are calling loudly for your return, and the wits and pretty fellows are asking what has become of Sir Harry.--Your obedient servant to command, "FYLINGDALE." There remained the parson and the poet. The latter he could send away at a day's notice; the former he would probably want for a certain purpose. He sent for Mr. Semple, his secretary. "Semple," he said, "I have now made inquiry into the truth of your statements--I mean as regards this young lady's fortune." "It is as I told your lordship?" "It is. The fortune you have exaggerated, but it is no doubt considerable. Well, I have sent for you in order to tell you that I am now resolved upon carrying out the project you submitted to me. My own affairs are, as you found out, embarrassed; the girl's fortune will be useful to me; her person is passable; her manners can be improved. I have therefore determined to make her my countess." "My lord, I rejoice to have been the humble instrument----" "You have kept the secret, so far, I believe. At least I have seen no sign that any one suspects my intentions. You have invented a lie of enormous audacity in order to bring us all together; myself, your project up my sleeve; and certain friends of mine, to assist in various ways; your inventions have converted an ordinary well into a health restoring spring; you have caused the elevation of this town of common sailors and traders and mechanics into a fashionable spa. Semple, you are a very ingenious person. I hope that you are satisfied with your success." "Gratified, my lord. Not satisfied." "I understand. You shall be satisfied very shortly by the fulfillment of my promise. It is, if I remember, to find you a place under government, worth at least £200 a year, with perquisites. You shall learn, Semple, that I can be grateful and that I can keep my word, written or spoken. Now there remains one more service." He proceeded to give him certain instructions. "And, remember, the greatest secrecy is to be observed. Neither you nor the captain is to reveal the fact--until the business is completed. Everything will be ruined if anything is revealed. Your own future depends upon your secrecy. You are sure that you have your instructions aright?" "I am quite sure, my lord. I am your ambassador. I come with a message of great importance. There are reasons why the proceedings are to be kept secret. The lady will be made a countess before a prying and impertinent world can be informed of your lordship's intentions. I fly, my lord. I fly." "One moment, friend Semple. Before you depart on this mission, resolve me as to a difficulty in my mind." "What is that, my lord?" "You are aware, of course, that my plan of life is not quite what this girl looks for in a husband. She will expect, in fact, the bourgeoise virtues--constancy, fidelity, early hours, regularity, piety. You know very well that she will find none of these virtues. They are not, I believe, expected in persons of my rank. You are preparing for the girl, in fact, a great disappointment, and, perhaps, a life of misery. If I did not want her money, I might pity her." Sam's face darkened. "Tell me, my friend, in return for what acts of kindness done to you by the captain or by Molly herself are you conferring this boon upon the girl?" The poet made no reply for awhile. Then he answered, his eyes on the ground. "The thing is as good as done. I may as well let you know. The captain cudgelled me like a dog--like a dog. My gratitude is so great that I have succeeded in marrying his ward to--you, my lord. What worse revenge could I take?" "Frankly, I know of none." The devil, himself, you see, can speak truth at times. "You will waste and dissipate the whole of her fortune, and would if it were ten times as great, in raking and gaming; you will send her back to her own people brokenhearted and ruined. That will be my doing." "Friend Semple," said his lordship, "if I were not Fylingdale I would be Semple; and, to tell the truth, if I saw any other way of raising money I would--well, perhaps I would--even pity the girl and let her go." CHAPTER XXVII THE EXPECTED BLOW That evening the blow, feared and expected, fell, for then, and not till then, I felt that we had lost, or thought we had lost, our maid. I found the captain sitting in the summerhouse alone, without the usual solace of his tobacco and his October. "Jack," he said, with a gloomy sigh, "I am now the happiest of men, because my Molly is the most fortunate of women. I have attained the utmost I could hope or ask. The most virtuous of men--I should say of noble-men--has asked the hand of our girl. Molly will be a countess! Rejoice with me!" I stood outside on the grass, having no words to say. "She will marry him immediately. Nothing could be more happy or more fortunate. Such rank--such a position as places her on a level with the highest ladies of the land, though the daughter of plain folk, with a shipowner for a father and a sailor's daughter for a mother. There is promotion for you, Jack!" "She will go away, then, and leave us!" "Aye; she will leave us, Jack. She will leave us. His lordship--you do not ask who it is." "Who can it be, captain, but Lord Fylingdale?" "The best of men. He will carry her off to his country house, where they will live retired for a while, yet in such state as belongs to her rank. We shall lose her, of course. That, however, we always expected. The country house is in Gloucester, on the other side of England. Perhaps she may get to see us, but I am seventy-five, or perhaps more, and Jennifer, her mother, is not far from fifty. I cannot look to set eyes on her again. What matter." He hemmed bravely and sat upright. "What matter, I say, so that the girl is happy. Her mother may, perhaps, set eyes on her once more; but she will be changed, because, you see, our Molly must now become a fine lady." "Yes," I groaned, "she must become a fine lady." "Jack, sometimes I am sorry that she has so much money. Yet, what was I to do? Could I waste and dissipate her money? Could I give away her ships? Could I give her, with the fortune of a princess, to a plain and simple skipper? No; Providence--Providence, Jack, hath so ordered things. I could not help myself." "No, captain; you could not help things. Yet...." I broke off. "Well, Jack, why don't you rejoice with me? Why the devil don't you laugh and sing? All you want is to see her happy, yet there you stand as glum and dumb as a mute at a funeral." "I wish her happiness, sir, with all my heart." "Sam Semple came here this afternoon, by order of my lord. Sam gives himself airs now that he is a secretary and companion. He came and demanded a private conversation with me. It was quite private, he said, and of the utmost importance. So we sat in the parlour, and, with a bottle of wine between us, we talked over the business. First, he told me that his patron, as he calls him, meaning his master, had been greatly taken with the innocence and the beauty of Molly. I replied that unless he was a stock, or a stone, or an iceberg, I expected nothing less. He went on to say, that although a noble earl with a long pedigree and a great estate, his patron was willing to contract marriage with a girl who was not even of gentle birth, and had nothing but her beauty and her innocence. I told him that she had, in addition, a very large fortune. He said that his patron scorned the thought of money, being already much more wealthy than most noblemen of his exalted rank; that he was willing, also, to pass over any defects in manners, conversation, and carriage, which would be remedied by a little acquaintance with the polite world. In a word, his lordship offered his hand, his name, his title, his rank, and himself--to my ward." "His condescension," I said, "is beyond all praise." "I think so, too. Beyond all praise. I asked his advice touching a husband for my girl. He promises his assistance in the matter, and he then offers himself. Jack, could anything be more fortunate?" "I hope it may turn out so. What does Molly say?" "You may go in and ask her yourself. She will tell you more than she will tell anybody else. The matter is to be kept, for the present, a profound secret between his lordship and ourselves. But since Sam Semple knows it, and Jennifer knows it, and you are one of ourselves, therefore, you may as well know it, too. But don't talk about it." "Why should it be kept a secret? Why should it not be proclaimed everywhere?" "My lord says that the place is a hot-bed of scandal; that he would not have Molly's name passed about in the pump room to be the object of common gossip and inventions, made up of envy and malice. He would spare Molly this. When she is once married and taken away from the place they may say what they please. Whatever they say, they cannot do her any harm. Why, some of them even declared that she was one of the company of strolling actresses. There is nothing that they will not say." I made no reply, because it certainly did seem as if in asking for secrecy his lordship had acted in Molly's interests. "Well, captain, we must make the best of it. You must find your own happiness in thinking of Molly's." "What aggravates me, Jack, is the ridiculous behaviour of my cousin Jennifer. She is in the kitchen crying, and the black woman with her. Go and comfort her before you see Molly." I looked into the kitchen. Molly's mother sat in the great wooden chair beside the fireplace. She held her apron in her hands as if she had just pulled it off her face, and the tears were on her cheeks. When she saw me they began to flow again. "Jack," she said, "have you heard the news? Has the captain told you? The worst has happened. I have lost my girl. She is to be married; she will go away; she will marry a man who scorns her guardian and despises her mother. A bad beginning, Jack. No good can come of such a marriage. A bad beginning. Oh! I foresee unhappiness. How can Molly become a fine lady? She is but a simple girl--my own daughter. I have made her a good housewife, and all her knowledge will be thrown away and lost. It is a bad business, Jack. Nigra has been telling her fortune. There is nothing hopeful. All the cards are threatening. And the magpies--and the screech owl----" She fell to weeping again. After which she broke out anew. "The captain says he is the most virtuous man in the world. It isn't true. If ever I saw the inside of a man in my life I have seen the inside of that man. He is corrupt through and through----" "But--consider. All the world is crying up his noble conduct and his many virtues." "They may say what they like. It is false; he is heartless; he is cold; he is selfish. He marries Molly for her money. Persuade the captain, if you can. He will not believe me." "How can I persuade him? I have no knowledge. Are they all in a tale? Are you the only person who knows the truth? How do you know it?" "I know it because I love my girl, and so I can read the very soul of a man. I have read your soul, Jack, over and over again. You are true and faithful. You would love her and cherish her. But this man? He knows not what love means, nor fidelity, nor anything. Go, Jack. There is no help in you or in any other. Because there is none other----" She spoke the words of the prayer book. "None other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God! Only Thou, O God!" She covered her face again with her apron and fell to sobbing afresh. So I went into the parlour where Molly was sitting. "Jack!" she jumped up. "Oh, Jack, I want you so badly." "I know all, Molly. Except what you yourself say and think about it." She had a piece of work in her hands, and she began to pull it and pick it as she replied. For the first time in my life I found Molly uncertain and hesitating. "The captain says that it is the greatest honour that was ever offered to any woman to be raised from a lowly condition to a high rank--and all for love." "All for love?" I asked. "Why, what else can it be that made him fight for me with that desperate villain? He risked his life. Whatever happens, Jack, I cannot forget that." "No. It was doubtless a great thing to do. Has he told you himself that it was all for love?" "He has not spoken about love at all. He has never once been alone with me. It seems that these great people make love by message. He sent a message by Sam Semple." "A very fine messenger of Cupid, truly!" "Offering marriage. The captain cannot contain his satisfaction and sits glum. My mother says she will never be able to see me again and begins to cry." "Well--but, Molly, to be sure it is a great thing to become a countess. Most women would jump at the chance, under any conditions. Do you, however, think that you can love the man?" "He hasn't asked for love. Oh, Jack, to think that people should marry each other without a word of love! If he loves me I suppose he thinks that I am bound to give him love in return." "There, again, Molly, do you love the man?" "Jack, nobody knows me better than you. What reply can I make?" "He is too cold and too proud for you, Molly. How can you love him? Perhaps," I added, because I was very sure that she would marry him, "after marriage you will find that his coldness is only a cloak to hide his natural warmth, and that his pride covers his wife as well as himself." "He is a good man. Everybody says so. Lady Anastasia declares that he is the most honourable and high-principled of men. On that point I am safe. And think, Jack, what a point it is! Why, to marry a drunkard, a sot, a profligate, a gambler--one would sooner die at once and so an end. But I can trust myself with him. I have no fear of such treatment as drives some wives to distraction. Yet he is cold in his manner and proud in his speech. I might find it in my heart to love him if I was not afraid of him." And so she went backwards and forwards. He was so good and so great; his wife must always respect him. He was of rank so exalted--it was a great honour to become his wife. He was so brave--she owed her rescue to his bravery. Yet he had spoken no word of love; nor had she seen any sign of love. I asked her what sign she expected, and she was confused. "Of course," she said, "every girl knows very well when a man is in love with her." "How does she know?" I asked her. "She knows, because she knows." I suppose she felt the man was not in love with her just as her mother felt that his character for virtue and nobility was assumed--"corrupt within," she said. Women are made so. And in the next breath Molly repeated that what his lordship had done was done for love. "How do you know?" I asked again. "Because the captain says so," she replied, with unconscious inconsistency. "Is the courtship to be conducted entirely by messenger?" I asked. "No; he will come to-morrow morning and see me. I am to give him an answer then. But the captain has already told him what the answer is to be. Oh, Jack, I am so happy! I am so fortunate that I ought to be happy. Yet I am so down-hearted about it. Going away is a dreadful thing. And when shall I see any of you, I wonder, again? Oh, I am so fortunate! I am so happy." And to show her happiness she dropped a tear, and more tears followed. What kind of happiness, what kind of good fortune was that which could fill the mind of the captain with gloom and could dissolve Molly's mother in tears, and could herald its approach to the bride by sadness which weighed her down? And as for me, you may believe that my heart was like a lump of lead within me, partly because I was losing the girl I loved, but had never hoped to marry, and partly because from the outset of the whole affair--yes, from the very evening when the news of the grand discovery was read to the "Society of Lynn"--I had looked forward to coming events with foreboding of the most dismal kind. "Come to see me to-morrow afternoon, Jack," she said. "I must talk about it to some one. With the captain I cannot talk, because he is all for the unequal match, and with my mother I cannot talk because she foretells trouble, and will acknowledge no good thing at all in the man or in the match. Do not forget, Jack. Come to-morrow. I don't know how many days are left to me when I can ask you to come. Oh, Jack, to leave everybody--all my friends--it is hard! But I am the most ungrateful of women, because I am the happiest--the happiest. Oh, Jack, the happiest and most fortunate woman that ever lived." CHAPTER XXVIII WARNING In the evening, which was Wednesday, I repaired to the gardens, paying for my admission, but no longer in the character of a fine gentleman. Lord Fylingdale was not present, nor Molly. Lady Anastasia was there, gracious and smiling as usual. Nothing was said about her approaching departure. After walking round the long room she retired to the card room, and play began as usual. It seemed to me, looking on with a few others at the door, that there was a kind of awkwardness or constraint among the company. They collected together in small groups, which whispered to each other; then these groups melted away, forming new companies, which in their turn dissolved. Something of importance had happened. Presently some of the gentlemen in the card room came out. They, in their turn, became surrounded and formed into another group, who whispered eagerly with each other. They were standing near the door, and I overheard some of their discourse. "I am assured," one of them was saying, "that he has been ordered out of the assembly at Bath for foul play at cards, and I have it on the best authority that he was driven off the Heath of Newmarket." I did not know of whom he was speaking. "Truly," said another, "we seem to have fallen into the midst of a very pretty set of sharpers. Will Tom Rising, if he gets the better of his wound, have to pay that debt? I think not. A debt of honour can only be contracted with a man of honour." "On the other hand, sir, if Tom had won he would have looked for payment." "Why, sir, that is true. But observe, when we played with the colonel we took him for a man of honour. Some of us have won a few guineas of him. Should we return them? No. And why? Because we accepted him as a man of honour, and stood to win or lose as between gentlemen. Now, one does not play with a sharper knowingly. One would not take his money; one would not pay him if we lost." "Then Tom must not pay." "If what we hear is true; if the man has been exposed at Bath; if he has been warned off the Heath of Newmarket; most assuredly Tom must not pay a farthing." "At present the fever is still upon him. Well, but we must wait. All this may be mere rumour." "It may be, as you say; but I think not. The report comes from Houghton, Sir Robert's place, where a certain cousin of Tom Rising, member of Parliament, I think, for Ipswich, is now staying as a guest. Houghton is only a few miles from Lynn. It lies in the marshland. This gentleman, then, heard of the duel and the wound, and has been to see his cousin." "Is he still in the town? Can one have speech with him?" "I think not. He has gone back to Houghton. But he will return. I am informed that he inquired into the whole particulars; that he learned of his cousin's heavy losses at play to one, Colonel Lanyon. 'Lanyon?' says my Parliament man. 'I know that name--Colonel Lanyon? Why, the fellow ought not to show his face among gentlemen,' and then out came the whole story." "Still," said the other, "he may be mistaken." "Men are not often mistaken in such matters. But, sir, I can tell you more. There are gentlemen in Sir Robert's party, at Houghton, who profess to know strange things about others of our visitors from London. I will mention no names, yet there will be a surprise for some who pretend to be what they are not. I say no more, except to advise you not to neglect next Friday's assembly. Meantime, silence, let us say nothing." The little group broke up. I paid small attention to the words. The colonel was quite unknown to me, except as a constant attendant in the card room. But I observed that the whispering went on, and increased, and that every man in every group presently went away and formed other groups, and that more communications were made and more discussions followed, and that on every one was enjoined a promise of the greatest secrecy. Also I observed that every group contained the same varieties of listeners. There was the open-mouthed man, who gaped with wonder; the wise man after the event, who had always entertained suspicions; the indignant man, who was for immediate measures; the slow man, who would wait; and the critical man, who wanted evidence and proof. I dare say there were more. Such whisperings and such groups do not create cheerfulness in a company. Suspicion and jealousy were in the air that night; the music played and the fiddlers scraped; the singers squalled; the people walked round and round, after their usual fashion; there was plenty of conversation and of animation; they were excited; they were evidently looking forward to some important event; but they were not laughing, nor paying compliments, nor talking of dress, nor were they listening to the music or the singers. And a very curious circumstance happened in the card room. There was at first the usual crowd of players sitting and standing; the usual staking of guineas, and laying and taking odds; it was, in fact, an ordinary evening, when the company pressed round the table and the game went on merrily. Then one or two people came in from the long room. There were whispers; two or three left their places and retired from the room. Other people came in from the long room; there were more whispers; more players gave up their seats and left the room. After a while there was no one left in the card room at all except Lady Anastasia, Sir Harry Malyns, and Colonel Lanyon. The croupier still stood at the head of the table, rake in hand, crying the main and proclaiming the odds. Seeing no one else at the table, the two players desisted. "What does it mean?" asked the lady, looking round. "We are deserted." "I know not," Sir Harry replied. "Some distraction in the gardens; probably a quarrel; one of the bumpkins has perhaps struck another." He went out to inquire, but came back immediately. "There is no distraction," he said. "Nothing has happened; the people are walking round as usual." "Something, surely," said the lady, "must have happened. Why are the tables deserted? Such a thing has never occurred before. Colonel, will you kindly find out what it means? I have the vapours to-night, I think. My mind misgives me." Colonel Lanyon rose and walked to the door. He looked up and down the long room and returned. "Nothing has happened," he said. "They are all strangers to me. But since there is no more play I will e'en betake me to the tavern." "And I," said the lady, "will go home. Sir Harry, please call my fellows." Sir Harry led her through the long room to the door. As she got into the chair, she said, "Sir Harry, there is something brewing. I caught looks of hostility as we passed through the room. Do you think it is the jealousy of the women about that girl with the diamonds?" "I observed no hostile looks." "Men never see such things. I tell you I not only saw them, but I felt them. We have given these people mortal offence. They are gentlefolk. We come among them, and we admit to our society a girl who has no pretence to gentility. Lord Fylingdale dances with her; I take her to the assembly. Lord Fylingdale actually follows her when she is carried off and fights for her and rescues her. This is a thing which he might do for any of those ladies, and with no more than the customary jealousies; but with such a girl it makes bad blood." "Hostile looks mean nothing. What if there is bad blood?" "Sir Harry--Sir Harry--it is only in London, and not always there, that we account ourselves free from revenge. It is a revengeful world, and there are many people in it who would willingly put you and me and the colonel, not to speak of the parson and the earl himself, in pillory, and pelt us with rotten eggs and dead cats." So she got into her chair, and the old beau, shaking his head, called his own chair and was carried home. But Colonel Lanyon who walked to the tavern where his friends met every night found the place, to his astonishment, empty. Then he, too, remembered certain signs of hostility or resentment, notably the desertion of the players, and the cold looks as he left the place. Now, as the worthy adventurer and sharper was by no means conscious of innocence, he began to feel uneasy. To such men as those who live by their wits there is always the danger that some past scandal may be revived, some former half forgotten villainy remembered. Therefore he became disquieted. He had some reason for disquiet, for, to begin with, he had done very well. Tom Rising would recover, it was thought. He would recover in a week or two, or more. He would then, as a man of honour, have to raise, by hook or by crook, the sum of £1,200, of which, by the compact, one-fourth was to be the colonel's and three-fourths were the earl's. This is a large sum of money to win or to lose. Now, if anything inopportune was to occur, such as the revival of an old scandal--say that of Bath, or that of Tunbridge Wells, or that of Newmarket, these winnings would be in a dangerous situation. A gentleman who lives by his wits, although he may be a good swordsman and a good shot with a pistol, cannot escape the consequences of a scandal. The thing follows him from place to place. It gets into taverns and hangs about gaming-houses; it stands between him and his prey; it snatches the young and inexperienced player from his grasp; it even prevents the payment of the debts commonly called of honour. Now, the colonel had been about town and in the haunts of gamesters for a good score of years, and, truth to tell, he now found it difficult, anywhere, to be received into the company of gentlemen. While he sat in the empty room one of the gentlemen, its frequenters, came in. The colonel looked up. "Why, sir," he said, "where is the company this evening?" "There will be no company to-night, colonel." "Ay--ay? No company? Where are they all, then?" "To be frank with you, Colonel Lanyon, I am deputed to inform you that certain things are rumoured about you which must be explained." "Certain things, sir?" The colonel sprang to his feet. "To be explained? This is a very ugly word. To be explained. The word, sir, attacks my honour." "It does so, colonel. You are quite right." "Then, sir, you and your friends will have to fight me." "We will willingly fight with--a man of honour. Not only that, but where a man of honour is concerned we should be most willing to offer an apology, if we have attacked his honour. To be brief, colonel, certain things have been said concerning you and your honour. They have been alleged behind your back." "Well, sir, suppose my assailant meets me face to face. Gad, sir, he shall meet me on the grass." "Softly, softly, colonel. There will be no fighting, I assure you. As for anything else, that depends on yourself. Frankly, colonel, they are very nasty things. On the other hand, I assure you that, as we have received you without suspicion, we shall stand by you loyally." "In that case we need not talk of explanations." "Loyally, I say, unless the explanations are not forthcoming." "Give me the statements or the charges." "I cannot, colonel. They are at present vague. But I am instructed to invite you to be present in the card room on Friday evening next, when an opportunity will be afforded you of hearing what has been stated and of replying. Colonel, we have found you very good company. We all desire to retain you as a friend." "But, sir, permit me. This is monstrous. You tell me of charges, you avoid my society, you refuse to tell me the nature of the charges, and you call upon me to reply on the spot without knowing----" "Your reply will be quite easy. It really means either yes or no. And if, as I doubt not, you can disprove whatever is alleged, you will yourself entirely approve of our action in separating for a time from a man accused of things dishonourable, of giving him an opportunity of reply, also of my warning." "Why, sir, if to be grateful for such a warning and for such general charges is a duty, I will be grateful. Meantime----" "Meantime, colonel, you know your past life better than any one. If there is in it anything of which you are ashamed let me recommend you to present that affair in as favourable a light as possible. Men will quarrel over cards. Accusations are easily made. The duel next morning does not clear away suspicion. If, however, there is nothing, as I hope, come with a light heart and a cheerful countenance, and we shall rally round you as brothers and men of honour. I wish you good-night, Colonel Lanyon, until Friday, after which I hope to sit here beside you, the bowl of punch on the table, and your songs and stories to keep us awake, till we sit down again to the cards." CHAPTER XXIX THE ARDENT LOVER Between ten and eleven of the clock next morning, Molly's suitor--I cannot call him her lover--arrived at the house. At that hour most of the ladies are at morning prayers, and the gentlemen are either at the tavern taking their morning whet, or at the coffee house in conversation, or engaged in some of the sports to which most of them are so much addicted. Lord Fylingdale, although the streets at such an hour are mostly deserted, had to cross the market-place on his way to the captain's house, in Hogman's Lane, and was, therefore, carried in a chair with the curtains drawn, so as to avoid recognition. He was received by Captain Crowle in the parlour. For the occasion the old man had put on his Sunday suit, with white silk stockings; and he wore his sword, to which, as the former commander of a ship, he was entitled. "I am come, captain, to receive in person your answer to the message conveyed to you yesterday by my ambassador. I hope that the message was delivered faithfully, and with due respect." "I believe, my lord, with both." "I assure you, Captain Crowle, that the respect I have conceived for your character and loyalty is more than I can express in words. That you have inspired, in the mind of your ward, similar virtues I do not doubt, and this confidence, believe me, has much to do with the offer of my hand to that young lady." "Your lordship does me the greatest honour. My answer is that I accept in Molly's name, and joyfully." "I am delighted. This should be," he added, coldly, "the happiest day of my life." "When we spread the news abroad, everybody in Lynn will feel that the greatest honour has been done to the town as well as to this house." "Sir, you overrate my position. Still ... however, we must keep the matter secret for a day or two yet. I engage you, captain, to profound secrecy." "As long as you please, my lord. The sooner I may speak of it the better I shall like it, for I am bursting with joy and satisfaction." "Patience, captain, for a day or two." The captain became serious, even melancholy. "You will take her away, I suppose." "I fear I must. A married man generally takes away his wife, does he not?" "You will take her to your country house, and to London. Well, I am old--I am seventy-five already. I cannot expect ever to see her again. Her mother, however, is not so old by thirty years. Perhaps your lordship will at some time or other--we would not remind you of your lady's humble folk--allow her if she is within an easy journey to come here to see her mother." "Surely--surely, captain. Could I be so hard-hearted as to refuse? Her mother certainly--or yourself. But not her old friends. Not the friends of her childhood such as that young sailor man--nor the girls of the place." "I care not for them, so that I may comfort her poor mother with that promise. As for myself, who am I that I should intrude upon her? Let me die happy in the knowledge that she is happy." "She shall be as happy as the day is long, captain." "I doubt it not. As for Jack Pentecrosse, an old playfellow, he is like me. He loves her as if she was his sister, but he desires nothing but the knowledge of the girl's happiness." "I accept your assurance, captain, that he will not endeavour to seek her or to visit her." "He will not. My lord," the captain became very serious, "I can promise you a well-conditioned, virtuous, modest, obedient, and dutiful wife. She will ask for nothing but a continuance of your lordship's affection and consideration, in return for which she will be your willing servant as well as your wife." "Again, captain, I doubt it not. Else I should not be here." "And when the day comes--when you pass the word, my lord--the bells shall ring and the music shall play and all the town shall make holiday, and we will have such a feast and merrymaking that all the country round shall ring with it. Lord, I am so happy!" "But, captain, I have not yet received the consent of the lady." "Be assured that you will have it. But the girl is shy and hesitates, being, to say the truth, dazzled by the rank to which she is to be raised. A young maid's modesty will perhaps hinder such freedom of speech as you would naturally desire." "I hope, sir, that I am able to appreciate and value the virtue of modesty. All I ask of the young lady is her consent." "Of that you may be assured beforehand." "Then, captain, as this is an occasion of some awkwardness and one which it is well to get through as quickly as possible----" Did one ever hear of such a lover? "Well, to get through as quickly as possible," his first interview with his mistress. "You will perhaps bring Miss Molly to me or take me to her." Molly, meanwhile, was in her bedroom, in a strange agitation, her colour coming and going; now pale, now blushing; for the first time in her life, trembling and inclined to swoon. Even for a girl who loves a man it is an event of the greatest importance, and one never to be forgotten, when she consents to make him happy. But when she is in grievous doubt, torn by the consciousness that she does not love the man; that she is afraid of him; that she does not desire the change of rank which he offers; and that she would far rather remain among her own people. In such a case, I say, her trouble is great indeed. However, to do honour to the occasion, she, like the captain, had assumed her Sunday attire. Her frock, to be sure, was not so fine as that in which she graced the assembly, but it was passable. To my mind she looked more beautiful than in that splendid dress. At her guardian's summons, she slowly descended the stairs. The kitchen door was open; she looked in as she passed. Her mother, instead of being busy over her housewifery was sitting in her chair, her hands clasped, her eyes closed, her lips moving. She was praying for her daughter. Molly stepped in and kissed her. "Mother," she said, "pray that it may turn out well. I must accept him. Yet I doubt. Oh, pray for me!" "Because," her mother murmured in reply, "the captain cannot help, and Jack cannot help; and there is none other that helpeth us but only Thou, O God!" Then Molly turned the handle of the parlour door and entered. "Miss Molly!" her gallant lover, splendid with his star and his fine clothes, took her hand, bowed low, and kissed her fingers. "You would speak with me, my lord." "Yesterday I sent a message to your guardian. I told him by my messenger that I was entirely overcome by the beauty and the charms and the virtues of his fair ward. And I offered, unworthy as I am, my hand and all that goes with it--my rank, and title, my possessions and myself." "The captain told me of the message." "I have to-day received an answer from him. But although he is your guardian I would not presume to consider that answer as final. I must have your answer as well." "My lord, I am but a humble and a homely person." "Nay, but lovely as Venus herself." "I know now, since all the company have come to Lynn, how homely and humble I am in the eyes of gentlefolk." "You will no longer be either homely or humble--when you are a countess." "I fear that your friends among the great will make your lordship ashamed of your choice." "My friends know me better than to suppose that I can be ashamed by their opinion. But, indeed, they have only to see you for that opinion to be changed. Once seen by the world and all will envy and congratulate the happy possessor of so much beauty." "Then, are you satisfied that you are truly in love with me?" "Satisfied?" He took her hand again and kissed it. "How shall I satisfy you on this point? By what assurance? By what lover's vows?" She glanced upwards, having spoken so far with hanging head. Her eyes met his. Alas! they were cold and hard. There was no softening influence of love visible in those eyes; only resolution and purpose. His eyes were as cold as his forehead and as hard as his lips. Poor Molly! Poor countess! "Is it not, my lord," she asked, "a mere passing fancy? You will be tired of me in a month; you will regret that you did not choose rather among the fine ladies who speak your language and follow your manners." "Molly, I am a man who does not encourage idle fancies and passing loves. You will find no change in me. As I am now so I shall be always." She shivered. The prospect made her feel cold. "Then, my lord," she said, "I have nothing more to say. I shall not do justice to your rank, nor shall I bring to your house the dignity which you deserve. Such as I am, take me, if you will, or let me go, if you will." "Can you doubt, Molly? I will take you." He hesitated; he took her hand again; he stooped and kissed her forehead. There was no passion in his kiss; no tenderness in his touch; no emotion in his voice. Such as he was then such he would always be. And though the door was closed, Molly seemed to hear again the voice of her mother murmuring "but only Thou, O God!" Her lover drew the captain's armchair and placed it at the open window which looked out into the garden, then filled with flowers, fragrant and beautiful, and melodious with the humming of many bees. "Sit down, Molly, and let us talk." He did not sit down. He stood before her; he walked about the room; he played with the gold tassels of his sword. "Molly, since we are to be married, we must be married at once." "I am your lordship's servant." "As soon as possible. Are you ready?" "Ready? I suppose I could be ready in a month or six weeks." "Why, what is there to do?" "I have to get things--dresses, house linen, all kinds of things." "My dear, you are not going to marry a cit. Everything that you want you can buy. There are plenty of shops. You want nothing but what you have--your wardrobe, your fine things, and your common things, and your jewels. You must not forget your jewels." "I thought that brides were always provided with things for the house. But if your lordship has already the linen and the napery----" "Good Lord! How should I know what I have? The thing is that you will need nothing." "Where will you take me?" "I think, first of all, to my house in Gloucestershire. It is not fully furnished; the late possessor, my cousin, whom I succeeded, was, unfortunately, a gambler. He had to cut down his woods and to sell them; he even had to sell his furniture and pictures. But I can soon put the house in order fit for your reception." It was he himself, and not his predecessor, who had sold these things. "If it is not so fine, at first, as you would wish, we can soon make it worthy of you." I have often wondered what he intended to do with his bride if things had gone differently. I am now certain that he intended to take her to this great country house, which, as I have understood, stands in a secluded part of the country, with no near neighbours and no town within reach; and that he intended to leave her there, while he himself went up to London to resume the old gaming and raking, which he desired so much, although they had been his ruin. Fate, however, prevented this design. "If you desire my happiness, my lord----" "What else is there in the whole world that I should desire?" "You will take me to that country place and live there. I fear the world of fashion and I have no wish to live in London. I have learned from the Lady Anastasia how the great ladies pass their time." "Everything shall be as you wish, Molly. Everything, believe me." He then, by way of illustrating this assurance, proposed a thing which he himself wished. "We must be married immediately, Molly, because I am called away, by affairs of importance, to Gloucestershire. I ought to leave this place not later than Saturday." The day was Thursday. "Saturday? We must be married on Saturday?" "Sooner than Saturday. To-morrow. That will give us time enough to make what little preparations may be necessary." "To-morrow? But we cannot be married so soon." "Everything is prepared. I have the license. We can be married to-morrow." "Oh!" It was all she could say. "There is another thing. Your guardian would like to make a public ceremony of the wedding; he would hang the town with flags, and ring the bells, and summon the band of the marrowbones and cleavers, while all the world looked on." "Yes. He is so proud of the marriage that he would like to celebrate it." "And you, Molly?" "I should like to be married with no one to look on, and no one to know anything about it until it was over." "Why--there, Molly--there, we are agreed. I was in great fear that you would not think with me. My dear, if there is one thing which I abhor, it is the public ceremony and the private feasting and merriment with which a wedding is accompanied. We do not want the town to be all agog; we do not want to set all tongues wagging; nor do we want to be a show with a grand triumphal march and a feast to last three days afterwards." "Can we be private, then?" "Certainly. I can arrange everything. Now, Molly, my plan is this. We will be married privately in St. Nicholas Church at six in the morning, before the company are out of their beds. No one will see us; after the marriage you will come back here; I will return with you, and we will then inform the captain and your mother of the joyful news. Believe me, when they come to think it over, they will rejoice to be spared the trouble and the preparation for a wedding feast." "But I cannot deceive the captain." "There is no deception. He has agreed to the match. He knows that you have agreed. There is one consideration, Molly, which makes a private marriage necessary. I could not consent to a public wedding or to a wedding feast, because my rank forbids. It would be impossible for me to invite any person of my own position to such a feast, and it would be impossible for me to sit down with those persons--worthy, no doubt, and honest--whom the captain would certainly wish to invite." This was certainly reasonable, and certainly true. Rank must be respected, and a noble earl cannot sit down to feast with merchants, skippers, mates, parsons and the like. "Then it shall be as your lordship pleases." "Be at the church at six," he said. "I will provide everything and see that everything is ready for you. Do not be recognised as you pass along the street. You can wear a domino with the pink silk cloak which you wore the other night at the assembly. Then I shall recognise you. No one else, Molly, need be considered. Are you sure that you understand?" "Yes," she sighed. "I understand." "Then, Molly," he bowed low, and, without offering to kiss her, this wonderful lover left his mistress and was carried home in his chair. CHAPTER XXX THE SECRET All these things were told me by Molly herself in the afternoon. You may very well believe that my heart was sick and sore to think of Molly being thus thrown away for a bribe of rank and position upon a man who seemed to be of marble or of ice. For of one thing concerning women I am very certain, that to make them happy they must be loved. At the time I could not know, nor did I suspect, that this noble earl was marrying Molly for her fortune. Like the captain, I pictured him as one lifted above the common lot and apart from all temptations as regards money, by his own great possessions. Why, he had nothing--nothing at all. So much I know--he had wasted and dissipated the whole. There was nothing left, and his marriage, especially his private and hurried manner of it, was designed wholly to give him the possession and the control of Molly's riches. "To-morrow, then, we lose you, Molly." "To-morrow, Jack. His lordship consents that whenever, if ever, I am within an easy journey of Lynn I may come back to see my mother. But when will that be? Alas! I know not. Gloucestershire is on the other side of the country." "After all, Molly, there are many wives who thus go away with their husbands and never see their own folk any more. They forget them; they find their happiness with the home and the children. Why, my dear, in a year or two, when you have grown accustomed to your state and the condition of a great lady, you will forget Lynn and the old friends." "Never, Jack, never. You might as well expect me to forget the days when we were children together and played about the Lady's Mount and on the walls, and rowed our dingey in the river. Forget my own folks? Jack, am I a monster?" "Nay, but, Molly, all I want is to see you happy. Remember us if you will, and remember that we are all, the captain, and your mother and your faithful black and myself, daily praying for your welfare." So we talked. It was agreed between us that a private wedding was, under the circumstances, much more convenient than a public one, with all the display and feasting in which Lord Fylingdale could not take part. I could not but think the business too much hurried and too secret. As for other reasons, especially the absence of any settlements which would protect the wife, I had no knowledge of such things, and therefore no suspicion. I bade her farewell--the last time I should see her in private and converse with her as of old--and with tears, we kissed and parted. But there was no question of love or of disappointment. We were like brother and sister who were separated after growing up together. And so I kissed her and said no more than "Oh! Molly, if you had no money, we should not lose you," and she replied with a sigh and more tears, "And if I had no money, Jack, I should not have to leave my own people and go among strangers who will not welcome me, or love me, or give me even their friendliness." I left her, and walked away. I was too downhearted to stay ashore; I would go aboard and sit alone in the captain's cabin. There is nothing so lonely as a ship without her crew. If a man in these days desires to become a hermit, he should take up his quarters in one of the old hulks that lie in every harbour, deserted even by the rats, who swim away when the provisions are all gone. It is lonely by day, and it is ghostly by night. For then the old ship is visited by the sailors who have sailed in her and have died in her. In every ship there have been many who die of disease or by accident, or fall overboard and are drowned. These are the visitors to the hulk at night. Every sailor knows this, and has seen them. I wanted to be alone, I say, therefore, I thought I would go on board and stay there. Now, on my way across the market-place, there came running after me a man, who called me by name. "Mr. Pentecrosse--Mr. Pentecrosse," and, looking round, I saw that it was the Lady Anastasia's footman, in the green and gold livery--a very line person indeed, to look at, much finer than myself in my workaday clothes. "Sir," he said "my mistress, Lady Anastasia, desires speech with you. Will you kindly follow me to her lodging?" I obeyed. What did the lady wish to say to me? She was in her parlour, half dressed in what they call, I believe, a dishabille. She nodded to the footman, who closed the door and left us alone. "Mr. Pentecrosse," she said graciously, "this is the second time I have sent for you. Yet I gave you permission to call upon me often. Is this the politeness of a sailor? Never mind; I forgive you, because Molly loves you and you love Molly." "Madam," I replied, "it is true that I love Molly, but I have no longer any right to love her except as one who would call himself, if he could, her brother." "So I wanted, Mr. Pentecrosse--may I say Jack?--to learn your sentiments about this affair. I am, of course, in the confidence of Lord Fylingdale. I believe that I know all his secrets--or, at least, as many as a man chooses to tell a woman. You men have all got your secret cupboards, and you lock the door and keep the key. Say, therefore, rather, most of my lord's secrets." "What affairs, madam, do you mean?" I remembered that the business of the betrothal was a secret. "What affairs?" "Why ask--the affair between his lordship and Molly, of course. Shall I prove to you that I know all about it?" "You can do better, madam, you can tell me what the affair is." "Oh! Jack, you act very badly. Never, my dear young man, go upon the stage. Of course, you know Molly has no secrets from you. Listen, then. "On the first night when Molly and you distinguished yourselves in the minuet--never blush, Jack, a British sailor should always show that he knows no fear--Lord Fylingdale administered a public rebuke to the company for their rudeness. He showed thereby that he was already interested in the girl. He then paid attention to the old captain, whose simplicity and honesty are charming. I need not point out to you, Jack, that the good old man became like wax in his lordship's hands. He even revealed his ambition of finding an alliance for the girl with some noble house or sprig of quality, attracted by the report of her fortune. He was also simple enough to imagine that any young nobleman, a younger son, who would take a girl for her money, must needs be a miracle of virtue, and beyond all considerations of money. So far I am quite correct, I believe." "Your ladyship is quite correct, so far." In fact, the captain's ambitions were the common theme of ridicule in the pump room and in the gardens. "He then came to see me, and engaged me as an old friend and one fully acquainted with his qualities----" "Virtues, you mean, madam." "Qualities, I said--to make myself a friend of the fair Molly. This I did. She showed me the amazing collection of jewels which she possesses, and I gave her advice on certain points. She came here and I taught her something of the fashions in dress, carriage, and behaviour. She is an apt pupil, but lacking in respect for the manners of the polite world. I then find my lord entering into further confidential discourse with the captain. He even went on board your ship, and was by you escorted over the whole vessel. He took so great an interest in everything that you were surprised, and at parting he drank a glass of wine to the health of the fair Molly." "Quite true." I suppose that the captain had told Molly, who told Lady Anastasia. "Very well. You see that I know something. But there is a great deal more. At the next assembly, where Molly went with me, having been dressed by my own maid in better taste, and without the barbaric splendour of so many gold chains and precious stones, Lord Fylingdale took her out before all the ladies--the Norfolk ladies being more than commonly observant of pedigree and lineage--and danced the first minuet with her and the first of the country dances. What was this, I ask you, but an open proclamation to the world that he was in love with this girl--the daughter of a town full of sailors? So, at least, it was interpreted, I hear, by some of the company. Others, out of sheer jealousy and envy, would not so acknowledge the action." "It was not so interpreted by the captain nor by Molly herself." "Tut, tut" (she rapped my fingers smartly with her fan), "what signifies their opinion? As if they know anything of the meaning of things, even when they are done in broad daylight, so to speak, and in presence of all the fashion in the place. Why, Jack, there was not a girl in the town, who, if such an honour had been done to her, would not have gone home that evening to see in the looking-glass a coronet already on her head. "And then came the conclusion. Oh, the beautiful conclusion! The romantic conclusion when that misguided young gentleman called Tom Rising endeavoured to carry her off. 'Twas a gallant attempt, and would have succeeded, I doubt not----" "Madam, with submission--you know not Molly." "I know my own sex, Jack--and I know that a man is never liked the less for showing courage. However, Lord Fylingdale took the matter into his own hands--rode after her--fought the unlucky Tom and brought back the lady. I am still, I believe, correct." "You are quite correct, madam, so far as I know." "The next day Lord Fylingdale called at the captain's house to inquire after the lady's health. He saw the captain; he saw the lady herself, who was none the worse, but rather much the better for the excitement of the adventure and the delightful sight of two gentlemen trying to kill each other for her sake. He also saw the lady's mother, who came out of the kitchen, her red arms white with dough and flour, to receive the noble lord. Her lively sallies only made him the more madly in love with the girl." How had she learned all this? I cannot tell. But ladies of wealth can always, I believe, find out things, and servants know what goes on. Lady Anastasia continued her narrative. "Next day my lord sent his secretary, Mr. Semple, as an ambassador to the captain. He was instructed to ask formally the hand of the captain's ward in the name of his master. This he did, the captain not being able to disguise his joy and pride at this most unexpected honour. Now, sir, you perceive that I do know the secrets of that young lady. This morning he has again visited the house, and he received the consent--no doubt it was with disguised joy--of the lady herself. And you have just come from her. She has told you of her fine lover and of her engagement." I made no reply. "I will tell you more. My lord desires a private marriage and a marriage very soon. Ha! Do I surprise you?" "Madam, I perceive that he has told you all. You are quite right. The wedding, as you know, is to be in St. Nicholas Church to-morrow morning at six before the better sort have left their beds. And in order not to be recognised by any of the people, Molly will wear a domino and her pink silk cloak." She nodded her head. And she hid her face with her fan, saying nothing for a space. When she spoke her voice was harsh. "That is the arrangement. You have understood it perfectly. Well, Jack, it is a very pretty business, is it not? Here is a young man--only thirty, as yet--with a fine old title, an ancient name, and an ancient estate--who is bound by all the rules of his order to marry only within his own caste. He breaks all the rules; he marries a girl who is not even a gentlewoman; who belongs to the most homely folk possible. What kind of happiness do you think is likely to follow on such a marriage? You who are not altogether a fool, though you are ignorant of the ways, are the right man to marry Molly. She understands you and what you like, and how you think. Believe me, she can never be happy with this nobleman. Sailor man, you do not understand what it means to be a great man and a nobleman in this country. From his infancy the heir must have what he wants and must do as he pleases. No one is to check his fine flow of spirits; he must believe that the whole world is made for his amusement, and that everything in the world is made for him to devour and to destroy. When such a child becomes a man, what can you expect? He wants no friends, because friendships among people like yourself are based on mutual help, and he wants no help. Companions he must have; young men like himself. He need never do any kind of work. Consequently, his mind is never occupied. He has no serious pursuits; therefore, of simple amusements he soon tires. Can such a man be unselfish? Can such a man lead a quiet and domestic life? He will rake; he will gamble; he will drink; there is nothing else for him. These will form his life. If he now and then tosses a guinea to some poor wretch, it is counted as an act of the highest charity. The most virtuous of noblemen may also be the most profligate." "Is this what one is to think of Lord Fylingdale?" "Think what you please, Jack. Should you, however, hear that the marriage was forbidden, what should you say?" "Forbidden? The marriage forbidden? But how? Why? It is to take place to-morrow." "I don't know. Answer my question." "Madam, I cannot answer it. If it is true that Lord Fylingdale is the kind of gentleman whose character you have drawn, there is nothing I should more rejoice to see. If, however----" "You may go, Jack. You may go. I dare say something is going to happen to-morrow, at six in the morning, at St. Nicholas Church. Yes, something will probably happen. The bride will be recognised by her black domino and her pink silk cloak. Thank you, Jack. You are a very simple young man; as simple as you are honest, and a woman can turn you round her finger." I went away wondering. I did not understand, being as she said, so simple that I had myself actually given her the information that she desired. I have since learned that the passion of jealousy and nothing else filled her soul and inspired all this reading of Lord Fylingdale's actions. In his conduct at the assembly she saw the beginning of his passion; his own explanation that he wanted to get her money only made her more jealous, because, although she fully believed that statement, she saw no way of getting at the fortune without marrying the girl. As for his visits to the house, I suppose that she simply caused him to be watched and followed, while her maid, who played the spy for her, could from a certain point in the road look into the parlour when the window was thrown open. It was easy for such a jealous woman to surmise the truth; to jump at the conclusion that, in spite of all his protestations, Lord Fylingdale had come to the conclusion that he must marry the girl; that his rescue made her grateful and filled her with admiration for his courage; that he sent his secretary to open the business, and that he followed up this message by a formal visit from himself when he placed the lady in a chair at the window and bent over her and kissed her hand. This was not all. When he told Lady Anastasia that he had no further occasion for her services, and that she had better go back to London at once all her jealousy flared up. She thus divined, at once, that she was to be sent out of the way, so that when she next met him some of the business might have blown over and she herself might be less indignant at his treatment of her. However, something, she said, was going to happen. What would happen? For my own part, I was restless and uneasy. What would happen? Had I known more about the wrath of a jealous woman I should have been more uneasy. Something was going to happen; could I go to the captain and warn him as to the character of the lover? Why, I knew nothing. All that talk about the heir to rank and riches meant nothing except to show the dangers of such a position. A man so born, so brought up, must of necessity be more tempted than other men in the direction of selfishness, indulgence, luxury, laziness, and want of consideration for others. It is surely a great misfortune to be born rich, if one would only think so. The common lot is best, with the necessity of work. All Molly's misfortunes came from that money of hers. Her father very wisely concealed from his wife the full extent of his wealth, so that she remained in her homely ways, and the captain also concealed from Molly until she grew up, the nature of her fortune. Why could he not conceal it altogether from the world? Then--but it is useless to think what would have happened. Most of our lives are made up with mending the troubles made by our own sins or our own follies. Poor Molly was about to suffer from her father's sin in having so much worldly wealth. CHAPTER XXXI THE "SOCIETY" AGAIN The "Society" continued to meet, but irregularly, during this period of excitement when everybody was busy making money out of the company, or joining in the amusements, or looking on. The coffee house attracted some of the members; the tavern others; the gardens or the long room others. It must be confessed that the irregularities of attendance and the absences and the many new topics of discourse caused the evenings to be much more animated than of old, when there would be long periods of silence, broken only by some reference to the arrival or departure of a ship, the decease of a townsman, or the change in the weather. This evening the meeting consisted, at first, of the vicar and the master of the school only. "We are the faithful remnant," said the vicar, taking his chair. "The mayor, no doubt, is at the coffee house, the alderman at the tavern, and the doctor in the long room. The captain, I take it, as at the elbow of his noble friend." The master of the school hung up his hat and took his usual place. Then he put his hand into his pocket. "I have this day received ..." At the same moment the vicar put his hand into his pocket and began in the same words. "I have this day received ..." Both stopped. "I interrupted you, Mr. Pentecrosse," said the vicar. "Nay, sir; after you." "Let us not stand on ceremony, Mr. Pentecrosse. What have you received?" "I have received a letter from London." "Mine is from Cambridge. You were about to speak of your letter?" "It concerns Sam Semple, once my pupil, now secretary to the Lord Fylingdale, who has his quarters overhead." "What does your correspondent tell you about Sam? That he is the equal of Mr. Pope and the superior to Mr. Addison, or that his verses are echoes--sound without sense--trash and pretence? Though they cost me a guinea." "The letter is a reply I addressed to my cousin, Zackary Pentecrosse, a bookseller in Little Britain. I asked him to tell me if he could learn something of the present position and reputation of Sam Semple, who gives himself, I understand, great airs at the coffee house as a wit of the first standing and an authority in matters of taste. With your permission I will proceed to read aloud the portion which concerns our poet. Here is the passage." "You ask me to tell you what I know of the poet Sam Semple. I do not know, it is true, all the wits and poets; but I know some, and they know others, so one can learn something about all those who frequent Dolly's and the Chapter House, and the other coffee houses frequented by the poets. None of them, at first, knew or had heard of the name. At last one was found who had seen a volume bearing this name, and published by subscription. 'Sir,' he said, ''tis the veriest trash; a schoolboy should be trounced for writing such bad verses.' But, I asked him, 'He is said to be received and welcomed by the wits.' 'They must be,' he replied, 'the wits of Wapping, or the poets of Turnagain Lane. The man is not known anywhere.' So with this I had to be contented for a time. Then I came across one who knew this would-be poet. 'I was once myself,' he said, 'at my last guinea when I met Mr. Samuel Semple. He was in rags, and he was well-nigh starving. I gave him a sixpenny dinner in a cellar, where I myself was dining at the time. He told me that he had spent the money subscribed for his book, instead of paying the printer; that he was dunned and threatened for the debt; that if he was arrested, he must go the fleet or to one of the compters; that he must then go to the common side, and would starve. In a word, that he was on his last legs. These things he told me with tears, for, indeed, cold and hunger--he had no lodging--had brought him low. After he had eaten his dinner and borrowed a shilling he went away, and I saw him no more for six months, when I met him in Covent Garden. He was now dressed in broadcloth, fat, and in good ease. At first he refused to recognise his former companion in misery. But I persisted. He then told me that he had been so fortunate as to be of service to my Lord Fylingdale, into whose household he had entered. He, therefore, defied his creditors, and stood at bed and board at the house of his noble patron. Now, sir, it is very well known that any service rendered to this nobleman must be of a base and dishonourable nature. Such is the character of this most profligate of lords. A professed rake and a most notorious gambler. He is no longer admitted into the society of those of his own rank; he frequents hells where the play is high, but the players are doubtful. He is said to entertain decoys, one of whom is an old ruined gamester, named Sir Harry Malyns, and another, a half-pay captain, a bully and a sharper, who calls himself a colonel. He is to be seen at the house of the Lady Anastasia, the most notorious woman in London, who every night keeps the bank at hazard for the profit of this noble lord and his confederates. It is in the service of such a man that Mr. Semple has found a refuge. What he fulfills in the way of duty I know not.' I give you, cousin, the words of my informant. I have since inquired of others, and I find confirmation everywhere of the notorious character of Lord Fylingdale and his companions. Nor can I understand what service a poet can render to a man of such a reputation living such a life." "Do you follow, sir?" my father asked, laying down the letter, "or shall I read it again?" "Nay, the words are plain. But, Mr. Pentecrosse, they are serious words. They concern very deeply a certain lady whom we love. Lord Fylingdale has been with us for a month. He bears a character, here, at least, of the highest kind. It is reported, I know not with what truth, that he is actually to marry the captain's ward, Molly. There is, however, no doubt that Molly's fortune has grown so large as to make her a match for any one, however highly placed." "I fear that it is true." "Then, what foundation has this gentleman for so scandalous a report?" "Indeed, I do not know. My cousin, the book-seller, expressly says that he has no knowledge of Sam Semple." "Mr. Pentecrosse, I am uneasy. I hear that the gentlemen of the company are circulating ugly rumours about one Colonel Lanyon, who has been playing high and has won large sums--larger than any of the company can afford to lose. They have resolved to demand and await explanations. There are whispers also which concern Lord Fylingdale as well. These things make one suspicious. Then I also have received a letter. It is in reply to one of my own addressed to an old friend at Cambridge. My questions referred to the great scholar and eminent divine who takes Greek for Hebrew. "You ask me if I know anything about one Benjamin Purdon, clerk in Holy Orders. There can hardly be two persons of that name, both in Holy Orders. The man whom I know by repute is a person of somewhat slight stature, his head bigger than befits his height. He hath a loud and hectoring voice; he assumes, to suit his own purposes, the possession of learning and piety. Of theological learning he has none, so far as I know. Of Greek art, combined with modern manners, he is said to be a master. '_Inglese Italianato Diavolo Incarnato_' is the proverb. He was formerly tutor on the grand tour to the young Lord Fylingdale, whom he led into those ways of corruption and profligacy which have made that nobleman notorious. He is also the reputed author of certain ribald verses that pass from hand to hand among the baser sort of our university scholars. I have made inquiries about him, with these results. It is said that where Lord Fylingdale is found this worthy ecclesiastic is not far off. There was last year a scandal at Bath, in which his name was mentioned freely. There was also--but this is enough for one letter!" The vicar read parts of this letter twice over, so as to lend the words greater force. "The man says publicly that he was tutor to Lord Fylingdale on the grand tour. I have myself heard him. On one occasion he proclaimed with loud voice the private virtues of his patron. Sir, I very much fear that we have discovered a nest of villains. Pray God we be not too late." "Amen," said my father. "But what can we do?" "Ay, what can we do? To denounce Lord Fylingdale on this evidence would be impossible. To allow this marriage to take place without warning the captain would be a most wicked thing." "Let us send for Jack," said my father. "The boy is only a simple sailor, but he loves the girl. He will now be aboard his ship." It is not far from the "Crown" to the quay, nor from the quay to any of the ships in port. I was sitting in the cabin, melancholy enough, about eight o'clock or so, just before the sunset gun fired from the redoubt, when I heard a shout--"_Lady of Lynn_, ahoy!" You may be sure that I obeyed the summons with alacrity. No one else had yet arrived at the "Crown." The vicar laid both letters before me. Then, as when one strikes a spark in the tinder and the match ignites, flaming up, and the darkness vanishes, so did the scheme of villainy unfold itself--not all at once--one does not at one glance comprehend a conspiracy so vile. But part, I say, I did understand. "Sir," I gasped. "This is more opportune than you suspect. To-morrow morning--at six--at St. Nicholas Church they are to be married secretly. Oh! a gambler--a rake--one who has wasted his patrimony--to marry Molly, our Molly! Sir, you will interfere--you will do something. It is the villain Sam; he was always a liar--a cur--a villain." "Steady, boy, steady!" said my father. "It helps not to call names." "It is partly revenge. He dared to make love to Molly three years ago. The captain cudgelled him handsomely--and I was there to see. It is revenge in part. He hath brought down this noble lord to marry an heiress knowing the misery he is preparing for her. Oh! Sam--if I had thee here!" "Steady, boy," said my father again. "Who spread abroad the many virtues of this noble villain? Sam Semple--in his service--a most base and dishonourable service. Mr. Purdon, the man who writes ribald verses." I thought of the Lady Anastasia, but refrained. She at least had nothing to do with this marriage. So far, however, there was much explained. "What shall we do?" "We must prevent the marriage of to-morrow. The captain knows nothing of it. Lord Fylingdale persuaded Molly. He cannot marry her publicly because he says that he cannot join a wedding feast with people so much below him. Molly shall not keep that engagement if I have to lock the door and keep the key." "Better than that, Jack," said the vicar. "Take these two letters. Show them to Molly and ask her to wait while the captain makes inquiries. If Lord Fylingdale is an honourable man he will court inquiry. If not, then we are well rid of a noble knave." I took the letters and ran across the empty market-place. On my way I saw the captain. He was walking towards the "Crown" with hanging head. Let us first deal with him. He did not observe me, being in gloomy meditation, but passed me by unnoticed, entered the "Crown," hung up his hat on its usual peg, and put his stick in its accustomed corner. Then he took his seat and looked round. "I am glad," he said, "that there are none present except you two. My friends, I am heavy at heart." "So are we," said the vicar. "But go on, captain." "You have heard, perhaps, a rumour of what has been arranged." "There are rumours of many kinds. The place is full of rumours. It is rumoured that a certain Colonel Lanyon is a sharper. It is also rumoured that Sam Semple is a villain. It is further rumoured that the Reverend Benjamin Purdon is a disgrace to the cloth. And there is yet another rumour. What is your rumour, captain?" "Lord Fylingdale proposes to marry Molly. And I have accepted. And she has accepted. But it was to be a profound secret." "It is so profound a secret that the company at the gardens this evening are talking about nothing else." The captain groaned. "I have received a letter," he said. "I do not believe it, but the contents are disquieting. There is no signature. Read it." The vicar read it: "CAPTAIN CROWLE,--Sir,--You are a very simple old man; you are so ignorant of London and of the fashionable world that you do not even know that Lord Fylingdale, to whom you are about to give your ward, is the most notorious gambler, rake, and profligate in the whole of that quarter where the people of fashion and of quality carry on their profligate lives. In the interests of innocence and virtue make some inquiry into the truth of this statement before laying your lovely ward in the arms of the villain who has come to Lynn with no other object than to secure her fortune." "It is an anonymous letter," said the vicar. "But there is something to be said in support of it. From what source did you derive your belief in the virtues of this young nobleman?" "From Sam Semple." "Who is in the service of his lordship. I know not what he does for him, but if he is turned out of that service he will infallibly be clapped into a debtor's prison." "There is also that grave and reverend divine----" "The man Purdon. He is notorious for writing ribald verses, and for leading a life that is a disgrace to his profession." "There is also the Lady Anastasia." "I know nothing about her ladyship, except that she keeps the bank, as they call it, every evening, and that the gaming table allures many to their destruction." "My friend," said the captain, "what am I to do?" "You must make inquiry. You must tell Lord Fylingdale that things have been brought to you; that you cannot believe them--if, as is possible, you do not; but that you must make inquiries before trusting your ward to his protection. You are her guardian, captain." "I am more than her guardian; I love her better than if she was my own child." "We know you do, captain. Therefore, write a letter to him instantly. There is yet time to prevent the marriage. Tell him these things. Say that you must have time to make these inquiries. I will help you with the letter. And tell him, as well, that you must have time to draw up settlements. If he is honest, he will consent to this investigation into his private character. If he wants Molly, and not her money bag, he will at once agree to the settlement of her fortune upon herself." "I am an old fool, I suppose," said the captain. "I have believed everything and everybody. Yet I cannot--no, my friends, I cannot think that this man, so proud, so brave, who risked his life for Molly, is what this letter says." "Other letters say the same thing. Now, captain, let us write." The letter, which was dictated by the vicar, was duly written, signed, and sealed. Then it was sent upstairs, without the delay of a moment, to his lordship's private room. CHAPTER XXXII A RESPITE I was as one who carries a respite for a man already in the cart and on his way to Tyburn; or I was one who himself receives a respite on the way to Tyburn. For, if the charges in those letters were true, there could be no doubt as to the results of an inquiry. Now could there be any doubt that Lord Fylingdale, in such a case, would refuse an inquiry? I ran, therefore, as if everything depended on my speed, and I arrived breathless. Molly was alone walking about the garden restlessly. The sun was now set, but the glow of the sky lingered, and her face was flushed in the western light. "Jack," she cried, "I thought we had parted this afternoon. What has happened? You have been running. What is it?" "A good deal has happened, Molly. For one thing, you will not be married to-morrow morning." "Why not? Is my lord ill?" "Not that I know of. But you will not be married to-morrow morning." "You talk in riddles, Jack." "Would you like to put off the wedding, Molly?" "Alas! If I could put it off altogether! I am down-hearted over it, Jack. It weighs me down like lead. But there is no escape." "I think I have in my pocket a means of escape--a respite, at least--unless there are worse liars in the world than those we have at Lynn." "Liars at Lynn, Jack? Who are they? Oh, Jack, what has happened?" I sat down on a garden bench. "Molly," I said, "you hold the private character of Lord Fylingdale in the highest esteem, do you not?" "There is no better man living. This makes me ashamed of being so loath to marry him." "Well, but, Molly, consider. Who hath bestowed this fine character upon his lordship?" "Everybody who knows him--Sam Semple, for one. He is never weary of singing the praises of his patron." "He is a grateful soul, and, on his own account, a pillar of truth. I will show you presently what an ornament he is to truth. Who else?" "The Reverend Benjamin Purdon, once his tutor. Surely he ought to know." "Surely. Nobody ought to know better. I will show you presently how admirable a witness to character this reverend divine must be esteemed." "There is Sir Harry Malyns, who assured us that his lordship is thought to be too virtuous for the world of fashion." "He is himself, like the parson, a fine judge of character. Is that all?" "No. The Lady Anastasia herself spoke to me of his nobility." "She has also spoken to me--of other things. See here, Molly." I lugged out the two letters. "What I have here contains the characters of all these excellent persons; the latest scandals about them, their reputation, and their practices." "But, Jack, what scandals? What reputations?" "You shall see, Molly. Oh, the allegations may be false, one and all! For what I know, Sam may have the wings of an archangel and Mr. Purdon may be already overripe for the New Jerusalem. But you shall read." I offered her the letters. "No," she said; "read them yourself." "The first, then, is from my father's first cousin, Zackary Pentecrosse, a bookseller in Little Britain, which is a part of London. He is, I believe, a respectable, God-fearing man. You will observe that he does not vouch for the truth of his information." I then read, at length, the letter which you have already heard. "What do you think, Molly?" "I don't know what to think. Is the world so wicked?" "Here is another letter concerning the Reverend Benjamin Purdon. Observe that this is another and an independent witness." So I read the second letter, which you have also heard. "What do you think of this worthy gentleman, Molly?" "Oh, Jack, I am overwhelmed! Tell me more what it means." "It means, my dear, that a ruined gamester thought to find an heiress who would know nothing of his tarnished reputation. She must be rich. All he wanted was her money. She must not have her money tied up. It must be all in his own hands, to do with it what he chose; that is to say, to dissipate and waste it in riot and raking and gambling." "Lord Fylingdale? Jack! Think of his face! Think of his manners! Are they such as you would expect in a rake?" "There are, perhaps, different kinds of rakes. Tom Rising would spend the night drinking and bawling songs. Another kind would practice wickedness as eagerly, but with more politeness. What do I know of such men? Certain I am that Lord Fylingdale would not scour the streets and play the Mohock; but that he has found other vices more pleasant and more (apparently) polite is quite possible." "I don't understand, Jack. All the gentlemen, like Mr. Rising, drink and sing. Do all gentlemen who do not drink practice other vices?" I think that I must have learned the wisdom of what followed from some book. "Well, Molly, you have seen the vicar taste a glass of wine. He will roll it in the glass; he will hold it to the light, admiring the colour; he will inhale the fragrance; he will drink it slowly, little by little, sipping the contents, and he will not take more than a single glass or two at the most. In the same time, Tom Rising would have gulped down a whole bottle. One man wants to gratify many senses; the other seeks only to get drunk as quickly as he can. So, I take it, with the forbidden pleasures of the world. One man may cultivate his taste; the other may be satisfied with the coarse and plentiful debauchery. This is not, however, talk for honest folk like you and me." "Go on with your story, Jack. Never mind the different ways of wickedness." "Well, he heard of an heiress. She belonged to a town remote from fashion; a town of simple merchants and sailors; she was very rich; much richer than he at first believed." "Who told him about this heiress?" "A creature called Sam Semple, whom the captain once cudgelled. Why, Molly, it was revenge. In return for the cudgelling he would place you and your fortune in the hands of a man who would bring misery upon you and ruin on your fortune. Heavens, how the thing works out! And it happened just in the nick of time that a spring was found in the town--a spring whose medicinal properties----" "Ha!" I jumped to my feet. "Molly, who found that spring? Sam Semple. Who wrote to the doctor about it? Sam Semple. Who spread abroad a report that the physicians of London were sending their patients to Lynn? Sam Semple. How many patients have come to us from London? None--save and except only the party of those who came secretly in his lordship's train--to sing his praises and work his wicked will. Why, Molly." I burst into a laugh, for now I understood, as one sometimes does understand, suddenly and without proof other than the rapid conclusion, the full meaning of the whole. "Molly, I say, there has never been any medicinal spring here at all; the doctor's well is but common spring water; there are no cures; the whole business is a plan--a bite--an invention of Sam Semple!" "Jack; have a care. How can that be, when the doctor has a long list of cures?" "I know not. But I do know that Sam Semple invented the spa in order to bring down this invasion of sharpers and gamblers and heiress hunters. Oh, what a liar he is! What revenge! What cunning! What signal service has this servant of the devil rendered to his master!" Truly, I was carried out of myself by this discovery which explained everything. "So," I went on, "they came here all the way from London, their lying excuse that they were ordered here by their physicians, and we, poor simple folk, fell into the snare; all the country side fell into the snare, and we have been fooled into drinking common water and calling it what you please; and we have built gardens and engaged musicians, and created a spa, and--oh, Lord! Lord! what a liar he is! What a liar! This comes, I suppose, of being a poet!" Then Molly laid her hand upon my arm. "Jack," she said, very seriously, "do you really believe this story? Only consider what it means to me." Molly was more concerned about Lord Fylingdale than about Sam Semple. "I believe every word of it, Molly. I believe that they have all joined in the conspiracy--more or less; that they have all got promises; and that to-morrow morning, if you do not refuse to meet this man in St. Nicholas Church, you will bring upon yourself nothing but misery and ruin." "I have promised to meet him. I must at least send him a message, if only to say that I shall not come." "I should like to send him nothing. But you are right. It is best to be courteous. Well, you may send him a letter. I will myself take it to the 'Crown.'" "But afterwards, Jack. What shall we do afterwards? If he is innocent he will take offence. If not----" "If you were engaged to marry a young merchant, Molly, or to a skipper, and you heard rumours of bankruptcy, drink, or evil courses, what would you do?" "I would tell him that I had heard such and such about him and I should ask for explanations." "Then do exactly the same with Lord Fylingdale. He is accused of certain things. The captain must make inquiry--he is bound to inquire. Why, the vicar himself says that he would, if necessary, in order to ascertain the truth, travel all the way to London, there to learn the foundations, if any, for these charges, and afterwards into Gloucestershire, where his country mansion stands, to learn on the spot what the tenants and the people of the country know of him." "But suppose he refuses explanations. He is too proud to be called to account." "Then send him packing. Lord or no lord, proud or humble. If he furnishes explanations--if these things are untrue--then--why, then, you will consider what to do. But, Molly, I do not believe that any explanations will be forthcoming, and that your noble lover will carry it off to the end with the same lofty pride and cold mien." "Let us go into the parlour, Jack. There are the captain's writing materials. Help me to say what is proper. Oh! is it possible? Can I believe it? Are these things true? That proud man raised above his fellows by his virtues and his rank and his principles. Jack, he risked his life for me." "Ask no more questions, Molly. We must have explanations. Let us write the letter." It was Molly's first letter; the only letter, perhaps, that she will ever write in all her life. Certainly she had never written one before, nor has she ever written one since. Like most housewives, her writing is only wanted for household accounts, receipts for puddings and pies, and the labelling of her bottles and jars. I have the letter before me at this moment. It is written in a large sprawling hand, and the spelling is not such as would satisfy my father. Naturally she looked to me for advice. I had written many letters to my owners and to foreign merchants about cargoes and the like, and was therefore able to advise the composition of a letter which should be justly expressed and to the point. "HONOURED LORD,--This is from me at the present moment in my guardian's parlour. [Writing parlour, you see, when I as mate of the ship should have written port or harbour.] It is to inform you that intelligence has been brought by letters from London and Cambridge. Touching the matters referred to in these letters, I have to report for your satisfaction, that they call your lordship in round terms, a gamester, and a ruined rake; and your companions at the spa, viz, Sam Semple, the parson, the ricketty old beau, and the colonel, simple rogues, common cheats, and sharpers. Shall not, therefore, meet your lordship at the church to-morrow morning as instructed. Awaiting your lordship's explanations and commands.--Your most obedient, humble servant, "MOLLY." This letter I folded, sealed, addressed, and dropped into my pocket. Then I bade Molly good-night, entreated her to be thankful for her escape, and so left her with a light heart; verily it seemed as if the sadness of the last two months had been wholly and suddenly lifted. On my way back to the "Crown" I passed the Lady Anastasia's lodging just as her chair was brought to the house. I opened the door for her and stood hat in hand. "Why, it is Jack," she cried. "It is the sailor Jack--the constant lover. Have you anything more to tell me?" "Only that Molly will not keep that appointment of to-morrow morning." "Oh! That interesting appointment in St. Nicholas Church. May a body ask why the ceremony has been postponed?" "Things have been disclosed at the last moment. Fortunately, in time." "What things, and by whom?" "By letter. It is stated as a fact well known that Lord Fylingdale is nothing better than a ruined rake and a notorious gamester." "Indeed? The excellent Lord Fylingdale? Impossible! Quite impossible! The illustrious example of so many virtues! The explanations will be, I am sure, complete and satisfactory. Ruined? A rake? A notorious gamester? What next will the world say? Does his lordship know of this discovery? Not yet. You said it was a discovery, did you not? Well, my friend, I am much obliged to you for telling me. You are quite sure Molly will not be there? Very good of you to tell me. For my own part I start for London quite early--at five o'clock. Good-bye, Jack." Then I went in to the "Crown," where I learned that the captain had been reading another letter containing accusations as bad as those in the other two. So we fell to talking over the business, and we congratulated the captain that he had sent that letter; and we resolved that he should refuse to receive the villain Sam Semple; and that the vicar should, if necessary, proceed to London, and there learn what he could concerning the past history and the present reputation of the noble suitor. Meantime, I said no more about the intended marriage at St. Nicholas Church and the abandonment of the plan. As things turned out, it would have been far better had I told the captain and had we both planted ourselves as sentinels at the door, so as to be quite sure that Molly did not go forth at six in the morning. That evening, after leaving me, Lady Anastasia sent a note to Lord Fylingdale. "I am leaving Lynn early to-morrow morning. I expect to be in London in two days. Shall write to Molly." CHAPTER XXXIII A WEDDING I rowed myself aboard that evening in a strange condition of exultation, for I had now no doubt--no doubt at all--that the charges were true, and that a conspiracy of the most deadly kind was not only discovered, but also checked. And I could not but admire the craft and subtlety displayed by the favourite of the Muses in devising a plan by which it was made possible for the conspirators to come all together without the least suspicion to the town of Lynn. How else could they come? For reasons political? But Lynn is a borough in the hands of Sir Robert Walpole, of Houghton. Nobody could stand against him, nor could any one in Lord Fylingdale's rank visit the town in its ordinary condition without receiving an invitation to Houghton if Sir Robert was there. Unless, indeed, there were reasons why he should not be visited or received. What Sam had not expected was, without doubt, the wonderful success of his deception; the eagerness with which the country round accepted his inventions; the readiness with which they drank those innocent waters; the miraculous cures effected; and the transformation of the venerable old port and trading town into a haunt and resort of fashion and the pursuit of pleasure. Thinking of all these things, and in blissful anticipation of the discomfiture of all the conspirators, there was an important thing that I quite forgot, namely, to send Molly's letter to her suitor in his room at the "Crown." I carried the letter in my pocket. I undressed and lay down in my bunk. I slept with a light heart, dreaming only of things pleasant, until the morning, when the earliest stroke of the hammer from the yard and the quay woke me up. It was then half-past five. I sat up. I rubbed my eyes. I then suddenly remembered that the letter was in my pocket still. It was, I say, half-past five. The engagement was for six o'clock. I might have to run, yet, to stop Lord Fylingdale. It does not take long to dress. You may imagine that I did not spend time in powdering my hair. In a quarter of an hour I was over the side of the ship and in my dingey. By the clock on the Common Stathe it was five minutes to six when I landed and made her fast. I climbed the stairs, and ran as fast as my legs could carry me to the "Crown Inn." As I reached the door the clock struck six. Was Lord Fylingdale in his room? I was too late. He had left the house some ten minutes before, and had been carried in his chair across the market-place. I followed. It was already five minutes past the hour. I should find him in the church, chafing at the delay. I should give him the letter and retire. The market-place was filled with the market people and with the townspeople who came to buy. I pushed across, stepping over a basket, and jostled by a woman with poultry and vegetables. It was, however, seven or eight minutes past six when I arrived at the church; the doors of the south porch were open. Within I heard the sound of voices--or, at least, of one voice. I looked in. Heavens! What had happened? Not only was I late with my letter, but--but--could I believe my eyes? Molly herself stood before the altar; facing her was Lord Fylingdale, who held her hand. Within the rails stood the Reverend Benjamin Purdon; beside him, the clerk, to make the responses. And the minister, when I arrived, was actually saying the words which the bridegroom repeats after the minister, completing in effect the marriage ceremony. "I, Ludovick, take thee, Mary, to my wedded wife ..." and so on according to the form prescribed. And again, the words beginning-- "With this ring I thee wed...." I stood and listened, lost in wonder. Then came the prayer prescribed. After which the clergyman joined their hands together, saying:-- "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder." I heard no more. I sat down on the nearest bench. What was the meaning of this sudden change? Remember that I had left Molly only a few hours before this, fully resolved that she would demand an inquiry into the statements and charges made in the two letters; resolved that she would not keep that engagement; her admiration for the proud, brave, noble creature, her lover, turned into loathing. And now--now, in the early morning, with her letter in my pocket stating her change of purpose--I found her at the altar, and actually married. "Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." What if the man Purdon was all that he was described? The priestly office confers rights and powers which are independent of the man who holds that office. Whatever his private wickedness, Purdon was a clergyman, and therefore he could marry people. Molly stood before the altar as had been arranged; she wore a black silk domino; she had on a pink silk cloak with a hood drawn over her head, so that she was quite covered up and concealed. But I knew her by her stature, which was taller than the common, and by the dress, which had been agreed upon. Then the bridegroom offered his hand and led the bride into the vestry. They were to sign the marriage register. And here I rose and slunk away. I say that I slunk away. If you like it better, I crawled away, for I was sick at heart. The thing which I most dreaded, the marriage of our girl to a rake and a gamester, had been actually accomplished. Misery and ruin; misery and ruin; misery and ruin would be her lot. And in my pocket was her letter asking for explanations--and withdrawing her promise for the morrow! Could one believe one's senses? I crawled away, ashamed for the first time in my life of the girl I loved. Women, I said to myself, are poor, weak creatures. They believe everything; Lord Fylingdale must have been with her early. He had but to deny the whole; she accepted the denial; despite her resolution she walked with him to the church as the lamb goes to the shambles. Oh, Molly! Molly! Who would have believed it of you? I left the church and went away. I thought of going to the captain; of telling my father; of telling the vicar; but it seemed like treachery, and I refrained. Instead, I walked back to the quay, and paddled to the ship, where presently the barges came alongside and the day's work began. Fortunate it is for a man that at moments of great unhappiness his work has to be done and he is desirous to put aside his sorrow and to think upon his duty. But, alas! Poor Molly! Who could have believed it possible? Well, you see, I did not follow this wedding to an end. Had I gone into the vestry I should have been witness of something very unexpected. Why, had not the Lady Anastasia--who, I now understand, was tortured by jealousy--promised that "something should happen"? * * * * * The clergyman had the registers lying on the table open. He took a pen and filled in the forms. He then offered the pen to the bride. "My lady," he said. "I must ask your ladyship to sign the register. In duplicate, if you please." The bride sat down, and in a large bold hand wrote her name, "Mary Miller." Then the bridegroom took the pen and signed, "Fylingdale." The clergyman sprinkled the pounce box over the names and shut up the books, which he gave to the clerk. This officer took the books and locked them in the great trunk which held the papers and books of the church, putting the key in his pocket. "And now," said Mr. Purdon, "let me congratulate my noble patron and the newly made countess on this auspicious event. I have brought with me a bottle of the finest port the 'Crown' possesses, and I venture to drink health, happiness, and prosperity." So saying he produced a bottle and glasses. The bride without saying a word inclined her head to the bridegroom and drank off her glass. Lord Fylingdale, who looked, if one may say so of a bridegroom, peevish and ill at ease, raised his glass. "To your happiness, Molly!" he said. So, all was finished. "You are going home, Molly?" he asked. "For the present. That is to say, for a day or two it will be best. I shall claim you very soon. There is no one but ourselves in the vestry," for the clerk, having locked the box and accepted the guinea bestowed upon him by the bridegroom, was now tramping down the church and through the porch. No one but themselves was in the vestry or the church. "You may, therefore, take off your domino." "As your lordship pleases." Lord Fylingdale started. Whose voice was that? "As you order, I obey." So the bride removed her domino and threw back the hood. The bridegroom started. "What is this?" he cried furious, with certain words which were out of place in a church. [Illustration: "WHAT IS THIS?" HE CRIED FURIOUS, WITH CERTAIN WORDS WHICH WERE OUT OF PLACE IN A CHURCH.] "Lady Anastasia!" cried Mr. Purdon. "Good Lord! Then we are all undone!" "What does it mean? Tell me, she devil--what does it mean? Where is Molly? But this is play acting. This is not a marriage." "I fear, my lord," said the parson, "that it is a marriage. The registers are in the strong box. They cannot be altered." "Go after the clerk, man. Order him to give up the keys. Tear the pages out of the registers." "I cannot," said Mr. Purdon. "I dare not. The man is a witness of this marriage; he has seen the entry in the register. I dare not alter them or destroy a single page. I have done a great deal for your lordship, but this thing I cannot do. It is a marriage, I say. You are married to the Lady Anastasia here." "Talk! talk! Go after the man. Bring back the man. Tear the keys from him. Silence the man! Buy his silence! Buy--I will murder him, if I must, in order to stop his tongue." "Your lordship forgets your bride--your happy, smiling, innocent bride!" He cursed her. He raised his hand as if to strike her down, but forbore. "I told you," she continued, "that in everything I was at your service--except in one thing. Tear the registers; murder the clerk; but the bride will be left. And if you murder her as well you will be no nearer the possession of the lovely Molly." The bridegroom sank into a chair. He was terrible to look at, for his wrath and disappointment deprived him of the power of speech. Where was now the cold and haughty front? It was gone. He sat in the chair, upright, his face purple, his eyes starting from his head as one who hath some kind of fit. The clergyman, still in his white surplice, looked on and trembled, for his old pupil was in a murderous frame of mind. There was no knowing whom he might murder. Besides, he had before this divined the true meaning of the visit to Lynn; and he foresaw ruin to himself as well as his patron. Lord Fylingdale turned upon him suddenly and cursed him for a fool, an ass, a villain, a traitor. "You are in the plot," he said. "You knew all along. You have been suborned." "My lord--my lord--have patience. What could I know? I was bidden to be here at six to marry you. I supposed that the bride was the fair Miss Molly. I could not tell; I knew nothing. The lady was in a domino. It is irregular to be married in a domino. But your lordship wished it. What could I do?" "Send for the key, then, and destroy the registers." "Alas! my lord, it is now, you may be sure, all over the town that you have been married, and to Miss Molly." "Where is Molly? Where is Molly, then? Why did she keep away?" The bride looked on with her mocking smile of triumph. "You may murder me," she said, "but you will not undo the marriage. I have been married, it is true, under a false name; but I am married none the less." "You have brought ruin upon us all," her husband said. "Ruin--headlong ruin. I am at my last guinea. I can raise no more money--I have no more credit. You, yourself, are as much discredited." "If you are ruined," the lady replied, "you are rightly punished. How many vows have you made to me? How many lies have you invented to keep me quiet?" "With submission, my lord," Mr. Purdon stammered, for terror and bewilderment held him, "this is a bad morning's work. Let me advise that before the town is awake we leave the church and talk over the business in her ladyship's rooms, or elsewhere. We must be private. To curse and to swear helps nothing; nor does it help to talk of a jealous revenge. Let us go." It was with a tottering step, as if he was smitten with palsy, that the bridegroom walked down the aisle. The bride put up her domino, and threw her hood over her head, and so with the parson, in silence, walked away from the church to her lodging, leaving the bridegroom to come by himself. As yet the market people had not heard the news. But the news spread. The clerk told his wife. "I come from the church," he said. "I have witnessed the marriage of Miss Molly--Captain Crowle's Molly--with the noble lord who wears the star and looks so grand--a private wedding it was. I know not why. The parson was the Reverend Mr. Purdon, he who reads the morning prayers and preaches on Sunday." Then the clerk's wife, slipping on her apron--for such folk find the shelter of the apron for their hands necessary in conversation--ran round to the pump room. No one was there as yet, but the two dippers. To them she communicated the news. Then she went on to the market and told all the people of the town who were chaffering there. At seven o'clock the captain, walking in his garden, was surprised by the arrival of the horns, who stood before the house and performed a noble flourish. "What the devil is that for?" said the captain. Then there arrived the butchers, with their marrowbones and cleavers, and began to make their music with zeal. The captain went out to them. Up went their hats. "Huzza for Miss Molly and her husband." "Her husband? What do you mean?" "Her husband--his lordship--married this morning." "What?" The captain stared in amazement. Then he rushed into the house. Molly was in the kitchen. "What is this?" he asked. "The butchers are here and the horns, and they swear you were married this morning, Molly?" "Why, captain, I have not been outside the door. I am not married, I assure you, and I begin to think, now, that I never shall be married." The captain went out and dismissed the musicians. But the thing troubled him, and he was already sick at heart on account of the last night's discourse and its discoveries. CHAPTER XXXIV A NEW COMPACT What followed, by invention and design of the pious ecclesiastic, Mr. Purdon, was a villainy even greater than that at first designed--more daring, more cruel. The bride, accompanied by the minister officiating in the late ceremony, walked back to her lodging. She was still exultant in the first glow and triumph of her revenge. He, on the other hand, walked downcast, stealthily glancing at his companion, his big head moving sideways like the head of a bear, his sallow cheeks paler than was customary. The bridegroom, for his part, flung himself into his chair, and so was carried to the lady's lodging. A strange wedding procession! She threw off her cloak and her domino, and stood before her newly-made lord, her eyes bright, her face flushed, her lips quivering. She was filled with revenge only half satiated; but revenge can never be wholly satisfied; and she was filled with the triumph of victory. "I have won!" she said; "you tried to deceive me again, Ludovick. But I have won. You have been caught in your own toils." He took the nearest chair, sitting down in silence, but his face was dark. As she looked upon him, some of the triumph died out of her eyes; her cheek lost its glow; she began to be frightened. What would he say--or do--next? As for his reverence, he stood close to the door as if ready for instant flight. Indeed, there was cause for uncertainty because the man was desperate and his sword was at his side. "Silence!" he said, "or I may kill you." Then there was silence. The other two did not speak. The lady threw herself upon the sofa, twisting her fingers nervously. "You have married me, you say. You shall be a happy wife. You cannot imagine how happy you will be." In a contest of tongues the woman has the best of it. "So long as you, my lord, enjoy the same happiness, or even greater, I shall not repine. You intended my happiness in another way." "You have destroyed my last chance. It is a good beginning." "A better ending, my lord. The fond mistress whom you have fooled so long becomes the wife. It is not the duty of a wife to provide for her husband. Nor will the Countess of Fylingdale allow the Earl to enter her house. She will want the proceeds of her bank for herself. In a word, my lord, you are not only my husband, but you are now privileged to provide for yourself." He sprang to his feet and fell to common and violent cursing, invoking the immediate and miraculous intervention of that Power which he had all his life insulted and defied. The lady received the torrent without a word; what can one say in reply to a man who only curses? But she was afraid of him; his words were like blows; the headlong rage of the man cowed her; she bent her head and covered her face with her hands. Then Mr. Purdon ventured to interfere. "Let me speak," he said. "The thing is done. It cannot be undone. Would it not be better to make the best of it? Does it help any of us--does it help your lordship--to revile and to threaten?" The bridegroom turned upon him savagely. "You to speak!" he said. "You, who are too mealy mouthed and too virtuous even to tear up a page from a register." "I do not wish to be unfrocked, or to be sent to the plantations, my lord. Meantime, it would be doing you the worst service in the world if I were to tear out that page." "Oh! you talk--you always talk." "Of old, my lord, I have sometimes talked to some purpose." "Talk again, then. What do you mean by disservice? You will say next, I suppose, that this play acting was fortunate for me." "We may sometimes turn disasters into victories. If your lordship will listen----" His patron sat down again--the late storm leaving its trace in a scowling face and twitching lips. "Why the devil was not Molly there? How did this woman find out? How did she know that Molly was not coming?" "I can answer these questions," said the lady. "Molly would not come because she learned last night, just in time, certain facts in the private life of the bridegroom----" "What?" Lord Fylingdale betrayed his terror. "She has heard? What has she heard?" He had not, as you have heard, received Molly's letter, nor had he opened the captain's letter. Therefore, he knew nothing. "She had heard more than enough. You have lost your bride and her fortune. I might have warned you, but I preferred to take her place." "What has she heard?" "Apparently, all that there is to be heard. Not, of course, all that could be told if Mr. Purdon were to speak. Merely things of public notoriety. That you are a gambler and a rake; that you have ruined many; that you are ruined yourself. Oh! Quite enough for a girl of her class to learn. In our rank we want much more before we turn our back upon a man. I, myself, know much more. Yet I have married you." "She has heard--" Lord Fylingdale repeated. "Dear, dear!" said the parson. "All this is most unfortunate--most unfortunate. Your lordship has already lost your bride--lost her," he repeated; "lost her--and her fortune. Is there no way out?" "Who brought these reports? Show me the man!" "Ta-ta-ta! You need not bluster, Ludovick. Reports of this kind are in the air; they cling to your name; they travel with you. What? The notorious Lord Fylingdale? They have come, you see, at last, even to this unfashionable corner of the island. They are here, although we have done so much to declare your virtues. Acknowledge that you have been fortunate so far." "Are these reports your doing, madam? Is this a part of your infernal jealousy?" "I do not know who put them about. It is not likely that I should start such reports--especially after the scandal at Bath. I am, in fact, like his reverence here, too much involved myself. Oh! we have beautiful characters--all three of us." "Who told Molly?" "I say that I know nothing. She has been warned. That is all I can tell you, and she has been advised to take no further steps until full explanations have been made in answer to these rumours." "Full explanations," repeated Mr. Purdon. "Dear, dear! Most unfortunate! most unfortunate!" "Your lordship can refer to his reverence here, or to the admirable Semple; or to the immaculate Sir Harry; or to the colonel--that man of nice and well-known honour--for your character. But who will give them a character? Understand," she said, facing him, "you had lost your bride before you got out of bed this morning. Your only chance now is to imitate the example of Tom Rising and to carry her off. And she will then stick a knife between your ribs as she intended to do to that worthy gentleman. But no, I forgot, you cannot do that, you are already married." His reverence again interposed. "With submission, my lord, some explanations will be asked. It will not, certainly, be convenient to offer any. There is, however, one way--and only one--that I can suggest." He looked at the Lady Anastasia. "It will be, perhaps, at first, distasteful to her ladyship. It has, however, the very great advantage of securing the fortune, which, I take it, is what your lordship chiefly desires. As regards the girl, she is in point of manners and appearance so far beneath your lordship's notice that we need not consider her in the matter." "I care nothing about the girl, but hang me if I understand one single syllable of what you mean, or how you can secure the fortune without the girl." "It is not always necessary to carry your wife about with you. She might be left with her friends. A marriage without settlement places, I believe, a woman's fortune absolutely in the hands of her husband." Neither of his listeners made the least sign of understanding what he meant. "Strange!" he said. "I should have thought that this way would have been seized upon immediately. It is wonderful that you do not understand." "Pray, Mr. Purdon," said the lady, "do not credit me, at least, with the power of following your mind in all its crookedness." "Let us consider the situation. I was somewhat surprised when your lordship instructed me to come to this place. Surprised and suspicious. Naturally, I kept my eyes open. I very soon discovered what was proposed. Here was a girl whom Semple had represented to your lordship as a great heiress. You want an heiress at this juncture. I followed the course of events with satisfaction. You were civil to the girl when all the company trampled upon her; you were affable to the old fool, her guardian; you made private and personal inquiry into her fortune; you succeeded in representing yourself as a man of virtue and high principle--all this was cleverly managed. But you made one mistake. You concealed your true intentions from the Lady Anastasia." "It was her infernal jealousy. Why couldn't she let me marry the girl and leave her in Gloucestershire--out of the way?" "A great mistake. I thought that my pupil knew the sex better. Jealousy, my lord, supposes love; and love can always be directed into the other channel of submission. Well, the marriage was arranged; you had already taken the precaution of getting a licence. Then, at the last moment, these sinister reports began. How far they can be explained away--how many others they involve; how many scandals they revive--we know not. But explanation--explanation--no, no--that would be the devil!" "Go on, man. You talk forever." "Had these reports been delayed but a single day--had they arrived after the marriage." "But they arrived before the marriage." "Quite so; which brings me to my proposal. Here you are--at your last guinea. So am I. You can raise no more money. If I were not your domestic chaplain I should be in the King's Bench. I have lived on your bounty for ten years and more. I hoped to go on with the same support. To be sure I have earned my money. I have been of service on many occasions, but I am grateful, and I would, if I could, for the sake of old times, assist your lordship on this occasion." "I want all the assistance I can get. That is quite certain." "And I want all the money I can get. I always intended, somehow or other, to get a slice of this pudding. If I put it into your lordship's power to claim and to seize upon this fortune, which seems to have been snatched out of your hands at the last moment, I must have my share." "Your share? What do you call your share?" "Twelve thousand pounds." "Twelve thousand devils!" "You can get nothing without me. If you refuse I can, at least, tell everybody the pleasant truth about this morning's work, and how the biter was bit." "Go on with your proposal, then." "You will give me a promise--a bill, if you like, payable in two months--you will not be able to get through all that money in two months--for twelve thousand pounds." "It is a monstrous sum. But, on condition that you place this girl's fortune in my hands--however, it is impossible. Well, you shall have my promise--on my honour as a peer." He placed his right hand upon his heart. The clergyman grinned. "Your lordship gives me more than I dare to ask. It is a bill--a written document--not a promise, even on your honour as a peer. Give me that and I will show you the way. Stay--nothing can be done without me--I will tell you my scheme before you sign that paper. Now, listen--you had already lost your bride when you arrived at the church. Her ladyship most fortunately----" "How, sir, most fortunately?" "A moment. Madam saw her way to the revenge of jealousy. She took the place of the bride. And she was married as Miss Molly; she signed the name of Molly Miller; the licence was in that name. The clerk who was present has, I am sure, already carried the news all over the place. We have the evidence, therefore, of the bridegroom, the parson, the clerk, the licence, the registers. Who is to prove that the real Molly was at home all the time? Captain Crowle, perhaps, though I doubt. The girl herself--but who will believe her? My lord, you have married Miss Molly, and not the Lady Anastasia." "What then?" "You have only to claim your bride." "Sir. You forget that I am the bride," Lady Anastasia interposed, quickly. Mr. Purdon bowed and smiled, rubbing his hands softly. "With submission, madam. I do not advise that his lordship should carry her off, nor that he should claim her _ad mensam et torum_, as we scholars say. His principles would not, I am sure, allow that he should carry off an unmarried woman. Not at all. He will leave her with her friends. Indeed, he would prefer to do so. I suggest only that we should proclaim the marriage and lay hands upon the fortune." "She is to be the countess. And what am I to be?" "His lordship's best friend. You will rescue him in his deepest need; you will restore him to affluence; it will be a service, madam, of the purest and most disinterested affection, instead of an ugly and ruinous revenge. Heavens! Can you hesitate?" Thus did he gloss over the villainy so that the poor woman almost believed that she was entering upon a course of virtuous benevolence, and, as the man said, a service of love. "But the girl--Molly. She will not consent to be a countess in name." "She and her friends will protest; but they will be overborne; meantime, she has the virtue and the pride of her station. Will she even consent, do you think, to call herself a countess when she is not married? Why, we actually make a ladder for ourselves to climb thereby, out of her virtue." He looked at the lady no longer stealthily, but full in the face, with a smile, as if he was proposing a scheme of the noblest kind; as if there was nothing to be hidden, and there were no perjuries to be advanced. Lord Fylingdale, too, turned to her with a face of inquiry and doubt. "What is your lordship's opinion?" "It is a scheme of great audacity. It will require bold handling." "It shall be boldly handled, if I may advise." "It is certain to be resisted with the utmost indignation." "Of that there is no doubt. But the end is also certain. Nothing can withstand the evidence of our case. It is so clear that I myself am of opinion that the bride was actually Miss Molly." They both looked at Lady Anastasia, who made no response--her eyes in her lap. "The truth will lie with us three," the tempter went on. "Only with us three. None of us will reveal it." "As regards jealousy, Anastasia, the girl will be here, and everything will continue just as before." She threw up her arms and sprang to her feet. "Oh!" she cried, "it is the most monstrous villainy." "We need not think of the girl. We must think of ourselves." "A service of love," murmured Mr. Purdon, "a beautiful, a noble service of love!" "The fortune is immense, Anastasia. It is ridiculous that the girl should have so much. We will leave her a competence. Besides, there are the jewels." Lady Anastasia gasped. "You yourself will adorn these jewels. It will be my greatest pleasure to atone for my ill-judged deception by giving you all those jewels--the diamonds, the rubies, the chains of pearls, and all the rest of the pretty glittering things." He took her hands, the parson looking on all the time as a physician looks on at a blood-letting or an operation. "What can that girl do with jewels? They shall all be yours. Forgive me, Anastasia, and let us again work together as we have already done--you and I--with no more jealousy and no more suspicions." He kissed her hand. His manner was changed almost suddenly; he became soft, caressing, and persuasive. It was the old charm which the poor lady could never resist. She suffered him to hold her hand; she allowed him to kiss her hand; her eyes grew humid. "Oh!" she murmured, "I must do everything you ask, Ludovick, if you are only kind." "How can I be anything but kind?" he replied, with a smile. "You must forget and forgive. The thought that all I had schemed and planned was torn from me--and by you, Anastasia--by you--was too much. My mind was upset; I know not what I said. Forgive me!" "Oh, Ludovick! I forgive." "And the jewels shall atone--the lovely jewels. You shall have them all." "You will truly give me the jewels?" "Truly, my Anastasia. After all, we are man and wife. Henceforth we shall only live for each other. Your happiness shall be mine. The jewels shall be yours." She yielded; she fell into his arms. There was a complete, a touching reconciliation! "I agree, then, Purdon," said his lordship. "We both agree. It remains only to choose the best time, the best place, the best manner." "Let it be the boldest manner; the most public place; before the largest company. Let there be no mistake possible. Leave this to me, my lord. Twelve thousand pounds. Your ladyship will oblige me with pen, ink, and paper? I may point out" (he turned to his former pupil with an ugly grin) "that if this promise, or bond, or bill is not met I shall proclaim the whole business from the housetop." In other words, Lord Fylingdale was going to declare that it was Molly, and none other, who was married that morning at six o'clock, and to assume the rights and powers of a husband. So that the news of his evil reputation came, after all, too late to be of any use. And as for explanations, who would have the right to ask any explanations of a married man on behalf of his wife. CHAPTER XXXV WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Fortune was with the conspirators. Everything helped them. First of all, the dippers whispered the news as a profound secret. Then it was whispered about the pump room as a profound secret. Then it was carried to the confectioner's; to the book shop; to the coffee houses; to the taverns; to the gardens; and talked about as an event and not a secret at all. It was, indeed extraordinary that a nobleman of Lord Fylingdale's rank and fortune should stoop to marry the daughter of a plain merchant of Lynn; a homely creature, as the ladies declared; one who had no manners, and was actually ignorant of the polite world. It was said that she was rich. Could the Earl of Fylingdale stoop to pick up her paltry fortune? What was the attraction, then? A bouncing figure; big hands and strong arms; fine eyes, perhaps, and there an end; for the rest, a mere common girl, no better than dozens like herself. Some there were who whispered a word of ugly import in the country. "It must be witchcraft! Surely," they said, "this unfortunate young man has been bewitched. Some one, perhaps the negress, has exercised spells over him to his destruction. The pity of it! The pity of it! It will be three generations, at least, before the stain of this alliance can be wiped out of the family pedigree." The vicar heard the rumour. He hastened at once to find out the truth from the person most certain, as he thought, to know the facts, viz, Molly herself. "I am to congratulate you, Molly," he said, "or must I call you the Countess of Fylingdale?" "I am certainly not a countess," she replied. "Why the horns came here at seven this morning and the butchers with them, all to congratulate me. What does it mean?" "Then it is not true, Molly? Heavens, how glad I am!" "Why, certainly not. I wrote to Lord Fylingdale last night. I told him I should not be at the church this morning, as I had promised." "Then--is it not true?--may I contradict the report?" "If you please, sir. Did you see Jack last night after he left me?" "We did. And we learned your resolution. Therefore, I was the more astonished." "Oh! sir. Pray do not think that I would marry a rake for a title which I do not want and should not adorn." "Heavens! my dear Molly, what a load you lift from my heart!" So he went away. Outside, in the streets, he met the clerk of St. Nicholas. "What is all this," he said, "about a marriage early this morning?" "Why, sir, it is no secret, I believe. Miss Molly was married at six o'clock to Lord Fylingdale. I was present, and gave away the bride." "Are we dreaming? Are we in our right senses? You say, man, that Miss Molly was married this morning--this very morning--to Lord Fylingdale. By whom?" "By his reverence, Mr. Purdon." "By Mr. Purdon? Was the marriage duly celebrated?" "Surely, sir. They were married by licence; and the marriage is entered in the registers." "Come to the church and show me the registers." The clerk led the way to the vestry and opened the great trunk. There lay the books of the registers. He took them out and showed the entries. Yes; there was no doubt possible. There were the two signatures, "Fylingdale" and "Mary Miller," with the clerk as witness and the signature of "Benjamin Purdon, Clerk in Orders," as the officiating minister. "Now," said the vicar, sitting down, "what does this mean?" As for myself, I also heard the news. It was brought on board by Captain Jaggard. "I could have wished," he said, "that Captain Crowle had seen his way to marry the girl to some honest man of the place--to you, Jack, or some other. I suppose she is too rich for a merchant or a simple sailor. Pity! Pity! This noble lord will take her away, and we shall see her no more." I did not think it necessary to tell him that I was myself an eyewitness of the wedding, but, as soon as I could get away, I went ashore to learn what was said and reported. At my father's house behind the school I found the vicar in a strangely bewildered mind. "Molly," he said, "flatly denies the marriage." "Molly denies?" I was amazed. "And the clerk swears that he gave her away; the registers are duly entered. What does this mean? What does this mean?" I stared, and for a time made no reply. Molly to utter a falsehood? The thing was incredible. Yet, what was I to think? "Sir," I said, "I remembered, early this morning, that I had forgotten Molly's letter to Lord Fylingdale. I hastened ashore, hoping to be in time to stop his going to the church. I was too late. I hurried on to the church. To my amazement the wedding service was at this moment being read by Mr. Purdon, and I saw, with my own eyes, Molly, wrapped in her pink cloak, the hood over her head, married to Lord Fylingdale. You cannot think that I was deceived." "Why, the thing grows more and more mysterious. Given the fact that Lord Fylingdale is a reprobate, with no principle and no religion, yet he would not pass off another woman as Molly. She would have to be a woman of the vilest character. I do not think there is a woman in Lynn who could be persuaded to such an act of villainy. No, it is impossible; the clerk could not be deceived; the clergyman--to be sure he is a fit companion for the bridegroom--would not--could not--stoop so low. Think, Jack. Molly stoutly declares that she has not left the house for any purpose whatever. That is a plain assertion. Then we have the evidence of yourself, of the clerk, of the registers, and of the two whose evidence might not be considered trustworthy--the bridegroom and the minister. I do not understand. You say that Molly was dressed in a cloak that you recognised?" "In her pink silk cloak, such as she throws over her shoulders at the assembly." "There is no escape, I fear, no escape, that I can see. What does it mean? Why does Molly make this assertion? She must know that it cannot undo the wedding." "I cannot so much as guess. Molly is the most candid and the most truthful of women. She cannot lie. It is impossible. There must be some dreadful mistake." "She is, as you say, of a most truthful nature. Yet--how to explain? What does it mean?" "I saw her hand placed in the bridegroom's, and I heard the words. Then, for my heart sank, I came away." "Tell me again. When you left her last night, she was fully resolved not to keep her promise." "She was fully resolved, I say. I have her letter--the letter which she wrote with my help, the letter which I ought to have sent to his lordship." I lugged it out of my pocket; the vicar read it. "Humph," he said, "it is written as if by a supercargo--but that matters nothing. The meaning of it is plain. Her resolution is fixed. She was agitated, Jack." "Naturally she was agitated at finding the man, whom she was to marry out of respect and not for love, was unworthy of the least respect." "She was agitated. That was, as you say, natural. She had in her mind, at the same time, the promise to meet her accepted lover at the church at six in the morning. We must remember that. Now it is difficult to understand a more serious blow to the mind of a young girl than to be told suddenly, without the least preparation for it, that the man she is to marry is not what she believed him to be; not, that is, a man of honour, not a man of virtue, not a man whose conduct is governed by principle. I say that this knowledge may fall upon a woman in such a manner as to distract her for a time." "But Molly was not in the least distracted." "Not in your judgment. Could you have followed her to the lonely chamber, Jack, you might have witnessed a scene of strange distraction in which contempt took the place of respect; loathing of love; and enmity in place of gratitude. In a word, you would have seen a transformation of the girl. Had you watched her through the night you would have seen the sleeplessness and the restlessness caused by these emotions; you would have seen, perhaps, with the early morning nature asserting herself and the girl dropping asleep. After an hour or two she awakes, her mind not yet recovered; she remembers her promise, but not her refusal to keep it; she dresses mechanically; she steps out of the house unseen; she meets the man--he had not received your letter--she goes through the ceremony with him. She returns home, mounts to her room still without being observed, and again falls asleep. When she awakes there is no memory in her mind of the wedding service, nor any recollection of what had taken place. There would be left nothing but the memory of last night's revelations." He went on to fortify his theory with an abundance of examples taken from antiquity, and from books in which persons have been known to do strange things while seemingly broad awake and in their senses, who, afterwards, remembered nothing. "I can even understand," he said, "a man committing a crime in this unconscious manner, who, in his sane moments, would be incapable of any wickedness. Is this what was formerly called demoniac possession? If so, it is a truly dreadful thing, and one against which we ought to pray." The explanation seemed, at least, one that accounted for the strange denial of a simple fact. "We will leave it so," he said. "I will go and talk to Captain Crowle about it, though I doubt whether the captain can be made to understand these nice distinctions between things as they are and things as they seem. It is, from every point of view, most unfortunate. The poor girl is now the wife of a villain. What will happen to her nobody knows as yet. Nor do I see how we can protect her." Accordingly, he laid the matter before the captain, but failed in persuading him. "No, sir," he said; "there is villainy abroad. I know not of what kind. There is villainy, and there are villains. Molly is not married. She was not out of the house this morning at all. She was with her mother in the stillroom. Besides, do you believe it possible for a woman not to know whether she is married or not?" "Captain, I cannot understand it, except by my theory that----" "He shan't have her, whatever he says. What? Should I suffer my girl--my ward--to go to him, and that unmarried? Say no more, vicar--say no more." Thinking over the vicar's distinctions about things as they are and things as they seem, a sudden objection occurred to me. "If Molly was actually married, whether she remembered it afterwards or not, what became of the wedding ring?" To this objection I could find no reply. And so the vicar's explanation, in my mind, fell to the ground, and I was as much at sea as ever. For Molly, who was always as true and candid as a mirror, was now ... but I could not put the thing into words. CHAPTER XXXVI A DAY OF FATE This was the day when all the villainy came to a head and did its worst and met with the first instalment of exposure. I have told you what was done at the church and what was our own bewilderment, not knowing what to believe or how to explain things. For my own part, though I might have guessed, because I had discovered the jealousy of Lady Anastasia; yet the truth, even the possibility of the truth, never came into my head. I had no manner of doubt, in my own mind, that it was Molly herself, and none other, whom I saw standing as a bride at the altar rails with Lord Fylingdale for a bridegroom. The fact, I say, admitted of no dispute. Yet, why should Molly change her mind? And why should she deny the fact? I sought her at the house. I begged her to come into the garden and to talk with me privately. Then I asked those two questions. Her answer to both of them was most amazing. "Jack," she said, "I know not what you mean. I have not changed my mind. It is impossible for me to marry a man of whom such things can be said unless he can prove that they are false. How can you think that I have changed my mind? As regards this talk about an early wedding, what do I know about it? At six o'clock I was in the kitchen with my mother and Nigra. I have not been out of the house at all." Then I persisted. I asked her if she could have gone out and had perhaps forgotten. "Forgotten!" she repeated, scornfully. "Do you suppose that a woman could by any possibility forget her own wedding? But what is it, Jack? What is in your mind?" Then I told her. "Molly," I said, "last night I forgot your letter. There was so much to think and talk about with these disclosures that I forgot. This morning I remembered. Then I hurried ashore. I ran to the 'Crown'; it was just upon six. I was too late. His lordship had gone out in a chair. I ran to the church. It was just after six. The doors were open; I heard voices. I went in, Molly--do not say that I am dreaming--I saw you--you I say--you, yourself--with your pink silk cloak, the hood pulled over your head, a domino to hide your face--just as had been arranged." "You saw me, Jack? You saw me? How could you see me?" "And your hand was in Lord Fylingdale's, and Mr. Purdon was pronouncing the words which made you his wife. 'Whom God hath joined together let not man put asunder.'" She stared at me with blank amazement. "In my pink silk cloak? Jack, are you in your right mind or is it I myself who am gone distraught?" "Indeed, I know not which." "Did you speak to me? Did you congratulate the bride, Jack?" "No; I was sick and sorry, Molly. I went out of the church. The clerk, however, has been telling the story of this private marriage all over the town. Everybody knows it. The marriage is duly entered in the registers. It was a marriage by the archbishop's licence. The man Purdon may be all that the vicar's letter exposed, but the marriage was in order." Molly said nothing for a while. Then she said gently: "The letter from the bookseller, your cousin, spoke of Lord Fylingdale as ruined. If he were to marry a woman with money it would become his own." "I believe that there are sometimes letters--bills of lading, or whatever they are called--which gives the wife the control of her own property; otherwise, everything becomes her husband's." "Why did he wish to marry me? There was never a gleam of love in his eye--nor a note of love in his voice. Why--except that he might get my money?" "That is, I am convinced, the reason." "Villainy--villainy--villainy. Jack, this is a conspiracy. Some woman has been made to play my part. Then he will claim me as his wife, and lay hands upon all that I have." "No, Molly, he shall not while you have friends." "Friends cannot help where the law orders otherwise. So much I know, Jack. Yet you can do one thing for me, you can protect me from the man. He must not take me away." "All Lynn will fight for you." "Jack, I want more; I want all Lynn to believe me. You have known me all my life. Am I capable of such a change of mind? Am I capable of so monstrous a falsehood as to steal out to marry this man and then to declare that I have never left the house? Oh, the villain! the villain!" Her cheek was aflame; her eyes flashed. I seized her hand. "Molly," I cried, "they shall all believe you. I will tell the truth everywhere." Just then the garden door was thrown open and Sam Semple appeared. With a smiling face and a bending knee he advanced bowing low. "Permit me to offer congratulations to the Countess of Fylingdale." "I am not a countess. I am plain Molly Miller." Sam looked disconcerted and puzzled. I perceived that, plot or no plot, he had no hand in it. "I am come," he said, "from his lordship----" "I have nothing to do with his lordship." "Surely, madam--surely, my lady--there is some misunderstanding. I am sent by his lordship with his compliments to ask when it will be convenient for the countess to receive him." "You have been informed, I suppose, that I was married to him this morning." "Certainly, my lady." "Then go back to Lord Fylingdale and tell him that he is a villain and a liar; that I have learned his true character; that I am not married to him; and that if he ventures to molest me my friends will protect me. Give him that message, sir, word for word." "I believe, Sam," I said, for his discomfiture and bewilderment made him reel and stagger, "that you have no hand in this new villainy. It was you, however, who brought that man to Lynn, knowing his true character and his antecedents. Let us never see your face here again. Go; if I thought you were in this new plot I would serve you again as the captain served you three years ago." He went away without another word. Then the captain came home, his face troubled. "I know not," he said, "what has happened in this place. I have seen Lord Fylingdale. I told him of the charges and accusations." "Well? Did he deny them?" "He denied nothing, and he admitted nothing. He says that you married him this morning, Molly." "I know. He has sent Sam Semple here with the same story. Captain, you believe me, do you not?" "Believe you, Molly? Why, if I did not believe you, I should believe nothing. Believe you? My dear, I would as soon doubt the prayer book." He laid his hand upon her arm and the tears came into his eyes. "My dear, I have been an old fool. But I did it for the best. He says that you are his wife. Let him come and take you--if he can!" "It is not Molly that he would take, it is Molly's fortune." "Why, sir," she said, "if he takes the whole and wastes and dissipates it, so long as he does not take me, what does it matter?" Then the vicar came again, and the whole of the business had to be discussed again. At first, he adhered to his theory of unconscious action, because a scholar always likes to explain every theory by examples chosen from Latin and Greek authors. He had looked up several more stories of the kind from I know not what folio volumes in his library, and came prepared to defend his opinion. But the absolute certainty of Molly's assertion; the evidence of her mother, who declared that Molly had been working with her since half-past five; the firm belief of the captain; and my own change of opinion and the possibility of deception shook him. Finally, he abandoned his learned view, and adopted our more modern explanation of the case, viz, that the marriage was a sham, and that the woman was some creature suborned to personate Molly. "But what woman can she be?" asked the vicar. "She can write. I have seen the registers; she has signed in a full, round hand, without bad spelling. The woman, therefore, is educated. My dear, we may perhaps find the woman. My worthy and pious brother in Orders is most certainly in the conspiracy. Where there are three one is generally a traitor. To begin with, the scheme is both bold and dangerous. It is the first step towards obtaining a large sum of money under false pretences. Their necks are in danger, even the neck of a noble earl. "It is inconceivable," he went on, after a little reflection, "how a woman could be found to play such a part. She must be the mistress of the earl; no other could be trusted." "What should be done meantime?" "We must meet the enemy on his own ground. He spreads abroad the report that he married Molly this morning. We must publicly and openly deny the fact. Captain, there will be a large company at the assembly this evening. You will take Molly there. I will go with you. Jack shall put on his Sunday best, and shall also go with us. We must be prepared for an impudent claim, and we must be ready with a prompt denial. Let us court publicity." This was clearly the best advice possible. We were left unmolested all the afternoon, though the captain made me stay as a kind of garrison in case of any attempt at abduction being made. In the evening, Molly, in her chair and dressed in her finery, was carried to the gardens, while the captain, the vicar, and myself formed a bodyguard. We arrived after the dancing had begun. Lady Anastasia was looking on, but her court of ladies and young men, for some reason, seemed to have melted away. She stood almost alone, save for the support of the old beau Sir Harry. The colonel was also with her. And the Reverend Benjamin Purdon stood behind her. The music was in the gallery at the end of the long room; the dancing was carried on in the middle. Lady Anastasia was standing on the right of the gallery; most of the company on the left. Molly with the captain and followed by the vicar and myself turned to the left. On her entrance all eyes were fixed upon the newly made countess. She had come without her lord. Was this part of the secret--a secret known to all the world? Or was his lordship before the whole company about to lead his bride to the first place as became her newly acquired rank? Some of the ladies regarded her with looks of hatred, the successors of the looks of scorn with which they had at first welcomed her. Most of them, however, were kindly; a tale of love always meets with a friendly reception; not a woman in the place but would have taken her place with joy unmeasured; as no other woman could, they were ready to accept their fate and to make friends with the successful and the fortunate winner of so great a prize. It was a great prize, indeed, if they only knew! The minuets were over and the country dances were about to begin when Lord Fylingdale arrived, followed, as usual, by his secretary. He stood at the door, he looked around; then, with the cold pride which never failed him, he stepped across the room and bowed low to Molly. "Madam," he said, "with your permission, we will dance this country dance together before I take you away with me." "My lord," replied Molly aloud, so that the whole company heard and trembled, "I shall not dance with you this evening, nor on any other evening." "She will never again dance with you, my lord; nor will she hold any discourse with you; nor will she willingly admit you to her presence." It was the vicar who spoke, because the man and the occasion proved too much for the good old captain, who could only roll thunderously between his teeth things more fitted for the quelling of a mutiny than for dealing with such a man as his lordship. "Pray, sir," said Lord Fylingdale, stepping back, "what is the meaning of this? Pray, madam," he turned to Molly, "what is the meaning of this sudden change? Captain Crowle, have I, or have I not, the right to claim my wife?" The vicar stepped forward and confronted him. His tall, thin figure, his long cassock, his thin and ascetic face contrasted with the over-haughtiness of his adversary. "My lord," he asked, "how long has this lady been your wife?" "We were married," he said, "at six o'clock this morning, by the Rev. Mr. Benjamin Purdon, who is here to bear witness to the fact. The wedding was private at my request, because, as you may perhaps believe, I was not anxious to join in the wedding feast with a company of boors, bumpkins, and sailors." "Ladies and gentlemen,"--the vicar raised his voice and by a gesture silenced the orchestra--"I have to lay before you a conspiracy which I believe is unparalleled in any history. You are aware that Lord Fylingdale, who stands before you, came to the spa a few weeks ago for purposes best known to himself. You will also doubtless remember that certain persons, who arrived before him, were loud in his praises. He was said by them to be a model of all the virtues. I will not repeat the things that were said...." "All this," said Lord Fylingdale, "is beside the mark. I come to claim my wife." "Among those who accepted these statements for gospel was Captain Crowle, the guardian of the young lady beside me. It was to him a great honour to be admitted to converse with so distinguished a nobleman and to be permitted to consult with him as to the affairs of his ward. He even informed his lordship of the extent of the lady's fortune, which is far greater than was generally understood. Thereupon his lordship began to pay attention of a marked character. You have all, I believe, remarked these attentions. Then came the attempted abduction and the lady's rescue by Lord Fylingdale. After this he formally offered his hand and his rank to the lady. The honour seemed very great. He was accepted. He then engaged the lady to undertake a private marriage without festivities, to which she consented. She promised, in fact, to be married at St. Nicholas Church this very morning, at six o'clock." "All this," said Lord Fylingdale, coldly, "is quite true. Yet why you detain the company by the narrative I do not understand. The lady kept her promise. I met her at the place and time appointed. We were married. Once more, Captain Crowle, I claim my wife." "Ladies and gentlemen," the vicar continued, "there is but one reply to the last statement, for the lady did not keep her engagement." "Sir," his lordship advanced a step, "are you aware of the meaning of words? Do you assert that I was not married at that time and in that place?" The Reverend Benjamin Purdon advanced. "Sir," he addressed the vicar, "like his lordship, I am amazed at these words. Why, sir, I myself, at six o'clock this morning, performed the marriage service, as prescribed by the Church, for the Right Honourable the Earl of Fylingdale and Miss Mary Miller." By this time the company were crowding round eagerly listening. No one could understand what had happened. The bridegroom claimed his bride; the bride's friends denied that she was married. "Yesterday," the vicar went on, "there arrived, simultaneously, three letters; one of them, an anonymous letter, was addressed to Captain Crowle; one from a respectable bookseller in London was addressed to Mr. Pentecrosse, master of the grammar school; and one from a certain fellow of his college at Cambridge was addressed to me. All these letters, together, contained charges which show how deeply we have been deceived." "Have a care! Have a care!" said Lord Fylingdale. At that moment another arrival took place. It was Tom Rising, the wounded man. He was pale and weak; he leaned upon the arms of two gentlemen; he was followed by a figure, strange, indeed, in a polite assembly. "By these letters and other sources," the vicar continued, "I learn first as to the noble lord's friends--the following particulars. Pray give me your attention. "I find that the Lady Anastasia Langston hath been lately presented by the grand jury of Middlesex for keeping a house riotous, of great extravagance, luxury, idleness, and ill fame. She is the third on the list. The first," the vicar read from a paper, "is the Lady Mordington and her gaming house in Covent Garden; the second is the Lady Castle and her gaming house, also in Covent Garden; and the third is the Lady Anastasia Langston and her gaming house, in or near Hanover Square, all in this county. "I am informed that Lady Anastasia hath held a bank every night in this place to the hurt and loss of many. "I turn next to the case of the Rev. Benjamin Purdon, who stands before you. He was the tutor of Lord Fylingdale; he is described as the companion of his vices; he was the cause last year of a grievous scandal at Bath; he is the author of a ribald piece of verse by which he has corrupted many. No bishop would sanction his acceptance of the smallest preferment." "This is very surprising," said Mr. Purdon, shaking his big head. "But we shall see, we shall see, immediately." "There are next, the two gentlemen known as Sir Harry Malyns and Colonel Lanyon. Their occupation is to act as decoy ducks; to lure young men to the gaming table, and to plunder them when they are caught." Both these gentlemen started, but neither replied. "I now come to the noble lord before me. He is a most notorious profligate; he shares in Lady Anastasia's gaming house; he has long since been refused admittance into the houses of persons of honour; he is an inveterate gambler; he has ruined his own estate--sold the family plate and pictures, library, everything; he is, at this moment, unable to borrow or to raise the smallest sum of money. The fleet and the King's Bench Prisons are full of the unfortunate tradesmen who trusted him and the young rakes whom he has ruined. "Ladies and gentlemen, this was the story which reached us yesterday, fortunately, in time. Miss Molly broke off her promise, and wrote to his lordship for explanations. Captain Crowle called upon his lordship this morning for explanations. He was met with derision; he was told that he was too late, the young lady was already married--there was no necessity for any explanations." The company murmured. Voices were raised demanding explanations. Said his lordship, coldly, "These inventions need no reply. I claim my wife." "She is not your wife," said the vicar. "We are ready to prove that at six o'clock the young lady was already engaged with her mother in the stillroom, or in some other occupations. Of that there is no doubt possible. But"--and here he lifted a warning finger, but his lordship paid no attention--"there _was a wedding early this morning_. His reverence Mr. Purdon performed the service; the wedding was in the name of Mary Miller as bride; the registers are signed 'Mary Miller.' This is, therefore, a conspiracy." "You talk nonsense," said his lordship, who certainly carried it off with an amazing assurance. "I claim my wife. Once more, madam, will you come with me?" "I am not your wife." "We must endeavour," said the vicar, "to find the woman who personated Miss Molly. The clerk of the parish testifies to the wedding, but he does not appear to have seen the face of the bride. Whoever she was, she wore a domino, and had thrown her hood over her face." The Lady Anastasia stepped forward, agitating her fan. "Reverend sir," she said to the vicar, "in matters of society you are a very ignorant and a very simple person. It is quite true that I have been presented by a Middlesex jury for gambling. It is also true that half London might also be presented. As for the rest of your statements, that, for instance, Lord Fylingdale shares in the profits of my bank, let me assure you that your innocence has been abused; these things are not true. However, it is not for me to answer public insults in a public place. Sir Harry, my old friend, they call you a decoy--even you, with your name and your reputation. A decoy! Sir, your cloth should shame you. Sir Harry, take me to my chair. If, to-morrow morning, the company thinks proper to dissociate itself from this public insult, I will remain in this place, where, I own, I have found many friends. If not, I shall return to London and to the house presented by the grand jury of Middlesex." So saying, she retired smiling, and, as they say of soldiers, in good order. With her, also in good order, the ancient beau, with no other signs of agitation than a trembling of the knees--and this might very well be laid to the account of his threescore years and fifteen, or perhaps fourscore. At this point, however, Tom Rising, supported by his friends, advanced. "My lord," he said, "I have brought an old friend to meet you, Jack Gizzard--Honest John--the poultry man of Bond street. You know him of old, I believe. The advantage of bringing him here to expose you is that you cannot fight a poultry man." I looked on in admiration. The affair could not be turned into a private quarrel, for the fellow was, indeed, no other than a dealer in poultry by trade. Yet no better witness could be produced, for no one was better known than Jack Gizzard--so called from his trade--at all race meetings, at Newmarket, at Epsom, and at other places. He was, in fact, that rare creature, the man who, not being a gentleman, is yet admitted to the sports of gentlemen; is considered as an authority; is allowed to bet freely with them, yet remains what he was by birth, a mechanic, a shopkeeper, a farmer, a grazier, a horse breeder, or I know not what. I do not know his surname; he was called Gizzard on account of his calling, and Jack on account of the esteem in which he was held by all sporting men. No one knew better than Jack Gizzard how to choose, how to train, how to feed a gamecock; no one knew better the points of a horse; no one knew better how to train a dog for coursing; no one knew more of the secrets of the stable; no one knew more intimately the rules of the prize ring, whether for quarterstaff, singlestick, or boxing. No one, again, held a better reputation for honesty in sport; he betted and he paid; he would advise a man even to his own loss. Such a man as this Tom Rising brought to the assembly for the discomfiture of his late adversary. "Jack," he said, "here is his lordship, and there--don't go just yet, colonel," for, at the sight of Jack Gizzard, Colonel Lanyon was about to leave the room. "Not just yet. Thank you, gentlemen," as two or three placed themselves between the colonel and the door. Jack Gizzard stepped forward. He was in appearance more like a butcher than anything else, being a stout, hearty-looking man, with a red face. "My lord," he said, "when you last left Newmarket Heath you owed me £500." Lord Fylingdale made no sign of any kind of response. "I met you again at Bath; it was before the time when you were requested by the master of the ceremonies to leave the place with your friend--ah! colonel, glad to see you--with your friend Colonel Lanyon." Lord Fylingdale made no sign whatever of having heard. "Bath is not very far from Gloucestershire. I made a journey there to find out for myself your lordship's position. I found your estate in the hands of money-lenders; every acre mortgaged; your house falling to pieces; its contents sold. You are already completely ruined. I went back to London and inquired further; you had lost your credit as well as your character. You could not show your face at the old places; the cockpit of Tothill Fields was closed to you; all the clubs of St. James's were closed to you. Your name, my lord, stank then as badly as it stinks now." Lord Fylingdale still paid no kind of attention. "You may consider, my lord, these few remarks as part payment of that £500." So he turned away. "Come along, colonel," said Tom Rising. "Bring the colonel to the front. Don't be bashful, colonel." Some of the gentlemen obeyed, gently pushing the colonel to the front. "Well, poultry man?" said the colonel boldly. "Well, sharper?" returned Jack Gizzard. "Gentlemen, this fellow has been a bully about the town for twenty years and more; a bully; a common cheat and sharper. He is now altogether discredited. He was expelled from Bath with his noble patron last year. If any of you owe him money do not pay him. He is not fit to sit down with gentlemen of honour. That is all I have to say about you, colonel." "What I have to say, colonel," said Tom Rising, "is that I owe you £1,200, and if I pay you one single guinea--then----" He proceeded to imprecate the wrath of heaven upon himself if he showed any weakness in that resolution. Lord Fylingdale once more turned to Molly. "Madam, for the last time----" "Send him away--send him away," said Molly. "He makes me sick." "We deny the marriage, my lord," said the vicar. "That is all we have to say." "At your peril," replied his lordship. So saying he walked away unmoved, apparently. Mr. Purdon and Colonel Lanyon went with him; both men were flushed in the cheeks and restrained themselves by an evident effort. I was sorry for Sam Semple, for he followed, his face full of trouble and disappointment. When they were gone, the vicar spoke once more. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "we have thought it best to court the greatest publicity possible in this matter. The people whom we have exposed will not again trouble this company by their presence. I know not what the law may decide in this case, supposing his lordship so ill-advised as to go to law. But the truth, which is above the law, remains, that an imposture of the most daring kind has been attempted, and that some woman has been found to personate Miss Molly. I have to express her sorrow for keeping you so long from your pleasures." And with these words he offered his hand to Molly, and we withdrew, and the music struck up a lively country dance. CHAPTER XXXVII THE BUBBLE AND THE SKY ROCKET This was Molly's last appearance at the assembly. Next day we heard that our distinguished visitors, the Prince of Purity--or the Prince of Darkness, which you please--the Lady of the Green Cloth, Sir Harry Decoy-Duck, and Colonel Bully Barabbas, with the Reverend Ananias and the ingenious Sam, first favourite of the Muses, had all gone away--whether they went away together or separately I never heard. The opinion of the company as to the exposure and the marriage was divided. For some thought that Molly was nothing better than a woman who did not know her own mind; that she was first dazzled and carried off her head by the brilliant offer that was dangled before her; that, on Lord Fylingdale's request she consented to the private marriage; that she became afterwards afraid of the greatness for which she was not fitted either by birth or education, and thought to escape by hard lying and a strenuous denial of the fact. I fear that this opinion was that of the majority. For, they added, there was without any doubt a marriage; it was performed by the clergyman who by his learning, eloquence, and piety had made so many friends during his short stay, and it was witnessed by the parish clerk. If Molly was not the bride who could be found so closely to resemble her as to deceive the parish clerk? When it was objected that the private character both of his lordship and his late tutor was of the kind publicly alleged, these philosophers asked for proof--as if proof could be adduced in a public assembly. And they asked further if it was reasonable to suppose that an eloquent divine, whose discourses had edified so many could possibly be the reprobate and profligate as stated by the vicar? As for his lordship there is, as everybody knows, an offence called _scandalum magnatum_, which renders a person who defames a peer or attacks his honour liable to prosecution, fine, and imprisonment. "We shall presently," they said, "find this presumptuous vicar haled before the courts and fined, or imprisoned, for _scandalum magnatum_." But the vicar, when this was reported to him, only laughed and said he should be rejoiced to put his lordship under examination. Others there were, principally townsfolk, who had known Molly all her life. They agreed that she was a woman of sober mind; not given to vapours or any such feminine weaknesses; not likely to be carried away by terrors; and incapable of falsehood. If she declared that she was not married, she certainly was not married. The business might be explained in some way; but of one thing they were very sure--that Molly, since she said so, was not married. This view was strongly held by the "Society" of King's Lynn at their evening meetings. It must be owned that the departure of the vivacious and affable Lady Anastasia with that of the agreeable rattle of seventy-five, Sir Harry, and that of the pious Purdon, who had also become a favourite with the ladies, proved a heavy blow to the gaieties of the assembly and the long room. The card room was deserted; conversation in the garden and the pump room became flat; the gentlemen who had gambled at the hazard table now carried on their sport--perhaps less dangerously--at the tavern; many of them, having lost a great deal more than they could afford, were now gloomy; there were no more public breakfasts; no more water parties up or down the river; no more bowls of punch after the dance. In a word the spirit went out of the company; the spa became dull. Let me finish with the story of this mushroom. I call it a mushroom because it appeared, grew, and vanished in a single season. You may also call it a sky rocket if you please, or, indeed, anything which springs into existence in a moment, and in a moment dies. Perhaps we may liken it most to a bubble such as boys blow from soap suds. It floated in the sunshine for a brief space, glowing with the colours of the rainbow; then it burst and vanished, leaving nothing behind but the memory of it. The company, I say, after the departure of the party from London, became almost immediately dull and out of spirits. The music alone was gay; many of the ladies lamented loudly that they had ever come to a place where the nightly gambling had played havoc with their husbands, fathers, or sons. They found out that the lodgings were cramped, dirty, ill-furnished, inconvenient, and exorbitant in their cost; that the provisions were dear; that they had already taken the waters for a month or more; and that, in effect, it was high time to go home. Besides, their own houses in the summer, the season of fruit and flowers, with their orchards and their gardens, were certainly more attractive than the narrow streets and the confined air of Lynn. Therefore, some making this excuse and some that, they all with one consent began to pack up their baggage and to go home. The departure of our friends from London took place in the middle of June; by the end of June the season was over--the visitors gone. At first the people expected new arrivals, but there were none--the season was over. The market-place for a while was crowded with the women who brought their poultry and fruit and provisions from the country. When they found that no one came to buy, they gradually ceased to appear. Great was the lamentation over the abundance which was wasted, and the produce of their gardens doomed to ripen and to rot. Then the strolling players put their dresses and properties into a waggon and went away complaining that they were half starved, which was, I dare say, the simple truth. Next, all the show folk and the quacks, and the Cheap Jacks and tumblers and Tom Fools went away too, and the gipsies brought in no more horses, and the streets became once more silent and deserted, save on the quays and on the river, just as they had been before the spa was opened. And then the music and the horns were sent away; the master of the ceremonies received his salary and went back to Norwich; the gardens were closed; the dippers vanished; the pump room was left for any who chose to dip and draw for themselves; the hairdressers, milliners, vendors of cosmetics, powders, paint, and patches all vanished as by magic; the coffee houses were closed; the bookseller carried his books back to Cambridge or wherever he came from; the confectioner left off making his famous cakes; and the morning prayers were once more read to a congregation of one or two. The townsfolk, then, having nothing else to do, began to count their gains. The doctor, you remember, prophesied at the outset that all would become rich. What happened was that everybody had made large gains. The takings of the shops had been far greater than they had at any previous time hoped for or experienced. On the other hand the shopkeepers had laid in large and valuable stocks which now seemed likely to remain on their hands. Moreover, as always happens, the temporary prosperity had been taken for a continuing, or even an increasing prosperity, with the consequence that the people had launched out into an extravagant way of living, the smallest shopkeeper demanding mutton and beef instead of the fat pork and hot milk which had formerly been counted a good dinner, drinking the wine of Lisbon and Madeira where he formerly drank small ale, and even taking his dish of tea in the afternoon for the good of his megrims and the clearance of his ill humours. Oh! but the next year would bring another flood of fortune; they could wait. Therefore they passed the winter in such habits of profuseness as I have indicated. Spring arrived, and they began to furbish their lodgings anew and to look to their stores and stocks. The month of May brought warmth and sunshine, but it did not bring the expected company. May passed; June passed. To the unspeakable consternation of the town, no visitors came at all--none. With one consent all stayed at home or went elsewhere. I have never heard any explanation of this remarkable falling off. That is to say, there were many reasons offered, but none that seemed sufficient. Thus, the ladies of Norfolk had taken a holiday which was costly and could not be repeated every year. It was like a visit to London, which is made once in a life and is talked about for the rest of that life. Or the losses of the gentlemen at the gaming table frightened them; they would not again be led into temptation; or the grand invention of Sam Semple had to be blown upon; or the rheumatic and the gouty who had taken the waters now found that they were in no way the better; or the scandal of those conspirators in high rank drove people away--indeed, such an exposure could do no good to any place of resort. There were, therefore, after the event, many explanations offered, and every one may choose for himself. It is, however, certain that no visitors came; that the pump room was deserted, save for the few people of the town; that there was no need to engage music or to provide provisions or do anything, for no one came. The spa had enjoyed its brief hour of popularity, and was now dead. This was a blow to the town, from which it was slow, indeed, to recover. Many of the shopkeepers were unable to pay their rents or to sell their stocks. Simplicity of manners returned with the fat pork and the hot milk; and as for the promised accession of wealth, I believe that the spa left our people poorer than it found them. I have been told that this has been the fate of many spas. First there is a blind belief in the sovereign virtue of the well; at the outset the place is crowded with visitors; there is every kind of amusement and pleasure; then this confidence becomes less and presently vanishes altogether, and is transferred to some other well. As faith decays so the company grows thinner and less distinguished. There was formerly, I believe, a fashionable spa near London, at a place called Hampstead. This spa had such a rise, such a period of prosperity, and such a fall. Another spa which also rose, flourished and then decayed and is now deserted, was the spa of Epsom, a village some miles south of London. These places, however, lasted more than a single season. Our spa lived but for two or three short months and then passed away. To be sure it was a pretence and a sham from the outset, but people did not know its origin; Sam Semple, its sole creator, remained unknown and unsuspected. I know not, I say, how the belief in the doctor's well came so suddenly to an end. I do know, however, that the disappointment of the doctor, and, with him, all who let lodgings, kept taverns, provided victuals, and sold things of any kind, was very bitter when the next spring brought no company. They waited, I say, expectant, all through the summer. When it became quite certain that the spa was really dead, they began sorrowfully to pull down the rooms and to take away the fence, and they left the gardens to weeds and decay. And then the town relapsed once more into its former, and present, condition. That is to say, it became again unknown to the fashionable world; the gentry of Norfolk resorted to Norwich again; they forgot that they once came to Lynn; the place lies in a corner with the reclaimed marshes on either hand; it is inaccessible except to those whose business takes them there; travellers do not visit the town; it is not like Harwich, or Dover, or Hull, a place which carries on communication by packet with foreign countries; it is a town shrunken within its former limits, its courts encumbered with deserted and ruinous houses, its streets quiet and silent. Yet it is prosperous in a quiet way; it has its foreign trade, its port, and its shipping; its merchants are substantial; the life which they lead is monotonous, but they do not feel the monotony. Except for an occasional riot among drunken sailors there is no work for the justices of the peace, and no occupants of the prison. At least we have no great lady using her charms, her gracious smiles, her rank in order to lure our young men to their destruction; we have no profligate parsons; we have no noble lords parading in the borrowed plumes of saint and confessor. CHAPTER XXXVIII THE OPINION OF COUNSEL Meantime we waited expectant, and in uncertainty. It was possible that the pretended husband would withdraw his claims and that nothing more would be heard of him. It was possible, I say, if we supposed the pretender capable of honour, shame, or of pride, that he would say, in so many words: "You deny the marriage; very well, I will not claim a wife who says that she is no wife." It was, however, far more probable that he would claim his wife and exercise his rights over her property. What should then be done? The subject exercised the "Society" greatly; every evening the situation was considered from all possible points of view, and always as to the best manner of protecting Molly. It was at this time that the vicar wrote out the statement which he afterwards laid before counsel in London in order to obtain an opinion on its legal aspect. The case drawn up by him was as follows: 1. There was a betrothal between the two parties A. (standing for Lord Fylingdale) and B. (standing for Molly). 2. It is not denied that a private marriage had been agreed upon by both parties. 3. The marriage was to take place on a certain morning at the time of six at a certain church. B. undertook to wear a certain pink silk cloak with a hood drawn over her head, and a domino to conceal her face, so that the people of the town should not recognise her and crowd into the church. 4. At the appointed hour of six A. presented himself at the church. 5. At the same hour a woman also presented herself dressed as had been arranged, wearing a domino to prevent recognition in the street, and a cloak of pink silk with a hood. 6. The marriage ceremony was performed by a clergyman in due form and on the production of a licence by A. 7. The marriage was duly entered in the register and signed, the woman signing in the name of B. 8. There was present at the wedding, besides the clergyman, the parish clerk, who gave away the bride, read the responses, and signed as witness. 9. Part of the ceremony, including the essential words, was witnessed by one John Pentecrosse, mate of _The Lady of Lynn_. 10. Since A. had no reason to suppose that B. would not keep her promise, it would seem impossible for him to have found at the last moment some other woman to personate B. This was the case for A., put as strongly and as plainly as possible. I confess that when I read it I was staggered by the case--especially that of the last clause. Certainly, as I had not delivered Molly's letter, A. had no reason for supposing that B. would fail to keep her promise, and therefore no reason for suborning some other woman into a conspiracy. However, then followed Molly's case. 1. She had accepted A.'s offer of marriage. 2. She had promised to meet A. at 6 A.M. 3. She had received the evening before this promise was to be kept information which represented A. in a light that made it impossible for a virtuous woman to marry him. 4. This information was embodied in three letters addressed respectively to the vicar, to the schoolmaster and to Captain Crowle. They can be produced on evidence. 5. On receipt of this information she wrote a letter to A. stating that she must have full explanation as to the charges brought against him before proceeding further in the business. 6. This letter was not delivered, the bearer having his mind full of other points connected with the affair. 7. At half-past five B. left her room and joined her mother in certain household work. Nor did she leave her mother during the morning. This fact is attested by the mother and a certain black woman, B.'s servant. 8. The only way out of the house into the street is by the garden. Captain Crowle was walking in the garden from half-past five till seven and saw no one leave the house. 9. At seven or thereabouts the musicians, with the butchers, arrived to congratulate the bride, and were sent away by Captain Crowle. 10. Later on, A.'s secretary arrived with a message from A. He was informed by B. that no marriage had taken place. 11. Captain Crowle then waited on A. and demanded explanation. He received answer that having married the lady, A. was not called upon to give any explanations. 12. In the evening, before the whole company at the assembly, the vicar charged A. with many acts unworthy of a man of honour, and, among other things, with having conspired with a woman unknown to personate B., and to set up the pretence of a marriage. Opinion was asked as to the position of B. Would she be considered in the eyes of the law as a married woman? Had A. any rights over her or over her property? Could she marry another man? What steps should she take to protect herself and her property? Observe, that unless B. could be declared not to be the wife of A. she could not alienate, give away, or part with any of her property; she could not marry; she was doomed to be a wife at the mercy of a man more pitiless than a tiger, yet not a wife, for she would die rather than marry him. She must wait until heaven should take pity upon her and despatch this man. Such men, it is observed, do never live long, but they may live long enough to inflict irreparable mischief upon their unfortunate victims. Molly read the case thus drawn up very carefully. "My only trust," she said, "is in the evidence of mother and Nigra. I confess that I cannot understand how, without knowing that I should fail, he could possibly procure that woman to personate me. Has he the power of working miracles?" "There is no miracle here," I said, "except the miracle of wickedness greater than would be thought possible. Patience, Molly! Sooner or later we shall find it out." "It will be later, I fear." "There are three at least in the plot. The clerk has been deceived; Sam Semple has not been consulted. These are the three--Lord Fylingdale, the parson, who is, doubtless, well paid for his villainy, and the woman, whoever she may be. We shall find out the truth through the woman." "Since his marriage would give him the command of my property, Jack, and since he was ruined, why does he make no sign?" This was a week or two after the event. I suppose that Lord Fylingdale was making himself assured as to the strength of his position and his rights. However, we were not to wait very long. "I am of opinion," said the vicar, after many discussions on the case thus drawn out, "that we should lay the facts before some counsel learned in the law, and ascertain our position. If we are to contest the claim in court, we have, at least, the money to spend upon it." "We will spend," said the captain, "our last penny upon it." He meant the last penny of his ward's fortune, in which, as you will hear, he was quite wrong, because he had now no power to spend any of it. It was, therefore, determined that the vicar should undertake the journey to London; that my father should accompany him; that they should not only obtain the advice and opinion of a lawyer, but that they should ascertain, through the bookseller, my father's cousin, or any other person, what they could concerning the private life of his lordship. "There is no saying what we may discover," said the vicar. "How, if there is another wife still living? Even a noble lord cannot have two wives at the same time." It seems strange that one must make greater preparations for a journey to London by land than a voyage to Lisbon by sea. As regards the latter, my kit is put together in an hour or two, and I am then ready to embark. But as regards the former, these two travellers first considered the easiest way; then the cost of the journey, and that of their stay in London; then the departure of others, so as to form a company against highway robbers; they then arranged for the halting and resting-places; hired their horses, for they were to ride all the way; engaged a servant; made their wills, and so at last were ready to begin the journey. Their company consisted of two or three riders to merchants of London, who travel all over the country visiting the shop-keepers in the interests of their masters. They are excellent fellow-travellers, being accustomed to the road, having no fear of highwaymen, knowing the proper charges that should be made at the roadside inns, and knowing, as well, what each house can be best trusted to provide, the home brewed ale being good at one house, and the wine at another--and so forth. They reckoned five days for the journey if the weather continued fine--it was then July, and the height of summer. The vicar thought that perhaps a week or ten days would suffice for their business in town, and therefore we might expect them back in three weeks. Captain Crowle would have gone with them, but was fearful of losing his ward. For the first time in his life he barred and bolted his doors at night, and if he went abroad he left his house in the custody of his gardener, a stout country lad who would make a sturdy fight in case of any attempt at violence. But violence was not a weapon which was in favour with his lordship. And if it had been, the whole town would have risen in defence of Molly. For three weeks, therefore, we waited. I, for my part, in greater anxiety than the rest, because my ship had now received her cargo, and I feared that we should have to weigh anchor and slip down the river before the return of our messengers. And at this time when we knew not what would happen or what we should do many wild schemes came into my head. We would carry the girl away; we would foreclose her mortgages, sell her lands, and carry her fortune with her; we would sail in one of her own ships across the Atlantic and make a new home for her in the American colonies. However, in the end we had, as you shall learn, to accept misfortune and to resign ourselves to what promised to be a lifelong penalty inflicted for no sins of Molly's--who was as free from sin as any woman, not a saint, can hope to be--but by the wickedness of a man whose life and ways were far removed from Molly, and might have been supposed to be incapable of afflicting her in any way. Our friends, therefore, started on their journey, arriving in due time at London, when they began their business without delay. Briefly, they were recommended to a very learned counsel, old, and in great practice, whose opinions were more highly valued than those perhaps of any other lawyer. He was avaricious, and it was necessary to pay him a very handsome fee before he would consider the case. When he accepted the fee he gave it his most careful consideration. His opinion was as follows: "The fact that there was a marriage between A. and some woman--B. or another--is undoubted. The evidence of the parish clerk may be set aside except to prove this fact, because it does not appear that the bride removed her domino. It might, however, become a part of B.'s case that the clergyman did not witness the removal of the domino. What the clerk saw was a woman dressed in a pink silk cloak with a hood over her head, and a domino concealing her face, who signed the name of Mary Miller. For the same reason the evidence of John Pentecrosse rests only on the dress of the bride, and may therefore be taken as worth that and no more. "At the same time the dress of the bride is important. A. had no intimation of B.'s refusal to keep her promise. At six o'clock, as is allowed, he presented himself. If B. was not there, how should he be able, at a moment's notice, to procure a woman to personate her, wearing a cloak of the same colour as B.'s, and ready to sign her name falsely? The theory is impossible, for it demands a whole chain of fortuitous occurrences and coincidences, as that A. should find a woman of abandoned character accidentally near the church, ready to commit this crime, dressed as B. was expected to dress, and considered worthy of trust with so great a secret. On the other hand we have evidences of an apparently conclusive kind. B.'s guardian, who was taking the morning air in his garden, says positively that no one left the house. B.'s mother and her black servant declare that B. was in the kitchen with them all the morning. This, I say, seems at first conclusive. But the court would probably hold that a mother's evidence is likely to be in the supposed interests of her child, while a negress would be expected, if she were attached to her mistress, to give any evidence that she thought likely to be of service or was directed to give. "The case is remarkable, and, so far as I know, without precedent. It is supported on either side by flat assertions which are either true or deliberate perjuries. As regards the bad character of A., I think it would have very little weight. Setting aside, that is, his evil reputation, which might perhaps taint his evidence, and also setting aside the partiality of a mother, which might also, perhaps, taint her evidence, we have the broad and simple facts that A. had no warning of B.'s intention to keep away; that he presented himself according to arrangement; that he was met by a woman dressed exactly as had been arranged with B.; that they were married; and that the register was signed by the woman in the name of B. "I am of opinion, therefore, that if this case is brought into court there will be pleadings on either side of great interest, and that the court will decide in favour of A.; that if the case goes up for appeal it will again be decided in favour of A.; and that if the case were taken up to the lords that court would also decide in favour of A. "If action is taken it must be at the cost and charge of the guardian, because the lady's property, in default of settlements, would, in the event which I think probable, fall into the hands of A. thus adjudged to be her husband. "I advise, therefore, that submission be made to A.; that even though B. continues to deny the marriage, A. shall be invited to make her a suitable provision and shall undertake not to molest her or to compel her to leave her guardian and to live with him." With this opinion to guide him, the vicar wrote to Lord Fylingdale asking for an interview. He was received with a show of cold politeness. "You have given me reason, sir, to remember your face. However, I pass over the injuries which you allowed yourself to utter. You are come, I presume, in the name of my unfortunate wife, who, for some reason unknown to me, denies her own marriage. Well, sir, your message?" "My message, my lord, is briefly this. We have taken counsel's opinion on this business." "So have I." "It is, on the whole, to the effect that if we dispute your lordship's claims we shall probably lose." "My own counsel is also of that opinion." "For my own part I shall advise my friends to accept what seems impossible to deny." "You will do well. I shall be pleased, I confess, to see the business settled without taking it into court." "I should like, if possible, to carry home with me some concessions of your lordship in response to this submission." "What concessions? It seems to me that the countess has no right to insist upon any concession. The whole of her property, as you know, is my own." "I fear that is the case." "I shall probably make certain changes in the administration of the property, now my property. I shall relieve the worthy captain of its control. As regards any other point you must acknowledge that you have treated me with insults intolerable; you are not in a position to make terms. But what do you ask?" "First, freedom from personal molestation." "That is granted at once. You may tell the countess that on no consideration will I see her, nor shall I exercise any marital rights. When she consents to confess her falsehood, and to ask pardon for her offences, I may perhaps extend my personal protection, not otherwise." "As for her allowance--her maintenance?" "Your reverence is not serious. She says that she is not my wife. The law says, or, is prepared to say, that she is. By the law I am compelled to maintain her. Let her, therefore, invoke the intervention of the law. To procure this she will have to confess her many perjuries. Till then, nothing. Do you understand, sir? Nothing." CHAPTER XXXIX THE FRUITS OF SUBMISSION "Molly, my dear." The captain's voice was broken. "It is my doing--mine. I am an old fool. Yet I thought I was doing the best for you." "Nay," said Molly. "It is no one's fault. It is my great misfortune." "Must he take all?" asked the captain. "He will take all he can claim," the vicar answered. "Revenge, as well as cupidity, is in his mind. I read it through the cold masque of pride with which he covers his face and tries to conceal himself. He will be revenged. He is like unto Lucifer for pride, and unto Belial for wickedness. Molly, my dear, I fear thou wilt soon be poor indeed in worldly goods. The Lord knoweth what is best. He leaveth thee, still, the friends who love thee." The mother resumed the lamentations which she never ceased. "Molly is a widow who cannot marry again--Molly is a wife without a husband. Oh, Molly! My poor Molly!" "It grieves me sore," said the vicar, "to counsel submission. Yet what could we do? How can we explain this great mystery that he who knew not your change of purpose should in a moment be able to substitute, in your place, at the hour fixed, a woman dressed and masked as had been arranged? There is no explanation possible, and I understand very clearly that this fact outweighs all the evidence on either side. There is nothing to be done. We must submit, saving only your personal freedom, Molly. The man confesses that he has no wish to molest you, and nothing to gain by any molestation. To be sure, without it he can take what he pleases. Your presence, indeed, would be a hindrance and a reproach to his mode of life." So we talked together, with sadness and heaviness. Yet for one thing I was well pleased; that Molly had not been forced into daily companionship with this man. For that would have killed her--body and soul, if a soul can be destroyed by despair and misery, and cruelty. "Courage, Molly!" We were on the point of weighing anchor--and we stood on the quay to say farewell. "Things will get right, somehow. Oh! I know they will. I cannot tell how I know. Perhaps we shall find the woman. Then we shall explain the mystery and expose the cheat. Perhaps--but we know not what may happen. As for your fortune, Molly, that is as good as gone; but you yourself remain, and you are far more precious than all the gold and silver in the land." [Illustration: "YOU ARE FAR MORE PRECIOUS THAN ALL THE GOLD AND SILVER IN THE LAND."] So we parted and for five months, until our return, I knew nothing of what was done. You may easily guess what was done. First of all, a letter came from London. It was addressed to Captain Crowle, and it called upon him to prepare the books and accounts connected with the estate of Mary, Countess of Fylingdale, for the information of the Right Honourable the Earl of Fylingdale. It was written by an attorney, and it announced the intention of the writer to send down a person--one, Stephen Bisse, attorney-at-law--duly authorised to examine and to audit the accounts, and to make known his lordship's intentions as regards the administration of the estate. The captain, ignorant of the law, took the letter to the vicar for advice. "This," said the latter, "may be simply a first step to taking over the whole of the property, or it may be the first step towards a system of revenge and persecution. For if the attorney who comes here to investigate the accounts finds anything irregular, we may be trapped into legal expenses, and heaven knows, what to follow." The captain, however, had not commanded a ship in vain; for the commanding officer of a ship must keep the log and all the papers connected with the cargo, lading, and unlading, pay of the ship's company, port dues, and everything. He must, in a word, be as methodical in his accounts as any quill driver ashore. "He may examine my accounts as much as he pleases," he declared. "They are all right." "Nevertheless, friend, be advised. Place the whole business in the hands of one who knows the law. In the end it may be far cheaper." In every port there must be one or more persons skilled in that part of the law which concerns trade and commerce, imports and exports, customs, excise, and harbour dues. At Lynn there was such an one, attorney and notary; a man of great probity and responsibility--Mr. Nathaniel Redman by name. To him the captain entrusted the papers of the estate. These papers, which had been accumulating for eighteen years, and represented the increase and the administration of a very large estate, were now voluminous to the highest degree. The mere perusal of them would entail the labour of many attorneys for many weeks, while the audit of the whole, bit by bit, would engage the same persons many months, or even years. "The Earl of Fylingdale will have the accounts audited, will he?" said Mr. Redman. "Then his lordship is in no immediate want of money." "Why? Cannot he take what he wants?" "Sir, you are the lady's guardian; you have to be released from your trust before you hand over the property. Without such a release you will keep the whole. That means, that his lordship must wait for the long and tedious business of a complete audit. I say long and tedious, because, if the examination of accounts is undertaken in a spirit of hostility, we can raise in our turn objection after objection by going back to the commencement of the trust. In other words, captain, if your papers are all preserved, which I doubt not, we shall be in a position to delay the acquisition of the estate by the earl almost indefinitely." "But at whose charge?" asked the vicar. "For the captain has no means of paying heavy expenses." "At the charge of the estate. Oh! sir, do not think that an attorney of London, to say nothing of myself, would embark upon so large a business save at the charge of the estate itself." "It is, then, in your interest to prolong this examination into the accounts?" "It is, most certainly, in the interest of this gentleman from London and of myself; but," he sighed heavily, "if all reports are true, I do not believe that Lord Fylingdale will prolong the inquiry." The person who was promised presently arrived with his credentials. He was quite a young man, apparently about two or three and twenty; his letter to Captain Crowle described him as an attorney-at-law. He was quick of speech and of the greatest possible assurance in manner. In appearance he was small of stature, pasty-faced, and with a turned-up nose, the possession of which should be regarded by the owner as a misfortune and personal defect, like a round back. It is said, on the other hand, to be an indication of great self-conceit. He came, therefore, was set down at the "Crown," and inquired for the residence of Captain Crowle, on whom he called without delay. The captain received him in his summerhouse. He read the letter, introducing and describing him. Then he laid it down and looked at his visitor cursorily. "Oh!" he said, "you are the attorney of Lord Fylingdale, are you, and you want to make an audit of my accounts? You've come all the way from London on purpose to make that audit, have you? Well, sir, you will carry this letter to Mr. Nathaniel Redman, and you will give it to him." "Who is Mr. Redman? I know of no Redman in this business." "He is an attorney-at-law, like yourself, young man, and he is a notary, and this job is turned over to him." "Oh! I understood, Captain Crowle, that I should confer with you personally." "Did you so? Well, sir, if you will see Mr. Redman you can confer with him instead. The job is his." The captain, in fact, had been warned not to make any communications or to hold any conversation with the attorney. He felt himself only safe, therefore, in repeating that the job was Mr. Redman's. "We may, however, come to some preliminary, Captain Crowle. The estate now----" The captain waved his hand in the direction of the garden door. "The job, young man, is Mr. Redman's. There is your letter. Take it to him." Mr. Bisse accordingly retired and repaired to the office and residence of Mr. Redman--to whom he gave his letter. "We shall have no difficulties, I presume," he said. "I hope not." "Of course, I know the law in these matters--I can direct you----" "Young gentleman"--Mr. Redman was well stricken in years--"I could direct your father. But go on. You will proceed in accordance with your powers. I shall take good care that you keep within your powers. Now, sir, what do you propose?" Mr. Redman spoke from the commanding position of an armchair before a large table; he was also a large and imposing man to look at while Mr. Bisse stood before him, small and insignificant, his original impudence fast deserting him. As for Mr. Redman, his professional pride was aroused; this young Skip Jack dared to direct _him_ in matters of law, did he? "I am, I confess," said Mr. Bisse, "disappointed to find that my noble client's advances are received with suspicion. I hoped that Captain Crowle would have met me in a spirit of confidence." "Come, sir, between ourselves what has your noble client to complain of? He sends an attorney here. Captain Crowle meets him in the person of an attorney." "Well, it matters not. Captain Crowle has, no doubt, reasons of his own for his action. We must, however, since we are men of business as you say, demand an exact audit. The interests involved are, I understand, very considerable?" "They are very considerable." "I shall, however, ask for an advance of ten thousand pounds to be made to his lordship on account." "An advance? The guardian to advance money before you have audited the accounts? My dear sir, are you serious?" "You admit that there will be a great deal more than £10,000." "I admit nothing that is not proved." "Then you refuse to give my client anything?" His air of assurance began to desert him. In fact, he had been especially charged to open the proceedings by demanding such an advance. "We refuse to do anything illegal. The papers will show the extent and the nature of the estate. You can then claim the whole. But you must first send in your claim and be prepared with the release." Mr. Bisse hesitated. "My instructions are to demand a strict scrutiny of all the accounts." "They are waiting for you. Would you like to see the papers?" Mr. Redman led him into an adjoining room where on shelves and on the tables the books and papers were laid out in order--tied up and labelled. "My clerk," said Mr. Redman, "will go through these papers with you. I shall look on." "All these papers?" Mr. Bisse gazed with dismay upon the piles before him. "You will have to peruse, to examine, to pass every scrap of paper in this room. Captain Crowle, sir, is the most methodical man in the world." "All these papers? But it will take months." "Years, perhaps. You have your instructions." "Sir," said Mr. Bisse, crestfallen, "I must write to my principals for further instructions." "That will probably be your best course. Good-morning, sir." Mr. Bisse wrote accordingly. Meanwhile he made another attempt to assert his authority. He went to the quay, looked about him with satisfaction at the proofs and evidences of brisk trade, and entered the counting-house where the clerks were at work. "My name," he said pompously, "is Bisse, Mr. Stephen Bisse, attorney-at-law. I am here as attorney for the Right Honourable the Earl of Fylingdale." "What do you want?" asked the chief clerk. "You will at once show me your ledgers, your day books, and the books used by you in your daily business." "You must go to Mr. Redman, sir. His office is beside the customhouse. Without his permission we can do nothing for you." Mr. Redman had been before him, you see. "You refuse me, at your peril," said Mr. Bisse. "I am----" "You will go out of the counting-house, sir," said the chief clerk, "and you will leave the quay. We take our orders from Mr. Redman in place of Captain Crowle." So Mr. Bisse departed. He walked from the quay to the Common Stathe, and there, looking at the ships lying moored in the stream, he asked a waterman if by chance any of them belonged to Captain Crowle. The man pointed to one. "Then," said Mr. Bisse, "take me to that ship." Mr. Redman had been before him here as well. He climbed up the ladder and was about to step on the deck when the mate accosted him. "What is your business, friend?" he asked. Mr. Bisse replied as he had done in the counting-house. "Well, sir," said the mate, "you can't come aboard here. Strangers are not allowed aboard this ship without an order from Captain Crowle or Mr. Redman." So, Mr. Bisse had to go ashore again. He found, I fear, the town of Lynn inhospitable. In fact, everybody was in favour of Molly, and the name of Lord Fylingdale stank. No one would speak to him. He wandered about waiting for a reply to his letter asking for further instructions in a disconsolate and crestfallen spirit, very different from the confident assurance which he had shown on his arrival. His new instructions reached him in about ten days. Again he waited on Mr. Redman. "Well, sir?" asked the latter. "You are come to direct me in matters of law?" "I have received new instructions," the young man put the question aside, "from my principals. They are to the effect that if you will draw up for me a schedule of the whole estate, I am to forward it to London, and to receive orders thereupon as to what part of the accounts I must specially examine." "Sir, at the outset I refuse to accept anything but a general release. You will represent to your principals that every part of this complicated estate is involved with the whole transactions which precede it. That is to say, every purchase of a farm or a house has to be made by combined savings from every source of income, consequently, any special line of investigation will necessitate a wide and prolonged examination." "I perceive that you are determined to give us trouble." "Not so, sir. We are determined to resist persecution. Your instructions, if I understand them aright, were to fix upon Captain Crowle some difficulty, and, if possible, to accuse him of malversation." Mr. Bisse changed colour. That was, in fact, the secret instruction. "Now, sir, we have all our papers in order, and you will find it impossible, while I stand at your elbow, to discover or to invent a loophole. At the same time, I shall prolong the investigation if you once enter upon it as much as possible. You may inform your principals of this, and you will return as soon as you have further instructions." "Will you not, at least, prepare a schedule of the property?" "Certainly. You shall have this prepared in readiness for your next visit, which will be, I suppose, in another ten days. I hope you find your stay pleasant." "No, sir, it is not pleasant. At the inn the people are barely civil, and I am treated everywhere as if I were a Frenchman." "No; not a Frenchman, but the attorney of Lord Fylingdale." Mr. Redman addressed himself, therefore, with the aid of the captain, to the schedule. The estate was far greater than he had anticipated. "Why," he said, "you are surprised that a noble earl should marry this girl for her money. Had the world suspected the truth, there would have been an abduction every week." He then proceeded to go through the long list of lands, houses, mortgages, money lying idle, jewels, and everything. "The only charge upon the estate seems to be an annuity of £150 a year for the mother. What money have you taken for maintenance?" "Why, none." "None? Did the girl live on air? And what for your own services?" "Nothing; we lived rent free. It is Molly's own house; and her mother's money kept the household." "Well, but--captain--the thing is incredible. You have conducted the whole business from the death of Molly's father to the present day actually for nothing." "It was for the little maid." "Captain, you have acted, I dare say, for the best. But with submission, you have acted like a fool. However, it is not too late to remedy. I shall charge the estate, which will now become Lord Fylingdale's, with £300 a year, your salary for administering the estate and for managing the business. It will be impossible to refuse this claim, and I shall set down £150 a year for maintenance of your ward." The captain stared. Here was a turning of the tables, with a vengeance. "The claim is just, reasonable, and moderate. I shall not advance it as a thing to be objected to. You will, meantime, go through the accounts; take out £450 a year; this for eighteen years, would be £8,100; but the money must be considered as used for investments. You will therefore set apart £450 a year, and as soon as that amounts to a sufficient sum to be represented by an investment, you will set apart that piece of property as your own. This will represent a much larger sum than £8,100. Your ward will not, after all, be left penniless, if you bequeath her your money. Ha! the young man is going to direct _The Lady of Lynn_ in matters of law--ME, is he?" In fact the captain was so simple that it had never occurred to him that he could take a salary for his conduct of the business; or that he could ask for an allowance for the maintenance of his ward, and this timely discovery by the attorney in the end saved Molly from poverty and left her still, in comparison with most girls of the place or of the county, a very considerable heiress. When Mr. Bisse, a few days later, arrived with his instructions, he found drawn up for him a statement for the eighteen years of the captain's trusteeship. On the working side of the account was shown a charge of £150 a year as provided by the will of Molly's father for his widow for life; a similar sum for the maintenance of the ward, and a salary of £300 to Captain Crowle for managing the business in the name of the firm as shippers and general merchants. Mr. Stephen Bisse, by this time, had quite lost his assurance. He attempted no objections. "I suppose," he said, "you will allow me an inspection of the books." "Certainly. You will, however, find them difficult to make out. Are you acquainted with the routine work of a counting-house?" Mr. Bisse owned that he was not. "I shall be asked," he said, "if I have examined the books." "You shall examine what you please." Mr. Redman understood by this time the character of this young attorney. "The chief clerk of the counting-house shall be with you to answer any questions you please to ask." He had come to Lynn, you see, by order of his principals, instructed that the guardian was an old addle-headed sailor, whose accounts would certainly prove liable to question and very likely open to dispute and to claims; he was aware that the noble client desired nothing so much as to ruin this old sailor; that he was also in great necessities for want of money; and that he was anxious, for some reason unknown to his attorney that the question of the validity of the marriage should not be raised or tried in open court. But he had been met by a man of law and by accounts of a most complicated kind, and by the direct refusal to part with any money until a final release had been obtained for the guardian. He, therefore, referred to his principals twice. On the second occasion he was told that his lordship could not wait; that he was to guard against fraud by such an examination of the books as was possible; that he was to get rid of the guardian, grant the release if the accounts allowed him to do so, lay hands on all the monies available, and report progress. This, in short, he did. The amended schedule reserved property amounting in value to £450 a year as invested year after year, and therefore at something like compound interest, so that this deduction gave the captain personal and real property representing some £12,000. The rest was acknowledged to be the property of the ward, and therefore, assuming the marriage to be valid, under the control of my Lord Fylingdale. The auditor went to the counting-house and called for the books. He opened one or two at random; he looked wise; he made a note or two, for show; he asked a question or two, for pretence, and he went away. This done, he repaired to Mr. Redman's office again and tendered a full release to Captain Crowle for his trusteeship. The document, in which Molly was called by her maiden name, and not by that of the Countess of Fylingdale, when it was signed and sealed, rendered the old man free of any persecution; but it left the estate entirely in the hands of the pretended husband. "You are aware, sir, of course," said Mr. Bisse, "that this release accepted by Captain Crowle, also accepts the truth of my client's statements as regards his marriage." "We are not going to dispute the fact. We have our opinion, but the weight of evidence and presumption is against us. As his lordship only wants the fortune he can take it. May I ask what you are instructed to do about it?" "My instructions are first to receive all monies in hand, save what is wanted for current expenses in conducting the business." "You will see what Captain Crowle has in his strong room. You can take that money to-day if you please." "And next, all the jewels, gold chains, bracelets, etc., belonging to the countess." "You can have them also." "As regards the lands, houses, mortgages, and the business, my lord will consider what is best to be done. I am directed to find some person of integrity in the place who will receive the rents and carry on the business. I fear I cannot ask for your assistance." "You can, and may. It is still our interest that the affairs of the firm shall be well managed. The chief clerk in the counting-house is the best man you can appoint. He now receives £90 a year. You can give him what the captain had, £300." "I do not know how long the arrangement will last." "You mean that your client will probably waste and squander the whole." "I desire to speak of that nobleman with respect. He is, however, in expenditure even more profuse than becomes his high rank." Molly shed no tears over the loss of her jewels. She brought the box down with her own hands; she opened it, took out the contents to be verified by the inventory, shut and locked it, and gave the attorney the key. The captain led him downstairs to the cellar, in a wall of which a cupboard had been constructed, which, with a stone in front, removable with a little trouble, formed a strong room. Here were the boxes of guineas waiting to be invested or employed. I know not how many there were, but Mr. Bisse carried all away with him. When he departed the next day for London he was escorted by four stout fellows armed with cudgels and pistols riding beside his post-chaise. However, he reached London in safety and delivered his prize. "I wonder," said Mr. Redman, "how long it will be before instructions come for the foreclosing of the mortgages and the sale of the property." "I am doubtful after all," said the vicar, who always doubted because he always saw both sides of the question, "whether we have done rightly. We could have made a good fight, and we could have proved, at least, that Lord Fylingdale was in desperate straits for money." "Jack was right," said Molly. "Nothing can be done until we find the other woman." CHAPTER XL ON MY RETURN These things happened soon after my departure. When six months later I returned home I found that many things had followed. First of all, the chief clerk, promoted to the management of the estate under orders from London, found himself in no enviable position. He was called upon to send up money week after week--my lord wanted a hundred--five hundred--one knows not what, and must have it without delay. If there was no money, then all outstanding accounts must be collected, mortgages must be foreclosed; but where credit has been allowed it is not possible to collect accounts suddenly, nor can mortgages be foreclosed without due notice given. Then the houses must be sold; but in a place like Lynn, which has more houses than it can fill, it is not easy to sell a house, and the price which can be obtained is small indeed compared with the value of houses in London. Then farms and lands must be sold. But who was there to buy them? Then came letters of rebuke, answered by letters of remonstrance. Money must be raised somehow; money had been advanced on the security of Molly's property; my lord was in difficulties. It is almost incredible that a man should be able in so short a time to waste and dissipate so large a sum of money. When we returned, and I went ashore, the first person I saw was the unfortunate chief clerk, promoted to be manager. "Mr. Pentecrosse," he said, "little did I think when I was put into this charge at a yearly salary of £300--more than ever I hoped or dreamed of getting--what a peck of trouble was waiting for me. Little did I understand, sir, how the great live; with what profusion, with what extravagance! As for that poor young lady--heaven help her, for her property is vanishing fast! Soon there will be none. I have no right to talk of my employer's affairs; but you know what has happened." "In a word, Lord Fylingdale is getting through Molly's property." "Worse than that; he is throwing it away. Sir, I wake in the night with dreams of terror. I think I see a man plunging his hands into a sack of gold and throwing it about with both hands. I have been ordered to foreclose mortgages, to sell houses, to sell farms, to sell everything. When I cannot find a purchaser there come letters from my lord's attorneys, Bisse and Son--the young man was here himself with peremptory orders to find a purchaser--any purchaser. Money must be had." "Well, there will be, I suppose, an end some time or other." "The end will come before we look for it. Because, Mr. Pentecrosse, while the profusion goes on the estate grows less, and it becomes more difficult every day to answer their demands." "What is left?" "I hear that Miss Molly's jewels were carried away by the young man. I hope he was honest, and kept none for himself. I know that the captain had a large sum of money in his strong room waiting for a mortgage; that went away with the young man. Since then I have sent up all the money as it came in. I have foreclosed the mortgages. Some of the mortgagors could not pay, and are now bankrupt. The captain would never press his people so long as they paid the interest. I have been able to sell some of the farms; but you know this country, Mr. Pentecrosse; there is not much money among the gentry of these parts; they have been sold at a sacrifice; I have others in the market; there are houses, also, but no one will buy them. Well, all will soon be gone. Then there will remain but one asset out of all the magnificent property of the work of three generations. Miss Molly's grandfather, and her father, and herself by means of the captain--only one asset." "What is that?" "And soon that will go, too," he replied with a hollow groan. "Sir, it is the noble fleet and the great business which belongs to the fleet. If the ships are sold----" Suddenly I remembered my lord's question on board _The Lady of Lynn_. "Can," he asked, "a ship be sold like an estate of land?" "They will be sold," I said, confidently. "You may look to have them sold as soon as the other assets are expended. The last thing to be sold will be the fleet of ships, and the business which belongs to the ships." "And what will become of me?" "Why," I said, "somebody must manage the business. Why not you, since you have been all your life in it, and know what it means and how it is conducted? But who will buy it?" "Not all the merchants of Lynn together could find the money to buy these ships and to carry on this business. No, sir, the whole must go to strangers." I left him, having given him the ship's papers, and went on to see the captain and Molly. "Jack," she said, ruefully, "you promised when you went away that there would be a change. None has come, except a change for the worse. But that we expected." "In other words, Jack," the captain explained, "everything that happens must happen before very long, or there will be nothing left. My lord is spending at such a rate as no fortune could stand. What does he mean? When it is gone will he find another Molly and marry her for her money? There is not in all the land another Molly--not even for her good looks, let alone her fortune." As for good looks, her misfortunes had only improved poor Molly's face which was now of a more pensive cast and had lost some of its youthful joyousness. To be sure she had little to make her joyous. I observed, and I understood, that she was dressed with the utmost simplicity, like a farmer's daughter. For, outside, the people spoke of her as the countess, even while they accepted her story and did not allow her to be married. She would, at least, present no external sign of the rank which she denied. "How does the man spend all this money?" I asked. "Thank heaven, Jack, a plain person, like you and me, cannot answer that question. How does he spend that money? Who knows? He has had, since he began, six months ago, a great many thousands. If he has sold the jewels he has had I know not how many more, and still the same cry--'send more money--send more money, my lord wants more money without delay.' As for that poor man, lately my clerk, he is driven like a slave and bullied like a raw recruit. He wrings his hands. 'What shall I do, captain?' he asks. 'What shall I do? Whither shall I turn?'" Then there came into my head the thought that I might somehow, by going to London find out what manner of life was led by my lord and in what ways he wasted and scattered Molly's substance. I could do nothing to stop or to hinder the waste; yet when one knows the truth it is generally more tolerable than the uncertainty--the truth is an open enemy which one can see and avoid, or submit to, or fight; the unknown is an unknown and an unseen enemy who may attack from any quarter and by any weapon. I thought over the plan for some days; it assumed clearer shape; it became a purpose. Molly, for her part, neither approved nor disapproved. She was for letting the man, who pretended to be her husband, work his wicked will and do what he pleased, provided that he left her in peace. How was a simple sailor to find out the daily life of a great lord? The backstairs one would not choose; but what other way was there? I laid the matter before my father and the vicar. "I know not," said the latter, "that we can do much good by learning the truth, even if we ascertain all the particulars of the man's life from his very companions, but you might satisfy us on certain points. For instance, about that mysterious woman. I know not how you can find out anything, but you might possibly chance upon a clue." "Go," said my father, "to my cousin, the bookseller. He found out something about Lord Fylingdale's character. He might find out more. You can at least explain what you want and why." The end of it was that I went to London, riding with a small company, and meeting with no adventures on the way; that I put up at one of the inns outside Bishopsgate, and that I found out my cousin and put the whole case before him. He was a grave and responsible citizen, a churchwarden, and of good standing in the Stationers' company. "You want to know how Lord Fylingdale spends his money. I suppose there are but two or three ways; of profligates, I take it, there are only a few varieties; one games; another rakes; a third surrounds himself with companions who flatter him and strip him. The first two are possessed of devils; the third is a fool. I do not imagine that my Lord Fylingdale is a fool, but you will probably find that he is possessed of both the other devils, and perhaps more." "But how am I to find out?" "Why, cousin, I think I know a young fellow who can help you in this business." "Who is he? How shall I approach him?" "He is a gentleman who lives by his wits; not one of the ragged poets who haunt our shops with offers and projects and entreat work at a guinea a sheet. No; he is a gentleman, and a wit; his father was a general in the army; his cousin is a noble lord; he is received into the houses of the great when he chooses to go. He works for the theatre, and has composed several pieces said to be ingenious. As for his acquaintance with me, I would have you to understand that with two or three other booksellers we bring out a weekly essay like those of the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_, which, of course, you know." "I never heard of them." The bookseller smiled with compassion. "To be sure; at sea there are no books. Well, cousin, this young gentleman sometimes, when he is in the humour, will write me an essay in the true vein of an Addison. I will speak with him. If any one can, he can do your business for you." It was by the kind offices of this gentleman, whom I found to be a person of quick wit and ready understanding, besides being of a most obliging disposition, that I was enabled to see, with my own eyes, an evening such as my lord loved. As for the details, you must, if you please, hold me excused. Let it suffice that our observations began at a gaming house and ended at a tavern. At both places I kept in the background, because I would not be recognised by Lord Fylingdale. He came into the gaming table with the same lofty, cold carriage which he had shown at our humble assembly. He advanced to the table; he began to play; no one could tell from his lordship's face whether he lost or won; in half an hour or so my friend returned to my corner. "He has lost a cool five hundred. They are whispering round the table that he loses hundreds every evening. All the world are asking what gold mine he possesses that he can stand these losses?" "I know his gold mine," I replied, with a sigh. "But it is nearly exhausted." We stayed a little longer. It was about ten or eleven in the evening that his lordship left the table. "Come," said my friend. "I know the tavern where he will spend the next three or four hours. I can take you there. The bowls of punch and the company and everything are provided at his lordship's expense. Mr. Pentecrosse, it must be not a gold mine, but a mine of Golconda, to bear this profusion." "I tell you, sir, whatever it is, the mine is nearly run out." "It will not be bad for the morals of the town when it has quite run out." As regards the tavern and its company it is, indeed, astonishing to me that any man should find pleasure in such a company and in such discourse. At the head of the table sat my lord. He appeared to be neither pleased nor displeased; the drink flowed like a stream of running water; it seized on all and made their faces red, their voices thick; the noble leader sat unmoved, or, if moved at all, then by a kind of contempt. At two o'clock he rose and walked out into the street, where his chair awaited him. "This is his humour," said my guide. "Play is his passion; it is the one thing that he lives for; he has wasted and ruined his own estate, which will be transmitted to his successor as bare as the back of my hand; and now he is wasting the wealth of Potosi and the diamonds of Golconda. He would waste the whole world if he could." "Why does he entertain such a crew?" "It is his humour. He seems to delight in observing the wickedness of the world. He sits and looks on; he encourages and stimulates, and his face grows colder and his eyes harder. This man is not possessed of a devil. He is himself the Great Devil--the Prince of Iniquity." So I had learned all that I wanted to know. It was now quite certain that we were within a short distance from the end. The lands and houses in the market would find a purchaser; the fleet and the business would then be sold. What next? The day after this experience in the life of a rake I paid a visit for the first and only time to St. James Park in the afternoon. It was, I remember, a cold but clear and bright day in January. At the gates stood a crowd of lacqueys and fellows waiting for their ladies, and stamping on the ground to keep off the cold. Within, a goodly company walked briskly up and down. They were the great people of London whom I saw here. While I looked on admiring the dresses of the ladies and the extravagances of the gentlemen, who seemed to vie with each other in calling attention to themselves by their dress and by their gestures, there passed me, walking alone, a lady whom at first I did not recognise. She started, however, and smartly tapped my hand with her fan--she carried the fan although it was winter, just as the beaux dangled their canes from their wrists. "Why," she cried, "it is my sailor! It is surely Jack Pentecrosse!" Then I recognised the Lady Anastasia. "And what is Jack Pentecrosse doing in this wicked town? And how is Molly--the countess? Come, Jack, to my house. It is not far from here. I should like a talk with you, and to hear the news. And I will give you a dish of tea. Why, I left Lynn in disgrace--did I not? On account of the grand jury of Middlesex. It was that evening when Lord Fylingdale turned upon his enemies." Her house was not very far from St. James's Street. As we walked along, she discoursed pleasantly in her soft and charming manner, as if she was made happy just by meeting me, and as if she had always been thinking about me. She placed me in a chair before the fire; she sat opposite; she pulled her bell rope and called for tea; then she began to talk about Lynn and its people. "Tell me, Jack, about your friend Molly. Is she reconciled to her rank and title yet? I believe that she does not live with her husband." "She denies that she was married." "Ah! I have heard, in fact, that there is some sort of a story--a cock and a bull story--about the wedding." "Another woman was substituted. Molly was at home." "Another woman? Strange! Why was she substituted? Who was she?" "I know not. The matter is a mystery. Certain it is, however, that Lord Fylingdale was married. I myself saw the wedding. I was in the church." "You were in the church?" She raised her fan for a moment. "You were in the church? And you saw the wedding. Who was the bride?" "I do not know. At the time I thought it was Molly." "Jack," she leaned over, looking me full in the face. "Have you no suspicion?" "None. I cannot understand how, all in a moment, and when he found that Molly was not there, the bridegroom found means to substitute another woman dressed as Molly should have been. I cannot understand it." "It is, as you say, strange. Do you think you will ever find out?" "Why not? There are three persons in the plot--Lord Fylingdale, Mr. Purdon, and the woman. One of the two last will perhaps reveal the truth." She was silent for a moment. "Well, and what are you doing in town?" "I came to learn, if I could, something of Lord Fylingdale's private life." "Have you succeeded?" "He is a gambler and a rake. He is rapidly wasting the whole of poor Molly's fortune. In a few months, or weeks, it will all be gone." "Yes," she replied; "all will be gone." "First he took the money and the jewels----" "What?" she sat up suddenly. "He took the jewels?" "He took them first. Then he sold the lands." "Oh, tell me no more! He is wasting and destroying. It is his nature. First he took the jewels. How long ago?" "Six months ago." "He has had the jewels," she said. "He has had them for six months." Her face became hard and drawn as with pain; her smiling mouth became hard; the light died out of her eyes; she became suddenly twenty years older. I wondered what this change might mean. You will think that I was a very simple person not to guess more from all these indications. She pushed back her chair and sprang to her feet; she walked over to the window and looked out upon the cold street, in which there were flying flakes of snow. Then she came back and stood before the fire. "You can go," she said, harshly, not looking me in the face. "You can go," she repeated, forgetting her proffered hospitality of tea. "About that woman, Jack, you may find her yet. Many a wicked woman has been goaded by wrongs intolerable to confess her wickedness. I think you may find her. It will be too late to save Molly's fortune; but when it is all spent there will be a chance for you, Jack." She turned upon me a wan and sad smile. "Happy Molly!" she added, laying her hand upon my arm with the sweet graciousness that she could command. "Jack," she added, "I think we may pity that poor wretch who personated Molly. It was perhaps out of love for a worthless man. Women are so. It is not worth, or virtue, or ability, or character that awakens love and keeps it alive. A woman, Jack, loves a man. There is nothing more to be said. If he is a good man so much the better. If not--still she loves him." She sighed heavily. "What do you sailors know about women? Virtue, fame, and fortune do not make love, nor--Jack, which is a hard thing for you to believe--does all the wickedness in the world destroy love. A woman may be goaded into revenge, but it makes her all the more unhappy--because love remains." I went away, musing on this woman who sometimes seemed so true and earnest with all her fashion and affectations. For, as she spoke about love, the tears stood in her eyes as if she was speaking of her own case. But I never suspected her; I never had the least suspicion of her as the mysterious woman. I took cars into the city and went to my cousin's shop, where there were half-a-dozen gentlemen talking volubly about new books, among them my friend who had taken me to the gaming house and to the tavern. When he saw me he slipped aside. "Mr. Pentecrosse," he said, "your cousin reminds me that I once told him what I could learn concerning an unfortunate poet named Semple. If you would like to see him I think I can take you to him." I thanked him, and said that I would willingly have speech of Mr. Semple. So he led me down little Britain, and so by a maze of streets to a place called Turnagain Lane. He stopped at an open door. The street in the waning light looked squalid, and the house mean. "The darling of Parnassus," he said, "lies in the top chamber. You will find him there, unless I mistake not, because he cannot conveniently go abroad." So saying, he left me, and I climbed up the dark and dirty staircase, some of the steps of which had been taken away for firewood, and presently found myself at the top of the last flight before a closed door. I knocked. A faint voice bade me come in. There was no fire in the fireplace; there was no candle; by the faint light which struggled through the window I perceived that I was in a garret; that all the furniture visible was a bed, and a man in the bed, a table and a chair. On the mantelshelf stood a candlestick without a candle and a tinder box. "Who is it?" asked the man in bed. "I am in search of Sam Semple. Are you Sam Semple?" "I know that voice." The man sat up. "Is it the voice of Jack Pentecrosse?" "The same. What cheer, man?" For all answer, he burst out crying like a child. "Oh! Jack," he said, "I am starving. I made up my mind to starve. I have no longer any clothes. I have not even a candle. I have no money. I have not even a sheet of paper to write a letter, and I deserve it all--yes, I deserve it all." "Why, this is bad. But let me first get you some food. Then we will talk." I went downstairs and found a woman, who told me of a shop where I could get some necessaries, and I presently returned bearing food and a bottle of wine, some coals and candles, and a warm coat, which I thought would be useful. By the light of the candle and the fire I could perceive that the condition of the unhappy poet was miserable indeed. Never was there a more wretched den of a garret. The plaster had fallen from the walls; the window was mostly stuffed with rags in place of glass; in a word, everything betokened the greatest extremity of poverty. As for the man himself, he had neither coat, waistcoat, nor shoes. He sat on the bed half-dressed, but the rest of his wardrobe had been pawned or sold. There were no books; there were no papers; there was nothing to show his calling; and there was no sign of food. At the sight of my basket and its contents the man fell to. With just such a rage have I seen a sailor picked up at sea from an open boat, fall upon food and devour it. Nor did Sam finish till he had devoured the whole of the cold beef and bread--a goodly ration--and swallowed the whole of the bottle of wine, a generous allowance. Then he breathed a sigh of satisfaction, and put on the thick coat which I had bought for him. "Well," I said, "can we now talk?" "Jack, you have saved my life; but I shall be hungry again to-morrow. Lend me a little money." "I will lend you a guinea or two. But tell me first how came you here? I thought you were in the confidence of a certain noble lord." "He is a villain, Jack. He is the greatest villain unhung. Oh! hanging is too good for him. After all I did for him! The lying villain!" "What you did for him, Sam, was to give him the chance of ruining the property of an innocent and helpless girl." "I gave him the heiress. Was it nothing to promote the daughter of a plain merchant and make her a countess?" "Tell me more. What were you to get for it?" "It was I who invented an excuse for taking my lord and his friends to Lynn." "Yes, I understand. You invented the spa. The water in the well----" "The water is very good water. It could do no harm. I wrote to the doctor--I invented the analysis, applying it from another. I told him about the discovery and the things said by the newspapers. There was no discovery; nobody had heard of the water; no physician sent any of his patients there; the only visitors from London were my lord and his friends." "They were all his friends, then?" "All. His reverence is in the pay of Beelzebub, I believe. The colonel is a bully and a gamester--Sir Harry is a well-known decoy--Lady Anastasia shares her bank with Lord Fylingdale. They were a nest of sharpers and villains, and their business and mine was to spread abroad reports of the shining virtue of his lordship." "All this, or part of it, we found out or guessed. The vicar publicly denounced you all at his assembly. But what were you to get by it for yourself?" "I was to have an appointment under government of £200 a year at least." "Well?" "I was to have it directly after the marriage. That was the promise. I have it in writing." "And you have not got it?" "No; and I shall not get it. When I claimed it his lordship asked me to read the promise. I showed it him. I had kept it carefully in my pocketbook. 'On the marriage of Lord Fylingdale with Miss Molly.' What do you think he said. Oh, villain! villain!" "What did he say?" "He said, 'Hold there, my friend! On the marriage. Very well, although I say that I am married to that lady, very oddly the lady swears that she is not married to me. Now, when that lady acknowledges the marriage I will fulfill my promise. That is fair, is it not?' Then I lost my head and forgot his rank and my position, and the next moment I was kicked into the street by his lackeys without salary, without anything. Oh, villain! villain!" It seemed as if there was here some opening--of what nature I knew not. However I spoke seriously to Sam. I pointed out that in introducing a broken gamester--a profligate--a man of no honour or principle, the companion of profligates and gamesters, to the simple folk of Lynn who were ready to believe anything, he had himself been guilty of an act more villainous even than the breaking of this contract. I gave him, however, a guinea for present necessities and I promised him five guineas more if he would write a history of the whole business so far as he was concerned. And I undertook to leave this money with my cousin the bookseller--to be paid over to him on receiving the manuscript. This business arranged, I had nothing more to do with London. I had been, however, as you shall presently learn, more successful than I myself understood, for I had learned by actual presence the daily life and conversation of this noble lord and I had laid the foundation for a proof of the conspiracy to disguise his true character, and, what was much more important, I had unwittingly fired the mind of the mysterious woman herself with resentment and jealousy. CHAPTER XLI THE FIRST AND THE SECOND CONFEDERATE We were now, indeed, although we knew it not, very near the end of these troubles. I returned with the satisfaction of bringing with me the confession of the conspiracy which we had long known. Still, it is one thing to know of a conspiracy, and quite another thing to have a plain confession by one of the chief conspirators. You may imagine that the poet was not long in writing out a full and complete confession, and in claiming the five guineas of my cousin, who took the liberty of reading the document, and of witnessing his signature before he gave up the money. "Take it, sir," he said, "if to be a villain is to earn a reward of five guineas, you have earned that reward. Take it, Judas Iscariot. Take it, and make a poem on the Wages of Sin if you can." "You trample on the weak. I am a worm who cannot turn. Still, sir, if you can find honest employment for a pen which adorns all it touches----" "Go, sir. For such as you I have no employment. My poets and authors may be poor, but they are honest. Get thee out of my sight." I showed the document first to my father and the vicar. "So far, well," said the latter. "If proof were needed of a more wicked conspiracy here it is. But in the main thing we are no more forward than before, Jack. We are not helped by this writing to the mystery of the strange woman and her intervention. A strange woman, indeed; she must be--one such as described by the wise king." "We shall find her yet. What hold can this spendthrift gamester have upon the woman--his partner in the crime? Some time or other she will be tempted to reveal the truth." "We know not. Women are not as men. They love the most worthless as well as the most noble." Lady Anastasia had said the same thing. "Love is like the sunshine, my son. It falls upon good and evil alike, and, like the sunshine, it may be wasted, or it may be turned to help. We must not expect to find this woman; we must not count upon her revenge or her repentance." "We shall find her, sir, I am certain that we shall find her. The spendthrift wastes and scatters with a kind of madness. He will soon finish all, and will have nothing left for his confederates. You see what one confederate has confessed, having been betrayed by his master." Said the vicar: "The sweet singer of Israel ceases not to proclaim the lesson that all the generations must learn and lay to heart--'I have seen,' he says, 'the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo! he was not. Yea, I sought him, and he could not be found.' Patience, therefore, let us have patience." He fell into a meditation in which I disturbed him not. After a while he returned to the business of Sam's written confession, which he held in his hands. "It is remarkable," he said, "how this young man, who from his boyhood was a self-deceiver, imagining himself to be somebody, endeavours to place his conduct in a light flattering to his self-deception. It is evident, abundantly, that he has been guided throughout by two motives, the one as base as the other. The first is revenge for the wholesome cudgelling which the captain bestowed upon him. It was administered, I doubt not, with judicial liberality--even erring on the side of liberality--and he left in the man's mind that longing for revenge which belongs to the weaker and the baser sort. See, he writes, 'Since Captain Crowle was resolved to marry his ward above her station, I was quite sure that he would be grateful to me for the signal service which he could in no way effect by his own efforts of raising her from her humble condition to the rank of countess.' He thus betrays himself. And as to the second motive, he says, 'A poor man has the right to better himself if he can. It is his duty. I saw a way, an unexpected and an honourable way.' Listen to the creature. 'I made the discovery that my patron, by gambling and raking, had become, as regards his affairs, nothing less than what in a merchant would be called a bankrupt. That is to say, he had spent all he had, sold all he could, raised all the money possible on his entailed estates, and but for his privilege as a peer would now be in a debtor's prison. Yet he contrived to keep his head above water--I found out how, as well--and still maintained a brave show, though, by reason of his bad character, he was not countenanced except by profligates like himself. I therefore laid open to him a way of restoring his affairs. I offered to introduce him to a great heiress. At first he did not believe that there was in any country town an heiress with the fortune that I described to him. But I gave him some proofs and I promised him more. Whereupon I made known my condition. As soon as he was married to this heiress he was to procure for me, by purchase or by influence, a post under government worth at least £200 a year, with perquisites, or perhaps a benefice, if I could procure ordination, of which I had no doubt in thinking of my learning and my character for piety.'" "Ho!" said my father, "his learning and his piety!" "'My patron is now master of that fortune and is wasting it as fast as he can in the old courses. He refuses to keep his promise. Nay, he hath sold the last preferment in his gift to the highest bidder. It was a rectory of £350 a year.'" "This fellow," said the vicar, "knows that his patron is at his last guinea. He knows him to be a loose liver and a gamester, and he has no hesitation in conspiring to place this innocent girl, by means of her simple guardian, in the hands of such a man. Yet he whines and thinks himself ill-used, and a football of fate. Formerly, he thought himself the favourite of the Muses. The man is a cur, Jack; he has the cunning and the cowardice and the treachery of a mongrel cur. Take back his confession. It may, however, be useful." "What about the great discovery concerning the spa?" "Why, Jack, it seems as if he drew his bow and shot an arrow at a venture, yet hit the bull's eye. The doctor has a book, in which he inscribes cases of cures effected by the waters of the spa. The book is well-nigh filled. It is true that this Prince of Liars invented and pretended the discovery of a spa; it is also true, as we cannot but believe, that the waters have actually done all that he pretended. He, therefore, unconsciously, seems to have proclaimed the truth. Let the thing remain as it is, then. Time will show. The next season's cases and cures will perhaps establish the reputation of the spa on a more solid basis even than at present." Time, as I have already told you, did show, for no one came at all. The spa was neglected in its second season; in the third it was forgotten; even the pump room was removed, and only the well remained. But the doctor, who was bitterly disappointed with the failure, was never informed concerning the true history of the grand discovery. It was the perfidy of the chief conspirator to every one who assisted him which brought about the full exposure of the truth. I have been careful to let you know at every step the whole truth as we discovered it afterwards. You have understood the conspiracy from the outset, and the villainy of all concerned. The woman in the pink silk cloak has been no mystery to you. Perhaps you admire our simplicity in not guessing the truth. Reader, you are young, perhaps; or you have been young. In either case, I am sure that you have experienced the ease with which a woman, lovely, sympathetic, winning, will, with the combined aid of her beauty, her voice, her witchcraft, so surround herself with an imaginary air of truth, sincerity and purity, as to exclude all possibility of treachery and falsehood. Lady Anastasia had allowed me to discover, whether by inadvertence or not, that she was jealous; but what did I know of feminine jealousy and its powers? I might have known, perhaps, that jealousy implies love, or, at least, the claim to exclusive possession; but what did I know of the strength and passion of woman's love? I was young; I was inexperienced; I was a sailor, ignorant of many common wiles; I was easily moved by a woman, and I had that universal respect for rank which makes us slow to believe that a lady of quality can be treated as if it were possible to suspect her. By the same rule I should, you will say, be equally unable to regard Lord Fylingdale with suspicion. But we are not always consistent with ourselves. Besides, his lordship was a man and not a woman. Rank or no rank, we know that a man is always a man. And, in addition, he stood between Molly and me. I have said that we were near the end of our troubles. One after the other the victims of Lord Fylingdale's perfidy and of their own wickedness come over, so to speak, to the other side, impelled by rage and the desire for revenge, and made confession. There were five--I take them in order. The first was our old friend Sam, whose confession you have heard; the second was Colonel Lanyon. Like the poet, he also fell upon evil days; but, less lucky than Sam, he lost his liberty, and became a prisoner for debt in the King's Bench Prison. When such an one is arrested and thrown into prison he is in grievous, if not in hopeless case; for, supposing his brothers or cousins to be in a responsible position, they are ashamed of one who has led the life of a gamester and a bully and a decoy. They will not help him to begin again his old life, and if they are like himself, they want all they have for their own pleasures--rakes being the most selfish of all men--and so they will not help him. He wrote, therefore, from his prison, addressing himself to Captain Crowle as the guardian of the lady for whose capture their snares were set. "Sir," he said, "I am a prisoner for debt, lying in the King's Bench, and likely to remain a prisoner for the rest of my life. I have cousins who are prosperous. They refuse to assist me. Yet my detaining creditors are few and the whole amount is ridiculously small, considering my position and my reputation. That my own cousins should refuse to release me is, I own, a matter which surprises me, for I have conferred lustre upon a name hitherto obscure by my gallantry, my bravery, and my many adventures. It is a heartless world. There are many honest gentlemen in this place, besides myself, who have found the world heartless and ungrateful." "Humph!" said the vicar, in whose presence the captain began to make out this surprising letter. "My misfortunes are due to no less a person than my Lord Fylingdale, a man whose treachery and ingratitude are not equalled, as far as I know, by the history of any villain that was ever hanged." "Why," the captain interrupted, "here's a fellow catched in his own toils. Do you read it, Jack; your eyes are better than mine." So I took it. "When I consider not only his conduct towards myself, but his systematic deception towards you, sir, I am moved by indignation to write to you and to expose a plot in which I had a hand, but in ignorance. Sir, I would have you know that for many years I have been in the employ of his lordship. It is not an uncommon thing, when an officer is broken and cannot find employment for his sword, to enter the service of some patron, whom he must oblige by all means in his power. In return, he is safe from arrest, and must take what wages are given him. My own services were those of a decoy to a gaming table, in which his lordship held a secret interest, and of a duellist when my sword would be of use. In the former capacity I served his lordship for four years faithfully, bringing young gamesters to the table, luring them on, playing high for their example, and winning pretended sums for their encouragement. This kind of service is perfectly well known and understood, so that those who knew that Lord Fylingdale was my patron, knew also that he had an interest in the bank. On three or four occasions, when my lord's honour was attacked, or his conduct resented, I went out for him, and in all such cases rendered it impossible for his adversary to continue the quarrel." "So," said the vicar, "the fellow confesses that he is a murderer, is he?" "In the pursuit of his lordship's service I have cheerfully incurred odium that was rightly his. But this kind of odium ends, as I found, by blasting the reputation for honour, even of a most honourable man, such as myself." "Ha!" cried the vicar. "This odium now follows me everywhere--from Bath to Tunbridge, and from Tunbridge to London, so that there are not many gaming-houses into which I am now suffered to enter, and my company has of late declined to the level of the 'prentice and the shopkeeper. I have also been driven off the Heath at Newmarket, charged with corrupting the trainers; and even at the cockpit I have incurred suspicion as to doctoring the birds. All--all was in the service of my patron." "Villain! Villain!" said the vicar. "In May last I was ordered by my lord to proceed to Lynn Regis, a town of which I had no knowledge. There was to be a gaming-table, in which, as usual, he was interested. My duty was again to act as decoy. I was also, at the same time, to lose no opportunity of representing his lordship as a miracle of virtue. The reason of these orders I did not ask. I obeyed, however, although it certainly seemed to me that any praise of virtue on the part of a gamester like myself would be received with suspicion. "As regards the performance of my duties at Lynn I say nothing. The play was miserably low, in spite of my own example and encouragement. The company considered a guinea a monstrous sum to lose. The bank made nothing to speak of. As regards my own private concerns there was but one man with whom I transacted business worth naming. This, however, was highly satisfactory, for, from this one person, without raising the least suspicion, I won as much as £1,200, which was to be raised upon his estate in the county. Three-fourths of this would go to my lord. I had not made so successful a haul for many years. "Now, one morning, after a debauch, much heavy drinking and more losses, this gentleman, Tom Rising by name, came to me, and confided to me under the oath of secrecy, his intention of carrying off that very night the heiress of Lynn, as she was called. If he succeeded, he would pay the whole of his losses the very next day. If not, he must wait until the money could be raised. In order to effect this object he would have to go to Norwich; the business would take time. But he was sure of success. He could not fail. He further described to me the plan he had formed, and the place whither he would carry the girl. "By this time I had formed a pretty good guess of my patron's intention in coming to Lynn. Accordingly I laid the matter before him." "After an oath of secrecy," said the vicar. "He considered a great while, then he said, 'Colonel, this affair may turn out the most lucky thing that could possibly happen. Be in the card room in readiness. We will let the fellow go off with the girl, then I shall follow and rescue her. Do you understand?' "I understand that he desired the good grace of the lady, and that such a rescue could not fail to procure her favour unless he had already obtained it. 'But,' I said, 'this man is a bull for strength. He will fight for the girl, and he will be like a mad bull. It is dangerous.' "'I will myself,' he replied, 'undertake to tame this bull. Man, do you suppose that a master of fence can fear the result of an encounter with a fellow always half drunk and on this occasion, which makes the thing more easy, more than half mad with rage and disappointment.' "Sir, you know the rest. The abduction of the lady was known beforehand by my lord and myself. He might have stopped it, but that he wanted the honour and the glory of the rescue." "There is no end or limit to the villainy of the pair," said the vicar. "The next day, Tom Rising having a sword wound in the right shoulder, I waited upon his lordship. I pointed out that the serious wound inflicted on Mr. Rising had brought his life in danger; that even if he recovered, his old friends, who were very angry with him for the attempted abduction, would have no more to do with him; that, from all I had heard, he would with difficulty raise so much money as he owed me upon an estate already dipped; that he had other creditors; and that one result of the business was that we had possibly lost £1,200 or a good part of it, of which one-fourth, or £300, would have been my share, and I asked my lord, point blank, if he thought I could afford to lose £300. "My lord laughed pleasantly. 'Shall a trifle of £300 part two old friends, colonel? Not so; not so. When I marry this heiress, not £300, but a thousand shall be yours. Remember, write it down. It is a promise. After my marriage I will give you a clear thousand to repay your losses and expenses.' "This was a promise on which I relied. And you may imagine my satisfaction when I heard that my lord had been married privately at six in the morning. I waited on him at once for the money. 'Patience, man,' he said, 'I must first touch it myself. I cannot get at the money without certain forms. There shall be no needless delay.' So I refrained. "I had been put to heavy expenses by going to Lynn and living there. I had to keep up the outward appearance of substance; I threw money about; I ordered bowls of punch; I lost over a hundred pounds in establishing my credit on a firm basis; I won nothing to speak of, except from Tom Rising. In the end I was publicly insulted and exposed by a vulgar beast called Gizzard, after his low trade. This was in the presence of Tom Rising himself, who thereupon swore that he would pay me nothing. The world is full of men always ready to repudiate their debts of honour." "It is, indeed," said the vicar, "and of men who do not act in accordance with the laws of honour." "Sir, you will hardly believe me. My lord now refuses to pay even my expenses. He owes me a thousand pounds promised as my share in the business. I have spent one hundred pounds in establishing my credit and another hundred for my personal expenses--in all, £1,200. "Now, sir, I have a proposition to make. I know the dispute about the alleged marriage. I believe there was a personation and that I know the woman who personated your deeply-injured ward in the church. Pay me £1,200 and I will name her." "Softly," said the vicar. "To name the lady is not to prove the personation." "You cannot hesitate," the letter went on. "Already I am sure my lord has wasted ten times that sum. I hear from all sides that he is like one who squanders an inexhaustible treasure. Send me this money and I will put you in the way of exposing him to the world as a conspirator and of putting a stop to further robbery. You shall at least be enabled to save what is left. "As you may require a few days to deliberate over this proposal I beg you to let me have by the first opportunity a few guineas in advance. Otherwise I shall have to part with my clothes. In my line of life a good appearance is essential. Should I be driven to that necessity I shall indeed be ruined for life, because I shall have to go over to the common side where my accomplishments and skill will be of no use whatever to me." "He means that you cannot get any profit by cheating at play those who have nothing. Is that all, Jack?" "That is all." I folded the letter and gave it to the captain. "To name the lady, I say," the vicar repeated, "is not to prove the crime. It might, however, suggest an explanation to the mystery. The letter proves that there is an explanation. Still, captain, my opinion is that the writer of this letter should receive no answer. There is no hardship before him which he has not deserved. Let him lie in his prison and repent. 'Let the wicked be ashamed and let them be silent in the grave. Let the lying lips be put to silence.' Captain, let us have no traffic with this ungodly man. Let him henceforth be silent in his grave." CHAPTER XLII THE THIRD AND THE FOURTH CONFEDERATE The voice of the third confederate followed. It was a voice from the tomb. Sir Harry Malyns, the poor old butterfly who had lived for nigh upon eighty years in the world of fashion; who had spent his patrimony, and had, in the end, been reduced to the miserable work of a decoy, as you have heard, was at last summoned to render an account of his life. What an account to render! So many thousand nights at the gaming-table; so many thousand at suppers and after; so many debauches; so many days of idle talk; the whole of his long life devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, as the people of fashion call pleasure. However, the old man was at last seized with a mortal illness; at the approach of death some of the scales fell from his eyes; his former ideas of honour came back to him. He repented of his degradation as the secret servant of Lord Fylingdale; he repented of his share in the deception which led to the promise, if not the performance, of marriage between his patron and Miss Molly. And he dictated to some one, who attended him in his last moments, a brief note which was accepted in the spirit of forgiveness, which he desired. The communication was addressed to Captain Crowle. "The following words," it was written, "were in substance dictated by the late Sir Harry Malyns in his last illness, namely, the day before he became unconscious, in which condition he lingered for forty-eight hours, when he breathed his last." There was neither signature, nor was the place of the deceased gentleman's last illness indicated. The following were the words dictated: "I, Sir Harry Malyns, baronet, being now, I believe, at the point of death, am greatly troubled in my conscience over the part I played in the deception of Captain Crowle, of King's Lynn; his ward, Miss Molly; and the people of the place, as to the character and principles of the Earl of Fylingdale. I very soon discovered his design in going to the town, and his hopes of securing the fortune of the lady called the heiress of Lynn. My own part, to deceive his friends in the way indicated, I performed with zeal, being but the creature and servant of his lordship, with no hope of help from any other quarter, should I lose his patronage. It was a most dishonourable part to play, unworthy of my name and of my family. I desire to convey to the young lady my humble request for her forgiveness, and my hope that a way may be found for her out of the toils spread for her by myself and others, his creatures and servants. "There is, I learn, a denial on the lady's part as to her marriage at all. Of this I know nothing. But I am assured in my own mind that if this denial involves any act of treachery, perfidy, fraud, or conspiracy on the part of his lordship, on that account alone, and without considering the many virtues, the candour, truth, and innocence of the lady, I should accept her denial. But in this crowning act of treachery, I rejoice that I have had neither part nor lot." There was no signature, but there seemed no reason to entertain a doubt as to the genuine character of the communication. The old man on his deathbed returned to a late recognition of the laws of honour and a late repentance. "He was a poor creature," said the vicar. "He was entirely made up of stays and wig and powder. He ought to have been taken about the country in order to show the world the true meaning of a fribble and a beau. It is, however, something to his credit that in the end he remembered the old tradition, and saw himself as he was. Pray Heaven that his repentance was thorough!" "Let us at least forgive him," said Molly. "He seemed a harmless old gentleman. One would never have thought him capable of acting so dishonourable a part. But he repented. We must forgive him." "Meantime, we are no nearer the mysterious woman who personated you, Molly; nor do we understand why she did it; nor do we understand how it was done." A week later came another letter. This time it was from the Rev. Benjamin Purdon, A.M. It was a truly impudent letter, worthy of the man and his character. "TO CAPTAIN CROWLE. "SIR,--I have hesitated for some time whether to address you on the subject of your ward's pretended marriage with my late patron, Lord Fylingdale. I say pretended because I am in a position to expose the whole deception. I can place you in possession of the whole of the facts. They are simple; they cannot be denied or disproved. Your ward was not in the church at all; she was not married; her place was taken by a woman who personated her, appearing in your ward's dress, namely, a pink silk cloak, the hood thrown over her head. I, who performed the ceremony, was deceived. That is to say, I was told the name of the bride and there was nothing to awaken any suspicions. At this point, and as a proof that part of this story is true, I would ask your ward to write her name in full, and I would then ask you to compare that writing with the signature in the registers." "Are we stupid?" cried the vicar. "Have we been struck with judicial stupidity? Let us instantly, without any delay, proceed to this test. Molly, my dear, get paper, pen and ink.... So--now sit at the table. Write your name as you usually write it when you sign a letter." "But I never write any letters," said Molly. "She writes the names on the pots of pickles and the preserved fruit," said the captain. "Come, Molly, you can sign your name." The girl blushed and seized the pen. It was not with the pen of a ready writer that she wrote, in a clumsy hand--a hand unaccustomed to such writing--her name "Molly Miller." "Is this your best writing, Molly?" "Indeed, sir, I am ashamed that it is no better. At school I learned better, but I have so little occasion to write." "So long as it is the signature you would use in the church, it will serve," said the vicar. "Come, let us to St. Nicholas at once, and send for the clerk. We will examine these registers, and we will read the rest of the letter afterwards." The chest was unlocked; the registers were taken out; the books were opened at the right page. The vicar laid Molly's writing beside that of the register. "You see," said the vicar, "the very signature proclaims the cheat. We have been, of a verity, seized with judicial blindness for our sins." The differences were not such as could be explained away, for the signature in the book was round and full and flowing--a bold signature for a woman--every letter well formed and of equal size, and in a straight line; the work of one who wrote many letters, and prided herself, apparently, on the clearness and beauty of her hand. Molly's, on the other hand, showed letters awkwardly formed, not in line, of unequal height, and the evident work of one unaccustomed to writing. "What doubt have we now?" asked the vicar. "My friends, I see daylight. But let us return to complete my reverend brother's letter." The letter thus continued: "You have now, I take it, satisfied yourself that your ward could not possibly have penned that signature. You have no doubt, if you had any before, that your ward's denial was the truth. "At the same time you do not appear to have considered the matter worth fighting. It was not, for assuredly a court of justice, even with the handwriting as evidence, would have decided against you. So far, you were well advised. "You, therefore, withdrew opposition, and suffered the husband to take over, what he claimed, control of the estate. "From what I am informed, he is pursuing a course of mad riot, in which he alone sits cold and composed, as is his wont, for the contemplation of wickedness in action is more to his taste than becoming an actor himself; he is also playing and losing heavily. Therefore, I have every reason to believe that he will before long get through the estate of his so-called wife. I hope he will, because he will then have nothing left at all, and the last state of that man will be as miserable as he deserves." "This man, too, has his revenge in sight," said the vicar. "I come now to the main point. I do not suppose that more than the third, or so, of your ward's fortune has yet been wasted. I will enable you to save the rest. "For a certain consideration, I need not write down its nature, my noble patron promised to pay me £12,000 on his marriage with this heiress. It is a large sum of money, but the service I rendered was worth more." "It was his own confederacy, I suppose." "For the honour of the British aristocracy I regret to inform you that Lord Fylingdale repudiates the contract. He says that I may take any steps I please, but he refuses to pay. That the consideration--but I need not go on; in a word, he will give me nothing. "Under these circumstances I will expose the whole affair, and put an end, at least, to his further depredations. If, therefore, you take over this obligation upon yourself I am prepared to draw up an account of the whole business; the personation of your ward, the reasons and the manner of it, and an explanation of the very remarkable coincidence--so remarkable as to seem impossible--of the substitution of one woman for another at a moment's notice. I further promise that this information will at once turn the tables; that you can refuse to let his lordship interfere further with your ward's estate; and that you can take steps to declare the so-called marriage null and void. Nothing shall be left for explanation; all shall be quite simple and straightforward; and I can put evidence in your hands which you little suspect. "Further, I promise and engage to ask for nothing until I have proved all that has to be proved and have established the fact that your ward was not married by me. "You can send me twenty-five guineas in advance. It can go to London to the coach office of the 'Swan with Four Necks,' where I will call for it. "I am, naturally, after so great a disappointment, much in want of money, therefore I shall be obliged if you will make the advance fifty instead of twenty-five guineas. "(Signed) BENJAMIN PURDON, "Clerk in Holy Orders." We looked at each other in silence. "To procure thy freedom, Molly," said the vicar, taking her hand, "there is nothing which we would not do--that honest men dare to do. But let us not be drawn away from our duty. We will have no part nor lot nor any traffic with rogues. This man is an arch rogue. This letter is the letter of a villain, who is, one would say--the Lord forgive me for saying so of a fellow sinner!--beyond the power of repentance and beyond the hope of forgiveness. Patience, Molly, I think that we shall soon be rewarded--even with the loss of all thy worldly goods." CHAPTER XLIII THE FIFTH AND LAST CONFEDERATE And then came the final revelation--the confession of the fifth and last confederate--which cleared up the whole mystery and explained that which, with one consent, we had all declared to be wholly unintelligible. The counsel learned in the law gave his written opinion that, considering that the marriage ceremony was fixed for 6 A.M., the bridegroom had no knowledge of the bride's intention not to present herself; that he left his lodgings a few minutes before six; that a few minutes after six, one Pentecrosse, well known to the lady, witnessed the marriage ceremony and believed the bride to be the lady in question, dressed as she was accustomed to dress, although he did not see her face; that the parish clerk also recognised the lady; that the clergyman was ready to swear that the bride was the lady; and that the register showed her signature. There could be no change whatever of success in disputing or denying the marriage. The vicar, perceiving the weight of evidence, and adding to it the apparent impossibility of procuring at a moment's notice the personation of the bride, reluctantly advised submission, while being firmly persuaded that Molly and her mother had spoken the truth, and that there was devilry somewhere. We submitted, with what results you have seen. It is, I believe, a rule that some playwriters, where they have a plot with a mystery or a secret in it, to keep the audience in ignorance, and so to heighten their interest, until the revelation in the last act clears up the mystery and relieves the spectators of their suspense. Others, again, allow the audience to understand at the outset that their heroine or hero is the victim of villainy, but do not explain the full nature of that villainy until the end, when the plots of the wicked are brought to light. I have told this tale without the art of the playwright. I have shown you exactly how things happened, though we only discovered the truth long afterwards. For instance, you know already what was the full explanation of the marriage which I witnessed; you know the surprise with which the bridegroom discovered the truth, and you know besides the impudent use which, by the advice of the Reverend Benjamin Purdon, was made of that discovery. Also you know the reason of the personation and the person by whose indiscreet chattering it became possible. I have now to tell you how we ourselves discovered the truth. After the arrival of the letters already described, nothing new was learned for some months. That is to say, Colonel Lanyon wrote no more; the Reverend Mr. Purdon, though he continued to write letters which threatened concealment and offered exposure, alternately; though his demand for money dropped with every letter until he had become a mere beggar, offering to reveal the whole in return for the relief of his present necessities; gave no hint of the nature of the exposure he desired to sell. But he had received, so far, no reply to any of his letters. Between January and June my ship made another voyage to Lisbon and back. When I landed, what I had to learn was the continual solicitation of Mr. Purdon, and the continual waste of the fortune. The demand for money never ceased. "Send up more money--more money--more money. His lordship is in urgent want of more money." By this time a whole year had passed since the pretended marriage and our submission. Never was a magnificent property so destroyed and diminished in so short a time. Farms, lands, houses were sold for what they would fetch--at half their value--a quarter of their value. All the money out at mortgage had been called in--all the money received at the quay and the counting-house had been sent to his lordship's attorneys. In one short twelvemonth the destruction had been such that in June there was actually nothing left--nothing out of that princely fortune, except the fleet of ships and the general business. "And now, Mr. Pentecrosse," said the manager (lately clerk and accountant) "the end draweth nigh. A few more weeks or months and this great shipping firm, near a hundred years old, which hath sent its ships all about the world; the most important house outside London and Bristol, will put up its shutters and close its door. Alas! The pity of it! The pity of it!" "But," I said, "this spendthrift lord, this waster and devourer, surely will not destroy the very spring and fountain of this wealth." "I know not. He seems possessed with a devil." Here the manager was wrong, because he was possessed of seven devils. "His waste is nothing short of madness. It seems as if he was unable to look before him, even in such a simple matter as the origin of the money, which he has obtained by marriage--if he is married--and is now wasting as fast as he can." It is in no way profitable, unless one is a divine, to search into the heart of the wicked man. The psalmist, who was continually troubled by considering the ways of the ungodly, supplies us with sufficient guidance as to his mind and his thoughts. In the case of Lord Fylingdale, I would compare him with the highwaymen and common thieves in one particular, namely, that they seem to have no power of thrift or of prudence, but must continually waste and devour what they acquire without honest labour. It is as if they understood that their way of life being uncertain, and the end at any time possible, their only chance of enjoyment is the present moment. Now, Lord Fylingdale was using the proceeds of an enormous robbery obtained by a fraud of incredible audacity. I think he felt the uncertainty of his hold. It depended on the silence of two persons. Should these two persons unite in revealing the conspiracy he would at least be able to rob no longer. Now, he had already alienated both of them. The one he had filled with a passion for revenge; the other ... but you shall hear. I think, moreover, that he found a gambler's joy in the handling of large sums and playing with them; that he kept no account of the money he lost; and that, with his companions, he kept a kind of open house at certain taverns for the debauches over which he presided, without condescending in person to join the drunken orgy. Did he find a strange enjoyment in the debauchery of others? Men have been known--I cannot understand it--to delight in torturing other men and in witnessing their agonies; men might also--I know not how--take a delight in witnessing orgies and in listening to the discourses of drunken rakes. But it is not profitable, as I said, to dwell upon the mind of such a man. It was on the 15th of June--I remember the date well--and shall always remember it. _The Lady of Lynn_ had arrived two days before, and we were moored off the quay. At ten o'clock, or thereabouts, one of the stable boys from the house came aboard bringing a message for me. A lady, lodging at the "Crown," desired to see me immediately. The lady had arrived in the evening in a post-chaise, having with her a maid. She had given no name, but in the morning had asked if my ship was in port, and on learning that it was she desired that a boy from the stables might carry this message to me. I landed at our own quay--I say our own, but it was no longer ours, that is, Molly's quay. At the door of the counting-house stood the manager in conversation with the captain of one of our ships. He beckoned me to speak with him. When he had finished his discourse with the captain he turned to me. "Mr. Pentecrosse," he said, "the worst has now begun. Tell Captain Crowle--I should choke if I had to tell him. Alas! poor man! It seems as if the work of his life was ruined and destroyed." So saying he handed me a letter to read. It was from my lord's attorneys, Messrs. Bisse and Son. "I suppose," said the manager, "that they are really acting for his lordship. Their power of attorney cannot be denied, can it? Mr. Redman says that there is nothing for it but obedience." The letter was short: "We have noted your information conveyed in the last schedule. You are now instructed to proceed with the sale of one of the ships. Let her be sold as she stands on arriving in port with so much of the cargo as belongs to your house. My lord is urgently pressed for money, and begs that there may be no delay. Meantime send a draft by the usual channel for money in hand. "Your obedient servants, "BISSE AND SON." "A draft for monies in hand!" cried the manager. "There are no monies in hand! And I have to sell without delay a tall ship, cargo and all, as she stands. Without delay! Who is to buy that ship--without delay?" I returned him the letter and shook my head. My ship, perhaps, was the one to be sold. She was the latest arrival; she was filled with wine; the cargo belonged altogether to the house. So I should be turned adrift when just within hail, so to speak, of becoming a captain. I could say nothing in consolation or in hope. I walked away, my heart as heavy as lead. Never before had I felt the true meaning of this ruin and waste. All around me the noble edifice built by Molly's grandfather and her father, and continued by her guardian, had been pulled down bit by bit. But one felt the loss of a farm or a house very little. It was not until the ships, too, were threatened, that the full enormity of the thing--the incredible wickedness of the conspirators, was borne in upon my mind. It threatened to ruin me, you see, as well as Molly. Therefore, I walked across the market-place to the Crown Inn more gloomy in my mind than I can describe. Hitherto, somehow, a ship seemed safe; no one would interfere with a ship; like Lord Fylingdale himself, I was ready to ask whether a ship could be bought and sold. That is to say, I knew that she was often bought and sold, but I never thought that any of Molly's ships--any other ships as much as you please, but not Molly's ship--could be brought to the hammer. The lady sent word that she would receive me. Imagine my surprise! She was none other than the Lady Anastasia. She was greatly changed in six months. I had seen her last, you remember, in January, when I met her in the park. She was then finely dressed, and appeared in good case, what we call a buxom widow--in other words, a handsome woman, with a winning manner and a smiling face. This she was when I met her. When I left her on that occasion she was a handsome woman marred with a consuming wrath. Now, I should hardly have known her. She was plainly attired, without patches or paint, wearing a grey silk dress. But the chief change was not in her dress, but in her face. She was pale, and her cheeks were haggard. She looked like a woman who had recently suffered a severe illness, and was, indeed, not yet fully recovered. "Jack," she advanced, giving me her hand with her old graciousness, "you are very good to come when I call. It is the last time that you will obey any call from me." "Why the last time, madam?" "Because, Jack, I am now going to make you my bitter enemy. Yes, my enemy for life." She tried to smile, but her eyes grew humid. "I can never be regarded henceforth as anything else. You will despise me--you will curse me. Yet I must needs speak." "Madam, I protest--I know not what you mean." "And I, Jack, I protest--know not how to begin. Do you remember last January, when we talked together? Let me begin there. Yes; it will be best to begin there. I do not think I could begin at the other end. It would be like a bath of ice-cold water in January." "I remember our conversation, madam." "You told me--what was it you told me? Something about a certain box, or case of jewels." "Molly's jewels. Yes, I told you how his lordship seized upon them at the first when he claimed control over Molly's fortune." "You told me that. It was in January. He had seized upon them six months before. The thing surprised me. He had always told me that he could not get those jewels--and Jack, you see, they were my own." "Yours, madam? But--they were Molly's." "Not at all. Molly, after her marriage, had nothing. All became my lord's property. The jewels were mine, Jack--mine by promise and compact." I understood nothing. "I have seen in France, the women kneeling at the boxes where they confess to the priest. Jack, will you be my priest? I can confess to you what I could never confess to Molly--though I have wronged her--Jack! Oh! my priest----" Here she fell on her knees and clasped her hands. "No--no," she cried. "I will not rise. On my knees, on my knees--not to ask your pardon, but for the shame and the disgrace and the villainy." "Madam--I pray--I entreat." I took her by both hands. I half lifted her and half assisted her. She sank into an armchair sobbing and crying, and covered her face with her hands. She was not play acting. No--no--it was real sorrow--true shame. Oh! there was revenge as well. No doubt there was revenge. If she had been wicked, she had also been wronged. Presently she recovered a little. Then she sat up and began to talk. "I am the most miserable woman in the world--and I deserve my misery. Jack, when you go back to your ship, fall on your knees and thank God that you are poor and that Molly has been robbed of her fortune and is also poor. Oh! to be born rich--believe me--it is a thing most terrible. It makes men become like Lord Fylingdale, who have nothing to do but to follow pleasure--such pleasure! Ah! merciful heaven! such pleasure! And it makes women, Jack, like me. We, too, follow pleasure like the men--we become gamblers--there is no pleasure for me like the pleasure of gambling; we fall in love for the pleasure and whim of it--till we are slaves to men who treat us worse than they treat their dogs--worse than they treat their lackeys. Then we forget honour and honesty; then we throw away reputation and good name; we accept recklessly shame and dishonour. My name has become a byword--but what of that? I have been a man's slave--I have done his bidding." "But how, madam"--still I understood very little of this talk, yet became suspicious when she spoke thus of the jewels--"how came Molly's jewels to be your own?" "I tell you, Jack. By promise and compact. I must go back to another discourse with you. It was on a certain evening a year ago. You had made the fine discovery that Lord Fylingdale was a gamester and the rest of it. You told me. You also told me that Molly would not keep her promise, and would certainly not be at the church in the morning. Do you remember?" "I remember that we talked about things." "We did. Go back a month or two earlier. By a most monstrous deception I was brought here. I was told first that it was in order to further some political object, which I did not believe; next, to help him in getting the command of this money--some women, I said, easily lose their sense of honour and of truth when they want to please their lovers. As for marriage, he declared for the hundredth time that there was but one woman in all the world whom he would marry--myself. Now do you understand? He had deceived me. Very well, then I would deceive him. At first my purpose was to await in the church the coming of the bride and expose the character of the man. Since she was not coming I would take her place." "What? It was you, then--you--you?" "Yes, Jack. I was the woman you saw at the rails. I had a pink silk cloak like that of Molly; I am about the same height as Molly. I wore a domino as had been arranged. You took me for Molly." "But--if you were the bride----" "I was the bride. I am the Countess of Fylingdale--for my sins and sorrows--his wretched wife." "But you would be revenged, and yet you suffered this monstrous fraud." "I was revenged. Yet--why did I say nothing? Did I not say that you could never forgive me. Well, I have no excuse, only I said that women, like me, with nothing to do, sometimes go mad after a man and for his sake cast away honour and care nothing for shame and ill-repute. I say, Jack," she repeated, earnestly, "that I make no excuse--I tell you nothing but the plain truth. Lord! how ugly it is!" I said nothing, I only stood still waiting for more. "When I took off my domino in the vestry, my lord, with the man Purdon, only being present, he was like a madman. That I expected. After raging for a while and crying out that he was now ruined indeed, and after cursing Mr. Purdon for not destroying the registers, he listened to Mr. Purdon's advice that we should consider a way out of it. Accordingly, in my lodgings, the man Purdon, who is the greatest inventor and encourager of every evil thing that lives, set forth the ease with which this marriage could be claimed, unless there was any obstacle such as sudden illness which might be proved to have made Molly's presence impossible. In other words, we were to assure the unfortunate Molly that she was already married, and we were to act as if that was the fact. We ascertained without trouble that she had not left the house that morning. How? We sent the music to congratulate the bride, and the captain sallied forth in his wrath and drove them off." "And to this you consented, out of your passion for the man?" "Partly. There is always more than one reason for a woman's action. In this case there was a bribe. I confess that I have always ardently desired jewels. I cannot have too many jewels. He promised, Jack, that I should have them all. Perhaps--I do not know--the promise of the jewels decided me. Oh! Jack, they were wonderful! No such bribe was ever offered to a woman before." I gazed upon her with amazement. Truly, an explanation complete! Yet, what a confession for a proud woman to make! Love that made her trample on honour and truth and virtue, and a bribe to quicken her footsteps! "And now," I said, "you are willing to make this story public." "I have thought about the business a good deal. It has caused me more annoyance than you would believe." ("Annoyance!" She spoke of "annoyance!") "Besides, I have been cruelly abused. I have been the cause of that poor girl losing a great part--perhaps the whole--of her fortune. I have been robbed of the jewels. He swore to me, a dozen times, that he has never had them. I may by tardy confession save something from the wreck for that poor girl. He has wronged me in every way--in ways that no woman will, or can, forgive. I revenge my wrongs by making him a beggar a few weeks, or months, before he can come to the end of his money." So in this distracted way she talked till one could not tell whether she was most moved by the thought of revenge, or by pity for Molly, or by a wholesome repentance of her sin. "Jack," she said, "your honest face is pulled out as long as my arm. I could laugh if I were not so miserable. Tell me what I should do next. Mind, I will do exactly what you bid me do. I have lived so long among kites, hawks, crows, and birds of prey, with foul creatures and crawling reptiles, that merely to talk to an honest man softens and subdues me. Take me in the humour, Jack. To-morrow, or next day, should the idea of the man possess my soul again; if he should stand over me and take my hand, I know not--I know not what would happen. Perhaps, even for Molly's sake, I could not resist him. I am but a poor, weak, miserable woman. And he has led me hither, and sent me thither, and made me his slave so long, that he has become part of my life. Quick, then, Jack! Tell me what to do." "Come with me," I said. So she wrapped herself in a long cloak--not of pink silk--and she put on a domino and I led her to Mr. Redman's office. And here I begged her to let me set down in writing what she had told me but in fewer words, while Mr. Redman stood over me and read what I wrote and as I wrote it. "The story, your ladyship," he said, "is the most remarkable that I have ever heard. You will now, in the presence of witnesses--my clerk and one whom he will bring from the customhouse will serve. So--they will sign without knowing what the paper contains." So she signed in the same bold running hand that we had seen in the registers. "What next?" she asked. "Why, madam, we have to consider the next step. It is obvious that the confession removes the whole of the difficulty, and explains what has hitherto seemed inexplicable. How, it was asked, could the place of the bride be filled at the last moment, and without previous knowledge that it would have to be filled? And who was the woman thus duly married and actually, though under a false name, made Countess of Fylingdale, who did not step forward and claim her rights? Now, madam, the question is answered. You knew, but my lord did not know, that the bride could not come to the church. You were there, therefore, to take her place. You joined in this conspiracy, and kept silence for the reasons contained in this document." "Quite so. And now, sir. What next? Will you bring my lord to justice? Shall I have to give evidence against him?" "Madam, I know not. You have done your best, not so much to repair a great wrong as to stop further wrong. If I understand matters aright it will be impossible to recover anything that has been taken." "You might as well hope to recover a sack of coals that have been burned." "Therefore, what we have to do first, is to stop further pillage. Next, I apprehend, we must make it clear that your signature in the register was false." Lady Anastasia rose and put on her domino again. "I am going back to London, sir. Mr. Pentecrosse knows my house where I am to be heard of for the present. It was a bad day's work when I was married in that pink silk cloak. It may prove a worse day's work when I confessed." "Nay, madam," I said quietly, "can it be a bad day's work to stop a cruel and unfeeling robbery?" "I have done my part, gentlemen, for good or for ill. In a few weeks or months the man would have beggared himself as well as that poor girl. Now he is beggared already. I know not what he will do, nor whither he will turn." So I led her back to the Crown and that same day she took her departure and I have never seen her since. One letter, it is true, I had from her of which I will tell you in due course. Then I returned to Mr. Redman. "Jack," he said, "I am going without further discussion to warn the manager not to send any more money to these attorneys and to disregard their orders. I shall write at once warning them that we have now in our hands clear proof that my client is not married to Lord Fylingdale, and that we are considering in what manner we should proceed with regard to the large sums that have been remitted to his orders. This, Jack, is the way of lawyers. We write such a letter knowing that we shall not proceed further in this direction, for the scandal would be very great and the profit would be very small. Besides, there is the awkward fact that we made no protest, but submitted. Yet sure and certain I am that the other side will not dare to go into court, being conscious of guilt, yet not knowing how much we have learned." "It seems a tame ending that villainy should get off unpunished." "Not unpunished, Jack. You young men look to see the lightning strike the wicked man. That is not the way, believe me. He never goes unpunished, though he may be forgiven. I look not for the flash of lightning to strike this man dead, but I look for the vengeance of the Lord--perhaps to-day, perhaps to-morrow." He read over again the paper signed by Lady Anastasia. "It is a strange confession," he said. "There is the wrath of a jealous woman in it. He might have beaten her and cuffed her; he might have robbed her; and she would have forgiven him. But he has followed after strange goddesses. She spoke about the jewels. I suppose that he has long since given them to these strange goddesses. Hence her repentance. Hence her revenge. Jack, I think we ought to have the other confederate's confession--that of the man Purdon. He wanted £12,000 for it at first. He then came down to £6,000; he now offers it for relief of his present necessities. I will send my attorney to see him. The vicar refuses to have any dealings with scoundrels. In this case, however, it might be politic to traffic with him. We will offer him £100 for a full confession. I will instruct my attorney what particulars to expect." My story is nearly finished. Molly recovered her freedom with the loss of by far the greater part of her fortune. She had, indeed, nothing left except her fleet and the trade carried on by the firm in which she was sole partner. Still she remained the richest woman in the town. There was no difficulty in procuring from the Reverend Mr. Purdon a full statement of the conspiracy. It was, of course, to be expected that he should represent Lord Fylingdale as the contriver and the proposer of the abominable design. However, he gave under safeguards of witness and signature a plain recital of what had happened, in which he was borne out by the other confession in our hands. And here follows the letter from the Lady Anastasia. "My dear Jack," she said, "news reaches Lynn slowly if it gets there at all. Therefore I hasten to inform you that an end has come--perhaps the end that you would desire. My lord is no more. I am a widow. Yet I mourn not. My husband in name during the last twelve months has acted as one no longer in command of himself. I cannot think, indeed, that he has been in his right mind since he entered upon that great crime of which you know. He would have gone from bad to worse, and I should have suffered more and still more. He killed himself. He placed the muzzle of a pistol within his mouth and so killed himself. "It was yesterday. I went to see him. I had to tell him what I had done. I expected he would kill me. Perhaps it would have been better had he done so. "I found him with his attorney, a man named Bisse, whom I have seen with him frequently. "'Pray, madam, take a chair. I am your humble servant. You can go, Mr. Bisse,' said my lord. 'You have my instructions. Order the manager to proceed with the sale of the ships.' "'With submission, my lord. We can send him orders, but we can only make him obey by proceeding according to law. He finds excuses. He makes delays. He talks of sacrificing the ships to a forced sale.' "'You will not proceed according to law, my lord,' I told him. "'Why, madam?' "'Because I have been to Lynn myself, and have explained certain points in connection with the marriage service in St. Nicholas church.' "My lord looked at me in his cold way, as if neither surprised nor moved. "'Mr. Bisse,' he said, 'I will communicate again with you.' So the attorney left us. Then he turned again to me. "'My lord,' I repeated, 'I have made a statement of all the facts.' "'I thank you, madam. I thank you with all my heart. Let me not detain you.' "He said no more, and I rose. But the door was thrown open, and Mr. Purdon walked in without being announced. "'Ha!' he said, seeing me, 'we are all three, then, together again. My lord, I will not waste your time. I have come to explain that since you have refused to perform your compact, you cannot complain if I have broken up the whole business.' "'I thought I had ordered you out of my presence, sir.' "'So you did. So you did. I have only come to say that I have this day drawn up a full confession of the conspiracy into which I was drawn by your lordship, deceived against my better judgment by the promise of a large sum of money.' "Lord Fylingdale pointed to the door. 'You can go, sir,' he said. So the man Purdon obeyed and went away. "Then he turned to me. 'Anastasia, we were friends once. I treated you shamefully in the matter of the jewels. Things have gone badly with me of late. I seem to have no luck. Perhaps I have, somehow, lost my judgment. That money has done me no good. Curse that scoundrel, Sam Semple! It is all over now. The game has been played. I have lost, I suppose. But every game comes to an end at last.' He talked unlike himself. 'You can go, Anastasia. You had better leave me. You have had your revenge. Let that consideration console you.' "I said no more, but left him. It was in the afternoon. An hour later his people heard an explosion--they ran to find the cause. Lord Fylingdale was lying dead on the floor. "So, Jack, we are all punished, and none of us can complain. For my own part I am going into the country where I have a small dower house. The solitude and the dullness will, I dare say, kill me, but I do not care about living any longer.--ANASTASIA." She did, however, pass into a better mind. For I heard some time after that she had married the dean of the neighbouring cathedral, not under the name of Lady Fylingdale, which she never assumed, but that of her first husband. As to the other confederates, the poet, the colonel, and the parson, I never heard anything more about them. Nor do I expect now that I ever shall. The rest of Molly's history, dear reader, belongs to me and not to the world. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and inconsistencies have been retained as printed. 7890 ---- Blind Love by Wilkie Collins (completed by Walter Besant) CONTENTS PREFACE FIRST PERIOD I THE SOUR FRENCH WINE II THE MAN SHE REFUSED III THE REGISTERED PACKET IV THE GAME: MOUNTJOY LOSES V THE GAME: MOUNTJOY PLAYS A NEW CARD VI THE GAME: MOUNTJOY WINS VII DOCTORING THE DOCTOR VIII HER FATHER'S MESSAGE IX MR. VIMPANY ON INTOXICATION X THE MOCKERY OF DECEIT XI MRS. VIMPANY'S FAREWELL XII LORD HARRY's DEFENCE THE SECOND PERIOD XIII IRIS AT HOME XIV THE LADY'S MAID XV MR. HENLEY'S TEMPER XVI THE DOCTOR IN FULL DRESS XVII ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH XVIII PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE XIX MR. HENLEY AT HOME XX FIRST SUSPICIONS OF IRIS XXI THE PARTING SCENE XXII THE FATAL WORDS THE THIRD PERIOD XXIII NEWS OF IRIS XXIV LORD HARRY'S HONEYMOON XXV THE DOCTOR IN DIFFICULTIES XXVI LONDON AND PARIS XXVII THE BRIDE AT HOME XXVIII THE MAID AND THE KEYHOLE XXIX THE CONQUEST OF MR. VIMPANY XXX SAXON AND CELT XXXI THE SCHOOL FOR HUSBANDS XXXII GOOD-BYE TO IRIS XXXIII THE DECREE OF FATE XXXIV MY LORD'S MIND XXXV MY LADY'S MIND XXXVI THE DOCTOR MEANS MISCHIEF XXXVII THE FIRST QUARREL XXXVIII ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS XXXIX THE MYSTERY OF THE HOSPITAL XL DIRE NECESSITY XLI THE MAN IS FOUND. XLII THE METTLESOME MAID XLIII FICTION: ATTEMPTED BY MY LORD XLIV FICTION: IMPROVED BY THE DOCTOR XLV FACT: RELATED BY FANNY XLVI MAN AND WIFE XLVII THE PATIENT AND MY LORD XLVIII "THE MISTRESS AND THE MAID" XLIX THE NURSE IS SENT AWAY L IN THE ALCOVE LI WHAT NEXT? LII THE DEAD MAN'S PHOTOGRAPH LIII THE WIFE'S RETURN LIV ANOTHER STEP LV THE ADVENTURES OF A FAITHFUL MAID LVI FANNY'S NARRATIVE LVII AT LOUVAIN LVIII OF COURSE THEY WILL PAY LIX THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN ADVERTISEMENT LX ON THE EVE OF A CHANGE LXI THE LAST DISCOVERY LXII THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS LXIII A REFUGE LXIV THE INVINCIBLES PREFACE IN the month of August 1889, and in the middle of the seaside holiday, a message came to me from Wilkie Collins, then, though we hoped otherwise, on his death-bed. It was conveyed to me by Mr. A. P. Watt. He told me that his son had just come from Wilkie Collins: that they had been speaking of his novel, "Blind Love," then running in the _Illustrated London News_: that the novel was, unfortunately, unfinished: that he himself could not possibly finish it: and that he would be very glad, if I would finish it if I could find the time. And that if I could undertake this work he would send me his notes of the remainder. Wilkie Collins added these words: "If he has the time I think he will do it: we are both old hands at this work, and understand it, and he knows that I would do the same for him if he were in my place." Under the circumstances of the case, it was impossible to decline this request. I wrote to say that time should be made, and the notes were forwarded to me at Robin Hood's Bay. I began by reading carefully and twice over, so as to get a grip of the story and the novelist's intention, the part that had already appeared, and the proofs so far as the author had gone. I then turned to the notes. I found that these were not merely notes such as I expected--simple indications of the plot and the development of events, but an actual detailed scenario, in which every incident, however trivial, was carefully laid down: there were also fragments of dialogue inserted at those places where dialogue was wanted to emphasise the situation and make it real. I was much struck with the writer's perception of the vast importance of dialogue in making the reader seize the scene. Description requires attention: dialogue rivets attention. It is not an easy task, nor is it pleasant, to carry on another man's work: but the possession of this scenario lightened the work enormously. I have been careful to adhere faithfully and exactly to the plot, scene by scene, down to the smallest detail as it was laid down by the author in this book. I have altered nothing. I have preserved and incorporated every fragment of dialogue. I have used the very language wherever that was written so carefully as to show that it was meant to be used. I think that there is only one trivial detail where I had to choose because it was not clear from the notes what the author had intended. The plot of the novel, every scene, every situation, from beginning to end, is the work of Wilkie Collins. The actual writing is entirely his up to a certain point: from that point to the end it is partly his, but mainly mine. Where his writing ends and mine begins, I need not point out. The practised critic will, no doubt, at once lay his finger on the spot. I have therefore carried out the author's wishes to the best of my ability. I would that he were living still, if only to regret that he had not been allowed to finish his last work with his own hand! WALTER BESANT. BLIND LOVE THE PROLOGUE I SOON after sunrise, on a cloudy morning in the year 1881, a special messenger disturbed the repose of Dennis Howmore, at his place of residence in the pleasant Irish town of Ardoon. Well acquainted apparently with the way upstairs, the man thumped on a bed-room door, and shouted his message through it: "The master wants you, and mind you don't keep him waiting." The person sending this peremptory message was Sir Giles Mountjoy of Ardoon, knight and banker. The person receiving the message was Sir Giles's head clerk. As a matter of course, Dennis Howmore dressed himself at full speed, and hastened to his employer's private house on the outskirts of the town. He found Sir Giles in an irritable and anxious state of mind. A letter lay open on the banker's bed, his night-cap was crumpled crookedly on his head, he was in too great a hurry to remember the claims of politeness, when the clerk said "Good morning." "Dennis, I have got something for you to do. It must be kept a secret, and it allows of no delay." "Is it anything connected with business, sir?" The banker lost his temper. "How can you be such an infernal fool as to suppose that anything connected with business could happen at this time in the morning? Do you know the first milestone on the road to Garvan?" "Yes, sir." "Very well. Go to the milestone, and take care that nobody sees you when you get there. Look at the back of the stone. If you discover an Object which appears to have been left in that situation on the ground, bring it to me; and don't forget that the most impatient man in all Ireland is waiting for you." Not a word of explanation followed these extraordinary instructions. The head clerk set forth on his errand, with his mind dwelling on the national tendencies to conspiracy and assassination. His employer was not a popular person. Sir Giles had paid rent when he owed it; and, worse still, was disposed to remember in a friendly spirit what England had done for Ireland, in the course of the last fifty years. If anything appeared to justify distrust of the mysterious Object of which he was in search, Dennis resolved to be vigilantly on the look-out for a gun-barrel, whenever he passed a hedge on his return journey to the town. Arrived at the milestone, he discovered on the ground behind it one Object only--a fragment of a broken tea-cup. Naturally enough, Dennis hesitated. It seemed to be impossible that the earnest and careful instructions which he had received could relate to such a trifle as this. At the same time, he was acting under orders which were as positive as tone, manner, and language could make them. Passive obedience appeared to be the one safe course to take--at the risk of a reception, irritating to any man's self-respect, when he returned to his employer with a broken teacup in his hand. The event entirely failed to justify his misgivings. There could be no doubt that Sir Giles attached serious importance to the contemptible discovery made at the milestone. After having examined and re-examined the fragment, he announced his intention of sending the clerk on a second errand--still without troubling himself to explain what his incomprehensible instructions meant. "If I am not mistaken," he began, "the Reading Rooms, in our town, open as early as nine. Very well. Go to the Rooms this morning, on the stroke of the clock." He stopped, and consulted the letter which lay open on his bed. "Ask the librarian," he continued, "for the third volume of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' Open the book at pages seventy-eight and seventy-nine. If you find a piece of paper between those two leaves, take possession of it when nobody is looking at you, and bring it to me. That's all, Dennis. And bear in mind that I shall not recover the use of my patience till I see you again." On ordinary occasions, the head clerk was not a man accustomed to insist on what was due to his dignity. At the same time he was a sensible human being, conscious of the consideration to which his responsible place in the office entitled him. Sir Giles's irritating reserve, not even excused by a word of apology, reached the limits of his endurance. He respectfully protested. "I regret to find, sir," he said, "that I have lost my place in my employer's estimation. The man to whom you confide the superintendence of your clerks and the transaction of your business has, I venture to think, some claim (under the present circumstances) to be trusted." The banker was now offended on his side. "I readily admit your claim," he answered, "when you are sitting at your desk in my office. But, even in these days of strikes, co-operations, and bank holidays, an employer has one privilege left--he has not ceased to be a Man, and he has not forfeited a man's right to keep his own secrets. I fail to see anything in my conduct which has given you just reason to complain." Dennis, rebuked, made his bow in silence, and withdrew. Did these acts of humility mean that he submitted? They meant exactly the contrary. He had made up his mind that Sir Giles Mountjoy's motives should, sooner or later, cease to be mysteries to Sir Giles Mountjoy's clerk. II CAREFULLY following his instructions, he consulted the third volume of Gibbon's great History, and found, between the seventy-eighth and seventy-ninth pages, something remarkable this time. It was a sheet of delicately-made paper, pierced with a number of little holes, infinitely varied in size, and cut with the smoothest precision. Having secured this curious object, while the librarian's back was turned, Dennis Howmore reflected. A page of paper, unintelligibly perforated for some purpose unknown, was in itself a suspicious thing. And what did suspicion suggest to the inquiring mind in South-Western Ireland, before the suppression of the Land League? Unquestionably---Police! On the way back to his employer, the banker's clerk paid a visit to an old friend--a journalist by profession, and a man of varied learning and experience as well. Invited to inspect the remarkable morsel of paper, and to discover the object with which the perforations had been made, the authority consulted proved to be worthy of the trust reposed in him. Dennis left the newspaper office an enlightened man--with information at the disposal of Sir Giles, and with a sense of relief which expressed itself irreverently in these words: "Now I have got him!" The bewildered banker looked backwards and forwards from the paper to the clerk, and from the clerk to the paper. "I don't understand it," he said. "Do you?" Still preserving the appearance of humility, Dennis asked leave to venture on a guess. The perforated paper looked, as he thought, like a Puzzle. "If we wait for a day or two," he suggested, "the Key to it may possibly reach us." On the next day, nothing happened. On the day after, a second letter made another audacious demand on the fast failing patience of Sir Giles Mountjoy. Even the envelope proved to be a Puzzle on this occasion; the postmark was "Ardoon." In other words, the writer had used the postman as a messenger, while he or his accomplice was actually in the town, posting the letter within half-a-minute's walk of the bank! The contents presented an impenetrable mystery, the writing looked worthy of a madman. Sentences appeared in the wildest state of confusion, and words were so mutilated as to be unintelligible. This time the force of circumstances was more than Sir Giles could resist. He took the clerk into his confidence at last. "Let us begin at the beginning," he said. "There is the letter you saw on my bed, when I first sent for you. I found it waiting on my table when I woke; and I don't know who put it there. Read it." Dennis read as follows: "Sir Giles Mountjoy,--I have a disclosure to make, in which one of the members of your family is seriously interested. Before I can venture to explain myself, I must be assured that I can trust to your good faith. As a test of this, I require you to fulfil the two conditions that follow--and to do it without the slightest loss of time. I dare not trust you yet with my address, or my signature. Any act of carelessness, on my part, might end fatally for the true friend who writes these lines. If you neglect this warning, you will regret it to the end of your life." To the conditions on which the letter insisted there is no need to allude. They had been complied with when the discoveries were made at the back of the milestone, and between the pages of Gibson's history. Sir Giles had already arrived at the conclusion that a conspiracy was in progress to assassinate him, and perhaps to rob the bank. The wiser head clerk pointed to the perforated paper and the incomprehensible writing received that morning. "If we can find out what these mean," he said, "you may be better able, sir, to form a correct opinion." "And who is to do that?" the banker asked. "I can but try, sir," was the modest reply, "if you see no objection to my making the attempt." Sir Giles approved of the proposed experiment, silently and satirically, by a bend of his head. Too discreet a man to make a suspiciously ready use of the information which he had privately obtained, Dennis took care that his first attempt should not be successful. After modestly asking permission to try again, he ventured on the second occasion to arrive at a happy discovery. Lifting the perforated paper, he placed it delicately over the page which contained the unintelligible writing. Words and sentences now appeared (through the holes in the paper) in their right spelling and arrangement, and addressed Sir Giles in these terms: "I beg to thank you, sir, for complying with my conditions. You have satisfied me of your good faith. At the same time, it is possible that you may hesitate to trust a man who is not yet able to admit you to his confidence. The perilous position in which I stand obliges me to ask for two or three days more of delay, before I can safely make an appointment with you. Pray be patient--and on no account apply for advice or protection to the police." "Those last words," Sir Giles declared, "are conclusive! The sooner I am under the care of the law the better. Take my card to the police-office." "May I say a word first, sir?" "Do you mean that you don't agree with me?" "I mean that." "You were always an obstinate man Dennis; and it grows on you as you get older. Never mind! Let's have it out. Who do _you_ say is the person pointed at in these rascally letters?" The head clerk took up the first letter of the two and pointed to the opening sentence: "Sir Giles Mountjoy, I have a disclosure to make in which one of the members of your family is seriously interested." Dennis emphatically repeated the words: "one of the members of your family." His employer regarded him with a broad stare of astonishment. "One of the members of my family?" Sir Giles repeated, on his side. "Why, man alive, what are you thinking of? I'm an old bachelor, and I haven't got a family." "There is your brother, sir." "My brother is in France--out of the way of the wretches who are threatening me. I wish I was with him!" "There are your brother's two sons, Sir Giles." "Well? And what is there to be afraid of? My nephew, Hugh, is in London--and, mind! not on a political errand. I hope, before long, to hear that he is going to be married--if the strangest and nicest girl in England will have him. What's wrong now?" Dennis explained. "I only wished to say, sir, that I was thinking of your other nephew." Sir Giles laughed. "Arthur in danger!" he exclaimed. "As harmless a young man as ever lived. The worst one can say of him is that he is throwing away his money--farming in Kerry." "Excuse me, Sir Giles; there's not much chance of his throwing away his money, where he is now. Nobody will venture to take his money. I met with one of Mr. Arthur's neighbours at the market yesterday. Your nephew is boycotted." "So much the better," the obstinate banker declared. "He will be cured of his craze for farming; and he will come back to the place I am keeping for him in the office." "God grant it!" the clerk said fervently. For the moment, Sir Giles was staggered. "Have you heard something that you haven't told me yet?" he asked. "No, sir. I am only bearing in mind something which--with all respect--I think you have forgotten. The last tenant on that bit of land in Kerry refused to pay his rent. Mr. Arthur has taken what they call an evicted farm. It's my firm belief," said the head clerk, rising and speaking earnestly, "that the person who has addressed those letters to you knows Mr. Arthur, and knows he is in danger--and is trying to save your nephew (by means of your influence), at the risk of his own life." Sir Giles shook his head. "I call that a far-fetched interpretation, Dennis. If what you say is true, why didn't the writer of those anonymous letters address himself to Arthur, instead of to me?" "I gave it as my opinion just now, sir, that the writer of the letter knew Mr. Arthur." "So you did. And what of that?" Dennis stood to his guns. "Anybody who is acquainted with Mr. Arthur," he persisted, "knows that (with all sorts of good qualities) the young gentleman is headstrong and rash. If a friend told him he was in danger on the farm, that would be enough of itself to make him stop where he is, and brave it out. Whereas you, sir, are known to be cautious and careful, and farseeing and discreet." He might have added: And cowardly and obstinate, and narrow-minded and inflated by stupid self-esteem. But respect for his employer had blindfolded the clerk's observation for many a long year past. If one man may be born with the heart of a lion, another man may be born with the mind of a mule. Dennis's master was one of the other men. "Very well put," Sir Giles answered indulgently. "Time will show, if such an entirely unimportant person as my nephew Arthur is likely to be assassinated. That allusion to one of the members of my family is a mere equivocation, designed to throw me off my guard. Rank, money, social influence, unswerving principles, mark ME out as a public character. Go to the police-office, and let the best man who happens to be off duty come here directly." Good Dennis Howmore approached the door very unwillingly. It was opened, from the outer side, before he had reached that end of the room. One of the bank porters announced a visitor. "Miss Henley wishes to know, sir, if you can see her." Sir Giles looked agreeably surprised. He rose with alacrity to receive the lady. III WHEN Iris Henley dies there will, in all probability, be friends left who remember her and talk of her--and there may be strangers present at the time (women for the most part), whose curiosity will put questions relating to her personal appearance. No replies will reward them with trustworthy information. Miss Henley's chief claim to admiration lay in a remarkable mobility of expression, which reflected every change of feeling peculiar to the nature of a sweet and sensitive woman. For this reason, probably, no descriptions of her will agree with each other. No existing likenesses will represent her. The one portrait that was painted of Iris is only recognisable by partial friends of the artist. In and out of London, photographic likenesses were taken of her. They have the honour of resembling the portraits of Shakespeare in this respect--compared with one another, it is not possible to discover that they present the same person. As for the evidence offered by the loving memory of her friends, it is sure to be contradictory in the last degree. She had a charming face, a commonplace face, an intelligent face--a poor complexion, a delicate complexion, no complexion at all--eyes that were expressive of a hot temper, of a bright intellect, of a firm character, of an affectionate disposition, of a truthful nature, of hysterical sensibility, of inveterate obstinacy--a figure too short; no, just the right height; no, neither one thing nor the other; elegant, if you like--dress shabby: oh, surely not; dress quiet and simple; no, something more than that; ostentatiously quiet, theatrically simple, worn with the object of looking unlike other people. In one last word, was this mass of contradictions generally popular, in the time when it was a living creature? Yes--among the men. No--not invariably. The man of all others who ought to have been fondest of her was the man who behaved cruelly to Iris--her own father. And, when the poor creature married (if she did marry), how many of you attended the wedding? Not one of us! And when she died, how many of you were sorry for her? All of us! What? no difference of opinion in that one particular? On the contrary, perfect concord, thank God. Let the years roll back, and let Iris speak for herself, at the memorable time when she was in the prime of her life, and when a stormy career was before her. IV BEING Miss Henley's godfather, Sir Giles was a privileged person. He laid his hairy hands on her shoulders, and kissed her on either cheek. After that prefatory act of endearment, he made his inquiries. What extraordinary combination of events had led Iris to leave London, and had brought her to visit him in his banking-house at Ardoon? "I wanted to get away from home," she answered; "and having nobody to go to but my godfather, I thought I should like to see You." "Alone!" cried Sir Giles. "No--with my maid to keep me company." "Only your maid, Iris? Surely you have acquaintances among young ladies like yourself?" "Acquaintances--yes. No friends." "Does your father approve of what you have done?" "Will you grant me a favour, godpapa?" "Yes--if I can." "Don't insist on my answering your last question." The faint colour that had risen in her face, when she entered the room, left it. At the same time, the expression of her mouth altered. The lips closed firmly; revealing that strongest of all resolutions which is founded on a keen sense of wrong. She looked older than her age: what she might be ten years hence, she was now. Sir Giles understood her. He got up, and took a turn in the room. An old habit, of which he had cured himself with infinite difficulty when he was made a Knight, showed itself again. He put his hands in his pockets. "You and your father have had another quarrel," he said, stopping opposite Iris. "I don't deny it," she replied. "Who is to blame?" She smiled bitterly. "The woman is always to blame." "Did your father tell you that?" "My father reminded me that I was twenty-one years old, last birthday--and told me that I could do as I liked. I understood him, and I left the house." "You will go back again, I suppose?" "I don't know." Sir Giles began pacing the room once more. His rugged face, telling its story of disaster and struggle in early life, showed signs of disappointment and distress. "Hugh promised to write to me," he said, "and he has not written. I know what that means; I know what you have done to offend your father. My nephew has asked you to marry him for the second time. And for the second time you have refused." Her face softened; its better and younger aspect revived. "Yes," she said, sadly and submissively; "I have refused him again." Sir Giles lost his temper. "What the devil is your objection to Hugh?" he burst out. "My father said the same thing to me," she replied, "almost in the same words. I made him angry when I tried to give my reason. I don't want to make you angry, too." He took no notice of this. "Isn't Hugh a good fellow?" he went on. "Isn't he affectionate? and kindhearted? and honourable?--aye, and a handsome man too, if you come to that." "Hugh is all that you say. I like him; I admire him; I owe to his kindness some of the happiest days of my sad life, and I am grateful--oh, with all my heart, I am grateful to Hugh!" "If that's true, Iris----" "Every word of it is true." "I say, if that's true--there's no excuse for you. I hate perversity in a young woman! Why don't you marry him?" "Try to feel for me," she said gently; "I can't love him." Her tone said more to the banker than her words had expressed. The secret sorrow of her life, which was known to her father, was known also to Sir Giles. "Now we have come to it at last!" he said. "You can't love my nephew Hugh. And you won't tell me the reason why, because your sweet temper shrinks from making me angry. Shall I mention the reason for you, my dear? I can do it in two words--Lord Harry." She made no reply; she showed no sign of feeling at what he had just said. Her head sank a little; her hands clasped themselves on her lap; the obstinate resignation which can submit to anything hardened her face, stiffened her figure--and that was all. The banker was determined not to spare her. "It's easy to see," he resumed, "that you have not got over your infatuation for that vagabond yet. Go where he may, into the vilest places and among the lowest people, he carries your heart along with him. I wonder you are not ashamed of such an attachment as that." He had stung her at last. She roused herself, and answered him. "Harry has led a wild life," she said; "he has committed serious faults, and he may live to do worse than he has done yet. To what degradation, bad company, and a bad bringing-up may yet lead him, I leave his enemies to foresee. But I tell you this, he has redeeming qualities which you, and people like you, are not good Christians enough to discover. He has friends who can still appreciate him--your nephew, Arthur Mountjoy, is one of them. Oh, I know it by Arthur's letters to me! Blame Lord Harry as you may, I tell you he has the capacity for repentance in him, and one day--when it is too late, I dare say--he will show it. I can never be his wife. We are parted, never in all likelihood to meet again. Well, he is the only man whom I have ever loved; and he is the only man whom I ever shall love. If you think this state of mind proves that I am as bad as he is, I won't contradict you. Do we any of us know how bad we are----? Have you heard of Harry lately?" The sudden transition, from an earnest and devoted defence of the man, to an easy and familiar inquiry about him, startled Sir Giles. For the moment, he had nothing to say; Iris had made him think. She had shown a capacity for mastering her strongest feelings, at the moment when they threatened to overcome her, which is very rarely found in a young woman. How to manage her was a problem for patient resolution to solve. The banker's obstinacy, rather than his conviction, had encouraged him to hold to the hope of Hugh's marriage, even after his nephew had been refused for the second time. His headstrong goddaughter had come to visit him of her own accord. She had not forgotten the days of her childhood, when he had some influence over her--when she had found him kinder to her than her father had ever been. Sir Giles saw that he had taken the wrong tone with Iris. His anger had not alarmed her; his opinion had not influenced her. In Hugh's interests, he determined to try what consideration and indulgence would do towards cultivating the growth of her regard for him. Finding that she had left her maid and her luggage at the hotel, he hospitably insisted on their removal to his own house. "While you are in Ardoon, Iris, you are my guest," he said. She pleased him by readily accepting the invitation--and then annoyed him by asking again if he had heard anything of Lord Harry. He answered shortly and sharply: "I have heard nothing. What is _your_ last news of him?" "News," she said, "which I sincerely hope is not true. An Irish paper has been sent to me, which reports that he has joined the secret society--nothing better than a society of assassins, I am afraid--which is known by the name of the Invincibles." As she mentioned that formidable brotherhood, Dennis Howmore returned from the police-office. He announced that a Sergeant was then waiting to receive instructions from Sir Giles. V IRIS rose to go. Her godfather courteously stopped her. "Wait here," he said, "until I have spoken to the Sergeant, and I will escort you to my house. My clerk will do what is necessary at the hotel. You don't look quite satisfied. Is the arrangement that I have proposed not agreeable to you?" Iris assured him that she gratefully acceded to the arrangement. At the same time, she confessed to having been a little startled, on discovering that he was in consultation with the police. "I remember that we are in Ireland," she explained, "and I am foolish enough to fear that you may be in some danger. May I hope that it is only a trifle?" Only a trifle! Among ether deficient sensibilities in the strange nature of Iris, Sir Giles had observed an imperfect appreciation of the dignity of his social position. Here was a new proof of it! The temptation to inspire sentiments of alarm--not unmingled with admiration--in the mind of his insensible goddaughter, by exhibiting himself as a public character threatened by a conspiracy, was more than the banker's vanity could resist. Before he left the room, he instructed Dennis to tell Miss Henley what had happened, and to let her judge for herself whether he had been needlessly alarmed by, what she was pleased to call, "a mere trifle." Dennis Howmore must have been more than mortal, if he could have related his narrative of events without being influenced by his own point of view. On the first occasion when he mentioned Arthur Mountjoy's name, Iris showed a sudden interest in his strange story which took him by surprise. "You know Mr. Arthur?" he said. "Knew him!" Iris repeated. "He was my playfellow when we were both children. He is as dear to me as if he was my brother. Tell me at once--is he really in danger?" Dennis honestly repeated what he had already said, on that subject, to his master. Miss Henley, entirely agreeing with him, was eager to warn Arthur of his position. There was no telegraphic communication with the village which was near his farm. She could only write to him, and she did write to him, by that day's post--having reasons of her own for anxiety, which forbade her to show her letter to Dennis. Well aware of the devoted friendship which united Lord Harry and Arthur Mountjoy--and bearing in mind the newspaper report of the Irish lord's rash association with the Invincibles--her fears now identified the noble vagabond as the writer of the anonymous letters, which had so seriously excited her godfather's doubts of his own safety. When Sir Giles returned, and took her with him to his house, he spoke of his consultation with the Sergeant in terms which increased her dread of what might happen in the future. She was a dull and silent guest, during the interval that elapsed before it would be possible to receive Arthur's reply. The day arrived--and the post brought no relief to her anxieties. The next day passed without a letter. On the morning of the fourth day, Sir Giles rose later than usual. His correspondence was sent to him from the office, at breakfast-time. After opening one of the letters, he dispatched a messenger in hot haste to the police. "Look at that," he said, handing the letter to Iris. "Does the assassin take me for a fool?" She read the lines that follow: "Unforeseen events force me, Sir Giles, to run a serious risk. I must speak to you, and it must not be by daylight. My one hope of safety is in darkness. Meet me at the first milestone, on the road to Garvan, when the moon sets at ten o'clock to-night. No need to mention your name. The password is: _Fidelity."_ "Do you mean to go?" Iris asked. "Do I mean to be murdered!" Sir Giles broke out. "My dear child, do pray try to think before you speak. The Sergeant will represent me, of course." "And take the man prisoner?" Iris added. "Certainly!" With that startling reply, the banker hurried away to receive the police in another room. Iris dropped into the nearest chair. The turn that the affair had now taken filled her with unutterable dismay. Sir Giles came back, after no very long absence, composed and smiling. The course of proceeding had been settled to his complete satisfaction. Dressed in private clothes, the Sergeant was to go to the milestone at the appointed time, representing the banker in the darkness, and giving the password. He was to be followed by two of his men who would wait in concealment, within hearing of his whistle, if their services were required. "I want to see the ruffian when he is safely handcuffed," Sir Giles explained; "and I have arranged to wait for the police, to-night, at my office." There was but one desperate way that Iris could now discern of saving the man who had confided in her godfather's honour, and whose trust had already been betrayed. Never had she loved the outlawed Irish lord--the man whom she was forbidden, and rightly forbidden, to marry--as she loved him at that moment. Let the risk be what it might, this resolute woman had determined that the Sergeant should not be the only person who arrived at the milestone, and gave the password. There was one devoted friend to Lord Harry, whom she could always trust--and that friend was herself. Sir Giles withdrew, to look after his business at the bank. She waited until the clock had struck the servants' dinner hour, and then ascended the stairs to her godfather's dressing-room. Opening his wardrobe, she discovered in one part of it a large Spanish cloak, and, in another part, a high-crowned felt hat which he wore on his country excursions. In the dark, here was disguise enough for her purpose. As she left the dressing-room, a measure of precaution occurred to her, which she put in action at once. Telling her maid that she had some purchases to make in the town, she went out, and asked her way to Garvan of the first respectable stranger whom she met in the street. Her object was to walk as far as the first milestone, in daylight, so as to be sure of finding it again by night. She had made herself familiar with the different objects on the road, when she returned to the banker's house. As the time for the arrest drew nearer, Sir Giles became too restless to wait patiently at home. He went away to the police-office, eager to hear if any new counter-conspiracy had occurred to the authorities. It was dark soon after eight o'clock, at that time of the year. At nine the servants assembled at the supper-table. They were all downstairs together, talking, and waiting for their meal. Feeling the necessity of arriving at the place of meeting, in time to keep out of the Sergeant's way, Iris assumed her disguise as the clock struck nine. She left the house without a living creature to notice her, indoors or out. Clouds were gathering over the sky. The waning moon was only to be seen at intervals, as she set forth on her way to the milestone. VI THE wind rose a little, and the rifts in the clouds began to grow broader as Iris gained the high road. For a while, the glimmer of the misty moonlight lit the way before her. As well as she could guess, she had passed over more than half of the distance between the town and the milestone before the sky darkened again. Objects by the wayside grew shadowy and dim. A few drops of rain began to fall. The milestone, as she knew--thanks to the discovery of it made by daylight--was on the right-hand side of the road. But the dull-grey colour of the stone was not easy to see in the dark. A doubt troubled her whether she might not have passed the milestone. She stopped and looked at the sky. The threatening of rain had passed away: signs showed themselves which seemed to promise another break in the clouds. She waited. Low and faint, the sinking moonlight looked its last at the dull earth. In front of her, there was nothing to be seen but the road. She looked back--and discovered the milestone. A rough stone wall protected the land on either side of the road. Nearly behind the milestone there was a gap in this fence, partially closed by a hurdle. A half-ruined culvert, arching a ditch that had run dry, formed a bridge leading from the road to the field. Had the field been already chosen as a place of concealment by the police? Nothing was to be seen but a footpath, and the dusky line of a plantation beyond it. As she made these discoveries, the rain began to fall again; the clouds gathered once more; the moonlight vanished. At the same moment an obstacle presented itself to her mind, which Iris had thus far failed to foresee. Lord Harry might approach the milestone by three different ways: that is to say--by the road from the town, or by the road from the open country, or by way of the field and the culvert. How could she so place herself as to be sure of warning him, before he fell into the hands of the police? To watch the three means of approach in the obscurity of the night, and at one and the same time, was impossible. A man in this position, guided by reason, would in all probability have wasted precious time in trying to arrive at the right decision. A woman, aided by love, conquered the difficulty that confronted her in a moment. Iris decided on returning to the milestone, and on waiting there to be discovered and taken prisoner by the police. Supposing Lord Harry to be punctual to his appointment, he would hear voices and movements, as a necessary consequence of the arrest, in time to make his escape. Supposing him on the other hand to be late, the police would be on the way back to the town with their prisoner: he would find no one at the milestone, and would leave it again in safety. She was on the point of turning, to get back to the road, when something on the dark surface of the field, which looked like a darker shadow, became dimly visible. In another moment it seemed to be a shadow that moved. She ran towards it. It looked like a man as she drew nearer. The man stopped. "The password," he said, in tones cautiously lowered. "Fidelity," she answered in a whisper. It was too dark for a recognition of his features; but Iris knew him by his tall stature--knew him by the accent in which he had asked for the password. Erroneously judging of her, on his side, as a man, he drew back again. Sir Giles Mountjoy was above the middle height; the stranger in a cloak, who had whispered to him, was below it. "You are not the person I expected to meet," he said. "Who are you?" Her faithful heart was longing to tell him the truth. The temptation to reveal herself, and to make the sweet confession of her happiness at having saved him, would have overpowered her discretion, but for a sound that was audible on the road behind them. In the deep silence of the time and place mistake was impossible. It was the sound of footsteps. There was just time to whisper to him: "Sir Giles has betrayed you. Save yourself." "Thank you, whoever you are!" With that reply, he suddenly and swiftly disappeared. Iris remembered the culvert, and turned towards it. There was a hiding-place under the arch, if she could only get down into the dry ditch in time. She was feeling her way to the slope of it with her feet, when a heavy hand seized her by the arm; and a resolute voice said: "You are my prisoner." She was led back into the road. The man who had got her blew a whistle. Two other men joined him. "Show a light," he said; "and let's see who the fellow is." The shade was slipped aside from a lantern: the light fell full on the prisoner's face. Amazement petrified the two attendant policemen. The pious Catholic Sergeant burst into speech: "Holy Mary! it's a woman!" Did the secret societies of Ireland enrol women? Was this a modern Judith, expressing herself by anonymous letters, and bent on assassinating a financial Holofernes who kept a bank? What account had she to give of herself? How came she to be alone in a desolate field on a rainy night? Instead of answering these questions, the inscrutable stranger preferred a bold and brief request. "Take me to Sir Giles"--was all she said to the police. The Sergeant had the handcuffs ready. After looking at the prisoner's delicate wrists by the lantern-light, he put his fetters back in his pocket. "A lady--and no doubt about it," he said to one of his assistants. The two men waited, with a mischievous interest in seeing what he would do next. The list of their pious officer's virtues included a constitutional partiality for women, which exhibited the merciful side of justice when a criminal wore a petticoat. "We will take you to Sir Giles, Miss," he said--and offered his arm, instead of offering his handcuffs. Iris understood him, and took his arm. She was silent--unaccountably silent as the men thought--on the way to the town. They heard her sigh: and, once, the sigh sounded more like a sob; little did they suspect what was in that silent woman's mind at the time. The one object which had absorbed the attention of Iris had been the saving of Lord Harry. This accomplished, the free exercise of her memory had now reminded her of Arthur Mountjoy. It was impossible to doubt that the object of the proposed meeting at the milestone had been to take measures for the preservation of the young man's life. A coward is always more or less cruel. The proceedings (equally treacherous and merciless) by which Sir Giles had provided for his own safety, had delayed--perhaps actually prevented--the execution of Lord Harry's humane design. It was possible, horribly possible, that a prompt employment of time might have been necessary to the rescue of Arthur from impending death by murder. In the agitation that overpowered her, Iris actually hurried the police on their return to the town. Sir Giles had arranged to wait for news in his private room at the office--and there he was, with Dennis Howmore in attendance to receive visitors. The Sergeant went into the banker's room alone, to make his report. He left the door ajar; Iris could hear what passed. "Have you got your prisoner?" Sir Giles began. "Yes, your honour." "Is the wretch securely handcuffed?" "I beg your pardon, sir, it isn't a man." "Nonsense, Sergeant; it can't be a boy." The Sergeant confessed that it was not a boy. "It's a woman," he said. "What!!!" "A woman," the patient officer repeated--"and a young one. She asked for You." "Bring her in." Iris was not the sort of person who waits to be brought in. She walked in, of her own accord. VII "GOOD Heavens!" cried Sir Giles. "Iris! With my cloak on!! With my hat in her hand!!! Sergeant, there has been some dreadful mistake. This is my god-daughter--Miss Henley." "We found her at the milestone, your honour. The young lady and nobody else." Sir Giles appealed helplessly to his god-daughter. "What does this mean?" Instead of answering, she looked at the Sergeant. The Sergeant, conscious of responsibility, stood his ground and looked at Sir Giles. His face confessed that the Irish sense of humour was tickled: but he showed no intention of leaving the room. Sir Giles saw that Iris would enter into no explanation in the man's presence. "You needn't wait any longer," he said. "What am I to do, if you please, with the prisoner?" the Sergeant inquired. Sir Giles waived that unnecessary question away with his hand. He was trebly responsible--as knight, banker, and magistrate into the bargain. "I will be answerable," he replied, "for producing Miss Henley, if called upon. Good night." The Sergeant's sense of duty was satisfied. He made the military salute. His gallantry added homage to the young lady under the form of a bow. Then, and then only, he walked with dignity out of the room. "Now," Sir Giles resumed, "I presume I may expect to receive an explanation. What does this impropriety mean? What were you doing at the milestone?" "I was saving the person who made the appointment with you," Iris said; "the poor fellow had no ill-will towards you--who had risked everything to save your nephew's life. Oh, sir, you committed a terrible mistake when you refused to trust that man!" Sir Giles had anticipated the appearance of fear, and the reality of humble apologies. She had answered him indignantly, with a heightened colour, and with tears in her eyes. His sense of his own social importance was wounded to the quick. "Who is the man you are speaking of?" he asked loftily. "And what is your excuse for having gone to the milestone to save him--hidden under my cloak, disguised in my hat?" "Don't waste precious time in asking questions!" was the desperate reply. "Undo the harm that you have done already. Your help--oh, I mean what I say!--may yet preserve Arthur's life. Go to the farm, and save him." Sir Giles's anger assumed a new form, it indulged in an elaborate mockery of respect. He took his watch from his pocket, and consulted it satirically. "Must I make an excuse?" he asked with a clumsy assumption of humility. "No! you must go." "Permit me to inform you, Miss Henley, that the last train started more than two hours since." "What does that matter? You are rich enough to hire a train." Sir Giles, the actor, could endure it no longer; he dropped the mask, and revealed Sir Giles, the man. His clerk was summoned by a peremptory ring of the bell. "Attend Miss Henley to the house," he said. "You may come to your senses after a night's rest," he continued, turning sternly to Iris. "I will receive your excuses in the morning." In the morning, the breakfast was ready as usual at nine o'clock. Sir Giles found himself alone at the table. He sent an order to one of the women-servants to knock at Miss Henley's door. There was a long delay. The housekeeper presented herself in a state of alarm; she had gone upstairs to make the necessary investigation in her own person. Miss Henley was not in her room; the maid was not in her room; the beds had not been slept in; the heavy luggage was labelled--"To be called for from the hotel." And there was an end of the evidence which the absent Iris had left behind her. Inquiries were made at the hotel. The young lady had called there, with her maid, early on that morning. They had their travelling-bags with them; and Miss Henley had left directions that the luggage was to be placed under care of the landlord until her return. To what destination she had betaken herself nobody knew. Sir Giles was too angry to remember what she had said to him on the previous night, or he might have guessed at the motive which had led to her departure. "Her father has done with her already," he said; "and I have done with her now." The servants received orders not to admit Miss Henley, if her audacity contemplated a return to her godfather's house. VIII ON the afternoon of the same day, Iris arrived at the village situated in the near neighbourhood of Arthur Mountjoy's farm. The infection of political excitement (otherwise the hatred of England) had spread even to this remote place. On the steps of his little chapel, the priest, a peasant himself, was haranguing his brethren of the soil. An Irishman who paid his landlord was a traitor to his country; an Irishman who asserted his free birthright in the land that he walked on was an enlightened patriot. Such was the new law which the reverend gentleman expounded to his attentive audience. If his brethren there would like him to tell them how they might apply the law, this exemplary Christian would point to the faithless Irishman, Arthur Mountjoy. "Buy not of him, sell not to him; avoid him if he approaches you; starve him out of the place. I might say more, boys--you know what I mean." To hear the latter part of this effort of oratory, without uttering a word of protest, was a trial of endurance under which Iris trembled. The secondary effect of the priest's address was to root the conviction of Arthur's danger with tenfold tenacity in her mind. After what she had just heard, even the slightest delay in securing his safety might be productive of deplorable results. She astonished a barefooted boy, on the outskirts of the crowd, by a gift of sixpence, and asked her way to the farm. The little Irishman ran on before her, eager to show the generous lady how useful he could be. In less than half an hour, Iris and her maid were at the door of the farm-house. No such civilised inventions appeared as a knocker or a bell. The boy used his knuckles instead--and ran away when he heard the lock of the door turned on the inner side. He was afraid to be seen speaking to any living creature who inhabited the "evicted farm." A decent old woman appeared, and inquired suspiciously "what the ladies wanted." The accent in which she spoke was unmistakably English. When Iris asked for Mr. Arthur Mountjoy the reply was: "Not at home." The housekeeper inhospitably attempted to close the door. "Wait one moment," Iris said. "Years have changed you; but there is something in your face which is not quite strange to me. Are you Mrs. Lewson?" The woman admitted that this was her name. "But how is it that you are a stranger to me?" she asked distrustfully. "If you have been long in Mr. Mountjoy's service," Iris replied, "you may perhaps have heard him speak of Miss Henley?" Mrs. Lewson's face brightened in an instant; she threw the door wide open with a glad cry of recognition. "Come in, Miss, come in! Who would have thought of seeing you in this horrible place? Yes; I was the nurse who looked after you all three--when you and Mr. Arthur and Mr. Hugh were playfellows together." Her eyes rested longingly on her favourite of bygone days. The sensitive sympathies of Iris interpreted that look. She prettily touched her cheek, inviting the nurse to kiss her. At this act of kindness the poor old woman broke down; she apologised quaintly for her tears: "Think, Miss, how _I_ must remember that happy time--when _you_ have not forgotten it." Shown into the parlour, the first object which the visitor noticed was the letter that she had written to Arthur lying unopened on the table. "Then he is really out of the house?" she said with a feeling of relief. He had been away from the farm for a week or more. Had he received a warning from some other quarter? and had he wisely sought refuge in flight? The amazement in the housekeeper's face, when she heard these questions, pleaded for a word of explanation. Iris acknowledged without reserve the motives which had suggested her journey, and asked eagerly if she had been mistaken in assuming that Arthur was in danger of assassination. Mrs. Lewson shook her head. Beyond all doubt the young master was in danger. But Miss Iris ought to have known his nature better than to suppose that he would beat a retreat, if all the land-leaguers in Ireland threatened him together. No! It was his bold way to laugh at danger. He had left his farm to visit a friend in the next county; and it was shrewdly guessed that a young lady who was staying in the house was the attraction which had kept him so long away. "Anyhow, he means to come back to-morrow," Mrs. Lewson said. "I wish he would think better of it, and make his escape to England while he has the chance. If the savages in these parts must shoot somebody, I'm here--an old woman that can't last much longer. Let them shoot me." Iris asked if Arthur's safety was assured in the next county, and in the house of his friend. "I can't say, Miss; I have never been to the house. He is in danger if he persists in coming back to the farm. There are chances of shooting him all along his road home. Oh, yes; he knows it, poor dear, as well as I do. But, there!--men like him are such perverse creatures. He takes his rides just as usual. No; he won't listen to an old woman like me; and, as for friends to advise him, the only one of them that has darkened our doors is a scamp who had better have kept away. You may have heard tell of him. The old Earl, his wicked father, used to be called by a bad name. And the wild young lord is his father's true son." "Not Lord Harry?" Iris exclaimed. The outbreak of agitation in her tone and manner was silently noticed by her maid. The housekeeper did not attempt to conceal the impression that had been produced upon her. "I hope you don't know such a vagabond as that?" she said very seriously. "Perhaps you are thinking of his brother--the eldest son--a respectable man, as I have been told?" Miss Henley passed over these questions without notice. Urged by the interest in her lover, which was now more than ever an interest beyond her control, she said: "Is Lord Harry in danger, on account of his friend?" "He has nothing to fear from the wretches who infest our part of the country," Mrs. Lewson replied. "Report says he's one of themselves. The police--there's what his young lordship has to be afraid of, if all's true that is said about him. Anyhow, when he paid his visit to my master, he came secretly like a thief in the night. And I heard Mr. Arthur, while they were together here in the parlour, loud in blaming him for something that he had done. No more, Miss, of Lord Harry! I have something particular to say to you. Suppose I promise to make you comfortable--will you please wait here till to-morrow, and see Mr. Arthur and speak to him? If there's a person living who can persuade him to take better care of himself, I do believe it will be you." Iris readily consented to wait for Arthur Mountjoy's return. Left together, while Mrs. Lewson was attending to her domestic duties, the mistress noticed an appearance of pre-occupation in the maid's face. "Are you beginning to wish, Rhoda," she said, "that I had not brought you to this strange place, among these wild people?" The maid was a quiet amiable girl, evidently in delicate health. She smiled faintly. "I was thinking, Miss, of another nobleman besides the one Mrs. Lewson mentioned just now, who seems to have led a reckless life. It was printed in a newspaper that I read before we left London." "Was his name mentioned?" Iris asked. "No, Miss; I suppose they were afraid of giving offence. He tried so many strange ways of getting a living--it was almost like reading a story-book." The suppression of the name suggested a suspicion from which Iris recoiled. Was it possible that her maid could be ignorantly alluding to Lord Harry? "Do you remember this hero's adventures?" she said. "I can try, Miss, if you wish to hear about him." The newspaper narrative appeared to have produced a vivid impression on Rhoda's mind. Making allowance for natural hesitations and mistakes, and difficulties in expressing herself correctly, she repeated with a singularly clear recollection the substance of what she had read. IX THE principal characters in the story were an old Irish nobleman, who was called the Earl, and the youngest of his two sons, mysteriously distinguished as "the wild lord." It was said of the Earl that he had not been a good father; he had cruelly neglected both his sons. The younger one, badly treated at school, and left to himself in the holidays, began his adventurous career by running away. He got employment (under an assumed name) as a ship's boy. At the outset, he did well; learning his work, and being liked by the Captain and the crew. But the chief mate was a brutal man, and the young runaway's quick temper resented the disgraceful infliction of blows. He made up his mind to try his luck on shore, and attached himself to a company of strolling players. Being a handsome lad, with a good figure and a fine clear voice, he did very well for a while on the country stage. Hard times came; salaries were reduced; the adventurer wearied of the society of actors and actresses. His next change of life presented him in North Britain as a journalist, employed on a Scotch newspaper. An unfortunate love affair was the means of depriving him of this new occupation. He was recognised, soon afterwards, serving as assistant steward in one of the passenger steamers voyaging between Liverpool and New York. Arrived in this last city, he obtained notoriety, of no very respectable kind, as a "medium" claiming powers of supernatural communication with the world of spirits. When the imposture was ultimately discovered, he had gained money by his unworthy appeal to the meanly prosaic superstition of modern times. A long interval had then elapsed, and nothing had been heard of him, when a starving man was discovered by a traveller, lost on a Western prairie. The ill-fated Irish lord had associated himself with an Indian tribe--had committed some offence against their laws--and had been deliberately deserted and left to die. On his recovery, he wrote to his elder brother (who had inherited the title and estates on the death of the old Earl) to say that he was ashamed of the life that he had led, and eager to make amendment by accepting any honest employment that could be offered to him. The traveller who had saved his life, and whose opinion was to be trusted, declared that the letter represented a sincerely penitent state of mind. There were good qualities in the vagabond, which only wanted a little merciful encouragement to assert themselves. The reply that he received from England came from the lawyers employed by the new Earl. They had arranged with their agents in New York to pay to the younger brother a legacy of a thousand pounds, which represented all that had been left to him by his father's will. If he wrote again his letters would not be answered; his brother had done with him. Treated in this inhuman manner, the wild lord became once more worthy of his name. He tried a new life as a betting man at races and trotting-matches. Fortune favoured him at the outset, and he considerably increased his legacy. With the customary infatuation of men who gain money by risking the loss of it, he presumed on his good luck. One pecuniary disaster followed another, and left him literally penniless. He was found again, in England, exhibiting an open boat in which he and a companion had made one of those foolhardy voyages across the Atlantic, which have now happily ceased to interest the public. To a friend who remonstrated with him, he answered that he reckoned on being lost at sea, and on so committing a suicide worthy of the desperate life that he had led. The last accounts of him, after this, were too vague and too contradictory to be depended on. At one time it was reported that he had returned to the United States. Not long afterwards unaccountable paragraphs appeared in newspapers declaring, at one and the same time, that he was living among bad company in Paris, and that he was hiding disreputably in an ill famed quarter of the city of Dublin, called "the Liberties." In any case there was good reason to fear that Irish-American desperadoes had entangled the wild lord in the network of political conspiracy. The maid noticed a change in the mistress which surprised her, when she had reached the end of the newspaper story. Of Miss Henley's customary good spirits not a trace remained. "Few people, Rhoda, remember what they read as well as you do." She said it kindly and sadly--and she said no more. There was a reason for this. Now at one time, and now at another, Iris had heard of Lord Harry's faults and failings in fragments of family history. The complete record of his degraded life, presented in an uninterrupted succession of events, had now forced itself on her attention for the first time. It naturally shocked her. She felt, as she had never felt before, how entirely right her father had been in insisting on her resistance to an attachment which was unworthy of her. So far, but no farther, her conscience yielded to its own conviction of what was just. But the one unassailable vital force in this world is the force of love. It may submit to the hard necessities of life; it may acknowledge the imperative claims of duty; it may be silent under reproach, and submissive to privation--but, suffer what it may, it is the master-passion still; subject to no artificial influences, owning no supremacy but the law of its own being. Iris was above the reach of self-reproach, when her memory recalled the daring action which had saved Lord Harry at the milestone. Her better sense acknowledged Hugh Mountjoy's superiority over the other man--but her heart, her perverse heart, remained true to its first choice in spite of her. She made an impatient excuse and went out alone to recover her composure in the farm-house garden. The hours of the evening passed slowly. There was a pack of cards in the house; the women tried to amuse themselves, and failed. Anxiety about Arthur preyed on the spirits of Miss Henley and Mrs. Lewson. Even the maid, who had only seen him during his last visit to London, said she wished to-morrow had come and gone. His sweet temper, his handsome face, his lively talk had made Arthur a favourite everywhere. Mrs. Lewson had left her comfortable English home to be his housekeeper, when he tried his rash experiment of farming in Ireland. And, more wonderful still, even wearisome Sir Giles became an agreeable person in his nephew's company. Iris set the example of retiring at an early hour to her room. There was something terrible in the pastoral silence of the place. It associated itself mysteriously with her fears for Arthur; it suggested armed treachery on tiptoe, taking its murderous stand in hiding; the whistling passage of bullets through the air; the piercing cry of a man mortally wounded, and that man, perhaps----? Iris shrank from her own horrid thought. A momentary faintness overcame her; she opened the window. As she put her head out to breathe the cool night-air, a man on horseback rode up to the house. Was it Arthur? No: the light-coloured groom's livery that he wore was just visible. Before he could dismount to knock at the door, a tall man walked up to him out of the darkness. "Is that Miles?" the tall man asked. The groom knew the voice. Iris was even better acquainted with it. She, too, recognised Lord Harry. X THERE was the Irish lord at the very time when Iris was most patiently resigned never to see him more, never to think of him as her husband again--reminding her of the first days of their love, and of their mutual confession of it! Fear of herself kept her behind the curtain; while interest in Lord Harry detained her at the window in hiding. "All well at Rathco?" he asked--mentioning the name of the house in which Arthur was one of the guests. "Yes, my lord. Mr. Mountjoy leaves us to-morrow." "Does he mean to return to the farm?" "Sorry I am to say it; he does mean that." "Has he fixed any time, Miles, for starting on his journey?" Miles instituted a search through his pockets, and accompanied it by an explanation. Yes, indeed, Master Arthur had fixed a time; he had written a note to say so to Mistress Lewson, the housekeeper; he had said, "Drop the note at the farm, on your way to the village." And what might Miles want at the village, in the dark? Medicine, in a hurry, for one of his master's horses that was sick and sinking. And, speaking of that, here, thank God, was the note! Iris, listening and watching alternately, saw to her surprise the note intended for Mrs. Lewson handed to Lord Harry. "Am I expected," he asked jocosely, "to read writing without a light?" Miles produced a small lantern which was strapped to his groom's belt. "There's parts of the road not over safe in the dark," he said as he raised the shade which guarded the light. The wild lord coolly opened the letter, and read the few careless words which it contained. "To Mrs. Lewson:--Dear old girl, expect me back to-morrow to dinner at three o'clock. Yours, ARTHUR." There was a pause. "Are there any strangers at Rathco?" Lord Harry asked. "Two new men," Miles replied, "at work in the grounds." There was another pause. "How can I protect him?" the young lord said, partly to himself, partly to Miles. He suspected the two new men---spies probably who knew of Arthur's proposed journey home, and who had already reported to their employers the hour at which he would set out. Miles ventured to say a word: "I hope you won't be angry with me, my lord"---- "Stuff and nonsense! Was I ever angry with you, when I was rich enough to keep a servant, and when you were the man?" The Irish groom answered in a voice that trembled with strong feeling. "You were the best and kindest master that ever lived on this earth. I can't see you putting your precious life in peril"---- "My precious life?" Lord Harry repeated lightly. "You're thinking of Mr. Mountjoy, when you say that. _His_ life is worth saving. As for my life"---- He ended the sentence by a whistle, as the best way he could hit on of expressing his contempt for his own existence. "My lord! my lord!" Miles persisted; "the Invincibles are beginning to doubt you. If any of them find you hanging about Mr. Mountjoy's farm, they'll try a shot at you first, and ask afterwards whether it was right to kill you or not." To hear this said--and said seriously--after the saving of him at the milestone, was a trial of her firmness which Iris was unable to resist. Love got the better of prudence. She drew back the window-curtain. In another moment, she would have added her persuasion to the servant's warning, if Lord Harry himself had not accidentally checked her by a proceeding, on his part, for which she was not prepared. "Show the light," he said; "I'll write a line to Mr. Mountjoy." He tore off the blank page from the note to the housekeeper, and wrote to Arthur, entreating him to change the time of his departure from Rathco, and to tell no creature in the house, or out of the house, at what new hour he had arranged to go. "Saddle your horse yourself," the letter concluded. It was written in a feigned hand, without a signature. "Give that to Mr. Mountjoy," Lord Harry said. "If he asks who wrote it, don't frighten him about me by telling the truth. Lie, Miles! Say you don't know." He next returned the note for Mrs. Lewson. "If she notices that it has been opened," he resumed, "and asks who has done it, lie again. Good-night, Miles--and mind those dangerous places on your road home." The groom darkened his lantern; and the wild lord was lost to view, round the side of the house. Left by himself, Miles rapped at the door with the handle of his whip. "A letter from Mr. Arthur," he called out. Mrs. Lewson at once took the note, and examined it by the light of the candle on the hall-table. "Somebody has been reading this!" she exclaimed, stepping out to the groom, and showing him the torn envelope. Miles, promptly obeying his instructions, declared that he knew nothing about it, and rode away. Iris descended the stairs, and joined Mrs. Lewson in the hall before she had closed the door. The housekeeper at once produced Arthur's letter. "It's on my mind, Miss," she said, "to write an answer, and say something to Mr. Arthur which will persuade him to take care of himself, on his way back to the farm. The difficulty is, how am I to express it? You would be doing a kind thing if you would give me a word of advice." Iris willingly complied. A second note, from the anxious housekeeper, might help the effect of the few lines which Lord Harry had written. Arthur's letter informed Iris that he had arranged to return at three o'clock. Lord Harry's question to the groom, and the man's reply, instantly recurred to her memory: "Are there any strangers at Rathco?"--"Two new men at work in the grounds." Arriving at the same conclusion which had already occurred to Lord Harry, Iris advised the housekeeper, in writing to Arthur, to entreat him to change the hour, secretly, at which he left his friend's house on the next day. Warmly approving of this idea, Mrs. Lewson hurried into the parlour to write her letter. "Don't go to bed yet, Miss," she said; "I want you to read it before I send it away the first thing to-morrow morning." Left alone in the hall, with the door open before her, Iris looked out on the night, thinking. The lives of the two men in whom she was interested--in widely different ways--were now both threatened; and the imminent danger, at that moment, was the danger of Lord Harry. He was an outlaw whose character would not bear investigation; but, to give him his due, there was no risk which he was not ready to confront for Arthur's sake. If he was still recklessly lingering, on the watch for assassins in the dangerous neighbourhood of the farm, who but herself possessed the influence which would prevail on him to leave the place? She had joined Mrs. Lewson at the door with that conviction in her mind. In another instant, she was out of the house, and beginning her search in the dark. Iris made the round of the building; sometimes feeling her way in obscure places; sometimes calling to Lord Harry cautiously by his name. No living creature appeared; no sound of a movement disturbed the stillness of the night. The discovery of his absence, which she had not dared to hope for, was the cheering discovery which she had now made. On her way back to the house, she became conscious of the rashness of the act into which her own generous impulse had betrayed her. If she and Lord Harry had met, could she have denied the tender interest in him which her own conduct would then have revealed? Would he not have been justified in concluding that she had pardoned the errors and the vices of his life, and that he might without impropriety remind her of their engagement, and claim her hand in marriage? She trembled as she thought of the concessions which he might have wrung from her. "Never more," she determined, "shall my own folly be answerable for it, if he and I meet again." She had returned to Mrs. Lewson, and had read over the letter to Arthur, when the farm clock, striking the hour, reminded them that it was time to retire. They slept badly that night. At six in the morning, one of the two labourers who had remained faithful to Arthur was sent away on horseback with the housekeeper's reply, and with orders to wait for an answer. Allowing time for giving the horse a rest, the man might be expected to return before noon. IX IT was a fine sunshiny day; Mrs. Lewson's spirits began to improve. "I have always held the belief," the worthy old woman confessed, "that bright weather brings good luck--of course provided the day is not a Friday. This is Wednesday. Cheer up, Miss." The messenger returned with good news. Mr. Arthur had been as merry as usual. He had made fun of another letter of good advice, received without a signature. "But Mrs. Lewson must have her way," he said. "My love to the old dear--I'll start two hours later, and be back to dinner at five." "Where did Mr. Arthur give you that message?" Iris inquired. "At the stables, Miss, while I was putting up the horse. The men about were all on the broad grin when they heard Mr. Arthur's message." Still in a morbid state of mind, Iris silently regretted that the message had not been written, instead of being delivered by word of mouth. Here, again, she (like the wild lord) had been afraid of listeners. The hours wore slowly on until it was past four o'clock. Iris could endure the suspense no longer. "It's a lovely afternoon," she said to Mrs. Lewson. "Let us take a walk along the road, and meet Arthur." To this proposal the housekeeper readily agreed. It was nearly five o'clock when they reached a place at which a by-road branched off, through a wood, from the highway which they had hitherto followed. Mrs. Lewson found a seat on a felled tree. "We had better not go any farther," she said. Iris asked if there was any reason for this. There was an excellent reason. A few yards farther on, the high road had been diverted from the straight line (in the interest of a large agricultural village), and was then directed again into its former course. The by-road through the wood served as a short cut, for horsemen and pedestrians, from one divergent point to the other. It was next to a certainty that Arthur would return by the short cut. But if accident or caprice led to his preferring the highway, it was clearly necessary to wait for him within view of both the roads. Too restless to submit to a state of passive expectation, Iris proposed to follow the bridle path through the wood for a little way, and to return if she failed to see anything of Arthur. "You are tired," she said kindly to her companion: "pray don't move." Mrs. Lewson looked needlessly uneasy: "You might lose yourself, Miss. Mind you keep to the path!" Iris followed the pleasant windings of the woodland track. In the hope of meeting Arthur she considerably extended the length of her walk. The white line of the high road, as it passed the farther end of the wood, showed itself through the trees. She turned at once to rejoin Mrs. Lewson. On her way back she made a discovery. A ruin which she had not previously noticed showed itself among the trees on her left hand. Her curiosity was excited; she strayed aside to examine it more closely. The crumbling walls, as she approached them, looked like the remains of an ordinary dwelling-house. Age is essential to the picturesque effect of decay: a modern ruin is an unnatural and depressing object--and here the horrid thing was. As she turned to retrace her steps to the road, a man walked out of the inner space enclosed by all that was left of the dismantled house. A cry of alarm escaped her. Was she the victim of destiny, or the sport of chance? There was the wild lord whom she had vowed never to see again: the master of her heart--perhaps the master of her fate! Any other man would have been amazed to see her, and would have asked how it had happened that the English lady presented herself to him in an Irish wood. This man enjoyed the delight of seeing her, and accepted it as a blessing that was not to be questioned. "My angel has dropped from Heaven," he said. "May Heaven be praised!" He approached her; his arms closed round her. She struggled to free herself from his embrace. At that moment they both heard the crackle of breaking underwood among the trees behind them. Lord Harry looked round. "This is a dangerous place," he whispered; "I'm waiting to see Arthur pass safely. Submit to be kissed, or I am a dead man." His eyes told her that he was truly and fearfully in earnest. Her head sank on his bosom. As he bent down and kissed her, three men approached from their hiding-place among the trees. They had no doubt been watching him, under orders from the murderous brotherhood to which they belonged. Their pistols were ready in their hands--and what discovery had they made? There was the brother who had been denounced as having betrayed them, guilty of no worse treason than meeting his sweetheart in a wood! "We beg your pardon, my lord," they cried, with a thoroughly Irish enjoyment of their own discomfiture--and burst into a roar of laughter--and left the lovers together. For the second time, Iris had saved Lord Harry at a crisis in his life. "Let me go!" she pleaded faintly, trembling with superstitious fear for the first time in her experience of herself. He held her to him as if he would never let her go again. "Oh, my Sweet, give me a last chance. Help me to be a better man! You have only to will it, Iris, and to make me worthy of you." His arms suddenly trembled round her, and dropped. The silence was broken by a distant sound, like the report of a shot. He looked towards the farther end of the wood. In a minute more, the thump of a horse's hoofs at a gallop was audible, where the bridlepath was hidden among the trees. It came nearer--nearer---the creature burst into view, wild with fright, and carrying an empty saddle. Lord Harry rushed into the path and seized the horse as it swerved at the sight of him. There was a leather pocket attached to the front of the saddle. "Search it!" he cried to Iris, forcing the terrified animal back on its haunches. She drew out a silver travelling-flask. One glance at the name engraved on it told him the terrible truth. His trembling hands lost their hold. The horse escaped; the words burst from his lips: "Oh, God, they've killed him!" THE END OF THE PROLOGUE THE STORY FIRST PERIOD CHAPTER I THE SOUR FRENCH WINE WHILE the line to be taken by the new railway between Culm and Everill was still under discussion, the engineer caused some difference of opinion among the moneyed men who were the first Directors of the Company, by asking if they proposed to include among their Stations the little old town of Honeybuzzard. For years past, commerce had declined, and population had decreased in this ancient and curious place. Painters knew it well, and prized its mediaeval houses as a mine of valuable material for their art. Persons of cultivated tastes, who were interested in church architecture of the fourteenth century, sometimes pleased and flattered the Rector by subscribing to his fund for the restoration of the tower, and the removal of the accumulated rubbish of hundreds of years from the crypt. Small speculators, not otherwise in a state of insanity, settled themselves in the town, and tried the desperate experiment of opening a shop; spent their little capital, put up the shutters, and disappeared. The old market-place still showed its list of market-law's, issued by the Mayor and Corporation in the prosperous bygone times; and every week there were fewer and fewer people to obey the laws. The great empty enclosure looked more cheerful, when there was no market held, and when the boys of the town played in the deserted place. In the last warehouse left in a state of repair, the crane was generally idle; the windows were mostly shut up; and a solitary man represented languishing trade, idling at a half-opened door. The muddy river rose and fell with the distant tide. At rare intervals a collier discharged its cargo on the mouldering quay, or an empty barge took in a load of hay. One bold house advertised, in a dirty window, apartments to let. There was a lawyer in the town, who had no occasion to keep a clerk; and there was a doctor who hoped to sell his practice for anything that it would fetch. The directors of the new railway, after a stormy meeting, decided on offering (by means of a Station) a last chance of revival to the dying town. The town had not vitality enough left to be grateful; the railway stimulant produced no effect. Of all his colleagues in Great Britain and Ireland, the station-master at Honeybuzzard was the idlest man--and this, as he said to the unemployed porter, through no want of energy on his own part. Late on a rainy autumn afternoon, the slow train left one traveller at the Station. He got out of a first-class carriage; he carried an umbrella and a travelling-bag; and he asked his way to the best inn. The station-master and the porter compared notes. One of them said: "Evidently a gentleman." The other added: "What can he possibly want here?" The stranger twice lost his way in the tortuous old streets of the town before he reached the inn. On giving his orders, it appeared that he wanted three things: a private room, something to eat, and, while the dinner was being cooked, materials for writing a letter. Answering her daughter's questions downstairs, the landlady described her guest as a nice-looking man dressed in deep mourning. "Young, my dear, with beautiful dark brown hair, and a grand beard, and a sweet sorrowful look. Ah, his eyes would tell anybody that his black clothes are not a mere sham. Whether married or single, of course I can't say. But I noticed the name on his travelling-bag. A distinguished name in my opinion--Hugh Mountjoy. I wonder what he'll order to drink when he has his dinner? What a mercy it will be if we can get rid of another bottle of the sour French wine!" The bell in the private room rang at that moment; and the landlady's daughter, it is needless to say, took the opportunity of forming her own opinion of Mr. Hugh Mountjoy. She returned with a letter in her hand, consumed by a vain longing for the advantages of gentle birth. "Ah, mother, if I was a young lady of the higher classes, I know whose wife I should like to be!" Not particularly interested in sentimental aspirations, the landlady asked to see Mr. Mountjoy's letter. The messenger who delivered it was to wait for an answer. It was addressed to: "Miss Henley, care of Clarence Vimpany, Esquire, Honeybuzzard." Urged by an excited imagination, the daughter longed to see Miss Henley. The mother was at a loss to understand why Mr. Mountjoy should have troubled himself to write the letter at all. "If he knows the young lady who is staying at the doctor's house," she said, "why doesn't he call on Miss Henley?" She handed the letter back to her daughter. "There! let the ostler take it; he's got nothing to do." "No, mother. The ostler's dirty hands mustn't touch it--I'll take the letter myself. Perhaps I may see Miss Henley." Such was the impression which Mr. Hugh Mountjoy had innocently produced on a sensitive young person, condemned by destiny to the barren sphere of action afforded by a country inn! The landlady herself took the dinner upstairs--a first course of mutton chops and potatoes, cooked to a degree of imperfection only attained in an English kitchen. The sour French wine was still on the good woman's mind. "What would you choose to drink, sir?" she asked. Mr. Mountjoy seemed to feel no interest in what he might have to drink. "We have some French wine, sir." "Thank you, ma'am; that will do." When the bell rang again, and the time came to produce the second course of cheese and celery, the landlady allowed the waiter to take her place. Her experience of the farmers who frequented the inn, and who had in some few cases been induced to taste the wine, warned her to anticipate an outbreak of just anger from Mr. Mountjoy. He, like the others, would probably ask what she "meant by poisoning him with such stuff as that." On the return of the waiter, she put the question: "Did the gentleman complain of the French wine?" "He wants to see you about it, ma'am." The landlady turned pale. The expression of Mr. Mountjoy's indignation was evidently reserved for the mistress of the house. "Did he swear," she asked, "when he tasted it?" "Lord bless you, ma'am, no! Drank it out of a tumbler, and--if you will believe me--actually seemed to like it." The landlady recovered her colour. Gratitude to Providence for having sent a customer to the inn, who could drink sour wine without discovering it, was the uppermost feeling in her ample bosom as she entered the private room. Mr. Mountjoy justified her anticipations. He was simple enough--with his tumbler before him, and the wine as it were under his nose--to begin with an apology. "I am sorry to trouble you, ma'am. May I ask where you got this wine?" "The wine, sir, was one of my late husband's bad debts. It was all he could get from a Frenchman who owed him money." "It's worth money, ma'am." "Indeed, sir?" "Yes, indeed. This is some of the finest and purest claret that I have tasted for many a long day past." An alarming suspicion disturbed the serenity of the landlady's mind. Was his extraordinary opinion of the wine sincere? Or was it Mr. Mountjoy's wicked design to entrap her into praising her claret and then to imply that she was a cheat by declaring what he really thought of it? She took refuge in a cautious reply: "You are the first gentleman, sir, who has not found fault with it." "In that case, perhaps you would like to get rid of the wine?" Mr. Mountjoy suggested. The landlady was still cautious. "Who will buy it of me, sir?" "I will. How much do you charge for it by the bottle?" It was, by this time, clear that he was not mischievous--only a little crazy. The worldly-wise hostess took advantage of that circumstance to double the price. Without hesitation, she said: "Five shillings a bottle, sir." Often, too often, the irony of circumstances brings together, on this earthly scene, the opposite types of vice and virtue. A lying landlady and a guest incapable of deceit were looking at each other across a narrow table; equally unconscious of the immeasurable moral gulf that lay between them, Influenced by honourable feeling, innocent Hugh Mountjoy lashed the landlady's greed for money to the full-gallop of human cupidity. "I don't think you are aware of the value of your wine," he said. "I have claret in my cellar which is not so good as this, and which costs more than you have asked. It is only fair to offer you seven-and-sixpence a bottle." When an eccentric traveller is asked to pay a price, and deliberately raises that price against himself, where is the sensible woman--especially if she happens to be a widow conducting an unprofitable business--who would hesitate to improve the opportunity? The greedy landlady raised her terms. "On reflection, sir, I think I ought to have ten shillings a bottle, if you please." "The wine may be worth it," Mountjoy answered quietly; "but it is more than I can afford to pay. No, ma'am; I will leave you to find some lover of good claret with a longer purse than mine." It was in this man's character, when he said No, to mean No. Mr. Mountjoy's hostess perceived that her crazy customer was not to be trifled with. She lowered her terms again with the headlong hurry of terror. "You shall have it, Sir, at your own price," said this entirely shameless and perfectly respectable woman. The bargain having been closed under these circumstances, the landlady's daughter knocked at the door. "I took your letter myself, sir," she said modestly; "and here is the answer." (She had seen Miss Henley, and did not think much of her.) Mountjoy offered the expression of his thanks, in words never to be forgotten by a sensitive young person, and opened his letter. It was short enough to be read in a moment; but it was evidently a favourable reply. He took his hat in a hurry, and asked to be shown the way to Mr. Vimpany's house. CHAPTER II THE MAN SHE REFUSED MOUNTJOY had decided on travelling to Honeybuzzard, as soon as he heard that Miss Henley was staying with strangers in that town. Having had no earlier opportunity of preparing her to see him, he had considerately written to her from the inn, in preference to presenting himself unexpectedly at the doctor's house. How would she receive the devoted friend, whose proposal of marriage she had refused for the second time, when they had last met in London? The doctor's place of residence, situated in a solitary by-street, commanded a view, not perhaps encouraging to a gentleman who followed the medical profession: it was a view of the churchyard. The door was opened by a woman-servant, who looked suspiciously at the stranger. Without waiting to be questioned, she said her master was out. Mountjoy mentioned his name, and asked for Miss Henley. The servant's manner altered at once for the better; she showed him into a small drawing-room, scantily and cheaply furnished. Some poorly-framed prints on the walls (a little out of place perhaps in a doctor's house) represented portraits of famous actresses, who had been queens of the stage in the early part of the present century. The few books, too, collected on a little shelf above the chimney-piece, were in every case specimens of dramatic literature. "Who reads these plays?" Mountjoy asked himself. "And how did Iris find her way into this house?" While he was thinking of her, Miss Henley entered the room. Her face was pale and careworn; tears dimmed her eyes when Mountjoy advanced to meet her. In his presence, the horror of his brother's death by assassination shook Iris as it had not shaken her yet. Impulsively, she drew his head down to her, with the fond familiarity of a sister, and kissed his forehead. "Oh, Hugh, I know how you and Arthur loved each other! No words of mine can say how I feel for you." "No words are wanted, my dear," he answered tenderly. "Your sympathy speaks for itself." He led her to the sofa and seated himself by her side. "Your father has shown me what you have written to him," he resumed; "your letter from Dublin and your second letter from this place. I know what you have so nobly risked and suffered in poor Arthur's interests. It will be some consolation to me if I can make a return--a very poor return, Iris--for all that Arthur's brother owes to the truest friend that ever man had. No," he continued, gently interrupting the expression of her gratitude. "Your father has not sent me here--but he knows that I have left London for the express purpose of seeing you, and he knows why. You have written to him dutifully and affectionately; you have pleaded for pardon and reconciliation, when he is to blame. Shall I venture to tell you how he answered me, when I asked if he had no faith left in his own child? 'Hugh,' he said, 'you are wasting words on a man whose mind is made up. I will trust my daughter when that Irish lord is laid in his grave--not before.' That is a reflection on you, Iris, which I cannot permit, even when your father casts it. He is hard, he is unforgiving; but he must, and shall, be conquered yet. I mean to make him do you justice; I have come here with that purpose, and that purpose only, in view. May I speak to you of Lord Harry?" "How can you doubt it!" "My dear, this is a delicate subject for me to enter on." "And a shameful subject for me!" Iris broke out bitterly. "Hugh! you are an angel, by comparison with that man--how debased I must be to love him--how unworthy of your good opinion! Ask me anything you like; have no mercy on me. Oh," she cried, with reckless contempt for herself, "why don't you beat me? I deserve it!" Mountjoy was well enough acquainted with the natures of women to pass over that passionate outbreak, instead of fanning the flame in her by reasoning and remonstrance. "Your father will not listen to the expression of feeling," he continued; "but it is possible to rouse his sense of justice by the expression of facts. Help me to speak to him more plainly of Lord Harry than you could speak in your letters. I want to know what has happened, from the time when events at Ardoon brought you and the young lord together again, to the time when you left him in Ireland after my brother's death. If I seem to expect too much of you, Iris, pray remember that I am speaking with a true regard for your interests." In those words, he made his generous appeal to her. She proved herself to be worthy of it. Stated briefly, the retrospect began with the mysterious anonymous letters which had been addressed to Sir Giles. Lord Harry's explanation had been offered to Iris gratefully, but with some reserve, after she had told him who the stranger at the milestone really was. "I entreat you to pardon me, if I shrink from entering into particulars," he had said. "Circumstances, at the time, amply justified me in the attempt to use the banker's political influence as a means of securing Arthur's safety. I knew enough of Sir Giles's mean nature to be careful in trusting him; but I did hope to try what my personal influence might do. If he had possessed a tenth part of your courage, Arthur might have been alive, and safe in England, at this moment. I can't say any more; I daren't say any more; it maddens me when I think of it!" He abruptly changed the subject, and interested Iris by speaking of other and later events. His association with the Invincibles--inexcusably rash and wicked as he himself confessed it to be--had enabled him to penetrate, and for a time to defeat secretly, the murderous designs of the brotherhood. His appearances, first at the farmhouse and afterwards at the ruin in the wood were referable to changes in the plans of the assassins which had come to his knowledge. When Iris had met with him he was on the watch, believing that his friend would take the short way back through the wood, and well aware that his own life might pay the penalty if he succeeded in warning Arthur. After the terrible discovery of the murder (committed on the high road), and the escape of the miscreant who had been guilty of the crime, the parting of Lord Harry and Miss Henley had been the next event. She had left him, on her return to England, and had refused to consent to any of the future meetings between them which he besought her to grant. At this stage in the narrative, Mountjoy felt compelled to ask questions more searching than he had put to Iris yet. It was possible that she might be trusting her own impressions of Lord Harry, with the ill-placed confidence of a woman innocently self-deceived. "Did he submit willingly to your leaving him?" Mountjoy said. "Not at first," she replied. "Has he released you from that rash engagement, of some years since, which pledged you to marry him?" "No." "Did he allude to the engagement, on this occasion?" "He said he held to it as the one hope of his life." "And what did you say?" "I implored him not to distress me." "Did you say nothing more positive than that?" "I couldn't help thinking, Hugh, of all that he had tried to do to save Arthur. But I insisted on leaving him--and I have left him." "Do you remember what he said at parting?" "He said, 'While I live, I love you.'" As she repeated the words, there was an involuntary change to tenderness in her voice which was not lost on Mountjoy. "I must be sure," he said to her gravely, "of what I tell your father when I go back to him. Can I declare, with a safe conscience, that you will never see Lord Harry again?" "My mind is made up never to see him again." She had answered firmly so far. Her next words were spoken with hesitation, in tones that faltered. "But I am sometimes afraid," she said, "that the decision may not rest with me." "What do you mean?" "I would rather not tell you." "That is a strange answer, Iris." "I value your good opinion, Hugh, and I am afraid of losing it." "Nothing has ever altered my opinion of you," he replied, "and nothing ever will." She looked at him anxiously, with the closest attention. Little by little, the expression of doubt in her face disappeared; she knew how he loved her--she resolved to trust him. "My friend," she began abruptly, "education has done nothing for me. Since I left Ireland, I have sunk (I don't know how or why) into a state of superstitious fear. Yes! I believe in a fatality which is leading me back to Lord Harry, in spite of myself. Twice already, since I left home, I have met with him; and each time I have been the means of saving him--once at the milestone, and once at the ruin in the wood. If my father still accuses me of being in love with an adventurer, you can say with perfect truth that I am afraid of him. I _am_ afraid of the third meeting. I have done my best to escape from that man; and, step by step, as I think I am getting away, Destiny is taking me back to him. I may be on my way to him here, hidden in this wretched little town. Oh, don't despise me! Don't be ashamed of me!" "My dear, I am interested--deeply interested in you. That there may be some such influence as Destiny in our poor mortal lives, I dare not deny. But I don't agree with your conclusion. What Destiny has to do with you and with me, neither you nor I can pretend to know beforehand. In the presence of that great mystery, humanity must submit to be ignorant. Wait, Iris--wait!" She answered him with the simplicity of a docile child: "I will do anything you tell me." Mountjoy was too fond of her to say more of Lord Harry, for that day. He was careful to lead the talk to a topic which might be trusted to provoke no agitating thoughts. Finding Iris to all appearance established in the doctor's house, he was naturally anxious to know something of the person who must have invited her--the doctor's wife. CHAPTER III THE REGISTERED PACKET MOUNTJOY began by alluding to the second of Miss Henley's letters to her father, and to a passage in it which mentioned Mrs. Vimpany with expressions of the sincerest gratitude. "I should like to know more," he said, "of a lady whose hospitality at home seems to equal her kindness as a fellow-traveller. Did you first meet with her on the railway?" "She travelled by the same train to Dublin, with me and my maid, but not in the same carriage," Iris answered; "I was so fortunate as to meet with her on the voyage from Dublin to Holyhead. We had a rough crossing; and Rhoda suffered so dreadfully from sea-sickness that she frightened me. The stewardess was attending to ladies who were calling for her in all directions; I really don't know what misfortune might not have happened, if Mrs. Vimpany had not come forward in the kindest manner, and offered help. She knew so wonderfully well what was to be done, that she astonished me. 'I am the wife of a doctor,' she said; 'and I am only imitating what I have seen my husband do, when his assistance has been required, at sea, in weather like this.' In her poor state of health, Rhoda was too much exhausted to go on by the train, when we got to Holyhead. She is the best of good girls, and I am fond of her, as you know. If I had been by myself, I daresay I should have sent for medical help. What do you think dear Mrs. Vimpany offered to do? 'Your maid is only faint,' she said. 'Give her rest and some iced wine, and she will be well enough to go on by the slow train. Don't be frightened about her; I will wait with you.' And she did wait. Are there many strangers, Hugh, who are as unselfishly good to others as my chance-acquaintance in the steamboat?" "Very few, I am afraid." Mountjoy made that reply with some little embarrassment; conscious of a doubt of Mrs. Vimpany's disinterested kindness, which seemed to be unworthy of a just man. Iris went on. "Rhoda was sufficiently recovered," she said, "to travel by the next train, and there seemed to be no reason for feeling any more anxiety. But, after a time, the fatigue of the journey proved to be too much for her. The poor girl turned pale--and fainted. Mrs. Vimpany revived her, but as it turned out, only for a while. She fell into another fainting fit; and my travelling-companion began to look anxious. There was some difficulty in restoring Rhoda to her senses. In dread of another attack, I determined to stop at the next station. It looked such a poor place, when we got to it, that I hesitated. Mrs. Vimpany persuaded me to go on. The next station, she said, was _her_ station. 'Stop there,' she suggested, 'and let my husband look at the girl. I ought not perhaps to say it, but you will find no better medical man out of London.' I took the good creature's advice gratefully. What else could I do?" "What would you have done," Mountjoy inquired, "if Rhoda had been strong enough to get to the end of the journey?" "I should have gone on to London, and taken refuge in a lodging--you were in town, as I believed, and my father might relent in time. As it was, I felt my lonely position keenly. To meet with kind people, like Mr. Vimpany and his wife, was a real blessing to such a friendless creature as I am--to say nothing of the advantage to Rhoda, who is getting better every day. I should like you to see Mrs. Vimpany, if she is at home. She is a little formal and old fashioned in her manner--but I am sure you will be pleased with her. Ah! you look round the room! They are poor, miserably poor for persons in their position, these worthy friends of mine. I have had the greatest difficulty in persuading them to let me contribute my share towards the household expenses. They only yielded when I threatened to go to the inn. You are looking very serious, Hugh. Is it possible that you see some objection to my staying in this house?" The drawing-room door was softly opened, at the moment when Iris put that question. A lady appeared on the threshold. Seeing the stranger, she turned to Iris. "I didn't know, dear Miss Henley, that you had a visitor. Pray pardon my intrusion." The voice was deep; the articulation was clear; the smile presented a certain modest dignity which gave it a value of its own. This was a woman who could make such a commonplace thing as an apology worth listening to. Iris stopped her as she was about to leave the room. "I was just wishing for you," she said. "Let me introduce my old friend, Mr. Mountjoy. Hugh, this is the lady who has been so kind to me--Mrs. Vimpany." Hugh's impulse, under the circumstances, was to dispense with the formality of a bow, and to shake hands. Mrs. Vimpany met this friendly advance with a suavity of action, not often seen in these days of movement without ceremony. She was a tall slim woman, of a certain age. Art had so cleverly improved her complexion that it almost looked like nature. Her cheeks had lost the plumpness of youth, but her hair (thanks again perhaps to Art) showed no signs of turning grey. The expression of her large dark eyes--placed perhaps a little too near her high aquiline nose--claimed admiration from any person who was so fortunate as to come within their range of view. Her hands, long, yellow, and pitiably thin, were used with a grace which checked to some extent their cruel betrayal of her age. Her dress had seen better days, but it was worn with an air which forbade it to look actually shabby. The faded lace that encircled her neck fell in scanty folds over her bosom. She sank into a chair by Hugh's side. "It was a great pleasure to me, Mr. Mountjoy, to offer my poor services to Miss Henley; I can't tell you how happy her presence makes me in our little house." The compliment was addressed to Iris with every advantage that smiles and tones could offer. Oddly artificial as it undoubtedly was, Mrs. Vimpany's manner produced nevertheless an agreeable impression. Disposed to doubt her at first, Mountjoy found that she was winning her way to a favourable change in his opinion. She so far interested him, that he began to wonder what her early life might have been, when she was young and handsome. He looked again at the portraits of actresses on the walls, and the plays on the bookshelf--and then (when she was speaking to Iris) he stole a sly glance at the doctor's wife. Was it possible that this remarkable woman had once been an actress? He attempted to put the value of that guess to the test by means of a complimentary allusion to the prints. "My memory as a playgoer doesn't extend over many years," he began; "but I can appreciate the historical interest of your beautiful prints." Mrs. Vimpany bowed gracefully--and dumbly. Mountjoy tried again. "One doesn't often see the famous actresses of past days," he proceeded, "so well represented on the walls of an English house." This time, he had spoken to better purpose. Mrs. Vimpany answered him in words. "I have many pleasant associations with the theatre," she said, "first formed in the time of my girlhood." Mountjoy waited to hear something more. Nothing more was said. Perhaps this reticent lady disliked looking back through a long interval of years, or perhaps she had her reasons for leaving Mountjoy's guess at the truth still lost in doubt. In either case, she deliberately dropped the subject. Iris took it up. Sitting by the only table in the room, she was in a position which placed her exactly opposite to one of the prints--the magnificent portrait of Mrs. Siddons as The Tragic Muse. "I wonder if Mrs. Siddons was really as beautiful as that?" she said, pointing to the print. "Sir Joshua Reynolds is reported to have sometimes flattered his sitters." Mrs. Vimpany's solemn self-possessed eyes suddenly brightened; the name of the great actress seemed to interest her. On the point, apparently, of speaking, she dropped the subject of Mrs. Siddons as she had dropped the subject of the theatre. Mountjoy was left to answer Iris. "We are none of us old enough," he reminded her, "to decide whether Sir Joshua's brush has been guilty of flattery or not." He turned to Mrs. Vimpany, and attempted to look into her life from a new point of view. "When Miss Henley was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance," he said, "you were travelling in Ireland. Was it your first visit to that unhappy country?" "I have been more than once in Ireland." Having again deliberately disappointed Mountjoy, she was assisted in keeping clear of the subject of Ireland by a fortunate interruption. It was the hour of delivery by the afternoon-post. The servant came in with a small sealed packet, and a slip of printed paper in her hand. "It's registered, ma'am," the woman announced. "The postman says you are to please sign this. And he seems to be in a hurry." She placed the packet and the slip of paper on the table, near the inkstand. Having signed the receipt, Mrs. Vimpany took up the packet, and examined the address. She instantly looked at Iris, and looked away again. "Will you excuse me for a moment?" saying this she left the room, without opening the packet. The moment the door closed on her, Iris started up, and hurried to Mountjoy. "Oh, Hugh," she said, "I saw the address on that packet when the servant put it on the table!" "My dear, what is there to excite you in the address?" "Don't speak so loud! She may be listening outside the door." Not only the words, but the tone in which they were spoken, amazed Mountjoy. "Your friend, Mrs. Vimpany!" he exclaimed. "Mrs. Vimpany was afraid to open the packet in our presence," Iris went on: "you must have seen that. The handwriting is familiar to me; I am certain of the person who wrote the address." "Well? And who is the person?" She whispered in his ear: "Lord Harry." CHAPTER IV THE GAME: MOUNTJOY LOSES SURPRISE silenced Hugh for the moment. Iris understood the look that he fixed on her, and answered it. "I am quite sure," she told him, "of what I say." Mountjoy's well-balanced mind hesitated at rushing to a conclusion. "I am sure you are convinced of what you tell me," he said. "But mistakes do sometimes happen in forming a judgment of handwriting." In the state of excitement that now possessed her, Iris was easily irritated; she was angry with Hugh for only supposing that she might have made a mistake. He had himself, as she reminded him, seen Lord Harry's handwriting in past days. Was it possible to be mistaken in those bold thickly-written characters, with some of the letters so quaintly formed? "Oh, Hugh, I am miserable enough as it is," she broke out; "don't distract me by disputing what I know! Think of a woman so kind, so disinterested, so charming--the very opposite of a false creature--think of Mrs. Vimpany having deceived me!" There was not the slightest reason, thus far, for placing that interpretation on what had happened. Mountjoy gently, very gently, remonstrated. "My dear, we really don't know yet that Mrs. Vimpany has been acting under Lord Harry's instructions. Wait a little before you suspect your fellow-traveller of offering her services for the purpose of deceiving you." Iris was angry with him again: "Why did Mrs. Vimpany never tell me she knew Lord Harry? Isn't that suspicious?" Mountjoy smiled. "Let me put a question on my side," he said. "Did _you_ tell Mrs. Vimpany you knew Lord Harry?" Iris made no reply; her face spoke for her. "Well, then," he urged, "is _your_ silence suspicious? I am far, mind, from saying that this may not be a very unpleasant discovery. Only let us be sure first that we are right." With most of a woman's merits, Miss Henley had many of a woman's faults. Still holding to her own conclusion, she asked how they could expect to be sure of anything if they addressed their inquiries to a person who had already deceived them. Mountjoy's inexhaustible indulgence still made allowances for her. "When Mrs. Vimpany comes back," he said, "I will find an opportunity of mentioning Lord Harry's name. If she tells us that she knows him, there will be good reason in that one circumstance, as it seems to me, for continuing to trust her." "Suppose she shams ignorance," Iris persisted, "and looks as if she had never heard of his name before?" "In that case, I shall own that I was wrong, and shall ask you to forgive me." The finer and better nature of Iris recovered its influence at these words. "It is I who ought to beg pardon," she said. "Oh, I wish I could think before I speak: how insolent and ill-tempered I have been! But suppose I turn out to be right, Hugh, what will you do then?" "Then, my dear, it will be my duty to take you and your maid away from this house, and to tell your father what serious reasons there are"---- He abruptly checked himself. Mrs. Vimpany had returned; she was in perfect possession of her lofty courtesy, sweetened by the modest dignity of her smile. "I have left you, Miss Henley, in such good company," she said, with a gracious inclination of her head in the direction of Mountjoy, "that I need hardly repeat my apologies--unless, indeed, I am interrupting a confidential conversation." It was possible that Iris might have betrayed herself, when the doctor's wife had looked at her after examining the address on the packet. In this case Mrs. Vimpany's allusion to "a confidential conversation" would have operated as a warning to a person of experience in the by-ways of deceit. Mountjoy's utmost exertion of cunning was not capable of protecting him on such conditions as these. The opportunity of trying his proposed experiment with Lord Harry's name seemed to have presented itself already. He rashly seized on it. "You have interrupted nothing that was confidential," he hastened to assure Mrs. Vimpany. "We have been speaking of a reckless young gentleman, who is an acquaintance of ours. If what I hear is true, he has already become public property; his adventures have found their way into some of the newspapers." Here, if Mrs. Vimpany had answered Hugh's expectations, she ought to have asked who the young gentleman was. She merely listened in polite silence. With a woman's quickness of perception, Iris saw that Mountjoy had not only pounced on his opportunity prematurely, but had spoken with a downright directness of allusion which must at once have put such a ready-witted person as Mrs. Vimpany on her guard. In trying to prevent him from pursuing his unfortunate experiment in social diplomacy, Iris innocently repeated Mountjoy's own mistake. She, too, seized her opportunity prematurely. That is to say, she was rash enough to change the subject. "You were talking just now, Hugh, of our friend's adventures," she said; "I am afraid you will find yourself involved in an adventure of no very agreeable kind, if you engage a bed at the inn. I never saw a more wretched-looking place." It was one of Mrs. Vimpany's many merits that she seldom neglected an opportunity of setting her friends at their ease. "No, no, dear Miss Henley," she hastened to say; "the inn is really a more clean and comfortable place than you suppose. A hard bed and a scarcity of furniture are the worst evils which your friend has to fear. Do you know," she continued, addressing herself to Mountjoy, "that I was reminded of a friend of mine, when you spoke just now of the young gentleman whose adventures are in the newspapers. Is it possible that you referred to the brother of the present Earl of Norland? A handsome young Irishman--with whom I first became acquainted many years since. Am I right in supposing that you and Miss Henley know Lord Harry?" she asked. What more than this could an unprejudiced mind require? Mrs. Vimpany had set herself right with a simplicity that defied suspicion. Iris looked at Mountjoy. He appeared to know when he was beaten. Having acknowledged that Lord Harry was the young gentleman of whom he and Miss Henley had been speaking, he rose to take leave. After what had passed, Iris felt the necessity of speaking privately to Hugh. The necessary excuse presented itself in the remote situation of the inn. "You will never find your way back," she said, "through the labyrinth of crooked streets in this old town. Wait for me a minute, and I will be your guide." Mrs. Vimpany protested. "My dear! let the servant show the way." Iris held gaily to her resolution, and ran away to her room. Mrs. Vimpany yielded with her best grace. Miss Henley's motive could hardly have been plainer to her, if Miss Henley had confessed it herself. "What a charming girl!" the doctor's amiable wife said to Mountjoy, when they were alone. "If I were a man, Miss Iris is just the young lady that I should fall in love with." She looked significantly at Mountjoy. Nothing came of it. She went on: "Miss Henley must have had many opportunities of being married; but the right man has, I fear, not yet presented himself." Once more her eloquent eyes consulted Mountjoy, and once more nothing came of it. Some women are easily discouraged. Impenetrable Mrs. Vimpany was one of the other women; she had not done with Mountjoy yet--she invited him to dinner on the next day. "Our early hour is three o'clock," she said modestly. "Pray join us. I hope to have the pleasure of introducing my husband." Mountjoy had his reasons for wishing to see the husband. As he accepted the invitation, Miss Henley returned to accompany him to the inn. Iris put the inevitable question to Hugh as soon as they were out of the doctor's house--"What do you say of Mrs. Vimpany now?" "I say that she must have been once an actress," Mountjoy answered; "and that she carries her experience of the stage into private life." "What do you propose to do next?" "I propose to wait, and see Mrs. Vimpany's husband to-morrow." "Why?" "Mrs. Vimpany, my dear, is too clever for me. If--observe, please, that I do her the justice of putting it in that way--if she is really Lord Harry's creature, employed to keep watch on you, and to inform him of your next place of residence in England, I own that she has completely deceived me. In that case, it is just possible that the husband is not such a finished and perfect humbug as the wife. I may be able to see through him. I can but try." Iris sighed. "I almost hope you may not succeed," she said. Mountjoy was puzzled, and made no attempt to conceal it. "I thought you only wanted to get at the truth," he answered. "My mind might be easier, perhaps, if I was left in doubt," she suggested. "A perverse way of thinking has set up my poor opinion against yours. But I am getting back to my better sense. I believe you were entirely right when you tried to prevent me from rushing to conclusions; it is more than likely that I have done Mrs. Vimpany an injustice. Oh, Hugh, I ought to keep a friend--I who have so few friends--when I have got one! And there is another feeling in me which I must not conceal from you. When I remember Lord Harry's noble conduct in trying to save poor Arthur, I cannot believe him capable of such hateful deceit as consenting to our separation, and then having me secretly watched by a spy. What monstrous inconsistency! Can anybody believe it? Can anybody account for it?" "I think I can account for it, Iris, if you will let me make the attempt. You are mistaken to begin with." "How am I mistaken?" "You shall see. There is no such creature as a perfectly consistent human being on the face of the earth--and, strange as it may seem to you, the human beings themselves are not aware of it. The reason for this curious state of things is not far to seek. How can people who are ignorant--as we see every day--of their own characters be capable of correctly estimating the characters of others? Even the influence of their religion fails to open their eyes to the truth. In the Prayer which is the most precious possession of Christendom, their lips repeat the entreaty that they may not be led into temptation--but their minds fail to draw the inference. If that pathetic petition means anything, it means that virtuous men and women are capable of becoming vicious men and women, if a powerful temptation puts them to the test. Every Sunday, devout members of the congregation in church--models of excellence in their own estimation, and in the estimation of their neighbours--declare that they have done those things which they ought not to have done, and that there is no health in them. Will you believe that they are encouraged by their Prayer-books to present this sad exposure of the frailty of their own admirable characters? How inconsistent--and yet how entirely true! Lord Harry, as you rightly say, behaved nobly in trying to save my dear lost brother. He ought, as you think, and as other people think, to be consistently noble, after that, in all his thoughts and actions, to the end of his life. Suppose that temptation does try him--such temptation, Iris, as you innocently present--why doesn't he offer a superhuman resistance? You might as well ask, Why is he a mortal man? How inconsistent, how improbable, that he should have tendencies to evil in him, as well as tendencies to good! Ah, I see you don't like this. It would be infinitely more agreeable (wouldn't it?) if Lord Harry was one of the entirely consistent characters which are sometimes presented in works of fiction. Our good English readers are charmed with the man, the woman, or the child, who is introduced to them by the kind novelist as a being without faults. Do they stop to consider whether this is a true picture of humanity? It would be a terrible day for the book if they ever did that. But the book is in no danger. The readers would even fail to discover the falseness of the picture, if they were presented to themselves as perfect characters. 'We mustn't say so, but how wonderfully like us!' There would be the only impression produced. I am not trying to dishearten you; I want to encourage you to look at humanity from a wider and truer point of view. Do not be too readily depressed, if you find your faith shaken in a person whom you have hitherto believed to be good. That person has been led into temptation. Wait till time shows you that the evil influence is not everlasting, and that the good influence will inconsistently renew your faith out of the very depths of your despair. Humanity, in general, is neither perfectly good nor perfectly wicked: take it as you find it. Is this a hard lesson to learn? Well! it's easy to do what other people do, under similar circumstances. Listen to the unwelcome truth to-day, my dear; and forget it to-morrow." They parted at the door of the inn. CHAPTER V THE GAME: MOUNTJOY PLAYS A NEW CARD MR. VIMPANY (of the College of Surgeons) was a burly man, heavily built from head to foot. His bold round eyes looked straight at his fellow-creatures with an expression of impudent good humour; his whiskers were bushy, his hands were big, his lips were thick, his legs were solid. Add to this a broad sunburnt face, and a grey coat with wide tails, a waistcoat with a check pattern, and leather riding-gaiters--and no stranger could have failed to mistake Mr. Vimpany for a farmer of the old school. He was proud of the false impression that he created. "Nature built me to be a farmer," he used to say. "But my poor foolish old mother was a lady by birth, and she insisted on her son being a professional man. I hadn't brains for the Law, or money for the Army, or morals for the Church. And here I am a country doctor--the one representative of slavery left in the nineteenth century. You may not believe me, but I never see a labourer at the plough that I don't envy him." This was the husband of the elegant lady with the elaborate manners. This was the man who received Mountjoy with a "Glad to see you, sir," and a shake of the hand that hurt him. "Coarse fare," said Mr. Vimpany, carving a big joint of beef; "but I can't afford anything better. Only a pudding to follow, and a glass of glorious old sherry. Miss Henley is good enough to excuse it--and my wife's used to it--and you will put up with it, Mr. Mountjoy, if you are half as amiable as you look. I'm an old-fashioned man. The pleasure of a glass of wine with you, sir." Hugh's first experience of the "glorious old sherry" led him to a discovery, which proved to be more important than he was disposed to consider it at the moment. He merely observed, with some amusement, that Mr. Vimpany smacked his lips in hearty approval of the worst sherry that his guest had ever tasted. Here, plainly self-betrayed, was a medical man who was an exception to a general rule in the profession--here was a doctor ignorant of the difference between good wine and bad! Both the ladies were anxious to know how Mountjoy had passed the night at the inn. He had only time to say that there was nothing to complain of, when Mr. Vimpany burst into an explosion of laughter. "Oh, but you must have had something to complain of!" said the big doctor. "I would bet a hundred, if I could afford it, that the landlady tried to poison you with her sour French wine." "Do you speak of the claret at the inn, after having tasted it?" Mountjoy asked. "What do you take me for?" cried Mr. Vimpany. "After all I have heard of that claret, I am not fool enough to try it myself, I can tell you." Mountjoy received this answer in silence. The doctor's ignorance and the doctor's prejudice, in the matter of wine, had started a new train of thought in Hugh's mind, which threatened serious consequences to Mr. Vimpany himself. There was a pause at the table; nobody spoke. The doctor saw condemnation of his rudeness expressed in his wife's face. He made a rough apology to Mountjoy, who was still preoccupied. "No offence, I hope? It's in the nature of me, sir, to speak my mind. If I could fawn and flatter, I should have got on better in my profession. I'm what they call a rough diamond. No, offence, I say?" "None whatever, Mr. Vimpany." "That's right! Try another glass of sherry." Mountjoy took the sherry. Iris looked at him, lost in surprise. It was unlike Hugh to be interested in a stranger's opinion of wine. It was unlike him to drink wine which was evidently not to his taste. And it was especially unlike his customary courtesy to let himself fall into thought at dinner-time, when there were other persons at the table. Was he ill? Impossible to look at him, and not see that he was in perfect health. What did it mean? Finding Mountjoy inattentive, Mr. Vimpany addressed himself to Iris. "I had to ride hard, Miss Henley, to get home in time for dinner. There are patients, I must tell you, who send for the doctor, and then seem to think they know more about it than the very man whom they have called in to cure them. It isn't he who tells them what their illness is; it's they who tell him. They dispute about the medical treatment that's best for them, and the one thing they are never tired of doing is talking about their symptoms. It was an old man's gabble that kept me late to-day. However, the Squire, as they call him in these parts, is a patient with a long purse; I am obliged to submit." "A gentleman of the old school, dear Miss Henley," Mrs. Vimpany explained. "Immensely rich. Is he better?" she asked, turning to her husband. "Better?" cried the outspoken doctor. "Pooh! there's nothing the matter with him but gluttony. He went to London, and consulted a great man, a humbug with a handle to his name. The famous physician got rid of him in no time--sent him abroad to boil himself in foreign baths. He came home again worse than ever, and consulted poor Me. I found him at dinner--a perfect feast, I give you my word of honour!--and the old fool gorging himself till he was black in the face. His wine, I should have said, was not up to the mark; wanted body and flavour, you know. Ah, Mr. Mountjoy, this seems to interest you; reminds you of the landlady's wine--eh? Well, sir, how do you think I treated the Squire? Emptied his infirm old inside with an emetic--and there he was on his legs again. Whenever he overeats himself he sends for me; and pays liberally. I ought to be grateful to him, and I am. Upon my soul, I believe I should be in the bankruptcy court but for the Squire's stomach. Look at my wife! She's shocked at me. We ought to keep up appearances, my dear? Not I! When I am poor, I say I am poor. When I cure a patient, I make no mystery of it; everybody's welcome to know how it's done. Don't be down-hearted, Arabella; nature never meant your husband for a doctor, and there's the long and the short of it. Another glass of sherry, Mr. Mountjoy?" All social ceremonies--including the curious English custom which sends the ladies upstairs, after dinner, and leaves the gentlemen at the table--found a devoted adherent in Mrs. Vimpany. She rose as if she had been presiding at a banquet, and led Miss Henley affectionately to the drawing-room. Iris glanced at Hugh. No; his mind was not at ease yet; the preoccupied look had not left his face. Jovial Mr. Vimpany pushed the bottle across the table to his guest, and held out a handful of big black cigars. "Now for the juice of the grape," he cried, "and the best cigar in all England!" He had just filled his glass, and struck a light for his cigar, when the servant came in with a note. Some men relieve their sense of indignation in one way, and some in another. The doctor's form of relief was an oath. "Talk about slavery!" he shouted. "Find me such a slave in all Africa as a man in my profession. There isn't an hour of the day or night that he can call his own. Here's a stupid old woman with an asthma, who has got another spasmodic attack--and I must leave my dinner-table and my friend, just as we are enjoying ourselves. I have half a mind not to go." The inattentive guest suddenly set himself right in his host's estimation. Hugh remonstrated with an appearance of interest in the case, which the doctor interpreted as a compliment to himself: "Oh, Mr. Vimpany, humanity! humanity!" "Oh, Mr. Mountjoy, money! money!" the facetious doctor answered. "The old lady is our Mayor's mother, sir. You don't seem to be quick at taking a joke. Make your mind easy; I shall pocket my fee." As soon as he had closed the door, Hugh Mountjoy uttered a devout ejaculation. "Thank God!" he said--and walked up and down the room, free to think without interruption at last. The subject of his meditations was the influence of intoxication in disclosing the hidden weaknesses and vices of a man's character by exhibiting them just as they are, released from the restraint which he exercises over himself when he is sober. That there was a weak side, and probably a vicious side, in Mr. Vimpany's nature it was hardly possible to doubt. His blustering good humour, his audacious self-conceit, the tones of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all revealed him (to use one expressive word) as a humbug. Let drink subtly deprive him of his capacity for self-concealment! and the true nature of his wife's association with Lord Harry might sooner or later show itself--say, in after-dinner talk, under skilful management. The right method of entrapping him into a state of intoxication (which might have presented serious difficulties under other circumstances) was suggested, partly by his ignorance of the difference between good wine and bad, and partly by Mountjoy's knowledge of the excellent quality of the landlady's claret. He had recognised, as soon as he tasted it, that finest vintage of Bordeaux, which conceals its true strength--to a gross and ignorant taste--under the exquisite delicacy of its flavour. Encourage Mr. Vimpany by means of a dinner at the inn, to give his opinion as a man whose judgment in claret was to be seriously consulted--and permit him also to discover that Hugh was rich enough to have been able to buy the wine--and the attainment of the end in view would be simply a question of time. There was certainly the chance to be reckoned with, that his thick head might prove to be too strong for the success of the experiment. Mountjoy determined to try it, and did try it nevertheless. Mr. Vimpany returned from his medical errand, thoroughly well satisfied with himself. "The Mayor's mother has reason to thank you, sir," he announced. "If you hadn't hurried me away, the wretched old creature would have been choked. A regular stand-up fight, by Jupiter, between death and the doctor!--and the doctor has won! Give me the reward of merit. Pass the bottle." He took up the decanter, and looked at it. "Why, what have you been about?" he asked. "I made up my mind that I should want the key of the cellar when I came back, and I don't believe you have drunk a drop in my absence. What does it mean?" "It means that I am not worthy of your sherry," Mountjoy answered. "The Spanish wines are too strong for my weak digestion." Mr. Vimpany burst into one of his explosions of laughter. "You miss the landlady's vinegar--eh?" "Yes, I do! Wait a minute, doctor; I have a word to say on my side--and, like you, I mean what I say. The landlady's vinegar is some of the finest Chateau Margaux I have ever met with--thrown away on ignorant people who are quite unworthy of it." The doctor's natural insolence showed itself. "You have bought this wonderful wine, of course?" he said satirically. "That," Mountjoy answered, "is just what I have done." For once in his life, Mr. Vimpany's self-sufficient readiness of speech failed him. He stared at his guest in dumb amazement. On this occasion, Mountjoy improved the opportunity to good purpose. Mr. Vimpany accepted with the utmost readiness an invitation to dine on the next day at the inn. But he made a condition. "In case I don't agree with you about that Chateau--what-you-call-it," he said, "you won't mind my sending home for a bottle of sherry?" The next event of the day was a visit to the most interesting monument of antiquity in the town. In the absence of the doctor, caused by professional engagements, Miss Henley took Mountjoy to see the old church--and Mrs. Vimpany accompanied them, as a mark of respect to Miss Henley's friend. When there was a chance of being able to speak confidentially, Iris was eager in praising the doctor's wife. "You can't imagine, Hugh, how agreeable she has been, and how entirely she has convinced me that I was wrong, shamefully wrong, in thinking of her as I did. She sees that you dislike her, and yet she speaks so nicely of you. 'Your clever friend enjoys your society,' she said; 'pray accompany me when I take him to see the church.' How unselfish!" Mountjoy kept his own counsel. The generous impulses which sometimes led Iris astray were, as he well knew, beyond the reach of remonstrance. His own opinion of Mrs. Vimpany still pronounced steadily against her. Prepared for discoveries, on the next day, which might prove too serious to be trifled with, he now did his best to provide for future emergencies. After first satisfying himself that there was nothing in the present state of the maid's health which need detain her mistress at Honeybuzzard, he next completed his preparations by returning to the inn, and writing to Mr. Henley. With strict regard to truth, his letter presented the daughter's claim on the father under a new point of view. Whatever the end of it might be, Mr. Henley was requested to communicate his intentions by telegraph. Will you receive Iris? was the question submitted. The answer expected was: Yes or No. CHAPTER VI THE GAME: MOUNTJOY WINS MR. HENLEY's telegram arrived at the inn the next morning. He was willing to receive his daughter, but not unreservedly. The message was characteristic of the man: "Yes--on trial." Mountjoy was not shocked, was not even surprised. He knew that the successful speculations, by means of which Mr. Henley had accumulated his wealth, had raised against him enemies, who had spread scandalous reports which had never been completely refuted. The silent secession of friends, in whose fidelity he trusted, had hardened the man's heart and embittered his nature. Strangers in distress, who appealed to the rich retired merchant for help, found in their excellent references to character the worst form of persuasion that they could have adopted. Paupers without a rag of reputation left to cover them, were the objects of charity whom Mr. Henley relieved. When he was asked to justify his conduct, he said: "I have a sympathy with bad characters---I am one of them myself." With the arrival of the dinner hour the doctor appeared, in no very amiable humour, at the inn. "Another hard day's work," he said; "I should sink under it, if I hadn't a prospect of getting rid of my practice here. London--or the neighbourhood of London--there's the right place for a man like Me. Well? Where's the wonderful wine? Mind! I'm Tom-Tell-Truth; if I don't like your French tipple, I shall say so." The inn possessed no claret glasses; they drank the grand wine in tumblers as if it had been vin ordinaire. Mr. Vimpany showed that he was acquainted with the formalities proper to the ceremony of tasting. He filled his makeshift glass, he held it up to the light, and looked at the wine severely; he moved the tumbler to and fro under his nose, and smelt at it again and again; he paused and reflected; he tasted the claret as cautiously as if he feared it might be poisoned; he smacked his lips, and emptied his glass at a draught; lastly, he showed some consideration for his host's anxiety, and pronounced sentence on the wine. "Not so good as you think it, sir. But nice light claret; clean and wholesome. I hope you haven't given too much for it?" Thus far, Hugh had played a losing game patiently. His reward had come at last. After what the doctor had just said to him, he saw the winning card safe in his own hand. The bad dinner was soon over. No soup, of course; fish, in the state of preservation usually presented by a decayed country town; steak that rivalled the toughness of india-rubber; potatoes whose aspect said, "stranger, don't eat us"; pudding that would have produced a sense of discouragement, even in the mind of a child; and the famous English cheese which comes to us, oddly enough, from the United States, and stings us vindictively when we put it into our mouths. But the wine, the glorious wine, would have made amends to anybody but Mr. Vimpany for the woeful deficiencies of the food. Tumbler-full after tumbler-full of that noble vintage poured down his thirsty and ignorant throat; and still he persisted in declaring that it was nice light stuff, and still he unforgivingly bore in mind the badness of the dinner. "The feeding here," said this candid man, "is worse if possible than the feeding at sea, when I served as doctor on board a passenger-steamer. Shall I tell you how I lost my place? Oh, say so plainly, if you don't think my little anecdote worth listening to!" "My dear sir, I am waiting to hear it." "Very good. No offence, I hope? That's right! Well, sir, the captain of the ship complained of me to the owners; I wouldn't go round, every morning, and knock at the ladies' cabin-doors, and ask how they felt after a sea-sick night. Who doesn't know what they feel, without knocking at their doors? Let them send for the doctor when they want him. That was how I understood my duty; and there was the line of conduct that lost me my place. Pass the wine. Talking of ladies, what do you think of my wife? Did you ever see such distinguished manners before? My dear fellow, I have taken a fancy to you. Shake hands. I'll tell you another little anecdote. Where do you think my wife picked up her fashionable airs and graces? Ho! ho! On the stage! The highest branch of the profession, sir--a tragic actress. If you had seen her in Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Vimpany would have made your flesh creep. Look at me, and feast your eyes on a man who is above hypocritical objections to the theatre. Haven't I proved it by marrying an actress? But we don't mention it here. The savages in this beastly place wouldn't employ me, if they knew I had married a stage-player. Hullo! The bottle's empty again. Ha! here's another bottle, full. I love a man who has always got a full bottle to offer his friend. Shake hands. I say, Mountjoy, tell me on your sacred word of honour, can you keep a secret? My wife's secret, sir! Stop! let me look at you again. I thought I saw you smile. If a man smiles at me, when I am opening my whole heart to him, by the living jingo, I would knock that man down at his own table! What? you didn't smile? I apologise. Your hand again; I drink your health in your own good wine. Where was I? What was I talking about?" Mountjoy carefully humoured his interesting guest. "You were about to honour me," he said, "by taking me into your confidence." Mr. Vimpany stared in tipsy bewilderment. Mountjoy tried again in plainer language: "You were going to tell me a secret." This time, the doctor grasped the idea. He looked round cunningly to the door. "Any eavesdroppers?" he asked. "Hush! Whisper--this is serious--whisper! What was it I was going to tell you? What was the secret, old boy?" Mountjoy answered a little too readily: "I think it related to Mrs. Vimpany." Mrs. Vimpany's husband threw himself back in his chair, snatched a dirty handkerchief out of his pocket, and began to cry. "Here's a false friend!" the creature whimpered. "Asks me to dinner, and takes advantage of my dependent situation to insult my wife. The loveliest of women, the sweetest of women, the innocentest of women. Oh, my wife! my wife!" He suddenly threw his handkerchief to the other end of the room, and burst out laughing. "Ho! ho! Mountjoy, what an infernal fool you must be to take me seriously. I can act, too. Do you think I care about my wife? She was a fine woman once: she's a bundle of old rags now. But she has her merits. Hush! I want to know something. Have you got a lord among your circle of acquaintance?" Experience made Mountjoy more careful; perhaps a little too careful. He only said "Yes." The doctor's dignity asserted itself. "That's a short answer, sir, to a man in my position. If you want me to believe you, mention your friend's name." Here was a chance at last! "His name;" Mountjoy began, "is Lord Harry--" Mr. Vimpany lost his dignity in an instant. He struck his heavy fist on the table, with a blow that made the tumblers jump. "Coincidence!" he cried. "How wonderful--no; that's not the word--providential is the word--how providential are coincidences! I mean, of course, to a rightly constituted mind. Let nobody contradict me! When I say a rightly constituted mind I speak seriously; and a young man like you will be all the better for it. Mountjoy! dear Mountjoy! jolly Mountjoy! my wife's lord is your lord--Lord Harry. No; none of your nonsense--I won't have any more wine. Yes, I will; it might hurt your feelings if I didn't drink with you. Pass the bottle. Ha! That's a nice ring you've got on your finger. Perhaps you think it valuable? It's nothing, sir; it's dross, it's dirt, compared to my wife's diamond pin! There's a jewel, if you like! It will be worth a fortune to us when we sell it. A gift, dear sir! I'm afraid I've been too familiar with you. Speaking as a born gentleman, I beg to present my respects, and I call you 'dear sir.' Did I tell you the diamond pin was a gift? It's nothing of the sort; we are under no obligation; my wife, my admirable wife, has earned that diamond pin. By registered post; and what I call a manly letter from Lord Harry. He is deeply obliged (I give you the sense of it) by what my wife has done for him; ready money is scarce with my lord; he sends a family jewel, with his love. Oh, I'm not jealous. He's welcome to love Mrs. Vimpany, in her old age, if he likes. Did you say that, sir? Did you say that Lord Harry, or any man, was welcome to love Mrs. Vimpany? I have a great mind to throw this bottle at your head. No, I won't; it's wasting good wine! How kind of you to give me good wine. Who are you? I don't like dining with a stranger. Do you know any friend of mine? Do you know a man named Mountjoy? Do you know two men named Mountjoy? No: you don't. One of them is dead: killed by those murdering scoundrels what do you call them? Eh, what?" The doctor's voice began to falter, his head dropped; he slumbered suddenly and woke suddenly, and began talking again suddenly. "Would you like to be made acquainted with Lord Harry? I'll give you a sketch of his character before I introduce him. Between ourselves, he's a desperate wretch. Do you know why he employed my wife, my admirable wife? You will agree with me; he ought to have looked after his young woman himself. We've got his young woman safe in our house. A nice girl. Not my style; my medical knowledge certifies she's cold-blooded. Lord Harry has only to come over here and find her. Why the devil doesn't he come? What is it keeps him in Ireland? Do you know? I seem to have forgotten. My own belief is I've got softening of the brain. What's good for softening of the brain? There isn't a doctor living who won't tell you the right remedy--wine. Pass the wine. If this claret is worth a farthing, it's worth a guinea a bottle. I ask you in confidence; did you ever hear of such a fool as my wife's lord? His name escapes me. No matter; he stops in Ireland--hunting. Hunting what? The fox? Nothing so noble; hunting assassins. He's got some grudge against one of them. Means to kill one of them. A word in your ear; they'll kill him. Do you ever bet? Five to one, he's a dead man before the end of the week. When is the end of the week? Tuesday, Wednesday--no, Saturday--that's the beginning of the week--no, it isn't--the beginning of the week isn't the Sabbath--Sunday, of course--we are not Christians, we are Jews--I mean we are Jews, we are not Christians--I mean--" The claret got the better of his tongue, at last. He mumbled and muttered; he sank back in his chair; he chuckled; he hiccupped; he fell asleep. All and more than all that Mountjoy feared, he had now discovered. In a state of sobriety, the doctor was probably one of those men who are always ready to lie. In a state of intoxication the utterances of his drunken delirium might unconsciously betray the truth. The reason which he had given for Lord Harry's continued absence in Ireland, could not be wisely rejected as unworthy of belief. It was in the reckless nature of the wild lord to put his own life in peril, in the hope of revenging Arthur Mountjoy on the wretch who had killed him. Taking this bad news for granted, was there any need to distress Iris by communicating the motive which detained Lord Harry in his own country? Surely not! And, again, was there any immediate advantage to be gained by revealing the true character of Mrs. Vimpany, as a spy, and, worse still, a spy who was paid? In her present state of feeling, Iris would, in all probability, refuse to believe it. Arriving at these conclusions, Hugh looked at the doctor snoring and choking in an easy-chair. He had not wasted the time and patience devoted to the stratagem which had now successfully reached its end. After what he had just heard--thanks to the claret--he could not hesitate to accomplish the speedy removal of Iris from Mr. Vimpany's house; using her father's telegram as the only means of persuasion on which it was possible to rely. Mountjoy left the inn without ceremony, and hurried away to Iris in the hope of inducing her to return to London with him that night. CHAPTER VII DOCTORING THE DOCTOR ASKING for Miss Henley at the doctor's door, Hugh was informed that she had gone out, with her invalid maid, for a walk. She had left word, if Mr. Mountjoy called in her absence, to beg that he would kindly wait for her return. On his way up to the drawing-room, Mountjoy heard Mrs. Vimpany's sonorous voice occupied, as he supposed, in reading aloud. The door being opened for him, he surprised her, striding up and down the room with a book in her hand; grandly declaiming without anybody to applaud her. After what Hugh had already heard, he could only conclude that reminiscences of her theatrical career had tempted the solitary actress to make a private appearance, for her own pleasure, in one of those tragic characters to which her husband had alluded. She recovered her self-possession on Mountjoy's appearance, with the ease of a mistress of her art. "Pardon me," she said, holding up her book with one hand, and tapping it indicatively with the other: "Shakespeare carries me out of myself. A spark of the poet's fire burns in the poet's humble servant. May I hope that I have made myself understood? You look as if you had a fellow-feeling for me." Mountjoy did his best to fill the sympathetic part assigned to him, and only succeeded in showing what a bad actor he would have been, if he had gone on the stage. Under the sedative influence thus administered, Mrs. Vimpany put away her book, and descended at once from the highest poetry to the lowest prose. "Let us return to domestic events," she said indulgently. "Have the people at the inn given you a good dinner?" "The people did their best," Mountjoy answered cautiously. "Has my husband returned with you?" Mrs. Vimpany went on. Mountjoy began to regret that he had not waited for Iris in the street. He was obliged to acknowledge that the doctor had not returned with him. "Where is Mr. Vimpany?" "At the inn." "What is he doing there?" Mountjoy hesitated. Mrs. Vimpany rose again into the regions of tragic poetry. She stepped up to him, as if he had been Macbeth, and she was ready to use the daggers. "I understand but too well," she declared in terrible tones. "My wretched husband's vices are known to me. Mr. Vimpany is intoxicated." Hugh tried to make the best of it. "Only asleep," he said. Mrs. Vimpany looked at him once more. This time, it was Queen Katharine looking at Cardinal Wolsey. She bowed with lofty courtesy, and opened the door. "I have occasion," she said, "to go out"----and made an exit. Five minutes later, Mountjoy (standing at the window, impatiently on the watch for the return of Iris) saw Mrs. Vimpany in the street. She entered a chemist's shop, on the opposite side of the way, and came out again with a bottle in her hand. It was enclosed in the customary medical wrapping of white paper. Majestically, she passed out of sight. If Hugh had followed her he would have traced the doctor's wife to the door of the inn. The unemployed waiter was on the house-steps, looking about him--with nothing to see. He made his bow to Mrs. Vimpany, and informed her that the landlady had gone out. "You will do as well," was the reply. "Is Mr. Vimpany here?" The waiter smiled, and led the way through the passage to the foot of the stairs. "You can hear him, ma'am." It was quite true; Mr. Vimpany's snoring answered for Mr. Vimpany. His wife ascended the first two or three stairs, and stopped to speak again to the waiter. She asked what the two gentlemen had taken to drink with their dinner. They had taken "the French wine." "And nothing else?" The waiter ventured on a little joke. "Nothing else," he said--"and more than enough of it, too." "Not more than enough, I suppose, for the good of the house," Mrs. Vimpany remarked. "I beg your pardon, ma'am; the claret the two gentlemen drank is not charged for in the bill." "What do you mean?" The waiter explained that Mr. Mountjoy had purchased the whole stock of the wine. Suspicion, as well as surprise, appeared in Mrs. Vimpany's face. She had hitherto thought it likely that Miss Henley's gentleman-like friend might be secretly in love with the young lady. Her doubts of him, now, took a wider range of distrust. She went on up the stairs by herself, and banged the door of the private room as the easiest means of waking the sleeping man. To the utmost noise that she could make in this way, he was perfectly impenetrable. For a while she waited, looking at him across the table with unutterable contempt. There was the man to whom the religion of the land and the law of the land, acting together in perfect harmony, had fettered her for life! Some women, in her position, might have wasted time in useless self-reproach. Mrs. Vimpany reviewed her miserable married life with the finest mockery of her own misfortune. "Virtue," she said to herself, "is its own reward." Glancing with careless curiosity at the disorder of the dinner-table, she noticed some wine still left in the bottom of her husband's glass. Had artificial means been used to reduce him to his present condition? She tasted the claret. No; there was nothing in the flavour of it which betrayed that he had been drugged. If the waiter was to be believed, he had only drunk claret--and there he was, in a state of helpless stupefaction, nevertheless. She looked again at the dinner-table, and discovered one, among the many empty bottles, with some wine still left in it. After a moment of reflection, she took a clean tumbler from the sideboard. Here was the wine which had been an object of derision to Mr. Vimpany and his friends. They were gross feeders and drinkers; and it might not be amiss to put their opinions to the test. She was not searching for the taste of a drug now; her present experiment proposed to try the wine on its own merits. At the time of her triumphs on the country stage--before the date of her unlucky marriage--rich admirers had entertained the handsome actress at suppers, which offered every luxury that the most perfect table could supply. Experience had made her acquainted with the flavour of the finest claret--and that experience was renewed by the claret which she was now tasting. It was easy to understand why Mr. Mountjoy had purchased the wine; and, after a little thinking, his motive for inviting Mr. Vimpany to dinner seemed to be equally plain. Foiled in their first attempt at discovery by her own prudence and tact, his suspicions had set their trap. Her gross husband had been tempted to drink, and to talk at random (for Mr. Mountjoy's benefit) in a state of intoxication! What secrets might the helpless wretch not have betrayed before the wine had completely stupefied him? Urged by rage and fear, she shook him furiously. He woke; he glared at her with bloodshot eyes; he threatened her with his clenched fist. There was but one way of lifting his purblind stupidity to the light. She appealed to his experience of himself, on many a former occasion: "You fool, you have been drinking again--and there's a patient waiting for you." To that dilemma he was accustomed; the statement of it partially roused him. Mrs. Vimpany tore off the paper wrapping, and opened the medicine-bottle which she had brought with her. He stared at it; he muttered to himself: "Is she going to poison me?" She seized his head with one hand, and held the open bottle to his nose. "Your own prescription," she cried, "for yourself and your hateful friends." His nose told him what words might have tried vainly to say: he swallowed the mixture. "If I lose the patient," he muttered oracularly, "I lose the money." His resolute wife dragged him out of his chair. The second door in the dining-room led into an empty bed-chamber. With her help, he got into the room, and dropped on the bed. Mrs. Vimpany consulted her watch. On many a former occasion she had learnt what interval of repose was required, before the sobering influence of the mixture could successfully assert itself. For the present, she had only to return to the other room. The waiter presented himself, asking if there was anything he could do for her. Familiar with the defective side of her husband's character, he understood what it meant when she pointed to the bedroom door. "The old story, ma'am," he said, with an air of respectful sympathy. "Can I get you a cup of tea?" Mrs. Vimpany accepted the tea, and enjoyed it thoughtfully. She had two objects in view--to be revenged on Mountjoy, and to find a way of forcing him to leave the town before he could communicate his discoveries to Iris. How to reach these separate ends, by one and the same means, was still the problem which she was trying to solve, when the doctor's coarse voice was audible, calling for somebody to come to him. If his head was only clear enough, by this time, to understand the questions which she meant to put, his answers might suggest the idea of which she was in search. Rising with alacrity, Mrs. Vimpany returned to the bed-chamber. "You miserable creature," she began, "are you sober now?" "I'm as sober as you are." "Do you know," she went on, "why Mr. Mountjoy asked you to dine with him?" "Because he's my friend." "He is your worst enemy. Hold your tongue! I'll explain what I mean directly. Rouse your memory, if you have got a memory left. I want to know what you and Mr. Mountjoy talked about after dinner." He stared at her helplessly. She tried to find her way to his recollection by making suggestive inquiries. It was useless; he only complained of being thirsty. His wife lost her self-control. She was too furiously angry with him to be able to remain in the room. Recovering her composure when she was alone, she sent for soda-water and brandy. Her one chance of making him useful was to humour his vile temper; she waited on him herself. In some degree, the drink cleared his muddled head. Mrs. Vimpany tried his memory once more. Had he said this? Had he said that? Yes: he thought it likely. Had he, or had Mr. Mountjoy, mentioned Lord Harry's name? A glimmer of intelligence showed itself in his stupid eyes. Yes--and they had quarrelled about it: he rather thought he had thrown a bottle at Mr. Mountjoy's head. Had they, either of them, said anything about Miss Henley? Oh, of course! What was it? He was unable to remember. Had his wife done bothering him, now? "Not quite," she replied. "Try to understand what I am going to say to you. If Lord Harry comes to us while Miss Henley is in our house--" He interrupted her: "That's your business." "Wait a little. It's my business, if I hear beforehand that his lordship is coming. But he is quite reckless enough to take us by surprise. In that case, I want you to make yourself useful. If you happen to be at home, keep him from seeing Miss Henley until I have seen her first." "Why?" "I want an opportunity, my dear, of telling Miss Henley that I have been wicked enough to deceive her, before she finds it out for herself. I may hope she will forgive me, if I confess everything." The doctor laughed: "What the devil does it matter whether she forgives you or not?" "It matters a great deal." "Why, you talk as if you were fond of her!" "I am." The doctor's clouded intelligence was beginning to clear; he made a smart reply: "Fond of her, and deceiving her--aha!" "Yes," she said quietly, "that's just what it is. It has grown on me, little by little; I can't help liking Miss Henley." "Well," Mr. Vimpany remarked, "you _are_ a fool!" He looked at her cunningly. "Suppose I do make myself useful, what am I to gain by it?" "Let us get back," she suggested, "to the gentleman who invited you to dinner, and made you tipsy for his own purposes." "I'll break every bone in his skin!" "Don't talk nonsense! Leave Mr. Mountjoy to me." "Do _you_ take his part? I can tell you this. If I drank too much of that poisonous French stuff, Mountjoy set me the example. He was tipsy--as you call it--shamefully tipsy, I give you my word of honour. What's the matter now?" His wife (so impenetrably cool, thus far) had suddenly become excited. There was not the smallest fragment of truth in what he had just said of Hugh, and Mrs. Vimpany was not for a moment deceived by it. But the lie had, accidentally, one merit--it suggested to her the idea which she had vainly tried to find over her cup of tea. "Suppose I show you how you may be revenged on Mr. Mountjoy," she said. "Well?" "Will you remember what I asked you to do for me, if Lord Harry takes us by surprise?" He produced his pocket-diary, and told her to make a memorandum of it. She wrote as briefly as if she had been writing a telegram: "Keep Lord Harry from seeing Miss Henley, till I have seen her first." "Now," she said, taking a chair by the bedside, "you shall know what a clever wife you have got. Listen to me." CHAPTER VIII HER FATHER'S MESSAGE LOOKING out of the drawing-room window, for the tenth time at least, Mountjoy at last saw Iris in the street, returning to the house. She brought the maid with her into the drawing-room, in the gayest of good spirits, and presented Rhoda to Mountjoy. "What a blessing a good long walk is, if we only knew it!" she exclaimed. "Look at my little maid's colour! Who would suppose that she came here with heavy eyes and pale cheeks? Except that she loses her way in the town, whenever she goes out alone, we have every reason to congratulate ourselves on our residence at Honeybuzzard. The doctor is Rhoda's good genius, and the doctor's wife is her fairy godmother." Mountjoy's courtesy having offered the customary congratulations, the maid was permitted to retire; and Iris was free to express her astonishment at the friendly relations established (by means of the dinner-table) between the two most dissimilar men on the face of creation. "There is something overwhelming," she declared, "in the bare idea of your having asked him to dine with you--on such a short acquaintance, and being such a man! I should like to have peeped in, and seen you entertaining your guest with the luxuries of the hotel larder. Seriously, Hugh, your social sympathies have taken a range for which I was not prepared. After the example that you have set me, I feel ashamed of having doubted whether Mr. Vimpany was worthy of his charming wife. Don't suppose that I am ungrateful to the doctor! He has found his way to my regard, after what he has done for Rhoda. I only fail to understand how he has possessed himself of _your_ sympathies." So she ran on, enjoying the exercise of her own sense of humour in innocent ignorance of the serious interests which she was deriding. Mountjoy tried to stop her, and tried in vain. "No, no," she persisted as mischievously as ever, "the subject is too interesting to be dismissed. I am dying to know how you and your guest got through the dinner. Did he take more wine than was good for him? And, when he forgot his good manners, did he set it all right again by saying, 'No offence,' and passing the bottle?" Hugh could endure it no longer. "Pray control your high spirits for a moment," he said. "I have news for you from home." Those words put an end to her outbreak of gaiety, in an instant. "News from my father?" she asked. "Yes." "Is he coming here?" "No; I have heard from him." "A letter?" "A telegram," Mountjoy explained, "in answer to a letter from me. I did my best to press your claims on him, and I am glad to say I have not failed." "Hugh, dear Hugh! have you succeeded in reconciling us?" Mountjoy produced the telegram. "I asked Mr. Henley," he said, "to let me know at once whether he would receive you, and to answer plainly Yes or No. The message might have been more kindly expressed--but, at any rate, it is a favourable reply." Iris read the telegram. "Is there another father in the world," she said sadly, "who would tell his daughter, when she asks to come home, that he will receive her on trial?" "Surely, you are not offended with him, Iris?" She shook her head. "I am like you," she said. "I know him too well to be offended. He shall find me dutiful, he shall find me patient. I am afraid I must not expect you to wait for me in Honeybuzzard. Will you tell my father that I hope to return to him in a week's time?" "Pardon me, Iris, I see no reason why you should waste a week in this town. On the contrary, the more eager you show yourself to return to your father, the more likely you are to recover your place in his estimation. I had planned to take you home by the next train." Iris looked at him in astonishment. "Is it possible that you mean what you say?" she asked. "My dear, I do most assuredly mean what I say. Why should you hesitate? What possible reason can there be for staying here any longer?" "Oh, Hugh, how you disappoint me! What has become of your kind feeling, your sense of justice, your consideration for others? Poor Mrs. Vimpany!" "What has Mrs. Vimpany to do with it?" Iris was indignant. "What has Mrs. Vimpany to do with it?" she repeated. "After all that I owe to that good creature's kindness; after I have promised to accompany her--she has so few happy days, poor soul!--on excursions to places of interest in the neighbourhood, do you expect me to leave her--no! it's worse than that--do you expect me to throw her aside like an old dress that I have worn out? And this after I have so unjustly, so ungratefully suspected her in my own thoughts? Shameful! shameful!" With some difficulty, Mountjoy controlled himself. After what she had just said, his lips were sealed on the subject of Mrs. Vimpany's true character. He could only persist in appealing to her duty to her father. "You are allowing your quick temper to carry you to strange extremities," he answered. "If I think it of more importance to hasten a reconciliation with your father than to encourage you to make excursions with a lady whom you have only known for a week or two, what have I done to deserve such an outbreak of anger? Hush! Not a word more now! Here is the lady herself." As he spoke, Mrs. Vimpany joined them; returning from her interview with her husband at the inn. She looked first at Iris, and at once perceived signs of disturbance in the young lady's face. Concealing her anxiety under that wonderful stage smile, which affords a refuge to so many secrets, Mrs. Vimpany said a few words excusing her absence. Miss Henley answered, without the slightest change in her friendly manner to the doctor's wife. The signs of disturbance were evidently attributable to some entirely unimportant cause, from Mrs. Vimpany's point of view. Mr. Mountjoy's discoveries had not been communicated yet. In Hugh's state of mind, there was some irritating influence in the presence of the mistress of the house, which applied the spur to his wits. He mischievously proposed submitting to her the question in dispute between Iris and himself. "It is a very simple matter," he said to Mrs. Vimpany. "Miss Henley's father is anxious that she should return to him, after an estrangement between them which is happily at an end. Do you think she ought to allow any accidental engagements to prevent her from going home at once? If she requests your indulgence, under the circumstances, has she any reason to anticipate a refusal?" Mrs. Vimpany's expressive eyes looked up, with saintly resignation, at the dirty ceiling--and asked in dumb show what she had done to deserve the injury implied by a doubt. "Mr. Mountjoy," she said sternly, "you insult me by asking the question."--"Dear Miss Henley," she continued, turning to Iris, _"you_ will do me justice, I am sure. Am I capable of allowing my own feelings to stand in the way, when your filial duty is concerned? Leave me, my sweet friend. Go! I entreat you, go home!" She retired up the stage--no, no; she withdrew to the other end of the room--and burst into the most becoming of all human tears, theatrical tears. Impulsive Iris hastened to comfort the personification of self-sacrifice, the model of all that was most unselfish in female submission. "For shame! for shame!" she whispered, as she passed Mountjoy. Beaten again by Mrs. Vimpany--with no ties of relationship to justify resistance to Miss Henley; with two women against him, entrenched behind the privileges of their sex--the one last sacrifice of his own feelings, in the interests of Iris, that Hugh could make was to control the impulse which naturally urged him to leave the house. In the helpless position in which he had now placed himself, he could only wait to see what course Mrs. Vimpany might think it desirable to take. Would she request him, in her most politely malicious way, to bring his visit to an end? No: she looked at him--hesitated--directed a furtive glance towards the view of the street from the window--smiled mysteriously--and completed the sacrifice of her own feelings in these words: "Dear Miss Henley, let me help you to pack up." Iris positively refused. "No," she said, "I don't agree with Mr. Mountjoy. My father leaves it to me to name the day when we meet. I hold you, my dear, to our engagement--I don't leave an affectionate friend as I might leave a stranger." Even if Mr. Mountjoy communicated his discoveries to Miss Henley, on the way home, there would be no danger now of her believing him. Mrs. Vimpany put her powerful arm round the generous Iris, and, with infinite grace, thanked her by a kiss. "Your kindness will make my lonely lot in life harder than ever to bear," she murmured, "when you are gone." "But we may hope to meet in London," Iris reminded her; "unless Mr. Vimpany alters his mind about leaving this place." "My husband will not do that, dear. He is determined to try his luck, as he says, in London. In the meantime you will give me your address, won't you? Perhaps you will even promise to write to me?" Iris instantly gave her promise, and wrote down her address in London. Mountjoy made no attempt to interfere: it was needless. If the maid had not fallen ill on the journey, and if Mrs. Vimpany had followed Miss Henley to London, there would have been little to fear in the discovery of her address--and there was little to fear now. The danger to Iris was not in what might happen while she was living under her father's roof, but in what might happen if she was detained (by plans for excursions) in Mr. Vimpany's house, until Lord Harry might join her there. Rather than permit this to happen, Hugh (in sheer desperation) meditated charging Mrs. Vimpany, to her face, with being the Irish lord's spy, and proving the accusation by challenging her to produce the registered letter and the diamond pin. While he was still struggling with his own reluctance to inflict this degrading exposure on a woman, the talk between the two ladies came to an end. Mrs. Vimpany returned again to the window. On this occasion, she looked out into the street--with her handkerchief (was it used as a signal?) exhibited in her hand. Iris, on her side, advanced to Mountjoy. Easily moved to anger, her nature was incapable of sullen perseverance in a state of enmity. To see Hugh still patiently waiting--still risking the chances of insult--devoted to her, and forgiving her--was at once a reproach that punished Iris, and a mute appeal that no true woman's heart could resist. With tears in her eyes she said to him: "There must be no coolness between you and me. I lost my temper, and spoke shamefully to you. My dear, I am indeed sorry for it. You are never hard on me--you won't be hard on me now?" She offered her hand to him. He had just raised it to his lips--when the drawing-room door was roughly opened. They both looked round. The man of all others whom Hugh least desired to see was the man who now entered the room. The victim of "light claret"--privately directed to lurk in the street, until he saw a handkerchief fluttering at the window--had returned to the house; primed with his clever wife's instructions; ready and eager to be even with Mountjoy for the dinner at the inn. CHAPTER IX MR. VIMPANY ON INTOXICATION THERE was no unsteadiness in the doctor's walk, and no flush on his face. He certainly did strut when he entered the room; and he held up his head with dignity, when he discovered Mountjoy. But he seemed to preserve his self-control. Was the man sober again already? His wife approached him with her set smile; the appearance of her lord and master filled Mrs. Vimpany with perfectly-assumed emotions of agreeable surprise. "This is an unexpected pleasure," she said. "You seldom favour us with your company, my dear, so early in the evening! Are there fewer patients in want of your advice than usual?" "You are mistaken, Arabella. I am here in the performance of a painful duty." The doctor's language, and the doctor's manner, presented him to Iris in a character that was new to her. What effect had he produced on Mrs. Vimpany? That excellent friend to travellers in distress lowered her eyes to the floor, and modestly preserved silence. Mr. Vimpany proceeded to the performance of his duty; his painful responsibility seemed to strike him at first from a medical point of view. "If there is a poison which undermines the sources of life," he remarked, "it is alcohol. If there is a vice that degrades humanity, it is intoxication. Mr. Mountjoy, are you aware that I am looking at you?" "Impossible not to be aware of that," Hugh answered. "May I ask why you are looking at me?" It was not easy to listen gravely to Mr. Vimpany's denunciation of intemperance, after what had taken place at the dinner of that day. Hugh smiled. The moral majesty of the doctor entered its protest. "This is really shameful," he said. "The least you can do is to take it seriously." "What is it?" Mountjoy asked. "And why am I to take it seriously?" Mr. Vimpany's reply was, to say the least of it, indirect. If such an expression may be permitted, it smelt of the stage. Viewed in connection with Mrs. Vimpany's persistent assumption of silent humility, it suggested to Mountjoy a secret understanding, of some kind, between husband and wife. "What has become of your conscience, sir?" Mr. Vimpany demanded. "Is that silent monitor dead within you? After giving me a bad dinner, do you demand an explanation? Ha! you shall have it." Having delivered himself to this effect, he added action to words. Walking grandly to the door, he threw it open, and saluted Mountjoy with an ironical bow. Iris observed that act of insolence; her colour rose, her eyes glittered. "Do you see what he has just done?" she said to Mrs. Vimpany. The doctor's wife answered softly: "I don't understand it." After a glance at her husband, she took Iris by the hand: "Dear Miss Henley, shall we retire to my room?" Iris drew her hand away. "Not unless Mr. Mountjoy wishes it," she said. "Certainly not!" Hugh declared. "Pray remain here; your presence will help me to keep my temper." He stepped up to Mr. Vimpany. "Have you any particular reason for opening that door?" he asked. The doctor was a rascal; but, to do him justice, he was no coward. "Yes," he said, "I have a reason." "What is it, if you please?" "Christian forbearance," Mr. Vimpany answered. "Forbearance towards me?" Mountjoy continued. The doctor's dignity suddenly deserted him. "Aha, my boy, you have got it at last!" he cried. "It's pleasant to understand each other, isn't it? You see, I'm a plain-spoken fellow; I don't wish to give offence. If there's one thing more than another I pride myself on, it's my indulgence for human frailty. But, in my position here, I'm obliged to be careful. Upon my soul, I can't continue my acquaintance with a man who--oh, come! come! don't look as if you didn't understand me. The circumstances are against you, sir. You have treated me infamously." "Under what circumstances have I treated you infamously?" Hugh asked. "Under pretence of giving me a dinner," Mr. Vimpany shouted--"the worst dinner I ever sat down to!" His wife signed to him to be silent. He took no notice of her. She insisted on being understood. "Say no more!" she warned him, in a tone of command. The brute side of his nature, roused by Mountjoy's contemptuous composure, was forcing its way outwards; he set his wife at defiance. "Then don't let him look at me as if he thought I was in a state of intoxication!" cried the furious doctor. "There's the man, Miss, who tried to make me tipsy," he went on, actually addressing himself to Iris. "Thanks to my habits of sobriety, he has been caught in his own trap. _He's_ intoxicated. Ha, friend Mountjoy, have you got the right explanation at last? There's the door, sir!" Mrs. Vimpany felt that this outrage was beyond endurance. If something was not done to atone for it, Miss Henley would be capable--her face, at that moment, answered for her--of leaving the house with Mr. Mountjoy. Mrs. Vimpany seized her husband indignantly by the arm. "You brute, you have spoilt everything!" she said to him. "Apologise directly to Mr. Mountjoy. You won't?" "I won't!" Experience had taught his wife how to break him to her will. "Do you remember my diamond pin?" she whispered. He looked startled. Perhaps he thought she had lost the pin. "Where is it?" he asked eagerly. "Gone to London to be valued. Beg Mr. Mountjoy's pardon, or I will put the money in the bank--and not one shilling of it do you get." In the meanwhile, Iris had justified Mrs. Vimpany's apprehensions. Her indignation noticed nothing but the insult offered to Hugh. She was too seriously agitated to be able to speak to him. Still admirably calm, his one anxiety was to compose her. "Don't be afraid," he said; "it is impossible that I can degrade myself by quarrelling with Mr. Vimpany. I only wait here to know what you propose to do. You have Mrs. Vimpany to think of." "I have nobody to think of but You," Iris replied. "But for me, you would never have been in this house. After the insult that has been offered to you--oh, Hugh, I feel it too!--let us return to London together. I have only to tell Rhoda we are going away, and to make my preparations for travelling. Send for me from the inn, and I will be ready in time for the next train." Mrs. Vimpany approached Mountjoy, leading her husband. "Sorry I have offended you," the doctor said. "Beg your pardon. It's only a joke. No offence, I hope?" His servility was less endurable than his insolence. Telling him that he need say no more, Mountjoy bowed to Mrs. Vimpany, and left the room. She returned his bow mechanically, in silence. Mr. Vimpany followed Hugh out--thinking of the diamond pin, and eager to open the house door, as another act of submission which might satisfy his wife. Even a clever woman will occasionally make mistakes; especially when her temper happens to have been roused. Mrs. Vimpany found herself in a false position, due entirely to her own imprudence. She had been guilty of three serious errors. In the first place she had taken it for granted that Mr. Vimpany's restorative mixture would completely revive the sober state of his brains. In the second place, she had trusted him with her vengeance on the man who had found his way to her secrets through her husband's intemperance. In the third place, she had rashly assumed that the doctor, in carrying out her instructions for insulting Mountjoy, would keep within the limits which she had prescribed to him, when she hit on the audacious idea of attributing his disgraceful conduct to the temptation offered by his host's example. As a consequence of these acts of imprudence, she had exposed herself to a misfortune that she honestly dreaded--the loss of the place which she had carefully maintained in Miss Henley's estimation. In the contradictory confusion of feelings, so often found in women, this deceitful and dangerous creature had been conquered--little by little, as she had herself described it--by that charm of sweetness and simplicity in Iris, of which her own depraved nature presented no trace. She now spoke with hesitation, almost with timidity, in addressing the woman whom she had so cleverly deceived, at the time when they first met. "Must I give up all, Miss Henley, that I most value?" she asked. "I hardly understand you, Mrs. Vimpany." "I will try to make it plainer. Do you really mean to leave me this evening?" "I do." "May I own that I am grieved to hear it? Your departure will deprive me of some happy hours, in your company." "Your husband's conduct leaves me no alternative," Iris replied. "Pray do not humiliate me by speaking of my husband! I only want to know if there is a harder trial of my fortitude still to come. Must I lose the privilege of being your friend?" "I hope I am not capable of such injustice as that," Iris declared. "It would be hard indeed to lay the blame of Mr. Vimpany's shameful behaviour on you. I don't forget that you made him offer an apology. Some women, married to such a man as that, might have been afraid of him. No, no; you have been a good friend to me--and I mean to remember it." Mrs. Vimpany's gratitude was too sincerely felt to be expressed with her customary readiness. She only said what the stupidest woman in existence could have said: "Thank you." In the silence that followed, the rapid movement of carriage wheels became audible in the street. The sound stopped at the door of the doctor's house. CHAPTER X THE MOCKERY OF DECEIT HAD Mountjoy arrived to take Iris away, before her preparations for travelling were complete? Both the ladies hurried to the window, but they were too late. The rapid visitor, already hidden from them under the portico, was knocking smartly at the door. In another minute, a man's voice in the hall asked for "Miss Henley." The tones--clear, mellow, and pleasantly varied here and there by the Irish accent--were not to be mistaken by any one who had already hear them. The man in the hall was Lord Harry. In that serious emergency, Mrs. Vimpany recovered her presence of mind. She made for the door, with the object of speaking to Lord Harry before he could present himself in the drawing-room. But Iris had heard him ask for her in the hall; and that one circumstance instantly stripped of its concealments the character of the woman in whose integrity she had believed. Her first impression of Mrs. Vimpany--so sincerely repented, so eagerly atoned for--had been the right impression after all! Younger, lighter, and quicker than the doctor's wife, Iris reached the door first, and laid her hand on the lock. "Wait a minute," she said. Mrs. Vimpany hesitated. For the first time in her life at a loss what to say, she could only sign to Iris to stand back. Iris refused to move. She put her terrible question in the plainest words: "How does Lord Harry know that I am in this house?" The wretched woman (listening intently for the sound of a step on the stairs) refused to submit to a shameful exposure, even now. To her perverted moral sense, any falsehood was acceptable, as a means of hiding herself from discovery by Iris. In the very face of detection, the skilled deceiver kept up the mockery of deceit. "My dear," she said, "what has come to you? Why won't you let me go to my room?" Iris eyed her with a look of scornful surprise. "What next?" she said. "Are you impudent enough to pretend that I have not found you out, yet?" Sheer desperation still sustained Mrs. Vimpany's courage. She played her assumed character against the contemptuous incredulity of Iris, as she had sometimes played her theatrical characters against the hissing and hooting of a brutal audience. "Miss Henley," she said, "you forget yourself!" "Do you think I didn't see in your face," Iris rejoined, "that you heard him, too? Answer my question." "What question?" "You have just heard it." "No!" "You false woman!" "Don't forget, Miss Henley, that you are speaking to a lady." "I am speaking to Lord Harry's spy!" Their voices rose loud; the excitement on either side had reached its climax; neither the one nor the other was composed enough to notice the sound of the carriage-wheels, leaving the house again. In the meanwhile, nobody came to the drawing-room door. Mrs. Vimpany was too well acquainted with the hot-headed Irish lord not to conclude that he would have made himself heard, and would have found his way to Iris, but for some obstacle, below stairs, for which he was not prepared. The doctor's wife did justice to the doctor at last. Another person had, in all probability, heard Lord Harry's voice--and that person might have been her husband. Was it possible that he remembered the service which she had asked of him; and, even if he had succeeded in calling it to mind, was his discretion to be trusted? As those questions occurred to her, the desire to obtain some positive information was more than she was able to resist. Mrs. Vimpany attempted to leave the drawing-room for the second time. But the same motive had already urged Miss Henley to action. Again, the younger woman outstripped the older. Iris descended the stairs, resolved to discover the cause of the sudden suspension of events in the lower part of the house. CHAPTER XI MRS. VIMPANY'S FAREWELL THE doctor's wife followed Miss Henley out of the room, as far as the landing--and waited there. She had her reasons for placing this restraint on herself. The position of the landing concealed her from the view of a person in the hall. If she only listened for the sound of voices she might safely discover whether Lord Harry was, or was not, still in the house. In the first event, it would be easy to interrupt his interview with Iris, before the talk could lead to disclosures which Mrs. Vimpany had every reason to dread. In the second event, there would be no need to show herself. Meanwhile, Iris opened the dining-room door and looked in. Nobody was there. The one other room on the ground floor, situated at the back of the building, was the doctor's consulting-room. She knocked at the door. Mr. Vimpany's voice answered: "Come in." There he was alone, drinking brandy and water, and smoking his big black cigar. "Where is Lord Harry?" she said. "In Ireland, I suppose," Mr. Vimpany answered quietly. Iris wasted no time in making useless inquiries. She closed the door again, and left him. He, too, was undoubtedly in the conspiracy to keep her deceived. How had it been done? Where was the wild lord, at that moment? Whilst she was pursuing these reflections in the hall, Rhoda came up from the servants' tea-table in the kitchen. Her mistress gave her the necessary instructions for packing, and promised to help her before long. Mrs. Vimpany's audacious resolution to dispute the evidence of her own senses, still dwelt on Miss Henley's mind. Too angry to think of the embarrassment which an interview with Lord Harry would produce, after they had said their farewell words in Ireland, she was determined to prevent the doctor's wife from speaking to him first, and claiming him as an accomplice in her impudent denial of the truth. If he had been, by any chance, deluded into leaving the house, he would sooner or later discover the trick that had been played on him, and would certainly return. Iris took a chair in the hall. * * * * * * * It is due to the doctor to relate that he had indeed justified his wife's confidence in him. The diamond pin, undergoing valuation in London, still represented a present terror in his mind. The money, the money--he was the most attentive husband in England when he thought of the money! At the time when Lord Harry's carriage stopped at his house-door, he was in the dining-room, taking a bottle of brandy from the cellaret in the sideboard. Looking instantly out of the window, he discovered who the visitor was, and decided on consulting his instructions in the pocket-diary. The attempt was rendered useless, as soon as he had opened the book, by the unlucky activity of the servant in answering the door. Her master stopped her in the hall. He was pleasantly conscious of the recovery of his cunning. But his memory (far from active under the most favourable circumstances) was slower than ever at helping him now. On the spur of the moment he could only call to mind that he had been ordered to prevent a meeting between Lord Harry and Iris. "Show the gentleman into my consulting-room," he said. Lord Harry found the doctor enthroned on his professional chair, surprised and delighted to see his distinguished friend. The impetuous Irishman at once asked for Miss Henley. "Gone," Mr. Vimpany answered "Gone--where?" the wild lord wanted to know next. "To London." "By herself?" "No; with Mr. Hugh Mountjoy." Lord Harry seized the doctor by the shoulders, and shook him: "You don't mean to tell me Mountjoy is going to marry her?" Mr. Vimpany feared nothing but the loss of money. The weaker and the older man of the two, he nevertheless followed the young lord's example, and shook him with right good-will. "Let's see how you like it in your turn," he said. "As for Mountjoy, I don't know whether he is married or single--and don't care." "The devil take your obstinacy! When did they start?" "The devil take your questions! They started not long since." "Might I catch them at the station?" "Yes; if you go at once." So the desperate doctor carried out his wife's instructions--without remembering the conditions which had accompanied them. The way to the station took Lord Harry past the inn. He saw Hugh Mountjoy through the open house door paying his bill at the bar. In an instant the carriage was stopped, and the two men (never on friendly terms) were formally bowing to each other. "I was told I should find you," Lord Harry said, "with Miss Henley, at the station." "Who gave you your information?" "Vimpany--the doctor." "He ought to know that the train isn't due at the station for an hour yet." "Has the blackguard deceived me? One word more, Mr. Mountjoy. Is Miss Henley at the inn?" "No." "Are you going with her to London?" "I must leave Miss Henley to answer that." "Where is she, sir?" "There is an end to everything, my lord, in the world we live in. You have reached the end of my readiness to answer questions." The Englishman and the Irishman looked at each other: the Anglo-Saxon was impenetrably cool; the Celt was flushed and angry. They might have been on the brink of a quarrel, but for Lord Harry's native quickness of perception, and his exercise of it at that moment. When he had called at Mr. Vimpany's house, and had asked for Iris, the doctor had got rid of him by means of a lie. After this discovery, at what conclusion could he arrive? The doctor was certainly keeping Iris out of his way. Reasoning in this rapid manner, Lord Harry let one offence pass, in his headlong eagerness to resent another. He instantly left Mountjoy. Again the carriage rattled back along the street; but it was stopped before it reached Mr. Vimpany's door. Lord Harry knew the people whom he had to deal with, and took measures to approach the house silently, on foot. The coachman received orders to look out for a signal, which should tell him when he was wanted again. Mr. Vimpany's ears, vigilantly on the watch for suspicious events, detected no sound of carriage wheels and no noisy use of the knocker. Still on his guard, however, a ring at the house-bell disturbed him in his consulting-room. Peeping into the hall, he saw Iris opening the door, and stole back to his room. "The devil take her!" he said, alluding to Miss Henley, and thinking of the enviable proprietor of the diamond pin. At the unexpected appearance of Iris, Lord Harry forgot every consideration which ought to have been present to his mind, at that critical moment. He advanced to her with both hands held out in cordial greeting. She signed to him contemptuously to stand back--and spoke in tones cautiously lowered, after a glance at the door of the consulting-room. "My only reason for consenting to see you," she said, "is to protect myself from further deception. Your disgraceful conduct is known to me. Go now," she continued, pointing to the stairs, "and consult with your spy, as soon as you like." The Irish lord listened--guiltily conscious of having deserved what she had said to him--without attempting to utter a word in excuse. Still posted at the head of the stairs, the doctor's wife heard Iris speaking; but the tone was not loud enough to make the words intelligible at that distance; neither was any other voice audible in reply. Vaguely suspicions of some act of domestic treachery, Mrs. Vimpany began to descend the stairs. At the turning which gave her a view of the hall, she stopped; thunderstruck by the discovery of Lord Harry and Miss Henley, together. The presence of a third person seemed, in some degree, to relieve Lord Harry. He ran upstairs to salute Mrs. Vimpany, and was met again by a cold reception and a hostile look. Strongly and strangely contrasted, the two confronted each other on the stairs. The faded woman, wan and ghastly under cruel stress of mental suffering, stood face to face with a fine, tall, lithe man, in the prime of his health and strength. Here were the bright blue eyes, the winning smile, and the natural grace of movement, which find their own way to favour in the estimation of the gentler sex. This irreclaimable wanderer among the perilous by-ways of the earth--christened "Irish blackguard," among respectable members of society, when they spoke of him behind his back--attracted attention, even among the men. Looking at his daring, finely-formed face, they noticed (as an exception to a general rule, in these days) the total suppression, by the razor, of whiskers, moustache, and beard. Strangers wondered whether Lord Harry was an actor or a Roman Catholic priest. Among chance acquaintances, those few favourites of Nature who are possessed of active brains, guessed that his life of adventure might well have rendered disguise necessary to his safety, in more than one part of the world. Sometimes they boldly put the question to him. The hot temper of an Irishman, in moments of excitement, is not infrequently a sweet temper in moments of calm. What they called Lord Harry's good-nature owned readily that he had been indebted, on certain occasions, to the protection of a false beard, And perhaps a colouring of his face and hair to match. The same easy disposition now asserted itself, under the merciless enmity of Mrs. Vimpany's eyes. "If I have done anything to offend you," he said, with an air of puzzled humility, "I'm sure I am sorry for it. Don't be angry, Arabella, with an old friend. Why won't you shake hands?" "I have kept your secret, and done your dirty work," Mrs. Vimpany replied. "And what is my reward? Miss Henley can tell you how your Irish blundering has ruined me in a lady's estimation. Shake hands, indeed! You will never shake hands with Me again as long as you live!" She said those words without looking at him; her eyes were resting on Iris now. From the moment when she had seen the two together, she knew that it was all over; further denial in the face of plain proofs would be useless indeed! Submission was the one alternative left. "Miss Henley," she said, "if you can feel pity for another woman's sorrow and shame, let me have a last word with you--out of this man's hearing." There was nothing artificial in her tones or her looks; no acting could have imitated the sad sincerity with which she spoke. Touched by that change, Iris accompanied her as she ascended the stairs. After a little hesitation, Lord Harry followed them. Mrs. Vimpany turned on him when they reached the drawing-room landing. "Must I shut the door in your face?" she asked. He was as pleasantly patient as ever: "You needn't take the trouble to do that, my dear; I'll only ask your leave to sit down and wait on the stairs. When you have done with Miss Henley, just call me in. And, by the way, don't be alarmed in case of a little noise--say a heavy man tumbling downstairs. If the blackguard it's your misfortune to be married to happens to show himself, I shall be under the necessity of kicking him. That's all." Mrs. Vimpany closed the door. She spoke to Iris respectfully, as she might have addressed a stranger occupying a higher rank in life than herself. "There is an end, madam, to one short acquaintance; and, as we both know, an end to it for ever. When we first met--let me tell the truth at last!--I felt a malicious pleasure in deceiving you. After that time, I was surprised to find that you grew on my liking, Can you understand the wickedness that tried to resist you? It was useless; your good influence has been too strong for me. Strange, isn't it? I have lived a life of deceit, among bad people. What could you expect of me, after that? I heaped lies on lies--I would have denied that the sun was in the heavens--rather than find myself degraded in your opinion. Well! that is all over--useless, quite useless now. Pray don't mistake me. I am not attempting to excuse myself; a confession was due to you; the confession is made. It is too late to hope that you will forgive me. If you will permit it, I have only one favour to ask. Forget me." She turned away with a last hopeless look, who said as plainly as if in words: "I am not worth a reply." Generous Iris insisted on speaking to her. "I believe you are truly sorry for what you have done," she said; "I can never forget that--I can never forget You." She held out her pitying hand. Mrs. Vimpany was too bitterly conscious of the past to touch it. Even a spy is not beneath the universal reach of the heartache. There were tears in the miserable woman's eyes when she had looked her last at Iris Henley. CHAPTER XII LORD HARRY's DEFENCE AFTER a short interval, the drawing-room door was opened again. Waiting on the threshold, the Irish lord asked if he might come in. Iris replied coldly. "This is not my house," she said; "I must leave you to decide for yourself." Lord Harry crossed the room to speak to her and stopped. There was no sign of relenting towards him in that dearly-loved face. "I wonder whether it would be a relief to you," he suggested with piteous humility, "if I went away?" If she had been true to herself, she would have said, Yes. Where is the woman to be found, in her place, with a heart hard enough to have set her that example? She pointed to a chair. He felt her indulgence gratefully. Following the impulse of the moment, he attempted to excuse his conduct. "There is only one thing I can say for myself," he confessed, "I didn't begin by deceiving you. While you had your eye on me, Iris, I was an honourable man." This extraordinary defence reduced her to silence. Was there another man in the world who would have pleaded for pardon in that way? "I'm afraid I have not made myself understood," he said. "May I try again?" "If you please." The vagabond nobleman made a resolute effort to explain himself intelligibly, this time: "See now! We said good-bye, over there, in the poor old island. Well, indeed I meant it, when I owned that I was unworthy of you. _I_ didn't contradict you, when you said you could never be my wife, after such a life as I have led. And, do remember, I submitted to your returning to England, without presuming to make a complaint. Ah, my sweet girl, it was easy to submit, while I could look at you, and hear the sound of your voice, and beg for that last kiss--and get it. Reverend gentlemen talk about the fall of Adam. What was that to the fall of Harry, when he was back in his own little cottage, without the hope of ever seeing you again? To the best of my recollection, the serpent that tempted Eve was up a tree. I found the serpent that tempted Me, sitting waiting in my own armchair, and bent on nothing worse than borrowing a trifle of money. Need I say who she was? I don't doubt that you think her a wicked woman." Never ready in speaking of acts of kindness, on her own part, Iris answered with some little reserve: "I have learnt to think better of Mrs. Vimpany than you suppose." Lord Harry began to look like a happy man, for the first time since he had entered the room. "I ought to have known it!" he burst out. "Yours is the well-balanced mind, dear, that tempers justice with mercy. Mother Vimpany has had a hard life of it. Just change places with her for a minute or so--and you'll understand what she has had to go through. Find yourself, for instance, in Ireland, without the means to take you back to England. Add to that, a husband who sends you away to make money for him at the theatre, and a manager (not an Irishman, thank God!) who refuses to engage you--after your acting has filled his dirty pockets in past days--because your beauty has faded with time. Doesn't your bright imagination see it all now? My old friend Arabella, ready and anxious to serve me--and a sinking at this poor fellow's heart when he knew, if he once lost the trace of you, he might lose it for ever--there's the situation, as they call it on the stage. I wish I could say for myself what I may say for Mrs. Vimpany. It's such a pleasure to a clever woman to engage in a little deceit--we can't blame her, can we?" Iris protested gently against a code of morality which included the right of deceit among the privileges of the sex. Lord Harry slipped through her fingers with the admirable Irish readiness; he agreed with Miss Henley that he was entirely wrong. "And don't spare me while you're about it," he suggested. "Lay all the blame of that shameful stratagem on my shoulders. It was a despicable thing to do. When I had you watched, I acted in a manner--I won't say unworthy of a gentleman; have I been a gentleman since I first ran away from home? Why, it's even been said my way of speaking is no longer the way of a gentleman; and small wonder, too, after the company I've kept. Ah, well! I'm off again, darling, on a sea voyage. Will you forgive me now? or will you wait till I come back, if I do come back? God knows!" He dropped on his knees, and kissed her hand. "Anyway," he said, "whether I live or whether I die, it will be some consolation to remember that I asked your pardon--and perhaps got it." "Take it, Harry; I can't help forgiving you!" She had done her best to resist him, and she had answered in those merciful words. The effect was visible, perilously visible, as he rose from his knees. Her one chance of keeping the distance between them, on which she had been too weak to insist, was not to encourage him by silence. Abruptly, desperately, she made a commonplace inquiry about his proposed voyage. "Tell me," she resumed, "where are you going when you leave England?" "Oh, to find money, dear, if I can--to pick up diamonds, or to hit on a mine of gold, and so forth." The fine observation of Iris detected something not quite easy in his manner, as he made that reply. He tried to change the subject: she deliberately returned to it. "Your account of your travelling plans is rather vague," she told him. "Do you know when you are likely to return?" He took her hand. One of the rings on her fingers happened to be turned the wrong way. He set it in the right position, and discovered an opal. "Ah! the unlucky stone!" he cried, and turned it back again out of sight. She drew away her hand. "I asked you," she persisted, "when you expect to return?" He laughed--not so gaily as usual. "How do I know I shall ever get back?" he answered. "Sometimes the seas turn traitor, and sometimes the savages. I have had so many narrow escapes of my life, I can't expect my luck to last for ever." He made a second attempt to change the subject. "I wonder whether you're likely to pay another visit to Ireland? My cottage is entirely at your disposal, Iris dear. Oh, when I'm out of the way, of course! The place seemed to please your fancy, when you saw it. You will find it well taken care of, I answer for that." Iris asked who was taking care of his cottage. The wild lord's face saddened. He hesitated; rose from his chair restlessly, and walked away to the window; returned, and made up his mind to reply. "My dear, you know her. She was the old housekeeper at--" His voice failed him. He was unable, or unwilling, to pronounce the name of Arthur's farm. Knowing, it is needless to say, that he had alluded to Mrs. Lewson, Iris warmly commended him for taking care of her old nurse. At the same time, she remembered the unfriendly terms in which the housekeeper had alluded to Lord Harry, when they had talked of him. "Did you find no difficulty," she asked, "in persuading Mrs. Lewson to enter your service?" "Oh, yes, plenty of difficulty; I found my bad character in my way, as usual." It was a relief to him, at that moment, to talk of Mrs. Lewson; the Irish humour and the Irish accent both asserted themselves in his reply. "The curious old creature told me to my face I was a scamp. I took leave to remind her that it was the duty of a respectable person, like herself, to reform scamps; I also mentioned that I was going away, and she would be master and mistress too on my small property. That softened her heart towards me. You will mostly find old women amenable, if you get at them by way of their dignity. Besides, there was another lucky circumstance that helped me. The neighbourhood of my cottage has some attraction for Mrs. Lewson. She didn't say particularly what it was--and I never asked her to tell me." "Surely you might have guessed it, without being told," Iris reminded him. "Mrs. Lewson's faithful heart loves poor Arthur's memory--and Arthur's grave is not far from your cottage." "Don't speak of him!" It was said loudly, peremptorily, passionately. He looked at her with angry astonishment in his face. "You loved him too!" he said. "Can you speak of him quietly? The noblest, truest, sweetest man that ever the Heavens looked on, foully assassinated. And the wretch who murdered him still living, free--oh, what is God's providence about?--is there no retribution that will follow him? no just hand that will revenge Arthur's death?" As those fierce words escaped him, he was no longer the easy, gentle, joyous creature whom Iris had known and loved. The furious passions of the Celtic race glittered savagely in his eyes, and changed to a grey horrid pallor the healthy colour that was natural to his face. "Oh, my temper, my temper!" he cried, as Iris shrank from him. "She hates me now, and no wonder." He staggered away from her, and burst into a convulsive fit of crying, dreadful to hear. Compassion, divine compassion, mastered the earthlier emotion of terror in the great heart of the woman who loved him. She followed him, and laid her hand caressingly on his shoulder. "I don't hate you, my dear," she said. "I am sorry for Arthur--and, oh, so sorry for You!" He caught her in his arms. His gratitude, his repentance, his silent farewell were all expressed in a last kiss. It was a moment, never to be forgotten to the end of their lives. Before she could speak, before she could think, he had left her. She called him back, through the open door. He never returned; he never even replied. She ran to the window, and threw it up--and was just in time to see him signal to the carriage and leap into it. Her horror of the fatal purpose that was but too plainly rooted in him--her conviction that he was on the track of the assassin, self devoted to exact the terrible penalty of blood for blood--emboldened her to insist on being heard. "Come back," she cried. "I must, I will, speak with you." He waved his hand to her with a gesture of despair. "Start your horses," he shouted to the coachman. Alarmed by his voice and his look, the man asked where he should drive to. Lord Harry pointed furiously to the onward road. "Drive," he answered, "to the Devil!" THE END OF THE FIRST PERIOD THE SECOND PERIOD CHAPTER XIII IRIS AT HOME A LITTLE more than four months had passed, since the return of Iris to her father's house. Among other events which occurred, during the earlier part of that interval, the course adopted by Hugh Mountjoy, when Miss Henley's suspicions of the Irish lord were first communicated to him, claims a foremost place. It was impossible that the devoted friend of Iris could look at her, when they met again on their way to the station, without perceiving the signs of serious agitation. Only waiting until they were alone in the railway-carriage, she opened her heart unreservedly to the man in whose clear intellect and true sympathy she could repose implicit trust. He listened to what she could repeat of Lord Harry's language with but little appearance of surprise. Iris had only reminded him of one, among the disclosures which had escaped Mr. Vimpany at the inn. Under the irresistible influence of good wine, the doctor had revealed the Irish lord's motive for remaining in his own country, after the assassination of Arthur Mountjoy. Hugh met the only difficulty in his way, without shrinking from it. He resolved to clear his mind of its natural prejudice against the rival who had been preferred to him, before he assumed the responsibility of guiding Iris by his advice. When he had in some degree recovered confidence in his own unbiased judgment, he entered on the question of Lord Harry's purpose in leaving England. Without attempting to dispute the conclusion at which Iris had arrived, he did his best to alleviate her distress. In his opinion, he was careful to tell her, a discovery of the destination to which Lord Harry proposed to betake himself, might be achieved. The Irish lord's allusion to a new adventure, which would occupy him in searching for diamonds or gold, might indicate a contemplated pursuit of the assassin, as well as a plausible excuse to satisfy Iris. It was at least possible that the murderer might have been warned of his danger if he remained in England, and that he might have contemplated directing his flight to a distant country, which would not only offer a safe refuge, but also hold out (in its mineral treasures) a hope of gain. Assuming that these circumstances had really happened, it was in Lord Harry's character to make sure of his revenge, by embarking in the steamship by which the assassin of Arthur Mountjoy was a passenger. Wild as this guess at the truth undoubtedly was, it had one merit: it might easily be put to the test. Hugh had bought the day's newspaper at the station. He proposed to consult the shipping advertisements relating, in the first place, to communication with the diamond-mines and the goldfields of South Africa. This course of proceeding at once informed him that the first steamer, bound for that destination, would sail from London in two days' time. The obvious precaution to take was to have the Dock watched; and Mountjoy's steady old servant, who knew Lord Harry by sight, was the man to employ. Iris naturally inquired what good end could be attained, if the anticipated discovery actually took place. To this Mountjoy answered, that the one hope--a faint hope, he must needs confess--of inducing Lord Harry to reconsider his desperate purpose, lay in the influence of Iris herself. She must address a letter to him, announcing that his secret had been betrayed by his own language and conduct, and declaring that she would never again see him, or hold any communication with him, if he persisted in his savage resolution of revenge. Such was the desperate experiment which Mountjoy's generous and unselfish devotion to Iris now proposed to try. The servant (duly entrusted with Miss Henley's letter) was placed on the watch--and the event which had been regarded as little better than a forlorn hope, proved to be the event that really took place. Lord Harry was a passenger by the steamship. Mountjoy's man presented the letter entrusted to him, and asked respectfully if there was any answer. The wild lord read it--looked (to use the messenger's own words) like a man cut to the heart--seemed at a loss what to say or do--and only gave a verbal answer: "I sincerely thank Miss Henley, and I promise to write when the ship touches at Madeira." The servant continued to watch him when he went on board the steamer; saw him cast a look backwards, as if suspecting that he might have been followed; and then lost sight of him in the cabin. The vessel sailed after a long interval of delay, but he never reappeared on the deck. The ambiguous message sent to her aroused the resentment of Iris; she thought it cruel. For some weeks perhaps to come, she was condemned to remain in doubt, and was left to endure the trial of her patience, without having Mountjoy at hand to encourage and console her. He had been called away to the south of France by the illness of his father. But the fortunes of Miss Henley, at this period of her life, had their brighter side. She found reason to congratulate herself on the reconciliation which had brought her back to her father. Mr. Henley had received her, not perhaps with affection, but certainly with kindness. "If we don't get in each other's way, we shall do very well; I am glad to see you again." That was all he had said to her, but it meant much from a soured and selfish man. Her only domestic anxiety was caused by another failure in the health of her maid. The Doctor declared that medical help would be of no avail, while Rhoda Bennet remained in London. In the country she had been born and bred, and to the country she must return. Mr. Henley's large landed property, on the north of London, happened to include a farm in the neighbourhood of Muswell Hill. Wisely waiting for a favourable opportunity, Iris alluded to the good qualities which had made Rhoda almost as much her friend as her servant, and asked leave to remove the invalid to the healthy air of the farm. Her anxiety about the recovery of a servant so astonished Mr. Henley, that he was hurried (as he afterwards declared) into granting his daughter's request. After this concession, the necessary arrangements were easily made. The influence of Iris won the goodwill of the farmer and his wife; Rhoda, as an expert and willing needlewoman, being sure of a welcome, for her own sake, in a family which included a number of young children. Miss Henley had only to order her carriage, and to be within reach of the farm. A week seldom passed without a meeting between the mistress and the maid. In the meantime, Mountjoy (absent in France) did not forget to write to Iris. His letters offered little hope of a speedy return. The doctors had not concealed from him that his father's illness would end fatally; but there were reserves of vital power still left, which might prolong the struggle. Under these melancholy circumstances, he begged that Iris would write to him. The oftener she could tell him of the little events of her life at home, the more kindly she would brighten the days of a dreary life. Eager to show, even in a trifling matter, how gratefully she appreciated Mountjoy's past kindness, Iris related the simple story of her life at home, in weekly letters addressed to her good friend. After telling Hugh (among other things) of Rhoda's establishment at the farm, she had some unexpected results to relate, which had followed the attempt to provide herself with a new maid. Two young women had been successively engaged--each recommended, by the lady whom she had last served, with that utter disregard of moral obligation which appears to be shamelessly on the increase in the England of our day. The first of the two maids, described as "rather excitable," revealed infirmities of temper which suggested a lunatic asylum as the only fit place for her. The second young woman, detected in stealing eau-de-cologne, and using it (mixed with water) as an intoxicating drink, claimed merciful construction of her misconduct, on the ground that she had been misled by the example of her last mistress. At the third attempt to provide herself with a servant, Iris was able to report the discovery of a responsible person who told the truth--an unmarried lady of middle age. In this case, the young woman was described as a servant thoroughly trained in the performance of her duties, honest, sober, industrious, of an even temper, and unprovided with a "follower" in the shape of a sweetheart. Even her name sounded favourably in the ear of a stranger--it was Fanny Mere. Iris asked how a servant, apparently possessed of a faultless character, came to be in want of a situation. At this question the lady sighed, and acknowledged that she had "made a dreadful discovery," relating to the past life of her maid. It proved to be the old, the miserably old, story of a broken promise of marriage, and of the penalty paid as usual by the unhappy woman. "I will say nothing of my own feelings," the maiden lady explained. "In justice to the other female servants, it was impossible for me to keep such a person in my house; and, in justice to you, I must most unwillingly stand in the way of Fanny Mere's prospects by mentioning my reason for parting with her." "If I could see the young woman and speak to her," Iris said, "I should like to decide the question of engaging her, for myself." The lady knew the address of her discharged servant, and--with some appearance of wonder--communicated it. Miss Henley wrote at once, telling Fanny Mere to come to her on the following day. When she woke on the next morning, later than usual, an event occurred which Iris had been impatiently expecting for some time past. She found a letter waiting on her bedside table, side by side with her cup of tea. Lord Harry had written to her at last. Whether he used his pen or his tongue, the Irish lord's conduct was always more or less in need of an apology. Here were the guilty one's new excuses, expressed in his customary medley of frank confession and flowery language: "I am fearing, my angel, that I have offended you. You have too surely said to yourself, This miserable Harry might have made me happy by writing two lines--and what does he do? He sends a message in words which tell me nothing. "My sweet girl, the reason why is that I was in two minds when your man stopped me on my way to the ship. "Whether it was best for you--I was not thinking of myself--to confess the plain truth, or to take refuge in affectionate equivocation, was more than I could decide at the time. When minutes are enough for your intelligence, my stupidity wants days. Well! I saw it at last. A man owes the truth to a true woman; and you are a true woman. There you find a process of reasoning--I have been five days getting hold of it. "But tell me one thing first. Brutus killed a man; Charlotte Corday killed a man. One of the two victims was a fine tyrant, and the other a mean tyrant. Nobody blames those two historical assassins. Why then blame me for wishing to make a third? Is a mere modern murderer beneath my vengeance, by comparison with two classical tyrants who did _their_ murders by deputy? The man who killed Arthur Mountjoy is (next to Cain alone) the most atrocious homicide that ever trod the miry ways of this earth. There is my reply! I call it a crusher. "So now my mind is easy. Darling, let me make your mind easy next. "When I left you at the window of Vimpany's house, I was off to the other railroad to find the murderer in his hiding-place by the seaside. He had left it; but I got a trace, and went back to London--to the Docks. Some villain in Ireland, who knows my purpose, must have turned traitor. Anyhow, the wretch has escaped me. "Yes; I searched the ship in every corner. He was not on board. Has he gone on before me, by an earlier vessel? Or has he directed his flight to some other part of the world? I shall find out in time. His day of reckoning will come, and he, too, shall know a violent death! Amen. So be it. Amen. "Have I done now? Bear with me, gentle Iris--there is a word more to come. "You will wonder why I went on by the steamship--all the way to South Africa--when I had failed to find the man I wanted, on board. What was my motive? You, you alone, are always my motive. Lucky men have found gold, lucky men have found diamonds. Why should I not be one of them? My sweet, let us suppose two possible things; my own elastic convictions would call them two likely things, but never mind that. Say, I come back a reformed character; there is your only objection to me, at once removed! And take it for granted that I return with a fortune of my own finding. In that case, what becomes of Mr. Henley's objection to me? It melts (as Shakespeare says somewhere) into thin air. Now do take my advice, for once. Show this part of my letter to your excellent father, with my love. I answer beforehand for the consequences. Be happy, my Lady Harry--as happy as I am--and look for my return on an earlier day than you may anticipate. Yours till death, and after. "HARRY." Like the Irish lord, Miss Henley was "in two minds," while she rose, and dressed herself. There were parts of the letter for which she loved the writer, and parts of it for which she hated him. What a prospect was before that reckless man--what misery, what horror, might not be lying in wait in the dreadful future! If he failed in the act of vengeance, that violent death of which he had written so heedlessly might overtake him from another hand. If he succeeded, the law might discover his crime, and the infamy of expiation on the scaffold might be his dreadful end. She turned, shuddering, from the contemplation of those hideous possibilities, and took refuge in the hope of his safe, his guiltless return. Even if his visions of success, even if his purposes of reform (how hopeless at his age!) were actually realised, could she consent to marry the man who had led his life, had written this letter, had contemplated (and still cherished) his merciless resolution of revenge? No woman in her senses could let the bare idea of being his wife enter her mind. Iris opened her writing-desk, to hide the letter from all eyes but her own. As she secured it with the key, her heart sank under the return of a terror remembered but too well. Once more, the superstitious belief in a destiny that was urging Lord Harry and herself nearer and nearer to each other, even when they seemed to be most widely and most surely separated, thrilled her under the chilling mystery of its presence. She dropped helplessly into a chair. Oh, for a friend who could feel for her, who could strengthen her, whose wise words could restore her to her better and calmer self! Hugh was far away; and Iris was left to suffer and to struggle alone. Heartfelt aspirations for help and sympathy! Oh, irony of circumstances, how were they answered? The housemaid entered the room, to announce the arrival of a discharged servant, with a lost character. "Let the young woman come in," Iris said. Was Fanny Mere the friend whom she had been longing for? She looked at her troubled face in the glass--and laughed bitterly. CHAPTER XIV THE LADY'S MAID IT was not easy to form a positive opinion of the young woman who now presented herself in Miss Henley's room. If the Turkish taste is truly reported as valuing beauty in the female figure more than beauty in the female face, Fanny Mere's personal appearance might have found, in Constantinople, the approval which she failed to receive in London. Slim and well balanced, firmly and neatly made, she interested men who met her by accident (and sometimes even women), if they happened to be walking behind her. When they quickened their steps, and, passing on, looked back at her face, they lost all interest in Fanny from that moment. Painters would have described the defect in her face as "want of colour." She was one of the whitest of fair female human beings. Light flaxen hair, faint blue eyes with no expression in them, and a complexion which looked as if it had never been stirred by a circulation of blood, produced an effect on her fellow-creatures in general which made them insensible to the beauty of her figure, and the grace of her movements. There was no betrayal of bad health in her strange pallor: on the contrary, she suggested the idea of rare physical strength. Her quietly respectful manner was, so to say, emphasised by an underlying self-possession, which looked capable of acting promptly and fearlessly in the critical emergencies of life. Otherwise, the expression of character in her face was essentially passive. Here was a steady, resolute young woman, possessed of qualities which failed to show themselves on the surface--whether good qualities or bad qualities experience alone could determine. Finding it impossible, judging by a first impression, to arrive at any immediate decision favourable or adverse to the stranger, Iris opened the interview with her customary frankness; leaving the consequences to follow as they might. "Take a seat, Fanny," she said, "and let us try if we can understand each other. I think you will agree with me that there must be no concealments between us. You ought to know that your mistress has told me why she parted with you. It was her duty to tell me the truth, and it is my duty not to be unjustly prejudiced against you after what I have heard. Pray believe me when I say that I don't know, and don't wish to know, what your temptation may have been--" "I beg your pardon, Miss, for interrupting you. My temptation was vanity." Whether she did or did not suffer in making that confession, it was impossible to discover. Her tones were quiet; her manner was unobtrusively respectful; the pallor of her face was not disturbed by the slightest change of colour. Was the new maid an insensible person? Iris began to fear already that she might have made a mistake. "I don't expect you to enter into particulars," she said; "I don't ask you here to humiliate yourself." "When I got your letter, Miss, I tried to consider how I might show myself worthy of your kindness," Fanny answered. "The one way I could see was not to let you think better of me than I deserve. When a person, like me, is told, for the first time, that her figure makes amends for her face, she is flattered by the only compliment that has been paid to her in all her life. My excuse, Miss (if I have an excuse) is a mean one---I couldn't resist a compliment. That is all I have to say." Iris began to alter her opinion. This was not a young woman of the ordinary type. It began to look possible, and more than possible, that she was worthy of a helping hand. The truth seemed to be in her. "I understand you, and feel for you." Having replied in those words, Iris wisely and delicately changed the subject. "Let me hear how you are situated at the present time," she continued. "Are your parents living?" "My father and mother are dead, Miss." "Have you any other relatives?" "They are too poor to be able to do anything for me. I have lost my character--and I am left to help myself." "Suppose you fail to find another situation?" Iris suggested. "Yes, Miss?" "How can you help yourself?" "I can do what other girls have done." "What do you mean?" "Some of us starve on needlework. Some take to the streets. Some end it in the river. If there is no other chance for me, I think I shall try that way," said the poor creature, as quietly as if she was speaking of some customary prospect that was open to her. "There will be nobody to be sorry for me--and, as I have read, drowning is not a very painful death." "You shock me, Fanny! I, for one, should be sorry for you." "Thank you, Miss." "And try to remember," Iris continued, "that there may be chances in the future which you don't see yet. You speak of what you have read, and I have already noticed how clearly and correctly you express yourself. You must have been educated. Was it at home? or at school? "I was once sent to school," Fanny replied, not quite willingly. "Was it a private school?" "Yes." That short answer warned Iris to be careful. "Recollections of school," she said good-humouredly, "are not the pleasantest recollections in some of our lives. Perhaps I have touched on a subject which is disagreeable to you?" "You have touched on one of my disappointments, Miss. While my mother lived, she was my teacher. After her death, my father sent me to school. When he failed in business, I was obliged to leave, just as I had begun to learn and like it. Besides, the girls found out that I was going away, because there was no money at home to pay the fees--and that mortified me. There is more that I might tell you. I have a reason for hating my recollections of the school--but I mustn't mention that time in my life which your goodness to me tries to forget." All that appealed to her, so simply and so modestly, in that reply, was not lost on Iris. After an interval of silence, she said: "Can you guess what I am thinking of, Fanny?" "No, Miss." "I am asking myself a question. If I try you in my service shall I never regret it?" For the first time, strong emotion shook Fanny Mere. Her voice failed her, in the effort to speak. Iris considerately went on. "You will take the place," she said, "of a maid who has been with me for years--a good dear creature who has only left me through ill-health. I must not expect too much of you; I cannot hope that you will be to me what Rhoda Bennet has been." Fanny succeeded in controlling herself. "Is there any hope," she asked, "of my seeing Rhoda Bennet?" "Why do you wish to see her?" "You are fond of her, Miss---that is one reason." "And the other?" "Rhoda Bennet might help me to serve you as I want to serve you; she might perhaps encourage me to try if I could follow her example." Fanny paused, and clasped her hands fervently. The thought that was in her forced its way to expression. "It's so easy to feel grateful," she said--"and, oh, so hard to show it!" "Come to me," her new mistress answered, "and show it to-morrow." Moved by that compassionate impulse, Iris said the words which restored to an unfortunate creature a lost character and a forfeited place in the world. CHAPTER XV MR. HENLEY'S TEMPER PROVIDED by nature with ironclad constitutional defences against illness, Mr. Henley was now and then troubled with groundless doubts of his own state of health. Acting under a delusion of this kind, he imagined symptoms which rendered a change of residence necessary from his town house to his country house, a few days only after his daughter had decided on the engagement of her new maid. Iris gladly, even eagerly, adapted her own wishes to the furtherance of her father's plans. Sorely tried by anxiety and suspense, she needed all that rest and tranquillity could do for her. The first week in the country produced an improvement in her health. Enjoying the serene beauty of woodland and field, breathing the delicious purity of the air--sometimes cultivating her own corner in the garden, and sometimes helping the women in the lighter labours of the dairy--her nerves recovered their tone, and her spirits rose again to their higher level. In the performance of her duties the new maid justified Miss Henley's confidence in her, during the residence of the household in the country. She showed, in her own undemonstrative way, a grateful sense of her mistress's kindness. Her various occupations were intelligently and attentively pursued; her even temper never seemed to vary; she gave the servants no opportunities of complaining of her. But one peculiarity in her behaviour excited hostile remark, below-stairs. On the occasions when she was free to go out for the day, she always found some excuse for not joining any of the other female servants, who might happen to be similarly favoured. The one use she made of her holiday was to travel by railway to some place unknown; always returning at the right time in the evening. Iris knew enough of the sad circumstances to be able to respect her motives, and to appreciate the necessity for keeping the object of these solitary journeys a secret from her fellow-servants. The pleasant life in the country house had lasted for nearly a month, when the announcement of Hugh's approaching return to England reached Iris. The fatal end of his father's long and lingering illness had arrived, and the funeral had taken place. Business, connected with his succession to the property, would detain him in London for a few days. Submitting to this necessity, he earnestly expressed the hope of seeing Iris again, the moment he was at liberty. Hearing the good news, Mr. Henley obstinately returned to his plans--already twice thwarted--for promoting the marriage of Mountjoy and Iris. He wrote to invite Hugh to his house in a tone of cordiality which astonished his daughter; and when the guest arrived, the genial welcome of the host had but one defect--Mr. Henley overacted his part. He gave the two young people perpetual opportunities of speaking to each other privately; and, on the principle that none are so blind as those who won't see, he failed to discover that the relations between them continued to be relations of friendship, do what he might. Hugh's long attendance on his dying father had left him depressed in spirits; Iris understood him, and felt for him. He was not ready with his opinion of the new maid, after he had seen Fanny Mere. "My inclination," he said, "is to trust the girl. And yet, I hesitate to follow my inclination--and I don't know why." When Hugh's visit came to an end, he continued his journey in a northerly direction. The property left to him by his father included a cottage, standing in its own grounds, on the Scotch shore of the Solway Firth. The place had been neglected during the long residence of the elder Mr. Mountjoy on the Continent. Hugh's present object was to judge, by his own investigation, of the necessity for repairs. On the departure of his guest, Mr. Henley (still obstinately hopeful of the marriage on which he had set his mind) assumed a jocular manner towards Iris, and asked if the Scotch cottage was to be put in order for the honeymoon. Her reply, gently as it was expressed, threw him into a state of fury. His vindictive temper revelled, not only in harsh words, but in spiteful actions. He sold one of his dogs which had specially attached itself to Iris; and, seeing that she still enjoyed the country, he decided on returning to London. She submitted in silence. But the events of that past time, when her father's merciless conduct had driven her out of his house, returned ominously to her memory. She said to herself: "Is a day coming when I shall leave him again?" It was coming--and she little knew how. CHAPTER XVI THE DOCTOR IN FULL DRESS MR. HENLEY'S household had been again established in London, when a servant appeared one morning with a visiting card, and announced that a gentleman had called who wished to see Miss Henley. She looked at the card. The gentleman was Mr. Vimpany. On the point of directing the man to say that she was engaged, Iris checked herself. Mrs. Vimpany's farewell words had produced a strong impression on her. There had been moments of doubt and gloom in her later life, when the remembrance of that unhappy woman was associated with a feeling (perhaps a morbid feeling) of self-reproach. It seemed to be hard on the poor penitent wretch not to have written to her. Was she still leading the same dreary life in the mouldering old town? Or had she made another attempt to return to the ungrateful stage? The gross husband, impudently presenting himself with his card and his message, could answer those questions if he could do nothing else. For that reason only Iris decided that she would receive Mr. Vimpany. On entering the room, she found two discoveries awaiting her, for which she was entirely unprepared. The doctor's personal appearance exhibited a striking change; he was dressed, in accordance with the strictest notions of professional propriety, entirely in black. More remarkable still, there happened to be a French novel among the books on the table--and that novel Mr. Vimpany, barbarous Mr. Vimpany, was actually reading with an appearance of understanding it! "I seem to surprise you," said the doctor. "Is it this?" He held up the French novel as he put the question. "I must own that I was not aware of the range of your accomplishments," Iris answered. "Oh, don't talk of accomplishments! I learnt my profession in Paris. For nigh on three years I lived among the French medical students. Noticing this book on the table, I thought I would try whether I had forgotten the language--in the time that has passed (you know) since those days. Well, my memory isn't a good one in most things, but strange to say (force of habit, I suppose), some of my French sticks by me still. I hope I see you well, Miss Henley. Might I ask if you noticed the new address, when I sent up my card?" "I only noticed your name." The doctor produced his pocket-book, and took out a second card. With pride he pointed to the address: "5 Redburn Road, Hampstead Heath." With pride he looked at his black clothes. "Strictly professional, isn't it?" he said. "I have bought a new practice; and I have become a new man. It isn't easy at first. No, by jingo--I beg your pardon--I was about to say, my own respectability rather bothers me; I shall get used to it in time. If you will allow me, I'll take a liberty. No offence, I hope?" He produced a handful of his cards, and laid them out in a neat little semicircle on the table. "A word of recommendation, when you have the chance, would be a friendly act on your part," he explained. "Capital air in Redburn Road, and a fine view of the Heath out of the garret windows--but it's rather an out-of-the-way situation. Not that I complain; beggars mustn't be choosers. I should have preferred a practice in a fashionable part of London; but our little windfall of money--" He came to a full stop in the middle of a sentence. The sale of the superb diamond pin, by means of which Lord Harry had repaid Mrs. Vimpany's services, was, of all domestic events, the last which it might be wise to mention in the presence of Miss Henley. He was awkwardly silent. Taking advantage of that circumstance, Iris introduced the subject in which she felt interested. "How is Mrs. Vimpany?" she asked. "Oh, she's all right!" "Does she like your new house?" The doctor made a strange reply. "I really can't tell you," he said. "Do you mean that Mrs. Vimpany declines to express an opinion?" He laughed. "In all my experience," he said, "I never met with a woman who did that! No, no; the fact is, my wife and I have parted company. There's no need to look so serious about it! Incompatibility of temper, as the saying is, has led us to a friendly separation. Equally a relief on both sides. She goes her way, I go mine." His tone disgusted Iris--and she let him see it. "Is it of any use to ask you for Mrs. Vimpany's address?" she inquired. His atrocious good-humour kept its balance as steadily as ever: "Sorry to disappoint you. Mrs. Vimpany hasn't given me her address. Curious, isn't it? The fact is, she moped a good deal, after you left us; talked of her duty, and the care of her soul, and that sort of thing. When I hear where she is, I'll let you know with pleasure. To the best of my belief, she's doing nurse's work somewhere." "Nurse's work? What do you mean?" "Oh, the right thing--all in the fashion. She belongs to what they call a Sisterhood; goes about, you know, in a shabby black gown, with a poke bonnet. At least, so Lord Harry told me the other day." In spite of herself, Iris betrayed the agitation which those words instantly roused in her. "Lord Harry!" she exclaimed. "Where is he? In London?" "Yes--at Parker's Hotel." "When did he return?" "Oh, a few days ago; and--what do you think?--he's come back from the goldfields a lucky man. Damn it, I've let the cat out of the bag! I was to keep the thing a secret from everybody, and from you most particularly. He's got some surprise in store for you. Don't tell him what I've done! We had a little misunderstanding, in past days, at Honeybuzzard--and, now we are friends again, I don't want to lose his lordship's interest." Iris promised to be silent. But to know that the wild lord was in England again, and to remain in ignorance whether he had, or had not, returned with the stain of bloodshed on him, was more than she could endure. "There is one question I must ask you," she said. "I have reason to fear that Lord Harry left this country, with a purpose of revenge--" Mr. Vimpany wanted no further explanation. "Yes, yes; I know. You may be easy about that. There's been no mischief done, either one way or the other. The man he was after, when he landed in South Africa (he told me so himself) has escaped him." With that reply, the doctor got up in a hurry to bring his visit to an end. He proposed to take to flight, he remarked facetiously, before Miss Henley wheedled him into saying anything more. After opening the door, however, he suddenly returned to Iris, and added a last word in the strictest confidence. "If you won't forget to recommend me to your friends," he said, "I'll trust you with another secret. You will see his lordship in a day or two, when he returns from the races. Good-bye." The races! What was Lord Harry doing at the races? CHAPTER XVII ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH IRIS had only to remember the manner in which she and Mountjoy had disappointed her father, to perceive the serious necessity of preventing Mountjoy's rival from paying a visit at Mr. Henley's house. She wrote at once to Lord Harry, at the hotel which Mr. Vimpany had mentioned, entreating him not to think of calling on her. Being well aware that he would insist on a meeting, she engaged to write again and propose an appointment. In making this concession, Iris might have found it easier to persuade herself that she was yielding to sheer necessity, if she had not been guiltily conscious of a feeling of pleasure at the prospect of seeing Lord Harry again, returning to her an innocent man. There was some influence, in this train of thought, which led her mind back to Hugh. She regretted his absence--wondered whether he would have proposed throwing her letter to the Irish lord into the fire--sighed, closed the envelope, and sent the letter to the post. On the next day, she had arranged to drive to Muswell Hill, and to pay the customary visit to Rhoda. Heavy rain obliged her to wait for a fitter opportunity. It was only on the third day that the sky cleared, and the weather was favourable again. On a sunshiny autumn morning, with a fine keen air blowing, she ordered the open carriage. Noticing, while Fanny Mere was helping her to dress, that the girl looked even paler than usual, she said, with her customary kindness to persons dependent on her, "You look as if a drive in the fresh air would do you good--you shall go with me to the farm, and see Rhoda Bennet." When they stopped at the house, the farmer's wife appeared, attending a gentleman to the door. Iris at once recognised the local medical man. "You're not in attendance, I hope, on Rhoda Bennet?" she said. The doctor acknowledged that there had been some return of the nervous derangement from which the girl suffered. He depended mainly (he said) on the weather allowing her to be out as much as possible in the fresh air, and on keeping her free from all agitation. Rhoda was so far on the way to recovery, that she was now walking in the garden by his advice. He had no fear of her, provided she was not too readily encouraged, in her present state, to receive visitors. Her mistress would be, of course, an exception to this rule. But even Miss Henley would perhaps do well not to excite the girl by prolonging her visit. There was one other suggestion which he would venture to make, while he had the opportunity. Rhoda was not, as he thought, warmly enough clothed for the time of year; and a bad cold might be easily caught by a person in her condition. Iris entered the farm-house; leaving Fanny Mere, after what the doctor had said on the subject of visitors, to wait for her in the carriage. After an absence of barely ten minutes Miss Henley returned; personally changed, not at all to her own advantage, by the introduction of a novelty in her dress. She had gone into the farmhouse, wearing a handsome mantle of sealskin. When she came out again, the mantle had vanished, and there appeared in its place a common cloak of drab-coloured cloth. Noticing the expression of blank amazement in the maid's face, Iris burst out laughing. "How do you think I look in my new cloak?" she asked. Fanny saw nothing to laugh at in the sacrifice of a sealskin mantle. "I must not presume, Miss, to give an opinion," she said gravely. "At any rate," Iris continued, "you must be more than mortal if my change of costume doesn't excite your curiosity. I found Rhoda Bennet in the garden, exposed to the cold wind in this ugly flimsy thing. After what the doctor had told me, it was high time to assert my authority. I insisted on changing cloaks with Rhoda. She made an attempt, poor dear, to resist; but she knows me of old--and I had my way. I am sorry you have been prevented from seeing her; you shall not miss the opportunity when she is well again. Do you admire a fine view? Very well; we will vary the drive on our return. Go back," she said to the coachman, "by Highgate and Hampstead." Fanny's eyes rested on the shabby cloak with a well-founded distrust of it as a protection against the autumn weather. She ventured to suggest that her mistress might feel the loss (in an open carriage) of the warm mantle which she had left on Rhoda's shoulders. Iris made light of the doubt expressed by her maid. But by the time they had passed Highgate, and had approached the beginning of the straight road which crosses the high ridge of Hampstead Heath, she was obliged to acknowledge that she did indeed feel the cold. "You ought to be a good walker," she said, looking at her maid's firm well-knit figure. "Exercise is all I want to warm me. What do you say to going home on foot?" Fanny was ready and willing to accompany her mistress. The carriage was dismissed, and they set forth on their walk. As they passed the inn called "The Spaniards," two women who were standing at the garden gate stared at Iris, and smiled. A few paces further on, they were met by an errand-boy. He too looked at the young lady, and put his hand derisively to his head, with a shrill whistle expressive of malicious enjoyment. "I appear to amuse these people," Iris said. "What do they see in me?" Fanny answered with an effort to preserve her gravity, which was not quite successfully disguised: "I beg your pardon, Miss; I think they notice the curious contrast between your beautiful bonnet and your shabby cloak." Persons of excitable temperament have a sense of ridicule, and a dread of it, unintelligible to their fellow-creatures who are made of coarser material. For the moment, Iris was angry. "Why didn't you tell me of it," she asked sharply, "before I sent away the carriage? How can I walk back, with everybody laughing at me?" She paused--reflected a little--and led the way off the high road, on the right, to the fine clump of fir-trees which commands the famous view in that part of the Heath. "There's but one thing to be done," she said, recovering her good temper; "we must make my grand bonnet suit itself to my miserable cloak. You will pull out the feather and rip off the lace (and keep them for yourself, if you like), and then I ought to look shabby enough from head to foot, I am sure! No; not here; they may notice us from the road--and what may the fools not do when they see you tearing the ornaments off my bonnet! Come down below the trees, where the ground will hide us." They had nearly descended the steep slope which leads to the valley, below the clump of firs, when they were stopped by a terrible discovery. Close at their feet, in a hollow of the ground, was stretched the insensible body of a man. He lay on his side, with his face turned away from them. An open razor had dropped close by him. Iris stooped over the prostate man, to examine his face. Blood flowing from a frightful wound in his throat, was the first thing that she saw. Her eyes closed instinctively, recoiling from that ghastly sight. The next instant she opened them again, and saw his face. Dying or dead, it was the face of Lord Harry. The shriek that burst from her, on making that horrible discovery, was heard by two men who were crossing the lower heath at some distance. They saw the women, and ran to them. One of the men was a labourer; the other, better dressed, looked like a foreman of works. He was the first who arrived on the spot. "Enough to frighten you out of your senses, ladies," he said civilly. "It's a case of suicide, I should say, by the look of it." "For God's sake, let us do something to help him!" Iris burst out. "I know him! I know him!" Fanny, equal to the emergency, asked Miss Henley for her handkerchief, joined her own handkerchief to it, and began to bandage the wound. "Try if his pulse is beating," she said quietly to her mistress. The foreman made himself useful by examining the suicide's pockets. Iris thought she could detect a faint fluttering in the pulse. "Is there no doctor living near?" she cried. "Is there no carriage to be found in this horrible place?" The foreman had discovered two letters. Iris read her own name on one of them. The other was addressed "To the person who may find my body." She tore the envelope open. It contained one of Mr. Vimpany's cards, with these desperate words written on it in pencil: "Take me to the doctor's address, and let him bury me, or dissect me, whichever he pleases." Iris showed the card to the foreman. "Is it near here?" she asked. "Yes, Miss; we might get him to that place in no time, if there was a conveyance of any kind to be found." Still preserving her presence of mind, Fanny pointed in the direction of "The Spaniards" inn. "We might get what we want there," she said. "Shall I go?" Iris signed to her to attend to the wounded man, and ascended the sloping ground. She ran on towards the road. The men, directed by Fanny, raised the body and slowly followed her, diverging to an easier ascent. As Iris reached the road, a four-wheel cab passed her. Without an instant's hesitation, she called to the driver to stop. He pulled up his horse. She confronted a solitary gentleman, staring out of the window of the cab, and looking as if he thought that a lady had taken a liberty with him. Iris allowed the outraged stranger no opportunity of expressing his sentiments. Breathless as she was, she spoke first. "Pray forgive me--you are alone in the cab--there is room for a gentleman, dangerously wounded--he will bleed to death if we don't find help for him--the place is close by--oh, don't refuse me!" She looked back, holding fast by the cab door, and saw Fanny and the men slowly approaching. "Bring him here!" she cried. "Do nothing of the sort!" shouted the gentleman in possession of the cab. But Fanny obeyed her mistress; and the men obeyed Fanny. Iris turned indignantly to the merciless stranger. "I ask you to do an act of Christian kindness," she said. "How can you, how dare you, hesitate?" "Drive on!" cried the stranger. "Drive on, at your peril," Iris added, on her side. The cabman sat, silent and stolid, on the box, waiting for events. Slowly the men came in view, bearing Lord Harry, still insensible. The handkerchiefs on his throat were saturated with blood. At that sight, the cowardly instincts of the stranger completely mastered him. "Let me out!" he clamoured; "let me out!" Finding the cab left at her disposal, Iris actually thanked him! He looked at her with an evil eye. "I have my suspicions, I can tell you," he muttered. "If this comes to a trial in a court of law, I'm not going to be mixed up with it. Innocent people have been hanged before now, when appearances were against them." He walked off; and, by way of completing the revelation of his own meanness, forgot to pay his fare. On the point of starting the horse to pursue him, the cabman was effectually stopped. Iris showed him a sovereign. Upon this hint (like Othello) he spoke. "All right, Miss. I see your poor gentleman is a-bleeding. You'll take care--won't you?--that he doesn't spoil my cushions." The driver was not a ill-conditioned man; he put the case of his property indulgently, with a persuasive smile. Iris turned to the two worthy fellows, who had so readily given her their help, and bade them good-bye, with a solid expression of her gratitude which they both remembered for many a long day to come. Fanny was already in the cab supporting Lord Harry's body. Iris joined her. The cabman drove carefully to Mr. Vimpany's new house. CHAPTER XVIII PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE NUMBER Five was near the centre of the row of little suburban houses called Redburn Road. When the cab drew up at the door Mr. Vimpany himself was visible, looking out of the window on the ground floor--and yawning as he looked. Iris beckoned to him impatiently. "Anything wrong?" he asked, as he approached the door of the cab. She drew back, and silently showed him what was wrong. The doctor received the shock with composure. When he happened to be sober and sad, looking for patients and failing to find them, Mr. Vimpany's capacity for feeling sympathy began and ended with himself. "This is a new scrape, even for Lord Harry," he remarked. "Let's get him into the house." The insensible man was carried into the nearest room on the ground floor. Pale and trembling, Iris related what had happened, and asked if there was no hope of saving him. "Patience!" Mr. Vimpany answered; "I'll tell you directly." He removed the bandages, and examined the wound. "There's been a deal of blood lost," he said; "I'll try and pull him through. While I am about it, Miss, go upstairs, if you please, and find your way to the drawing-room." Iris hesitated. The doctor opened a neat mahogany box. "The tools of my trade," he continued; "I'm going to sew up his lordship's throat." Shuddering as she heard those words, Iris hurried out of the room. Fanny followed her mistress up the stairs. In her own very different way, the maid was as impenetrably composed as Mr. Vimpany himself. "There was a second letter found in the gentleman's pocket, Miss," she said. "Will you excuse my reminding you that you have not read it yet." Iris read the lines that follow: "Forgive me, my dear, for the last time. My letter is to say that I shall trouble you no more in this world--and, as for the other world, who knows? I brought some money back with me, from the goldfields. It was not enough to be called a fortune--I mean the sort of fortune which might persuade your father to let you marry me. Well! here in England, I had an opportunity of making ten times more of it on the turf; and, let me add, with private information of the horses which I might certainly count on to win. I don't stop to ask by what cruel roguery I was tempted to my ruin. My money is lost; and, with it, my last hope of a happy and harmless life with you comes to an end. I die, Iris dear, with the death of that hope. Something in me seems to shrink from suicide in the ugly gloom of great overgrown London. I prefer to make away with myself among the fields, where the green will remind me of dear old Ireland. When you think of me sometimes, say to yourself the poor wretch loved me--and perhaps the earth will lie lighter on Harry for those kind words, and the flowers (if you favour me by planting a few) may grow prettier on my grave." There it ended. The heart of Iris sank as she read that melancholy farewell, expressed in language at once wild and childish. If he survived his desperate attempt at self-destruction, to what end would it lead? In silence, the woman who loved him put his letter back in her bosom. Watching her attentively--affected, it was impossible to say how, by that mute distress--Fanny Mere proposed to go downstairs, and ask once more what hope there might be for the wounded man. Iris knew the doctor too well to let the maid leave her on a useless errand. "Some men might be kindly ready to relieve my suspense," she said; "the man downstairs is not one of them. I must wait till he comes to me, or sends for me. But there is something I wish to say to you, while we are alone. You have been but a short time in my service, Fanny. Is it too soon to ask if you feel some interest in me?" "If I can comfort you or help you, Miss, be pleased to tell me how." She made that reply respectfully, in her usual quiet manner; her pale cheeks showing no change of colour, her faint blue eyes resting steadily on her mistress's face. Iris went on: "If I ask you to keep what has happened, on this dreadful day, a secret from everybody, may I trust you--little as you know of me--as I might have trusted Rhoda Bennet?" "I promise it, Miss." In saying those few words, the undemonstrative woman seemed to think that she had said enough. Iris had no alternative but to ask another favour. "And whatever curiosity you may feel, will you be content to do me a kindness--without wanting an explanation?" "It is my duty to respect my mistress's secrets; I will do my duty." No sentiment, no offer of respectful sympathy; a positive declaration of fidelity, left impenetrably to speak for itself. Was the girl's heart hardened by the disaster which had darkened her life? Or was she the submissive victim of that inbred reserve, which shrinks from the frank expression of feeling, and lives and dies self-imprisoned in its own secrecy? A third explanation, founded probably on a steadier basis, was suggested by Miss Henley's remembrance of their first interview. Fanny's nature had revealed a sensitive side, when she was first encouraged to hope for a refuge from ruin followed perhaps by starvation and death. Judging so far from experience, a sound conclusion seemed to follow. When circumstances strongly excited the girl, there was a dormant vitality in her that revived. At other times when events failed to agitate her by a direct appeal to personal interests, her constitutional reserve held the rule. She could be impenetrably honest, steadily industrious, truly grateful--but the intuitive expression of feeling, on ordinary occasions, was beyond her reach. After an interval of nearly half an hour, Mr. Vimpany made his appearance. Pausing in the doorway, he consulted his watch, and entered on a calculation which presented him favourably from a professional point of view. "Allow for time lost in reviving my lord when he fainted, and stringing him up with a drop of brandy, and washing my hands (look how clean they are!), I haven't been more than twenty minutes in mending his throat. Not bad surgery, Miss Henley." "Is his life safe, Mr. Vimpany?" "Thanks to his luck--yes." "His luck?" "To be sure! In the first place, he owes his life to your finding him when you did; a little later, and it would have been all over with Lord Harry. Second piece of luck: catching the doctor at home, just when he was most wanted. Third piece of luck: our friend didn't know how to cut his own throat properly. You needn't look black at me, Miss; I'm not joking. A suicide with a razor in his hand has generally one chance in his favour--he is ignorant of anatomy. That is my lord's case. He has only cut through the upper fleshy part of his throat, and has missed the larger blood vessels. Take my word for it, he will do well enough now; thanks to you, thanks to me, and thanks to his own ignorance. What do you say to that way of putting it? Ha! my brains are in good working order to-day; I haven't been drinking any of Mr. Mountjoy's claret--do you take the joke, Miss Henley?" Chuckling over the recollection of his own drunken audacity, he happened to notice Fanny Mere. "Hullo! is this another injured person in want of me? You're as white as a sheet, Miss. If you're going to faint, do me a favour--wait till I can get the brandy-bottle. Oh! it's natural to you, is it? I see. A thick skin and a slow circulation; you will live to be an old woman. A friend of yours, Miss Henley?" Fanny answered composedly for herself: "I am Miss Henley's maid, sir." "What's become of the other one?" Mr. Vimpany asked. "Aye? aye? Staying at a farm-house for the benefit of her health, is she? If I had been allowed time enough, I would have made a cure of Rhoda Bennet. There isn't a medical man in England who knows more than I do of the nervous maladies of women--and what is my reward? Is my waiting-room crammed with rich people coming to consult me? Do I live in a fashionable Square? Have I even been made a Baronet? Damn it--I beg your pardon, Miss Henley--but it is irritating, to a man of my capacity, to be completely neglected. For the last three days not a creature has darkened the doors of this house. Could I say a word to you?" He led Iris mysteriously into a corner of the room. "About our friend downstairs?" he began. "When may we hope that he will be well again, Mr. Vimpany?" "Maybe in three weeks. In a month at most. I have nobody here but a stupid servant girl. We ought to have a competent nurse. I can get a thoroughly trained person from the hospital; but there's a little difficulty. I am an outspoken man. When I am poor, I own I am poor. My lord must be well fed; the nurse must be well fed. Would you mind advancing a small loan, to provide beforehand for the payment of expenses?" Iris handed her purse to him, sick of the sight of Mr. Vimpany. "Is that all?" she asked, making for the door. "Much obliged. That's all." As they approached the room on the ground floor, Iris stopped: her eyes rested on the doctor. Even to that coarse creature, the eloquent look spoke for her. Fanny noticed it, and suddenly turned her head aside. Over the maid's white face there passed darkly an expression of unutterable contempt. Her mistress's weakness had revealed itself--weakness for one of the betrayers of women; weakness for a man! In the meantime, Mr. Vimpany (having got the money) was ready to humour the enviable young lady with a well-filled purse. "Do you want to see my lord before you go?" he asked, amused at the idea. "Mind! you mustn't disturb him! No talking, and no crying. Ready? Now look at him." There he lay on a shabby little sofa, in an ugly little room; his eyes closed; one helpless hand hanging down; a stillness on his ghastly face, horribly suggestive of the stillness of death--there he lay, the reckless victim of his love for the woman who had desperately renounced him again and again, who had now saved him for the third time. Ah, how her treacherous heart pleaded for him! Can you drive him away from you after this? You, who love him, what does your cold-blooded prudence say, when you look at him now? She felt herself drawn, roughly and suddenly, back into the passage. The door was closed; the doctor was whispering to her. "Hold up, Miss! I expected better things of you. Come! come!--no fainting. You'll find him a different man to-morrow. Pay us a visit, and judge for yourself." After what she had suffered, Iris hungered for sympathy. "Isn't it pitiable?" she said to her maid as they left the house. "I don't know, Miss." "You don't know? Good heavens, are you made of stone? Have you no such thing as a heart in you?" "Not for the men," Fanny answered. "I keep my pity for the women." Iris knew what bitter remembrances made their confession in those words. How she missed Rhoda Bennet at that moment! CHAPTER XIX MR. HENLEY AT HOME FOR a month, Mountjoy remained in his cottage on the shores of the Solway Firth, superintending the repairs. His correspondence with Iris was regularly continued; and, for the first time in his experience of her, was a cause of disappointment to him. Her replies revealed an incomprehensible change in her manner of writing, which became more and more marked in each succeeding instance. Notice it as he might in his own letters, no explanation followed on the part of his correspondent. She, who had so frankly confided her joys and sorrows to him in past days, now wrote with a reserve which seemed only to permit the most vague and guarded allusion to herself. The changes in the weather; the alternation of public news that was dull, and public news that was interesting; the absence of her father abroad, occasioned by doubt of the soundness of his investments in foreign securities; vague questions relating to Hugh's new place of abode, which could only have proceeded from a preoccupied mind--these were the topics on which Iris dwelt, in writing to her faithful old friend. It was hardly possible to doubt that something must have happened, which she had reasons--serious reasons, as it seemed only too natural to infer--for keeping concealed from Mountjoy. Try as he might to disguise it from himself, he now knew how dear, how hopelessly dear, she was to him by the anxiety that he suffered, and by the jealous sense of injury which defied his self-command. His immediate superintendence of the workmen at the cottage was no longer necessary. Leaving there a representative whom he could trust, he resolved to answer his last letter, received from Iris, in person. The next day he was in London. Calling at the house, he was informed that Miss Henley was not at home, and that it was impossible to say with certainty when she might return. While he was addressing his inquiries to the servant, Mr. Henley opened the library door. "Is that you, Mountjoy?" he asked. "Come in: I want to speak to you." Short and thick-set, with a thin-lipped mouth, a coarsely-florid complexion, and furtive greenish eyes; hard in his manner, and harsh in his voice; Mr. Henley was one of the few heartless men, who are innocent of deception on the surface: he was externally a person who inspired, at first sight, feelings of doubt and dislike. His manner failed to show even a pretence of being glad to see Hugh. What he had to say, he said walking up and down the room, and scratching his bristly iron-gray hair from time to time. Those signs of restlessness indicated, to those who knew him well, that he had a selfish use to make of a fellow-creature, and failed to see immediately how to reach the end in view. "I say, Mountjoy," he began, "have you any idea of what my daughter is about?" "I don't even understand what you mean," Hugh replied. "For the last month I have been in Scotland." "You and she write to each other, don't you?" "Yes." "Hasn't she told you--" "Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Henley; she has told me nothing." Mr. Henley stared absently at the superbly-bound books on his library-shelves (never degraded by the familiar act of reading), and scratched his head more restlessly than ever. "Look here, young man. When you were staying with me in the country, I rather hoped it might end in a marriage engagement. You and Iris disappointed me--not for the first time. But women do change their minds. Suppose she had changed her mind, after having twice refused you? Suppose she had given you an opportunity--" Hugh interrupted him again. "It's needless to suppose anything of the sort, sir; she would not have given me an opportunity." "Don't fence with me, Mountjoy! I'll put it in a milder way, if you prefer being humbugged. Do you feel any interest in that perverse girl of mine?" Hugh answered readily and warmly: "The truest interest!" Even Mr. Henley was human; his ugly face looked uglier still. It assumed the self-satisfied expression of a man who had carried his point. "Now I can go on, my friend, with what I had to say to you. I have been abroad on business, and only came back the other day. The moment I saw Iris I noticed something wrong about her. If I had been a stranger, I should have said: That young woman is not easy in her mind. Perfectly useless to speak to her about it. Quite happy and quite well--there was her own account of herself. I tried her maid next, a white-livered sulky creature, one of the steadiest liars I have ever met with. 'I know of nothing amiss with my mistress, sir.' There was the maid's way of keeping the secret, whatever it may be! I don't know whether you may have noticed it, in the course of your acquaintance with me--I hate to be beaten." "No, Mr. Henley, I have not noticed it." "Then you are informed of it now. Have you seen my housekeeper?" "Once or twice, sir." "Come! you're improving; we shall make something of you in course of time. Well, the housekeeper was the next person I spoke to about my daughter. Had she seen anything strange in Miss Iris, while I was away from home? There's a dash of malice in my housekeeper's composition; I don't object to a dash of malice. When the old woman is pleased, she shows her yellow fangs. She had something to tell me: 'The servants have been talking, sir, about Miss Iris.' 'Out with it, ma'am! what do they say?' 'They notice, sir, that their young lady has taken to going out in the forenoon, regularly every day: always by herself, and always in the same direction. I don't encourage the servants, Mr. Henley: there was something insolent in the tone of suspicion that they adopted. I told them that Miss Iris was merely taking her walk. They reminded me that it must be a cruelly long walk; Miss Iris being away regularly for four or five hours together, before she came back to the house. After that' (says the housekeeper) 'I thought it best to drop the subject.' What do you think of it yourself, Mountjoy? Do you call my daughter's conduct suspicious?" "I see nothing suspicious, Mr. Henley. When Iris goes out, she visits a friend." "And always goes in the same direction, and always visits the same friend," Mr. Henley added. "I felt a curiosity to know who that friend might be; and I made the discovery yesterday. When you were staying in my house in the country, do you remember the man who waited on you?" Mountjoy began to feel alarmed for Iris; he answered as briefly as possible. "Your valet," he said. "That's it! Well, I took my valet into my confidence--not for the first time, I can tell you: an invaluable fellow. When Iris went out yesterday, he tracked her to a wretched little suburban place near Hampstead Heath, called Redburn Road. She rang the bell at Number Five, and was at once let in--evidently well known there. My clever man made inquiries in the neighbourhood. The house belongs to a doctor, who has lately taken it. Name of Vimpany." Mountjoy was not only startled, but showed it plainly. Mr. Henley, still pacing backwards and forwards, happened by good fortune to have his back turned towards his visitor, at that moment. "Now I ask you, as a man of the world," Mr. Henley resumed, "what does this mean? If you're too cautious to speak out--and I must say it looks like it--shall I set you the example?" "Just as you please, sir." "Very well, then; I'll tell you what I suspect. When Iris is at home, and when there's something amiss in my family, I believe that scoundrel Lord Harry to be at the bottom of it. There's my experience, and there's my explanation. I was on the point of ordering my carriage, to go to the doctor myself, and insist on knowing what the attraction is that takes my daughter to his house, when I heard your voice in the hall. You tell me you are interested in Iris. Very well; you are just the man to help me." "May I ask how, Mr. Henley?" "Of course you may. You can find your way to her confidence, if you choose to try; she will trust you, when she won't trust her father. I don't care two straws about her other secrets; but I do want to know whether she is, or is not, plotting to marry the Irish blackguard. Satisfy me about that, and you needn't tell me anything more. May I count on you to find out how the land lies?" Mountjoy listened, hardly able to credit the evidence of his own senses; he was actually expected to insinuate himself into the confidence of Iris, and then to betray her to her father! He rose, and took his hat--and, without even the formality of a bow, opened the door. "Does that mean No?" Mr. Henley called after him. "Most assuredly," Mountjoy answered--and closed the door behind him. CHAPTER XX FIRST SUSPICIONS OF IRIS FROM the last memorable day, on which Iris had declared to him that he might always count on her as his friend, but never as his wife, Hugh had resolved to subject his feelings to a rigorous control. As to conquering his hopeless love, he knew but too well that it would conquer him, on any future occasion when he and Iris happened to meet. He had been true to his resolution, at what cost of suffering he, and he alone knew. Sincerely, unaffectedly, he had tried to remain her friend. But the nature of the truest and the firmest man has its weak place, where the subtle influence of a woman is concerned. Deeply latent, beyond the reach of his own power of sounding, there was jealousy of the Irish lord lurking in Mountjoy, and secretly leading his mind when he hesitated in those emergencies of his life which were connected with Iris. Ignorant of the influence which was really directing him, he viewed with contempt Mr. Henley's suspicions of a secret understanding between his daughter and the man who was, by her own acknowledgment, unworthy of the love with which it had been her misfortune to regard him. At the same time, Hugh's mind was reluctantly in search of an explanation, which might account (without degrading Iris) for her having been traced to the doctor's house. In his recollection of events at the old country town, he found a motive for her renewal of intercourse with such a man as Mr. Vimpany, in the compassionate feeling with which she regarded the doctor's unhappy wife. There might well be some humiliating circumstance, recently added to the other trials of Mrs. Vimpany's married life, which had appealed to all that was generous and forgiving in the nature of Iris. Knowing nothing of the resolution to live apart which had latterly separated the doctor and his wife, Mountjoy decided on putting his idea to the test by applying for information to Mrs. Vimpany at her husband's house. In the nature of a sensitive man the bare idea of delay, under these circumstances, was unendurable. Hugh called the first cab that passed him, and drove to Hampstead. Careful--morbidly careful, perhaps--not to attract attention needlessly to himself, he stopped the cab at the entrance to Redburn Road, and approached Number Five on foot. A servant-girl answered the door. Mountjoy asked if Mrs. Vimpany was at home. The girl made no immediate reply. She seemed to be puzzled by Mountjoy's simple question. Her familiar manner, with its vulgar assumption of equality in the presence of a stranger, revealed the London-bred maid-servant of modern times. "Did you say _Mrs._ Vimpany?" she inquired sharply. "Yes." "There's no such person here." It was Mountjoy's turn to be puzzled. "Is this Mr. Vimpany's house?" he said. "Yes, to be sure it is." "And yet Mrs. Vimpany doesn't live here?" "No Mrs. Vimpany has darkened these doors," the girl declared positively. "Are you sure you are not making a mistake?" "Quite sure. I have been in the doctor's service since he first took the house." Determined to solve the mystery, if it could be done, Mountjoy asked if he could see the doctor. No: Mr. Vimpany had gone out. "There's a young person comes to us," the servant continued. "I wonder whether you mean her, when you ask for Mrs. Vimpany? The name _she_ gives is Henley." "Is Miss Henley here, now?" "You can't see her--she's engaged." She was not engaged with Mrs. Vimpany, for no such person was known in the house. She was not engaged with the doctor, for the doctor had gone out. Mountjoy looked at the hat-stand in the passage, and discovered a man's hat and a man's greatcoat. To whom did they belong? Certainly not to Mr. Vimpany, who had gone out. Repellent as it was, Mr. Henley's idea that the explanation of his daughter's conduct was to be found in the renewed influence over her of the Irish lord, now presented itself to Hugh's mind under a new point of view. He tried in vain to resist the impression that had been produced on him. A sense of injury, which he was unable to justify to himself, took possession of him. Come what might of it, he determined to set at rest the doubts of which he was ashamed, by communicating with Iris. His card-case proved to be empty when he opened it; but there were letters in his pocket, addressed to him at his hotel in London. Removing the envelope from one of these, he handed it to the servant: "Take that to Miss Henley, and ask when I can see her." The girl left him in the passage, and went upstairs to the drawing-room. In the flimsily-built little house, he could hear the heavy step of a man, crossing the room above, and then the resonant tones of a man's voice raised as if in anger. Had she given him already the right to be angry with her? He thought of the time, when the betrayal of Lord Harry's vindictive purpose in leaving England had frightened her--when he had set aside his own sense of what was due to him, for her sake--and had helped her to communicate, by letter, with the man whose fatal ascendency over Iris had saddened his life. Was what he heard, now, the return that he had deserved? After a short absence, the servant came back with a message. "Miss Henley begs you will excuse her. She will write to you." Would this promised letter be like the other letters which he had received from her in Scotland? Mountjoy's gentler nature reminded him that he owed it to his remembrance of happier days, and truer friendship, to wait and see. He was just getting into the cab, on his return to London, when a closed carriage, with one person in it, passed him on its way to Redburn Road. In that person he recognised Mr. Henley. As the cab-driver mounted to his seat, Hugh saw the carriage stop at Number Five. CHAPTER XXI THE PARTING SCENE THE evening had advanced, and the candles had just been lit in Mountjoy's sitting-room at the hotel. His anxiety to hear from Iris had been doubled and trebled, since he had made the discovery of her father's visit to the doctor's house, at a time when it was impossible to doubt that Lord Harry was with her. Hugh's jealous sense of wrong was now mastered by the nobler emotions which filled him with pity and alarm, when he thought of Iris placed between the contending claims of two such men as the heartless Mr. Henley and the reckless Irish lord. He had remained at the hotel, through the long afternoon, on the chance that she might write to him speedily by the hand of a messenger--and no letter had arrived. He was still in expectation of news which might reach him by the evening post, when the waiter knocked at the door. "A letter?" Mountjoy asked. "No, sir," the man answered; "a lady." Before she could raise her veil, Hugh had recognised Iris. Her manner was subdued; her face was haggard; her hand lay cold and passive in his hand, when he advanced to bid her welcome. He placed a chair for her by the fire. She thanked him and declined to take it. With the air of a woman conscious of committing an intrusion, she seated herself apart in a corner of the room. "I have tried to write to you, and I have not been able to do it." She said that with a dogged resignation of tone and manner, so unlike herself that Mountjoy looked at her in dismay. "My friend," she went on, "your pity is all I may hope for; I am no longer worthy of the interest you once felt in me." Hugh saw that it would be useless to remonstrate. He asked if it had been his misfortune to offend her. "No," she said, "you have not offended me." "Then what in Heaven's name does this change in you mean?" "It means," she said, as coldly as ever, "that I have lost my self-respect; it means that my father has renounced me, and that you will do well to follow his example. Have I not led you to believe that I could never be the wife of Lord Harry? Well, I have deceived you---I am going to marry him." "I can't believe it, Iris! I won't believe it!" She handed him the letter, in which the Irishman had declared his resolution to destroy himself. Hugh read it with contempt. "Did my lord's heart fail him?" he asked scornfully. "He would have died by his own hand, Mr. Mountjoy----" "Oh, Iris--_'Mr.!'"_ "I will say 'Hugh,' if you prefer it--but the days of our familiar friendship are none the less at an end. I found Lord Harry bleeding to death from a wound in his throat. It was in a lonely place on Hampstead Heath; I was the one person who happened to pass by it. For the third time, you see, it has been my destiny to save him. How can I forget that? My mind will dwell on it. I try to find happiness--oh, only happiness enough for me--in cheering my poor Irishman, on his way back to the life that I have preserved. There is my motive, if I have a motive. Day after day I have helped to nurse him. Day after day I have heard him say things to me--what is the use of repeating them? After years of resistance I have given way; let that be enough. My one act of discretion has been to prevent a quarrel between my father and Harry. I beg your pardon, I ought to have said Lord Harry. When my father came to the house, I insisted on speaking with him alone. I told him what I have just told you. He said: 'Think again before you make your choice between that man and me. If you decide to marry him, you will live and die without one farthing of my money to help you.' He put his watch on the table between us, and gave me five minutes to make up my mind. It was a long five minutes, but it ended at last. He asked me which he was to do--leave his will as it was, or go to his lawyer and make another. I said, 'You will do as you please, sir.' No; it was not a hasty reply--you can't make that excuse for me. I knew what I was saying; and I saw the future I was preparing for myself, as plainly as you see it--" Hugh could endure no longer the reckless expression of her despair. "No!" he cried, "you don't see your future as I see it. Will you hear what I have to say, before it is too late?" "It is too late already. But I will listen to you if you wish it." "And, while you listen," Mountjoy added, "you will acquit me of being influenced by a selfish motive. I have loved you dearly. Perhaps, in secret, I love you still. But, this I know: if you were to remain a single woman for the rest of your life, there would be no hope for Me. Do you believe that I am speaking the truth?" "You always speak the truth." "I speak in your interest, at least. You think you see your future life plainly--you are blind to your future life. You talk as if you were resigned to suffer. Are you resigned to lose your sense of right and wrong? Are you resigned to lead the life of an outlaw, and--worse still--not to feel the disgrace of it?" "Go on, Hugh." "You won't answer me?" "I won't shock you." "You don't discourage me, my dear; I am still obstinate in the hope of restoring you to your calmer and truer self. Let me do every justice to Lord Harry. I believe, sincerely believe, that his miserable life has not utterly destroyed in him the virtues which distinguish an honourable man. But he has one terrible defect. In his nature, there is the fatal pliability which finds companionable qualities in bad friends. In this aspect of his character, he is a dangerous man--and he may be (forgive me!) a bad husband. It is a thankless task to warn you to any good purpose. A wife--and a loving wife more than another--feels the deteriorating influence of a husband who is not worthy of her. His ways of thinking are apt to become, little by little, her ways of thinking. She makes allowances for him, which he does not deserve; her sense of right and wrong becomes confused; and before she is aware of it herself, she has sunk to his level. Are you angry with me?" "How can I be angry with you? Perhaps you are right." "Do you really mean that?" "Oh, yes." "Then, for God's sake, reconsider your decision! Let me go to your father." "Mere waste of time," Iris answered. "Nothing that you can say will have the least effect on him." "At any rate," Mountjoy persisted, "I mean to try." Had he touched her? She smiled--how bitterly Hugh failed to perceive. "Shall I tell you what happened to me when I went home to-day?" she said. "I found my maid waiting in the hall--with everything that belongs to me, packed up for my departure. The girl explained that she had been forced to obey my father's positive orders. I knew what that meant--I had to leave the house, and find a place to live in." "Not by yourself, Iris?" "No--with my maid. She is a strange creature; if she feels sympathy, she never expresses it. 'I am your grateful servant, Miss. Where you go, I go.' That was all she said; I was not disappointed--I am getting used to Fanny Mere already. Mine is a lonely lot--isn't it? I have acquaintances among the few ladies who sometimes visit at my father's house, but no friends. My mother's family, as I have always been told, cast her off when she married a man in trade, with a doubtful reputation. I don't even know where my relations live. Isn't Lord Harry good enough for me, as I am now? When I look at my prospects, is it wonderful if I talk like a desperate woman? There is but one encouraging circumstance that I can see. This misplaced love of mine that everybody condemns has, oddly enough, a virtue that everybody must admire. It offers a refuge to a woman who is alone in the world." Mountjoy denied indignantly that she was alone in the world. "Is there any protection that a man can offer to a woman," he asked, "which I am not ready and eager to offer to You? Oh, Iris, what have I done to deserve that you should speak of yourself as friendless in my hearing!" He had touched her at last. Their tender charm showed itself once more in her eyes and in her smile. She rose and approached him. "What exquisite kindness it must be," she said, "that blinds a clever man like you to obstacles which anyone else can see! Remember, dear Hugh, what the world would say to that protection which your true heart offers to me. Are you my near relation? are you my guardian? are you even an old man? Ah me! you are only an angel of goodness whom I must submit to lose. I shall still count on your kindness when we see each other no more. You will pity me, when you hear that I have fallen lower and lower; you will be sorry for me, when I end in disgracing myself." "Even then, Iris, we shall not be separated. The loving friend who is near you now, will be your loving friend still." For the first time in her life, she threw her arms round him. In the agony of that farewell, she held him to her bosom. "Goodbye, dear," she said faintly--and kissed him. The next moment, a deadly pallor overspread her face. She staggered as she drew back, and dropped into the chair that she had just left. In the fear that she might faint, Mountjoy hurried out in search of a restorative. His bed-chamber was close by, at the end of the corridor; and there were smelling-salts in his dressing-case. As he raised the lid, he heard the door behind him, the one door in the room, locked from the outer side. He rushed to the door, and called to her. From the farther end of the corridor, her voice reached him for the last time, repeating the last melancholy word: "Good-bye." No renewal of the miserable parting scene: no more of the heartache--Iris had ended it! CHAPTER XXII THE FATAL WORDS WHEN Mountjoy had rung for the servant, and the bedroom door had been unlocked, it was too late to follow the fugitive. Her cab was waiting for her outside; and the attention of the porter had been distracted, at the same time, by a new arrival of travellers at the hotel. It is more or less in the nature of all men who are worthy of the name, to take refuge from distress in action. Hugh decided on writing to Iris, and on making his appeal to her father, that evening. He abstained from alluding, in his letter, to the manner in which she had left him; it was her right, it was even her duty to spare herself. All that he asked was to be informed of her present place of residence, so that he might communicate the result--in writing only if she preferred it--of his contemplated interview with her father. He addressed his letter to the care of Mr. Vimpany, to be forwarded, and posted it himself. This done, he went on at once to Mr. Henley's house. The servant who opened the door had evidently received his orders. Mr. Henley was "not at home." Mountjoy was in no humour to be trifled with. He pushed the man out of his way, and made straight for the dining-room. There, as his previous experience of the habits of the household had led him to anticipate, was the man whom he was determined to see. The table was laid for Mr. Henley's late dinner. Hugh's well-meant attempt to plead the daughter's cause with the father ended as Iris had said it would end. After hotly resenting the intrusion on him that had been committed, Mr. Henley declared that a codicil to his will, depriving his daughter absolutely of all interest in his property, had been legally executed that day. For a time, Mountjoy's self-control had resisted the most merciless provocation. All that it was possible to effect, by patient entreaty and respectful remonstrance, he had tried again and again, and invariably in vain. At last, Mr. Henley's unbridled insolence triumphed. Hugh lost his temper--and, in leaving the heartless old man, used language which he afterwards remembered with regret. To feel that he had attempted to assert the interests of Iris, and that he had failed, was, in Hugh's heated state of mind, an irresistible stimulant to further exertion. It was perhaps not too late yet to make another attempt to delay (if not to prevent) the marriage. In sheer desperation, Mountjoy resolved to inform Lord Harry that his union with Miss Henley would be followed by the utter ruin of her expectations from her father. Whether the wild lord only considered his own interests, or whether he was loyally devoted to the interests of the woman whom he loved, in either case the penalty to be paid for the marriage was formidable enough to make him hesitate. The lights in the lower window, and in the passage, told Hugh that he had arrived in good time at Redburn Road. He found Mr. Vimpany and the young Irishman sitting together, in the friendliest manner, under the composing influence of tobacco. Primed, as he would have said himself, with only a third glass of grog, the hospitable side of the doctor's character was displayed to view. He at once accepted Mountjoy's visit as offering a renewal of friendly relations between them. "Forgive and forget," he said, "there's the way to settle that little misunderstanding, after our dinner at the inn. You know Mr. Mountjoy, my lord? That's right. Draw in your chair, Mountjoy. My professional prospects threaten me with ruin--but while I have a roof over my head, there's always a welcome for a friend. My dear fellow, I have every reason to believe that the doctor who sold me this practice was a swindler. The money is gone, and the patients don't come. Well! I am not quite bankrupt yet; I can offer you a glass of grog. Mix for yourself--we'll make a night of it." Hugh explained (with the necessary excuses) that his object was to say a few words to Lord Harry in private. The change visible in the doctor's manner, when he had been made acquainted with this circumstance, was not amiably expressed; he had the air of a man who suspected that an unfair advantage had been taken of him. Lord Harry, on his side, appeared to feel some hesitation in granting a private interview to Mr. Mountjoy. "Is it about Miss Henley?" he asked. Hugh admitted that it was. Lord Harry thereupon suggested that they might be acting wisely if they avoided the subject. Mountjoy answered that there were, on the contrary, reasons for approaching the subject sufficiently important to have induced him to leave London for Hampstead at a late hour of the night. Hearing this, Lord Harry rose to lead the way to another room. Excluded from his visitor's confidence, Mr. Vimpany could at least remind Mountjoy that he exercised authority as master of the house. "Oh, take him upstairs, my lord," said the doctor; "you are at home under my humble roof!" The two young men faced each other in the barely-furnished drawing-room; both sufficiently doubtful of the friendly result of the conference to abstain from seating themselves. Hugh came to the point, without wasting time in preparatory words. Admitting that he had heard of Miss Henley's engagement, he asked if Lord Harry was aware of the disastrous consequences to the young lady which would follow her marriage. The reply to this was frankly expressed. The Irish lord knew nothing of the consequences to which Mr. Mountjoy had alluded. Hugh at once enlightened him, and evidently took him completely by surprise. "May I ask, sir," he said, "if you are speaking from your own personal knowledge?" "I have just come, my lord, from Mr. Henley's house; and what I have told you, I heard from his own lips." There was a pause. Hugh was already inclined to think that he had raised an obstacle to the immediate celebration of the marriage. A speedy disappointment was in store for him. Lord Harry was too fond of Iris to be influenced, in his relations with her, by mercenary considerations. "You put it strongly," he said. "But let me tell you, Miss Henley is far from being so dependent on her father--he ought to be ashamed of himself, but that's neither here nor there--I say, she is far from being so dependent on her father as you seem to think. I am not, I beg to inform you, without resources which I shall offer to her with all my heart and soul. Perhaps you wish me to descend to particulars? Oh, it's easily done; I have sold my cottage in Ireland." "For a large sum--in these times?" Hugh inquired. "Never mind the sum, Mr. Mountjoy--let the fact be enough for you. And, while we are on the question of money (a disgusting question, with which I refuse to associate the most charming woman in existence), don't forget that Miss Henley has an income of her own; derived, as I understand, from her mother's fortune, You will do me the justice, sir, to believe that I shall not touch a farthing of it." "Certainly! But her mother's fortune," Mountjoy continued, obstinately presenting the subject on its darkest side, "consists of shares in a Company. Shares rise and fall--and Companies some times fail." "And a friend's anxiety about Miss Henley's affairs sometimes takes a mighty disagreeable form," the Irishman added, his temper beginning to show itself without disguise. "Let's suppose the worst that can happen, and get all the sooner to the end of a conversation which is far from being agreeable to me. We'll say, if you like, that Miss Henley's shares are waste paper, and her pockets (God bless her!) as empty as pockets can be, does she run any other risk that occurs to your ingenuity in becoming my wife?" "Yes, she does!" Hugh was provoked into saying. "In the case you have just supposed, she runs the risk of being left a destitute widow--if you die." He was prepared for an angry reply--for another quarrel added, on that disastrous night, to the quarrel with Mr. Henley. To his astonishment, Lord Harry's brightly-expressive eyes rested on him with a look of mingled distress and alarm. "God forgive me!" he said to himself, "I never thought of that! What am I to do? what am I to do?" Mountjoy observed that deep discouragement, and failed to understand it. Here was a desperate adventurer, whose wanderings had over and over again placed his life in jeopardy, now apparently overcome by merely having his thoughts directed to the subject of death! To place on the circumstances such a construction as this was impossible, after a moment's reflection. The other alternative was to assume that there must be some anxiety burdening Lord Harry's mind, which he had motives for keeping concealed--and here indeed the true explanation had been found. The Irish lord had reasons, known only to himself, for recoiling from the contemplation of his own future. After the murder of Arthur Mountjoy, he had severed his connection with the assassinating brotherhood of the Invincibles; and he had then been warned that he took this step at the peril of his life, if he remained in Great Britain after he had made himself an object of distrust to his colleagues. The discovery, by the secret tribunal, of his return from South Africa would be followed inevitably by the sentence of death. Such was the terrible position which Mountjoy's reply had ignorantly forced him to confront. His fate depended on the doubtful security of his refuge in the doctor's house. While Hugh was still looking at him, in grave doubt, a new idea seemed to spring to life in Lord Harry's mind. He threw off the oppression that had weighed on his spirits in an instant. His manner towards Mountjoy changed, with the suddenness of a flash of light, from the extreme of coldness to the extreme of cordiality. "I have got it at last!" he exclaimed. "Let's shake hands. My dear sir, you're the best friend I have ever had!" The cool Englishman asked: "In what way?" "In this way, to be sure! You have reminded me that I can provide for Miss Henley--and the sooner the better. There's our friend the doctor down-stairs, ready to be my reference. Don't you see it?" Obstacles that might prevent the marriage Mountjoy was ready enough to see. Facilities that might hasten the marriage found his mind hard of access to new impressions. "Are you speaking seriously?" he said. The Irishman's irritable temper began to show itself again. "Why do you doubt it?" he asked. "I fail to understand you," Mountjoy replied. Never--as events were yet to prove--had words of such serious import fallen from Lord Harry's lips as the words that he spoke next. "Clear your mind of jealousy," he said, "and you will understand me well enough. I agree with you that I am bound to provide for my widow--and I mean to do it by insuring my life." THE END OF THE SECOND PERIOD THIRD PERIOD CHAPTER XXIII NEWS OF IRIS AFTER his interview with the Irish lord, Mountjoy waited for two days, in the expectation of hearing from Iris. No reply arrived. Had Mr. Vimpany failed to forward the letter that had been entrusted to him? On the third day, Hugh wrote to make inquiries. The doctor returned the letter that had been confided to his care, and complained in his reply of the ungrateful manner in which he had been treated. Miss Henley had not trusted him with her new address in London; and Lord Harry had suddenly left Redburn Road; bidding his host goodbye in a few lines of commonplace apology, and nothing more. Mr. Vimpany did not deny that he had been paid for his medical services; but, he would ask, was nothing due to friendship? Was one man justified in enjoying another man's hospitality, and then treating him like a stranger? "I have done with them both--and I recommend you, my dear sir, to follow my example." In those terms the angry (and sober) doctor expressed his sentiments, and offered his advice. Mountjoy laid down the letter in despair. His last poor chance of preventing the marriage depended on his being still able to communicate with Iris--and she was as completely lost to him as if she had taken flight to the other end of the world. It might have been possible to discover her by following the movements of Lord Harry, but he too had disappeared without leaving a trace behind him. The precious hours and days were passing--and Hugh was absolutely helpless. Tortured by anxiety and suspense, he still lingered at the hotel in London. More than once, he decided on giving up the struggle, and returning to his pretty cottage in Scotland. More than once, he deferred taking the journey. At one time, he dreaded to hear that Iris was married, if she wrote to him. At another time, he felt mortified and disappointed by the neglect which her silence implied. Was she near him, or far from him? In England, or out of England? Who could say! After more weary days of waiting and suffering a letter arrived, addressed to Mountjoy in a strange handwriting, and bearing the post-mark of Paris. The signature revealed that his correspondent was Lord Harry. His first impulse was to throw the letter into the fire, unread. There could be little doubt, after the time that had passed, of the information that it would contain. Could he endure to be told of the marriage of Iris, by the man who was her husband? Never! There was something humiliating in the very idea of it. He arrived at that conclusion--and what did he do in spite of it? He read the letter. Lord Harry wrote with scrupulous politeness of expression. He regretted that circumstances had prevented him from calling on Mr. Mountjoy, before he left England. After the conversation that had taken place at Mr. Vimpany's house, he felt it his duty to inform Mr. Mountjoy that he had insured his life--and, he would add, for a sum of money amply, and more than amply, sufficient to provide for his wife in the event of her surviving him. Lady Harry desired her kind regards, and would write immediately to her old and valued friend. In the meantime, he would conclude by repeating the expression of his sense of obligation to Mr. Mountjoy. Hugh looked back at the first page of the letter, in search of the writer's address. It was simply, "Paris." The intention to prevent any further correspondence, or any personal communication, could hardly have been more plainly implied. In another moment, the letter was in the fire. In two days more, Hugh heard from Iris. She, too, wrote regretfully of the sudden departure from England; adding, however, that it was her own doing. A slip of the tongue, on Lord Harry's part, in the course of conversation, had led her to fear that he was still in danger from political conspirators with whom he had imprudently connected himself. She had accordingly persuaded him to tell her the whole truth, and had thereupon insisted on an immediate departure for the Continent. She and her husband were now living in Paris; Lord Harry having friends in that city whose influence might prove to be of great importance to his pecuniary prospects. Some sentences followed, expressing the writer's grateful remembrance of all that she had owed to Hugh in past days, and her earnest desire that they might still hear of each other, from time to time, by correspondence. She could not venture to anticipate the pleasure of receiving a visit from him, under present circumstances. But, she hoped that he would not object to write to her, addressing his letters, for the present, to post-restante. In a postscript a few words were added, alluding to Mr. Vimpany. Hugh was requested not to answer any inquiries which that bad man might venture to make, relating to her husband or to herself. In the bygone days, she had been thankful to the doctor for the care which he had taken, medically speaking, of Rhoda Bonnet. But, since that time, his behaviour to his wife, and the opinions which he had expressed in familiar conversation with Lord Harry, had convinced her that he was an unprincipled person. All further communication with him (if her influence could prevent it) must come to an end. Still as far as ever from feeling reconciled to the marriage, Mountjoy read this letter with a feeling of resentment which disinclined him to answer it. He believed (quite erroneously) that Iris had written to him under the superintendence of her husband. There were certain phrases which had been, as he chose to suspect, dictated by Lord Harry's distrust--jealous distrust, perhaps--of his wife's friend. Mountjoy would wait to reply, until, as he bitterly expressed it, Iris was able to write to him without the assistance of her master. Again he thought of returning to Scotland--and, again, he hesitated. On this occasion, he discovered objections to the cottage which had not occurred to him while Iris was a single woman. The situation was solitary; his nearest neighbours were fishermen. Here and there, at some little distance, there were only a few scattered houses inhabited by retired tradesmen. Further away yet, there was the country-seat of an absent person of distinction, whose health suffered in the climate of Scotland. The lonely life in prospect, on the shores of the Solway, now daunted Mountjoy for the first time. He decided on trying what society in London would do to divert his mind from the burdens and anxieties that weighed on it. Acquaintances whom he had neglected were pleasantly surprised by visits from their rich and agreeable young friend. He attended dinner parties; he roused hope in mothers and daughters by accepting invitations to balls; he reappeared at his club. Was there any relief to his mind in this? was there even amusement? No; he was acting a part, and he found it a hard task to keep up appearances. After a brief and brilliant interval, society knew him no more. Left by himself again, he enjoyed one happy evening in London. It was the evening on which he relented, in spite of himself, and wrote to Iris. CHAPTER XXIV LORD HARRY'S HONEYMOON THE next day, Hugh received a visit from the last person in the little world of his acquaintance whom he expected to see. The lost Mrs. Vimpany presented herself at the hotel. She looked unnaturally older since Mountjoy had last seen her. Her artificial complexion was gone. The discarded rouge that had once overlaid her cheeks, through a long succession of years, had left the texture of the skin coarse, and had turned the colour of it to a dull yellowish tinge. Her hair, once so skilfully darkened, was now permitted to tell the truth, and revealed the sober colouring of age, in gray. The lower face had fallen away in substance; and even the penetrating brightness of her large dark eyes was a little dimmed. All that had been left in her of the attractions of past days, owed its vital preservation to her stage training. Her suave grace of movement, and the deep elocutionary melody of her voice, still identified Mrs. Vimpany--disguised as she was in a dress of dull brown, shorn without mercy of the milliner's hideous improvements to the figure. "Will you shake hands with me, Mr. Mountjoy?" Those were the first words she said to him, in a sad subdued manner, on entering the room. "Why not?" Hugh asked, giving her his hand. "You can have no very favourable remembrance of me," she answered. "But I hope to produce a better impression--if you can spare me a little of your time. You may, or may not, have heard of my separation from my husband. Anyway, it is needless to trouble you on the subject; you know Mr. Vimpany; you can guess what I have suffered, and why I have left him. If he comes to you, I hope you will not tell him where Lady Harry is."-- Hugh interposed: "Pray don't speak of her by that name! Call her 'Iris,' as I do." A faint reflection of the old stage-smile trembled on Mrs. Vimpany's worn and weary face. "Ah, Mr. Mountjoy, I know whom she ought to have married! The worst enemy of women is their ignorance of men--and they only learn to know better, when it is too late. I try to be hopeful for Iris, in the time to come, but my fears conquer me." She paused, sighed, and pressed her open hand on her bosom; unconsciously betraying in that action some of the ineradicable training of the theatre. "I am almost afraid to say that I love Iris," she resumed; "but this I know; if I am not so bad as I once was, I owe it to that dearest and sweetest of women! But for the days that I passed in her company, I might never have tried to atone for my past life by works of mercy. When other people take the way of amendment, I wonder whether they find it as hard to follow, at first, as I did?" "There is no doubt of it, Mrs. Vimpany--if people are sincere. Beware of the sinners who talk of sudden conversion and perfect happiness. May I ask how you began your new life?" "I began unhappily, Mr. Mountjoy--I joined a nursing Sisterhood. Before long, a dispute broke out among them. Think of women who call themselves Christians, quarrelling about churches and church services--priest's vestments and attitudes, and candles and incense! I left them, and went to a hospital, and found the doctors better Christians than the Sisters. I am not talking about my own poor self (as you will soon see) without a reason. My experience in the hospital led to other things. I nursed a lady through a tedious illness, and was trusted to take her to some friends in the south of France. On my return, I thought of staying for a few days in Paris--it was an opportunity of seeing how the nurses did their work in the French hospitals. And, oh, it was far more than that! In Paris, I found Iris again." "By accident?" Hugh asked. "I am not sure," Mrs. Vimpany answered, "that there are such things as meetings by accident. She and her husband were among the crowds of people on the Boulevards, who sit taking their coffee in view of the other crowds, passing along the street. I went by, without noticing them. _She_ saw me, and sent Lord Harry to bring me back. I have been with them every day, at her invitation, from that time to this; and I have seen their life." She stopped, noticing that Hugh grew restless. "I am in doubt," she said, "whether you wish to hear more of their life in Paris." Mountjoy at once controlled himself. "Go on," he said quietly. "Even if I tell you that Iris is perfectly happy?" "Go on," Hugh repeated. "May I confess," she resumed, "that her husband is irresistible--not only to his wife, but even to an old woman like me? After having known him for years at his worst, as well as at his best, I am still foolish enough to feel the charm of his high spirits and his delightful good-humour. Sober English people, if they saw him now, would almost think him a fit subject to be placed under restraint. One of his wild Irish ideas of expressing devotion to his wife is, that they shall forget they are married, and live the life of lovers. When they dine at a restaurant, he insists on having a private room. He takes her to public balls, and engages her to dance with him for the whole evening. When she stays at home and is a little fatigued, he sends me to the piano, and whirls her round the room in a waltz. 'Nothing revives a woman,' he says, 'like dancing with the man she loves.' When she is out of breath, and I shut up the piano, do you know what he does? He actually kisses Me--and says he is expressing his wife's feeling for me when she is not able to do it herself! He sometimes dines out with men, and comes back all on fire with the good wine, and more amiable than ever. On these occasions his pockets are full of sweetmeats, stolen for 'his angel' from the dessert. 'Am I a little tipsy?' he asks. 'Oh, don't be angry; it's all for love of you. I have been in the highest society, my darling; proposing your health over and over and over again, and drinking to you deeper than all the rest of the company. You don't blame me? Ah, but I blame myself. I was wrong to leave you, and dine with men. What do I want with the society of men, when I have your society? Drinking your health is a lame excuse. I will refuse all invitations for the future that don't include my wife.' And--mind!--he really means it, at the time. Two or three days later, he forgets his good resolutions, and dines with the men again, and comes home with more charming excuses, and stolen sweetmeats, and good resolutions. I am afraid I weary you, Mr. Mountjoy?" "You surprise me," Hugh replied. "Why do I hear all this of Lord Harry?" Mrs. Vimpany left her chair. The stage directions of other days had accustomed her to rise, when the character she played had anything serious to say. Her own character still felt the animating influence of dramatic habit: she rose now, and laid her hand impressively on Mountjoy's shoulder. "I have not thoughtlessly tried your patience," she said. "Now that I am away from the influence of Lord Harry, I can recall my former experience of him: and I am afraid I can see the end that is coming. He will drift into bad company; he will listen to bad advice; and he will do things in the future which he might shrink from doing now. When that time comes, I fear him! I fear him!" "When that time comes," Hugh repeated, "if I have any influence left over his wife, he shall find her capable of protecting herself. Will you give me her address in Paris? "Willingly--if you will promise not to go to her till she really needs you?" "Who is to decide when she needs me?" "I am to decide," Mrs. Vimpany answered; "Iris writes to me confidentially. If anything happens which she may be unwilling to trust to a letter, I believe I shall hear of it from her maid." "Are you sure the maid is to be relied on?" Mountjoy interposed. "She is a silent creature, so far as I know anything of her," Mrs. Vimpany admitted; "and her manner doesn't invite confidence. But I have spoken with Fanny Mere; I am satisfied that she is true to her mistress and grateful to her mistress in her own strange way. If Iris is in any danger, I shall not be left in ignorance of it. Does this incline you to consult with me, before you decide on going to Paris? Don't stand on ceremony; say honestly, Yes or No." Honestly, Hugh said Yes. He was at once trusted with the address of Iris. At the same time, Mrs. Vimpany undertook that he should know what news she received from Paris as soon as she knew it herself. On that understanding they parted, for the time being. CHAPTER XXV THE DOCTOR IN DIFFICULTIES SLOWLY the weeks passed. Strictly Mrs. Vimpany kept her promise. When she heard from Iris the letter was always sent to Hugh, to be returned after he had read it. Events in the lives of the newly-married pair, many of which pointed to the end that Mrs. Vimpany saw and dreaded, were lightly, sometimes jestingly, related by the young wife. Her blind belief in her husband, sincerely asserted in the earlier part of the correspondence, began to betray, in her later letters, signs of self delusion. It was sad indeed to see that bright intelligence rendered incapable of conceiving suspicions, which might have occurred to the mind of a child. When the latest news from Paris followed, in due course, Mountjoy was informed of it by a note from Mrs. Vimpany expressed in these terms: "My last letter from Iris is really no letter at all. It simply encloses a circular, with her love, and asks me to send it on to you. If it is in your power to make inquiries in the right quarter, I am sure you will not hesitate to take the trouble. There can be little doubt, as I think, that Lord Harry is engaged in a hazardous speculation, more deeply than his wife is willing to acknowledge." The circular announced the contemplated publication of a weekly newspaper, printed partly in English, and partly in French, having its chief office in Paris, and being intended to dispute the advantages of a European circulation with the well-known Continental journal called "Galignani's Messenger." A first list of contributors included names of some notoriety in the literature of England and the literature of France. Speculators who wished to know, in the first place, on what security they might reckon, were referred to the managing committee, represented by persons of importance in the financial worlds of London and Paris. Being in a position to make the inquiries which Mrs. Vimpany had suggested, Hugh received information which verified the statements contained in the circular, and vouched for the good faith of those persons who were concerned in directing the speculation. So far, so good. But, when the question of success was next discussed, the authorities consulted shook their wise heads. It was impossible to say what losses might not be suffered, and what sums of money might not be required, before the circulation of the new journal would justify the hope of success. This opinion Hugh communicated to Mrs. Vimpany; Iris was informed of it by that day's post. A longer time than usual elapsed before any further news of Lord Harry and his wife was received by Mountjoy. When he did at last hear again from Mrs. Vimpany, she forwarded a letter from Iris dated from a new address, in the suburb of Paris called Passy. From motives of economy (Iris wrote) her husband had decided on a change of residence. They were just established in their new abode, with the advantages of a saving in rent, a pretty little garden to cultivate, and purer air to breathe than the air of Paris. There the letter ended, without the slightest allusion to the forthcoming newspaper, or to the opinion that had been pronounced on the prospects of success. In forwarding this letter, Mrs. Vimpany wrote on the blank page as follows: "I am sorry to add that some disquieting news of my husband has reached me. For the present, I will say no more. It is at least possible that the report may not be worthy of belief." A few days later the report was confirmed, under circumstances which had certainly not been foreseen. Mr. Vimpany himself arrived at the hotel, on a visit to Mountjoy. Always more or less superior to the amiable weakness of modesty, the doctor seemed to have risen higher than ever in his own estimation, since Hugh had last seen him. He strutted; he stared confidently at persons and things; authority was in his voice when he spoke, and lofty indulgence distinguished his manner when he listened. "How are you?" he cried with a grand gaiety, as he entered the room. "Fine weather, isn't it, for the time of year? You don't look well. I wonder whether you notice any change in me? "You seem to be in good spirits," Hugh replied, not very cordially. "Do I carry my head high?" Mr. Vimpany went on. "When calamity strikes at a man, don't let him cringe and cry for pity--let him hit back again! Those are my principles. Look at me. Now do look at me. Here I am, a cultivated person, a member of an honourable profession, a man of art and accomplishment--stripped of every blessed thing belonging to me but the clothes I stand up in. Give me your hand, Mountjoy. It's the hand, sir, of a bankrupt." "You don't seem to mind it much," Mountjoy remarked. "Why should I mind it?" asked the doctor. "There isn't a medical man in England who has less reason to reproach himself than I have. Have I wasted money in rash speculations? Not a farthing. Have I been fool enough to bet at horse races? My worst enemy daren't say it of me. What have I done then? I have toiled after virtue--that's what I have done. Oh, there's nothing to laugh at! When a doctor tries to be the medical friend of humanity; when he only asks leave to cure disease, to soothe pain, to preserve life--isn't that virtue? And what is my reward? I sit at home, waiting for my suffering fellow-creatures; and the only fellow-creatures who come to me are too poor to pay. I have gone my rounds, calling on the rich patients whom I bought when I bought the practice. Not one of them wanted me. Men, women, and children, were all inexcusably healthy--devil take them! Is it wonderful if a man becomes bankrupt, in such a situation as mine? By Jupiter, I go farther than that! I say, a man owes it to himself (as a protest against undeserved neglect) to become a bankrupt. If you will allow me, I'll take a chair." He sat down with an air of impudent independence and looked round the room. A little cabinet, containing liqueurs, stood open on the sideboard. Mr. Vimpany got up again. "May I take a friendly liberty?" he said--and helped himself, without waiting for permission. Hugh bore with this, mindful of the mistake that he had committed in consenting to receive the doctor. At the same time, he was sufficiently irritated to take a friendly liberty on his side. He crossed the room to the sideboard, and locked up the liqueurs. Mr. Vimpany's brazen face flushed deeply (not with shame); he opened his lips to say something worthy of himself, controlled the impulse, and burst into a boisterous laugh. He had evidently some favour still to ask. "Devilish good!" he broke out cheerfully. "Do you remember the landlady's claret? Ha! you don't want to tempt me this time. Well! well! to return to my bankruptcy." Hugh had heard enough of his visitor's bankruptcy. "I am not one of your creditors," he said. Mr. Vimpany made a smart reply: "Don't you be too sure of that. Wait a little." "Do you mean," Mountjoy asked, "that you have come here to borrow money of me?" "Time---give me time," the doctor pleaded: "this is not a matter to be dispatched in a hurry; this is a matter of business. You will hardly believe it," he resumed, "but I have actually been in my present position, once before." He looked towards the cabinet of liqueurs. "If I had the key," he said, "I should like to try a drop more of your good Curacoa. You don't see it?" "I am waiting to hear what your business is," Hugh replied. Mr. Vimpany's pliable temper submitted with perfect amiability. "Quite right," he said; "let us return to business. I am a man who possesses great fertility of resource. On the last occasion when my creditors pounced on my property, do you think I was discouraged? Nothing of the sort! My regular medical practice had broken down under me. Very well--I tried my luck as a quack. In plain English, I invented a patent medicine. The one thing wanting was money enough to advertise it. False friends buttoned up their pockets. You see?" "Oh, yes; I see." "In that case," Mr. Vimpany continued, "you will not be surprised to hear that I draw on my resources again. You have no doubt noticed that we live in an age of amateurs. Amateurs write, paint, compose music, perform on the stage. I, too, am one of the accomplished persons who have taken possession of the field of Art. Did you observe the photographic portraits on the walls of my dining-room? They are of my doing, sir--whether you observed them or not I am one of the handy medical men, who can use the photograph. Not that I mention it generally; the public have got a narrow-minded notion that a doctor ought to be nothing but a doctor. My name won't appear in a new work that I am contemplating. Of course, you want to know what my new work is. I'll tell you, in the strictest confidence. Imagine (if you can) a series of superb photographs of the most eminent doctors in England, with memoirs of their lives written by themselves; published once a month, price half-a-crown. If there isn't money in that idea, there is no money in anything. Exert yourself, my good friend. Tell me what you think of it?" "I don't understand the subject," Mountjoy replied. "May I ask why you take _me_ into your confidence?" "Because I look upon you as my best friend." "You are very good. But surely, Mr. Vimpany, you have older friends in your circle of acquaintance than I am." "Not one," the doctor answered promptly, "whom I trust as I trust you. Let me give you a proof of it." "Is the proof in any way connected with money?" Hugh inquired. "I call that hard on me," Mr. Vimpany protested. "No unfriendly interruptions, Mountjoy! I offer a proof of kindly feeling. Do you mean to hurt me?" "Certainly not. Go on." "Thank you; a little encouragement goes a long way with me. I have found a bookseller, who will publish my contemplated work, on commission. Not a soul has yet seen the estimate of expenses. I propose to show it to You." "Quite needless, Mr. Vimpany." "Why quite needless?" "Because I decline lending you the money." "No, no, Mountjoy! You can't really mean that?" "I do mean it." "No!" "Yes!" The doctor's face showed a sudden change of expression---a sinister and threatening change. "Don't drive me into a corner," he said. "Think of it again." Hugh's capacity for controlling himself gave way at last. "Do you presume to threaten me?" he said. "Understand, if you please, that my mind is made up, and that nothing you can say or do will alter it." With that declaration he rose from his chair, and waited for Mr. Vimpany's departure. The doctor put on his hat. His eyes rested on Hugh, with a look of diabolical malice: "The time is not far off, Mr. Mountjoy, when you may be sorry you refused me." He said those words deliberately--and took his leave. Released from the man's presence, Hugh found himself strangely associating the interests of Iris with the language--otherwise beneath notice--which Mr. Vimpany had used on leaving the room. In desperate straits for want of money, how would the audacious bankrupt next attempt to fill his empty purse? If he had, by any chance, renewed his relations with his Irish friend--and such an event was at least possible--his next experiment in the art of raising a loan might take him to Paris. Lord Harry had already ventured on a speculation which called for an immediate outlay of money, and which was only expected to put a profit into his pocket at some future period. In the meanwhile, his resources in money had their limits; and his current expenses would make imperative demands on an ill-filled purse. If the temptation to fail in his resolution to respect his wife's fortune was already trying his fortitude, what better excuse could be offered for yielding than the necessities of an old friend in a state of pecuniary distress? Looking at the position of Iris, and at the complications which threatened it, from this point of view, Mountjoy left the hotel to consult with Mrs. Vimpany. It rested with her to decide whether the circumstances justified his departure for Paris. CHAPTER XXVI LONDON AND PARIS INFORMED of all that Hugh could tell her relating to his interview with her husband, Mrs. Vimpany understood and appreciated his fears for the future. She failed, however, to agree with him that he would do well to take the journey to France, under present circumstances. "Wait a little longer in London," she said. "If Iris doesn't write to me in the next few days there will be a reason for her silence; and in that case (as I have already told you) I shall hear from Fanny Mere. You shall see me when I get a letter from Paris." On the last morning in the week, Mrs. Vimpany was announced. The letter that she brought with her had been written by Fanny Mere. With the pen in her hand, the maid's remarkable character expressed itself as strongly as ever:-- "Madam,--I said I would let you know what goes on here, when I thought there was need of it. There seems to be need now. Mr. Vimpany came to us yesterday. He has the spare bedroom. My mistress says nothing, and writes nothing. For that reason, I send you the present writing.--Your humble servant, F." Mountjoy was perplexed by this letter, plain as it was. "It seems strange," he said, "that Iris herself has not written to you. She has never hitherto concealed her opinion of Mr. Vimpany." "She is concealing it now," Mr. Vimpany's wife replied gravely. "Do you know why?" "I am afraid I do. Iris will not hesitate at any sacrifice of herself to please Lord Harry. She will give him her money when he wants it. If he tells her to alter her opinion of my husband, she will obey him. He can shake her confidence in me, whenever he pleases; and he has very likely done it already." "Surely it is time for me to go to her now?" Hugh said. "Full time," Mrs. Vimpany admitted--"if you can feel sure of yourself. In the interests of Iris, can you undertake to be cool and careful?" "In the interests of Iris, I can undertake anything." "One word more," Mrs. Vimpany continued, "before you take your departure. No matter whether appearances are for him, or against him, be always on your guard with my husband. Let me hear from you while you are away; and don't forget that there is an obstacle between you and Iris, which will put even your patience and devotion to a hard trial." "You mean her husband?" "I do." There was no more to be said, Hugh set forth on his journey to Paris. * * * * * * * On the morning after his arrival in the French capital, Mountjoy had two alternatives to consider. He might either write to Iris, and ask when it would be convenient to her to receive him--or he might present himself unexpectedly in the cottage at Passy. Reflection convinced him that his best chance of placing an obstacle in the way of deception would be to adopt the second alternative, and to take Lord Harry and the doctor by surprise. He went to Passy. The lively French taste had brightened the cottage with colour: the fair white window curtains were tied with rose-coloured ribbons, the blinds were gaily painted, the chimneys were ornamental, the small garden was a paradise of flowers. When Mountjoy rang the bell, the gate was opened by Fanny Mere. She looked at him in grave astonishment. "Do they expect you?" she asked. "Never mind that," Hugh answered. "Are they at home?" "They have just finished breakfast, sir." "Do you remember my name?" "Yes, sir." "Then show me in." Fanny opened the door of a room on the ground floor, and announced: "Mr. Mountjoy." The two men were smoking; Iris was watering some flowers in the window. Her colour instantly faded when Hugh entered the room. In doubt and alarm, her eyes questioned Lord Harry. He was in his sweetest state of good-humour. Urged by the genial impulse of the moment, he set the example of a cordial reception. "This is an agreeable surprise, indeed," he said, shaking hands with Mountjoy in his easy amiable way. "It's kind of you to come and see us." Relieved of anxiety (evidently when she had not expected it), Iris eagerly followed her husband's example: her face recovered its colour, and brightened with its prettiest smile. Mr. Vimpany stood in a corner; his cigar went out: his own wife would hardly have known him again--he actually presented an appearance of embarrassment! Lord Harry burst out laughing: "Look at him Iris! The doctor is shy for the first time in his life." The Irish good-humour was irresistible. The young wife merrily echoed her husband's laugh. Mr. Vimpany, observing the friendly reception offered to Hugh, felt the necessity of adapting himself to circumstances. He came out of his corner with an apology: "Sorry I misbehaved myself, Mr. Mountjoy, when I called on you in London. Shake hands. No offence--eh?" Iris, in feverish high spirits, mimicked the doctor's coarse tones when he repeated his favourite form of excuse. Lord Harry clapped his hands, delighted with his wife's clever raillery: "Ha! Mr. Mountjoy, you don't find that her married life has affected her spirits! May I hope that you have come here to breakfast? The table is ready as you see"---- "And I have been taking lessons, Hugh, in French ways of cooking eggs," Iris added; "pray let me show you what I can do." The doctor chimed in facetiously: "I'm Lady Harry's medical referee; you'll find her French delicacies half digested for you, sir, before you can open your mouth: signed, Clarence Vimpany, member of the College of Surgeons." Remembering Mrs. Vimpany's caution, Hugh concealed his distrust of this outbreak of hospitable gaiety, and made his excuses. Lord Harry followed, with more excuses, on his part. He deplored it--but he was obliged to go out. Had Mr. Mountjoy met with the new paper which was to beat "Galiguani" out of the field? The "Continental Herald "--there was the title. "Forty thousand copies of the first number have just flown all over Europe; we have our agencies in every town of importance, at every point of the compass; and, one of the great proprietors, my dear sir, is the humble individual who now addresses you." His bright eyes sparkled with boyish pleasure, as he made that announcement of his own importance. If Mr. Mountjoy would kindly excuse him, he had an appointment at the office that morning. "Get your hat, Vimpany. The fact is our friend here carries a case of consumption in his pocket; consumption of the purse, you understand. I am going to enrol him among the contributors to the newspaper. A series of articles (between ourselves) exposing the humbug of physicians, and asserting with fine satirical emphasis the overstocked state of the medical profession. Ah, well! you'll be glad (won't you?) to talk over old times with Iris. My angel, show our good friend the 'Continental Herald,' and mind you keep him here till we get back. Doctor, look alive! Mr. Mountjoy, au revoir." They shook hands again heartily. As Mrs. Vimpany had confessed, there was no resisting the Irish lord. But Hugh's strange experience of that morning was not at an end, yet. CHAPTER XXVII THE BRIDE AT HOME LEFT alone with the woman whose charm still held him to her, cruelly as she had tried his devotion by her marriage, Mountjoy found the fluent amiability of the husband imitated by the wife. She, too, when the door had hardly closed on Lord Harry, was bent on persuading Hugh that her marriage had been the happiest event of her life. "Will you think the worse of me," she began, "if I own that I had little expectation of seeing you again?" "Certainly not, Iris." "Consider my situation," she went on. "When I remember how you tried (oh, conscientiously tried!) to prevent my marriage--how you predicted the miserable results that would follow, if Harry's life and my life became one--could I venture to hope that you would come here, and judge for yourself? Dear and good friend, I have nothing to fear from the result; your presence was never more welcome to me than it is now!" Whether it was attributable to prejudice on Mountjoy's part, or to keen and just observation, he detected something artificial in the ring of her enthusiasm; there was not the steady light of truth in her eyes, which he remembered in the past and better days of their companionship. He was a little--just a little--irritated. The temptation to remind her that his distrust of Lord Harry had once been her distrust too, proved to be more than his frailty could resist. "Your memory is generally exact," he said; "but it hardly serves you now as well as usual." "What have I forgotten?" "You have forgotten the time, my dear, when your opinion was almost as strongly against a marriage with Lord Harry as mine." Her answer was ready on the instant: "Ah, I didn't know him then as well as I know him now!" Some men, in Mountjoy's position, might have been provoked into hinting that there were sides to her husband's character which she had probably not discovered yet. But Hugh's gentle temper--ruffled for a moment only--had recovered its serenity. Her friend was her true friend still; he said no more on the subject of her marriage. "Old habits are not easily set aside," he reminded her. "I have been so long accustomed to advise you and help you, that I find myself hoping there may be some need for my services still. Is there no way in which I might relieve you of the hateful presence of Mr. Vimpany?" "My dear Hugh, I wish you had not mentioned Mr. Vimpany." Mountjoy concluded that the subject was disagreeable to her. "After the opinion of him which you expressed in your letter to me," he said, "I ought not to have spoken of the doctor. Pray forgive me." Iris looked distressed. "Oh, you are quite mistaken! The poor doctor has been sadly misjudged; and I"--she shook her head, and sighed penitently--"and, I," she resumed, "am one among other people who have ignorantly wronged him. Pray consult my husband. Hear what he can tell you--and you will pity Mr. Vimpany. The newspaper makes such large demands on our means that we can do little to help him. With your recommendation he might find some employment." "He has already asked me to assist him, Iris; and I have refused. I can't agree with your change of opinion about Mr. Vimpany." "Why not? Is it because he has separated from his wife?" "That is one reason, among many others," Mountjoy replied. "Indeed, indeed you are wrong! Lord Harry has known Mrs. Vimpany for years, and he says--I am truly sorry to hear it--that the separation is her fault." Hugh changed the subject again. The purpose which had mainly induced him to leave England had not been mentioned yet. Alluding to the newspaper, and to the heavy pecuniary demands made by the preliminary expenses of the new journal, he reminded Iris that their long and intimate friendship permitted him to feel some interest in her affairs. "I won't venture to express an opinion," he added; "let me only ask if Lord Harry's investments in this speculation have compelled him to make some use of your little fortune?" "My husband refused to touch my fortune," Iris answered. "But"--She paused, there. "Do you know how honourably, how nobly, he has behaved?" she abruptly resumed. "He has insured his life: he has burdened himself with the payment of a large sum of money every year. And all for me, if I am so unfortunate (which God forbid!) as to survive him. When a large share in the newspaper was for sale, do you think I could be ungrateful enough to let him lose the chance of making our fortune, when the profits begin to come in? I insisted on advancing the money--we almost quarrelled about it--but, you know how sweet he is. I said: 'Don't distress me'; and the dearest of men let me have my own way." Mountjoy listened in silence. To have expressed what he felt would have been only to mortify and offend Iris. Old habit (as he had said) had made the idea of devoting himself to her interests the uppermost idea in his mind. He asked if the money had all been spent. Hearing that some of it was still left, he resolved on making the attempt to secure the remains of her fortune to herself. "Tell me," he said, "have you ever heard of such a thing as buying an annuity?" She knew nothing about it. He carefully explained the method by which a moderate sum of money might be made to purchase a sufficient income for life. She offered no objection, when he proposed to write to his lawyer in London for the necessary particulars. But when he asked her to tell him what the sum was of which she might be still able to dispose, Iris hesitated, and made no reply. This time, Hugh arrived at the right conclusion. It was only too plain to him that what remained of her money represented an amount so trifling that she was ashamed to mention it. Of the need for helping her, there could be no doubt now; and, as for the means, no difficulties presented themselves to Mountjoy--always excepting the one obstacle likely to be offered by the woman herself. Experience warned him to approach her delicately, by the indirect way. "You know me well enough," he said, "to feel sure that I am incapable of saying anything which can embarrass you, or cause a moment's misunderstanding between two old friends. Won't you look at me, Iris, when I am speaking to you?" She still looked away from him. "I am afraid of what you are going to say to me," she answered coldly. "Then let me say it at once. In one of your letters, written long since--I don't suppose you remember it--you told me that I was an obstinate man when I once took a thing into my head. You were quite right. My dear, I have taken it into my head that you will be as ready as ever to accept my advice, and will leave me (as your man of business) to buy the annuity"-- She stopped him. "No," she cried, "I won't hear a word more! Do you think I am insensible to years of kindness that I have never deserved? Do you think I forget how nobly you have forgiven me for those cruel refusals which have saddened your life? Is it possible that you expect me to borrow money of You?" She started wildly to her feet. "I declare, as God hears me, I would rather die than take that base, that shameful advantage of all your goodness to me. The woman never lived who owed so much to a man, as I owe to you--but not money! Oh, my dear, not money! not money!" He was too deeply touched to be able to speak to her--and she saw it. "What a wretch I am," she said to herself; "I have made his heart ache!" He heard those words. Still feeling for her--never, never for himself!--he tried to soothe her. In the passion of her self-reproach, she refused to hear him. Pacing the room from end to end, she fanned the fiery emotion that was consuming her. Now, she reviled herself in language that broke through the restraints by which good breeding sets its seal on a woman's social rank. And now, again, she lost herself more miserably still, and yielded with hysteric recklessness to a bitter outburst of gaiety. "If you wish to be married happily," she cried, "never be as fond of any other woman as you have been of me. We are none of us worth it. Laugh at us, Hugh--do anything but believe in us. We all lie, my friend. And I have been lying--shamelessly! shamelessly!" He tried to check her. "Don't talk in that way, Iris," he said sternly. She laughed at him. "Talk?" she repeated. "It isn't that; it's a confession." "I don't desire to hear your confession." "You must hear it--you have drawn it out of me. Come! we'll enjoy my humiliation together. Contradict every word I said to you about that brute and blackguard, the doctor--and you will have the truth. What horrid inconsistency, isn't it? I can't help myself; I am a wretched, unreasonable creature; I don't know my own mind for two days together, and all through my husband--I am so fond of him; Harry is delightfully innocent; he's like a nice boy; he never seemed to think of Mr. Vimpany, till it was settled between them that the doctor was to come and stay here----and then he persuaded me--oh, I don't know how!--to see his friend in quite a new light. I believed him--and I believe him still--I mean I _would_ believe him, but for you. Will you do me a favour? I wish you wouldn't look at me with those eyes that won't lie; I wish you wouldn't speak to me with that voice which finds things out. Oh, good Heavens, do you suppose I would let you think that my husband is a bad man, and my marriage an unhappy one? Never! If it turns my blood to sit and eat at the same table with Mr. Vimpany, I'm not cruel enough to blame the dear doctor. It's my wickedness that's to blame. We shall quarrel, if you tell me that Harry is capable of letting a rascal be his friend. I'm happy; I'm happy; I'm happy!--do you understand that? Oh, Hugh, I wish you had never come to see me!" She burst into a passionate fit of weeping, broken down at last under the terrible strain laid on her. "Let me hide myself!" was all that Iris could say to her old friend--before she ran out of the room, and left him. CHAPTER XXVIII THE MAID AND THE KEYHOLE DEEPLY as she had grieved him, keenly as he felt that his worst fears for her threatened already to be realised, it was characteristic of Mountjoy that he still refused to despair of Iris--even with the husband's influence against him. The moral deterioration of her, revealed in the false words that she had spoken, and in the deceptions that she had attempted, would have justified the saddest misgivings, but for the voluntary confession which had followed, and the signs which it had shown of the better nature still struggling to assert itself. How could Hugh hope to encourage that effort of resistance to the evil influences that were threatening her--first and foremost, among them, being the arrival of Vimpany at the cottage? His presence kept her in a state of perpetual contention, between her own wise instincts which distrusted him, and her husband's authoritative assertions which recommended him to her confidence. No greater service could be rendered to Iris than the removal of this man--but how could it be accomplished, without giving offence to her husband? Mountjoy's mind was still in search of a means of overcoming the obstacle thus presented, when he heard the door open. Had Iris recovered herself? or had Lord Harry and his friend returned? The person who now entered the room was the strange and silent maid, Fanny Mere. "Can I speak to you, sir?" "Certainly. What is it?" "Please give me your address." "For your mistress?" "Yes." "Does she wish to write to me?" "Yes." Hugh gave the strange creature the address of his hotel in Paris. For a moment, her eyes rested on him with an expression of steady scrutiny. She opened the door to go out---stopped--considered--came back again. "I want to speak for myself," she said. "Do you care to hear what a servant has to say?" Mountjoy replied that he was ready to hear what she had to say. She at once stepped up to him, and addressed him in these words: "I think you are fond of my mistress?" An ordinary man might have resented the familiar manner in which she had expressed herself. Mountjoy waited for what was still to come. Fanny Mere abruptly went on, with a nearer approach to agitation in her manner than she had shown yet: "My mistress took me into her service; she trusted me when other ladies would have shown me the door. When she sent for me to see her, my character was lost; I had nobody to feel for me, nobody to help me. She is the one friend who held out a hand to me. I hate the men; I don't care for the women. Except one. Being a servant I mustn't say I love that one. If I was a lady, I don't know that I should say it. Love is cant; love is rubbish. Tell me one thing. Is the doctor a friend of yours?" "The doctor is nothing of the kind." "Perhaps he is your enemy?" "I can hardly say that." She looked at Hugh discontentedly. "I want to get at it," she said. "Why can't we understand each other? Will you laugh at me, if I say the first thing that comes into my head? Are you a good swimmer?" An extraordinary question, even from Fanny Mere. It was put seriously--and seriously Mountjoy answered it. He said that he was considered to be a good swimmer. "Perhaps," she continued, "you have saved people's lives." "I have twice been so fortunate as to save lives," he replied. "If you saw the doctor drowning, would you save him? _I_ wouldn't!" "Do you hate him as bitterly as that?" Hugh asked. She passed the question over without notice. "I wish you would help me to get at it," she persisted. "Suppose you could rid my mistress of that man by giving him a kick, would you up with your foot and do it?" "Yes--with pleasure." "Thank you, sir. Now I've got it. Mr. Mountjoy, the doctor is the curse of my mistress's life. I can't bear to see it. If we are not relieved of him somehow, I shall do something wrong. When I wait at table, and see him using his knife, I want to snatch it out of his hand, and stick it into him. I had a hope that my lord might turn him out of the house when they quarrelled. My lord is too wicked himself to do it. For the love of God, sir, help my mistress--or show me the way how!" Mountjoy began to be interested. "How do you know," he asked, "that Lord Harry and the doctor have quarrelled?" Without the slightest appearance of embarrassment, Fanny Mere informed him that she had listened at the door, while her master and his friend were talking of their secrets. She had also taken an opportunity of looking through the keyhole. "I suppose, sir," said this curious woman, still speaking quite respectfully, "you have never tried that way yourself?" "Certainly not!" "Wouldn't you do it to serve my mistress?" "No." "And yet, you're fond of her! You are a merciful one--the only merciful one, so far as I know--among men. Perhaps, if you were frightened about her, you might be more ready with your help. I wonder whether I can frighten you? Will you let me try?" The woman's faithful attachment to Iris pleaded for her with Hugh. "Try, if you like," he said kindly. Speaking as seriously as ever, Fanny proceeded to describe her experience at the keyhole. What she had seen was not worth relating. What she had heard proved to be more important. The talk between my lord and the doctor had been about raising money. They had different notions of how to do that. My lord's plan was to borrow what was wanted, on his life-insurance. The doctor told him he couldn't do that, till his insurance had been going on for three or four years at least. "I have something better and bolder to propose," says Mr. Vimpany. It must have been also something wicked--for he whispered it in the master's ear. My lord didn't take to it kindly. "How do you think I could face my wife," he says, "if she discovered me?" The doctor says: "Don't be afraid of your wife; Lady Harry will get used to many things which she little thought of before she married you." Says my lord to that: "I have done my best, Vimpany, to improve my wife's opinion of you. If you say much more, I shall come round to her way of thinking. Drop it!"--"All right," says the doctor, "I'll drop it now, and wait to pick it up again till you come to your last bank note." There the talk ended for that day---and Fanny would be glad to know what Mr. Mountjoy thought of it. "I think you have done me a service," Hugh replied. "Tell me how, sir." "I can only tell you this, Fanny. You have shown me how to relieve your mistress of the doctor." For the first time, the maid's impenetrable composure completely failed her. The smouldering fire in Fanny Mere flamed up. She impulsively kissed Mountjoy's hand. The moment her lips touched it she shrank back: the natural pallor of her face became whiter than ever. Startled by the sudden change, Hugh asked if she was ill. She shook her head. "It isn't that. Yours is the first man's hand I have kissed, since--" She checked herself. "I beg you won't ask me about it. I only meant to thank you, sir; I do thank you with all my heart--I mustn't stay here any longer." As she spoke the sound of a key was heard, opening the lock of the cottage-door. Lord Harry had returned. CHAPTER XXIX THE CONQUEST OF MR. VIMPANY THE Irish lord came in--with his medical friend sulkily in attendance on him. He looked at Fanny, and asked where her mistress was. "My lady is in her room, sir." Hearing this, he turned sharply to Mountjoy. On the point of speaking, he seemed to think better of it, and went to his wife's room. The maid followed. "Get rid of him now," she whispered to Hugh, glancing at the doctor. Mr. Vimpany was in no very approachable humour--standing at the window, with his hands in his empty pockets, gloomily looking out. But Hugh was not disposed to neglect the opportunity; he ventured to say: "You don't seem to be in such good spirits as usual." The doctor gruffly expressed his opinion that Mr. Mountjoy would not be particularly cheerful, in his place. My lord had taken him to the office, on the distinct understanding that he was to earn a little pocket-money by becoming one of the contributors to the newspaper. And how had it ended? The editor had declared that his list of writers was full, and begged leave to suggest that Mr. Vimpany should wait for the next vacancy. A most impertinent proposal! Had Lord Harry--a proprietor, remember--exerted his authority? Not he! His lordship had dropped the doctor "like a hot potato," and had meanly submitted to his own servant. What did Mr. Mountjoy think of such conduct as that? Hugh answered the question, with his own end in view. Paving the way for Mr. Vimpany's departure from the cottage at Passy, he made a polite offer of his services. "Can't I help you out of your difficulty?" he said. "You!" cried the doctor. "Have you forgotten how you received me, sir, when I asked for a loan at your hotel in London?" Hugh admitted that he might have spoken hastily. "You took me by surprise," he said, "and (perhaps I was mistaken, on my side) I thought you were, to say the least of it, not particularly civil. You did certainly use threatening language when you left me. No man likes to be treated in that way." Mr. Vimpany's big bold eyes stared at Mountjoy in a state of bewilderment. "Are you trying to make a fool of me?" he asked. "I am incapable, Mr. Vimpany, of an act of rudeness towards anybody." "If you come to that," the doctor stoutly declared, "I am incapable too. It's plain to me that we have been misunderstanding each other. Wait a bit; I want to go back for a moment to that threatening language which you complained of just now. I was sorry for what I had said as soon as your door was shut on me. On my way downstairs I did think of turning back and making a friendly apology before I gave you up. Suppose I had done that?" Mr. Vimpany asked, wondering internally whether Mountjoy was foolish enough to believe him. Hugh advanced a little nearer to the design that he had in view. "You might have found me more kindly disposed towards you," he said, "than you had anticipated." This encouraging reply cost him an effort. He had stooped to the unworthy practice of perverting what he had said and done on a former occasion, to serve a present interest. Remind himself as he might of the end which, in the interests of Iris, did really appear to justify the means, he still sank to a place in his own estimation which he was honestly ashamed to occupy. Under other circumstances his hesitation, slight as it was, might have excited suspicion. As things were, Mr. Vimpany could only discover golden possibilities that dazzled his eyes. "I wonder whether you're in the humour," he said, "to be kindly disposed towards me now?" It was needless to be careful of the feelings of such man as this. "Suppose you had the money you want in your pocket," Hugh suggested, "what would you do with it?" "Go back to London, to be sure, and publish the first number of that work of mine I told you of." "And leave your friend, Lord Harry?" "What good is my friend to me? He's nearly as poor as I am--he sent for me to advise him--I put him up to a way of filling both our pockets, and he wouldn't hear of it. What sort of a friend do you call that?" Pay him and get rid of him. There was the course of proceeding suggested by the private counsellor in Mountjoy's bosom. "Have you got the publisher's estimate of expenses?" he asked. The doctor instantly produced the document. To a rich man the sum required was, after all, trifling enough. Mountjoy sat down at the writing-table. As he took up a pen, Mr. Vimpany's protuberant eyes looked as if they would fly out of his head. "If I lend you the money--" Hugh began. "Yes? Yes?" cried the doctor. "I do so on condition that nobody is to know of the loan but ourselves." "Oh, sir, on my sacred word of honour--" An order on Mountjoy's bankers in Paris for the necessary amount, with something added for travelling expenses, checked Mr. Vimpany in full career of protestation. He tried to begin again: "My friend! my benefactor--" He was stopped once more. His friend and benefactor pointed to the clock. "If you want the money to-day, you have just time to get to Paris before the bank closes." Mr. Vimpany did want the money--always wanted the money; his gratitude burst out for the third time: "God bless you!" The object of that highly original form of benediction pointed through the window in the direction of the railway station. Mr. Vimpany struggled no longer to express his feelings--he had made his last sacrifice to appearances--he caught the train. The door of the room had been left open. A voice outside said: "Has he gone?" "Come in, Fanny," said Mountjoy. "He will return to London either to-night or to-morrow morning." The strange maid put her head in at the door. "I'll be at the terminus," she said, "and make sure of him." Her head suddenly disappeared, before it was possible to speak to her again. "Was there some other person outside? The other person entered the room; it was Lord Harry. He spoke without his customary smile. "I want a word with you, Mr. Mountjoy." "About what, my lord?" That direct question seemed to confuse the Irishman. He hesitated. "About you," he said, and stopped to consider. "And another person," he added mysteriously. Hugh was constitutionally a hater of mysteries. He felt the need of a more definite reply, and asked for it plainly: "Does your lordship associate that other person with me?" "Yes, I do." "Who is the person?" "My wife." CHAPTER XXX SAXON AND CELT WHEN amicable relations between two men happen to be in jeopardy, there is least danger of an ensuing quarrel if the friendly intercourse has been of artificial growth, on either side. In this case, the promptings of self-interest, and the laws of politeness, have been animating influences throughout; acting under conditions which assist the effort of self-control. And for this reason: the man who has never really taken a high place in our regard is unprovided with those sharpest weapons of provocation, which make unendurable demands on human fortitude. In a true attachment, on the other hand, there is an innocent familiarity implied, which is forgetful of ceremony, and blind to consequences. The affectionate freedom which can speak kindly without effort is sensitive to offence, and can speak harshly without restraint. When the friend who wounds us has once been associated with the sacred memories of the heart, he strikes at a tender place, and no considerations of propriety are powerful enough to stifle our cry of rage and pain. The enemies who have once loved each other are the bitterest enemies of all. Thus, the curt exchange of question and answer, which had taken place in the cottage at Passy, between two gentlemen artificially friendly to one another, led to no regrettable result. Lord Harry had been too readily angry: he remembered what was due to Mr. Mountjoy. Mr. Mountjoy had been too thoughtlessly abrupt: he remembered what was due to Lord Harry. The courteous Irishman bowed, and pointed to a chair. The well-bred Englishman returned the polite salute, and sat down. My lord broke the silence that followed. "May I hope that you will excuse me," he began, "if I walk about the room? Movement seems to help me when I am puzzled how to put things nicely. Sometimes I go round and round the subject, before I get at it. I'm afraid I'm going round and round, now. Have you arranged to make a long stay in Paris?" Circumstances, Mountjoy answered, would probably decide him. "You have no doubt been many times in Paris before this," Lord Harry continued. "Do you find it at all dull, now?" Wondering what he could possibly mean, Hugh said he never found Paris dull--and waited for further enlightenment. The Irish lord persisted: "People mostly think Paris isn't as gay as it used to be. Not such good plays and such good actors as they had at one time. The restaurants inferior, and society very much mixed. People don't stay there as long as they used. I'm told that Americans are getting disappointed, and are trying London for a change." Could he have any serious motive for this irrelevant way of talking? Or was he, to judge by his own account of himself, going round and round the subject of his wife and his guest, before he could get at it? Suspecting him of jealousy from the first, Hugh failed--naturally perhaps in his position--to understand the regard for Iris, and the fear of offending her, by which her jealous husband was restrained. Lord Harry was attempting (awkwardly indeed!) to break off the relations between his wife and her friend, by means which might keep the true state of his feelings concealed from both of them. Ignorant of this claim on his forbearance, it was Mountjoy's impression that he was being trifled with. Once more, he waited for enlightenment, and waited in silence. "You don't find my conversation interesting?" Lord Harry remarked, still with perfect good-humour. "I fail to see the connection," Mountjoy acknowledged, "between what you have said so far, and the subject on which you expressed your intention of speaking to me. Pray forgive me if I appear to hurry you--or if you have any reasons for hesitation." Far from being offended, this incomprehensible man really appeared to be pleased. "You read me like a book!" he exclaimed. "It's hesitation that's the matter with me. I'm a variable man. If there's something disagreeable to say, there are times when I dash at it, and times when I hang back. Can I offer you any refreshment?" he asked, getting away from the subject again, without so much as an attempt at concealment. Hugh thanked him, and declined. "Not even a glass of wine? Such white Burgundy, my dear sir, as you seldom taste." Hugh's British obstinacy was roused; he repeated his reply. Lord Harry looked at him gravely, and made a nearer approach to an open confession of feeling than he had ventured on yet. "With regard now to my wife. When I went away this morning with Vimpany--he's not such good company as he used to be; soured by misfortune, poor devil; I wish he would go back to London. As I was saying--I mean as I was about to say--I left you and Lady Harry together this morning; two old friends, glad (as I supposed) to have a gossip about old times. When I come back, I find you left here alone, and I am told that Lady Harry is in her room. What do I see when I get there? I see the finest pair of eyes in the world; and the tale they tell me is, We have been crying. When I ask what may have happened to account for this--'Nothing, dear,' is all the answer I get. What's the impression naturally produced on my mind? There has been a quarrel perhaps between you and my wife." "I fail entirely, Lord Harry, to see it in that light." "Ah, likely enough! Mine's the Irish point of view. As an Englishman you fail to understand it. Let that be. One thing; Mr. Mountjoy, I'll take the freedom of saying at once. I'll thank you, next time, to quarrel with Me." "You force me to tell you, my lord, that you are under a complete delusion, if you suppose that there has been any quarrel, or approach to a quarrel, between Lady Harry and myself." "You tell me that, on your word of honour as a gentleman?" "Most assuredly!" "Sir! I deeply regret to hear it." "Which does your lordship deeply regret? That I have spoken to you on my word of honour, or that I have not quarrelled with Lady Harry?" "Both, sir! By the piper that played before Moses, both!" Hugh got up, and took his hat: "We may have a better chance of understanding each other," he suggested, "if you will be so good as to write to me." "Put your hat down again, Mr. Mountjoy, and pray have a moment's patience. I've tried to like you, sir--and I'm bound in candour to own that I've failed to find a bond of union between us. Maybe, this frank confession annoys you." "Far from it! You are going straight to your subject at last, if I may venture to say so." The Irish lord's good-humour had completely disappeared by this time. His handsome face hardened, and his voice rose. The outbreak of jealous feeling, which motives honourable to himself had hitherto controlled, now seized on its freedom of expression. His language betrayed (as on some former occasions) that association with unworthy companions, which had been one of the evil results of his adventurous life. "Maybe I'll go straighter than you bargain for," he replied; "I'm in two humours about you. My common-sense tells me that you're my wife's friend. And the best of friends do sometimes quarrel, don't they? Well, sir, you deny it, on your own account. I find myself forced back on my other humour--and it's a black humour, I can tell you. You may be my wife's friend, my fine fellow, but you're something more than that. You have always been in love with her--and you're in love with her now. Thank you for your visit, but don't repeat it. Say! do we understand each other at last?" "I have too sincere a respect for Lady Harry to answer you," Mountjoy said. "At the same time, let me acknowledge my obligations to your lordship. You have reminded me that I did a foolish thing when I called here without an invitation. I agree with you that the sooner my mistake is set right the better." He replied in those words, and left the cottage. On the way back to his hotel, Hugh thought of what Mrs. Vimpany had said to him when they had last seen each other: "Don't forget that there is an obstacle between you and Iris which will put even your patience and your devotion to a hard trial." The obstacle of the husband had set itself up, and had stopped him already. His own act (a necessary act after the language that had been addressed to him) had closed the doors of the cottage, and had put an end to future meetings between Iris and himself. If they attempted to communicate by letter, Lord Harry would have opportunities of discovering their correspondence, of which his jealousy would certainly avail itself. Through the wakeful night, Hugh's helpless situation was perpetually in his thoughts. There seemed to be no present alternative before him but resignation, and a return to England. CHAPTER XXXI THE SCHOOL FOR HUSBANDS ON the next day Mountjoy heard news of Iris, which was not of a nature to relieve his anxieties. He received a visit from Fanny Mere. The leave-taking of Mr. Vimpany, on the previous evening, was the first event which the maid had to relate. She had been present when the doctor said good-bye to the master and mistress. Business in London was the reason he gave for going away. The master had taken the excuse as if he really believed in it, and seemed to be glad to get rid of his friend. The mistress expressed her opinion that Mr. Vimpany's return to London must have been brought about by an act of liberality on the part of the most generous of living men. _"Your_ friend has, as I believe, got some money from _my_ friend," she said to her husband. My lord had looked at her very strangely when she spoke of Mr. Mountjoy in that way, and had walked out of the room. As soon as his back was turned, Fanny had obtained leave of absence. She had carried out her intention of watching the terminus, and had seen Mr. Vimpany take his place among the passengers to London by the mail train. Returning to the cottage, it was Fanny's duty to ascertain if her services were required in her mistress's room. On reaching the door, she had heard the voices of my lord and my lady, and (as Mr. Mountjoy would perhaps be pleased to know) had been too honourable to listen outside, on this occasion. She had at once gone away, and had waited until she should be sent for. After a long interval, the bell that summoned her had been rung. She had found the mistress in a state of agitation, partly angry, and partly distressed; and had ventured to ask if anything unpleasant had happened. No reply was made to that inquiry. Fanny had silently performed the customary duties of the night-toilet, in getting my lady ready for bed; they had said good-night to each other and had said no more. In the morning (that present morning), being again in attendance as usual, the maid had found Lady Harry in a more indulgent frame of mind; still troubled by anxieties, but willing to speak of them now. She had begun by talking of Mr. Mountjoy: "I think you like him, Fanny: everybody likes him. You will be sorry to hear that we have no prospect of seeing him again at the cottage." There she had stopped; something that she had not said, yet, seemed to be in her mind, and to trouble her. She was near to crying, poor soul, but struggled against it. "I have no sister," she said, "and no friend who might be like a sister to me. It isn't perhaps quite right to speak of my sorrow to my maid. Still, there is something hard to bear in having no kind heart near one--I mean, no other woman to speak to who knows what women feel. It is so lonely here--oh, so lonely! I wonder whether you understand me and pity me?" Never forgetting all that she owed to her mistress--if she might say so without seeming to praise herself--Fanny was truly sorry. It would have been a relief to her, if she could have freely expressed her opinion that my lord must be to blame, when my lady was in trouble. Being a man, he was by nature cruel to women; the wisest thing his poor wife could do would be to expect nothing from him. The maid was sorely tempted to offer a little good advice to this effect; but she was afraid of her own remembrances, if she encouraged them by speaking out boldly. It would be better to wait for what the mistress might say next. Lord Harry's conduct was the first subject that presented itself when the conversation was resumed. My lady mentioned that she had noticed how he looked, and how he left the room, when she had spoken in praise of Mr. Mountjoy. She had pressed him to explain himself---and she had made a discovery which proved to be the bitterest disappointment of her life. Her husband suspected her! Her husband was jealous of her! It was too cruel; it was an insult beyond endurance, an insult to Mr. Mountjoy as well as to herself. If that best and dearest of good friends was to be forbidden the house, if he was to go away and never to see her or speak to her again, of one thing she was determined--he should not leave her without a kind word of farewell; he should hear how truly she valued him; yes, and how she admired and felt for him! Would Fanny not do the same thing, in her place? And Fanny had remembered the time when she might have done it for such a man as Mr. Mountjoy. "Mind you stay indoors this evening, sir," the maid continued, looking and speaking so excitedly that Hugh hardly knew her again. "My mistress is coming to see you, and I shall come with her." Such an act of imprudence was incredible. "You must be out of your senses!" Mountjoy exclaimed. "I'm out of myself sir, if that's what you mean," Fanny answered. "I do so enjoy treating a man in that way! The master's going out to dinner--he'll know nothing about it--and," cried the cool cold woman of other times, "he richly deserves it." Hugh reasoned and remonstrated, and failed to produce the slightest effect. His next effort was to write a few lines to Lady Harry, entreating her to remember that a jealous man is sometimes capable of acts of the meanest duplicity, and that she might be watched. When he gave the note to Fanny to deliver, she informed him respectfully that he had better not trust her. A person sometimes meant to do right (she reminded him), and sometimes ended in doing wrong. Rather than disappoint her mistress, she was quite capable of tearing up the letter, on her way home, and saying nothing about it. Hugh tried a threat next: "Your mistress will not find me, if she comes here; I shall go out to-night." The impenetrable maid looked at him with a pitying smile, and answered: "Not you!" It was a humiliating reflection--but Fanny Mere understood him better than he understood himself. All that Mountjoy had said and done in the way of protest, had been really dictated by consideration for the young wife. If he questioned his conscience, selfish delight in the happy prospect of seeing Iris again asserted itself, as the only view with which he looked forward to the end of the day. When the evening approached, he took the precaution of having his own discreet and faithful servant in attendance, to receive Lady Harry at the door of the hotel, before the ringing of the bell could summon the porter from his lodge. On calm consideration, the chances seemed to be in favour of her escaping detection by Lord Harry. The jealous husband of the stage, who sooner (or later) discovers the innocent (or guilty) couple, as the case may be, is not always the husband of the world outside the theatre. With this fragment of experience present in his mind, Hugh saw the door of his sitting-room cautiously opened, at an earlier hour than he had anticipated. His trustworthy representative introduced a lady, closely veiled--and that lady was Iris. CHAPTER XXXII GOOD-BYE TO IRIS LADY HARRY lifted her veil, and looked at Mountjoy with sad entreaty in her eyes. "Are you angry with me?" she asked. "I ought to be angry with you," he said. "This is a very imprudent, Iris." "It's worse than that," she confessed. "It's reckless and desperate. Don't say I ought to have controlled myself. I can't control the shame I feel when I think of what has happened. Can I let you go--oh, what a return for your kindness!--without taking your hand at parting? Come and sit by me on the sofa. After my poor husband's conduct, you and I are not likely to meet again. I don't expect you to lament it as I do. Even your sweetness and your patience--so often tried--must be weary of me now." "If you thought that possible, my dear, you would not have come here to-night," Hugh reminded her. "While we live, we have the hope of meeting again. Nothing in this world lasts, Iris--not even jealousy. Lord Harry himself told me that he was a variable man. Sooner or later he will come to his senses." Those words seemed to startle Iris. "I hope you don't think that my husband is brutal to me!" she exclaimed, still resenting even the appearance of a reflection on her marriage, and still forgetting what she herself had said which justified a doubt of her happiness. "Have you formed a wrong impression?" she went on. "Has Fanny Mere innocently--?" Mountjoy noticed, for the first time, the absence of the maid. It was a circumstance which justified him in interrupting Iris--for it might seriously affect her if her visit to the hotel happened to be discovered. "I understood," he said, "that Fanny was to come here with you." "Yes! yes! She is waiting in the carriage. We are careful not to excite attention at the door of the hotel; the coachman will drive up and down the street till I want him again. Never mind that! I have something to say to you about Fanny. She thinks of her own troubles, poor soul, when she talks to me, and exaggerates a little without meaning it. I hope she has not misled you in speaking of her master. It is base and bad of him, unworthy of a gentleman, to be jealous--and he has wounded me deeply. But dear Hugh, his jealousy is a gentle jealousy. I have heard of other men who watch their wives--who have lost all confidence in them--who would even have taken away from me such a trifle as this." She smiled, and showed to Mountjoy her duplicate key of the cottage door. "Ah, Harry is above such degrading distrust as that! There are times when he is as heartily ashamed of his own weakness as I could wish him to be. I have seen him on his knees before me, shocked at his conduct. He is no hypocrite. Indeed, his repentance is sincere, while it lasts--only it doesn't last! His jealousy rises and falls, like the wind. He said last night (when the wind was high): 'If you wish to make me the happiest creature on the face of the earth, don't encourage Mr. Mountjoy to remain in Paris!' Try to make allowances for him!" "I would rather make allowances, Iris, for you. Do _you,_ too wish me to leave Paris?" Sitting very near to him--nearer than her husband might have liked to see--Iris drew away a little. "Did you mean to be cruel in saying that?" she asked. "I don't deserve it." "It was kindly meant," Hugh assured her. "If I can make your position more endurable by going away, I will leave Paris to-morrow." Iris moved back again to the place which she had already occupied. She was eager to thank him (for a reason not yet mentioned) as she had never thanked him yet. Silently and softly she offered her gratitude to Hugh, by offering her cheek. The irritating influence of Lord Harry's jealousy was felt by both of them at that moment. He kissed her cheek--and lingered over it. She was the first to recover herself. "When you spoke just now of my position with my husband," she said, "you reminded me of anxieties, Hugh, in which you once shared, and of services which I can never forget." Preparing him in those words for the disclosure which she had now to make, Iris alluded to the vagabond life of adventure which Lord Harry had led. The restlessness in his nature which that life implied, had latterly shown itself again; and his wife had traced the cause to a letter from Ireland, communicating a report that the assassin of Arthur Mountjoy had been seen in London, and was supposed to be passing under the name of Carrigeen. Hugh would understand that the desperate resolution to revenge the murder of his friend, with which Lord Harry had left England in the past time, had been urged into action once more. He had not concealed from Iris that she must be resigned to his leaving her for awhile, if the report which had reached him from Ireland proved to be true. It would be useless, and worse than useless, to remind this reckless man of the danger that threatened him from the Invincibles, if he returned to England. In using her power of influencing the husband who still loved her, Iris could only hope to exercise a salutary restraint in her own domestic interests, appealing to him for indulgence by careful submission to any exactions on which his capricious jealousy might insist. Would sad necessity excuse her, if she accepted Mountjoy's offer to leave Paris, for the one reason that her husband had asked it of her as a favour? Hugh at once understood her motive, and assured her of his sympathy. "You may depend upon my returning to London to-morrow," he said. "In the meantime, is there no better way in which I can be of use to you? If your influence fails, do you see any other chance of keeping Lord Harry's desperate purpose under control?" It had only that day occurred to Iris that there might be some prospect of an encouraging result, if she could obtain the assistance of Mrs. Vimpany. The doctor's wife was well acquainted with Lord Harry's past life, when he happened to be in Ireland; and she had met many of his countrymen with whom he had associated. If one of those friends happened to be the officious person who had written to him, it was at least possible that Mrs. Vimpany's discreet interference might prevent his mischievous correspondent from writing again. Lord Harry, waiting for more news, would in this event wait in vain. He would not know where to go, or what to do next--and, with such a nature as his, the end of his patience and the end of his resolution were likely to come together. Hugh handed his pocket-book to Iris. Of the poor chances in her favour, the last was to his mind the least hopeless of the two. "If you have discovered the name of your husband's correspondent," he said, "write it down for me, and I will ask Mrs. Vimpany if she knows him. I will make your excuses for not having written to her lately; and, in any case, I answer for her being ready to help you." As Iris thanked him and wrote the name, the clock on the chimneypiece struck the hour. She rose to say farewell. With a restless hand she half-lowered her veil, and raised it again. "You won't mind my crying," she said faintly, trying to smile through her tears. "This is the saddest parting I have ever known. Dear, dear Hugh--good-bye!" Great is the law of Duty; but the elder law of Love claims its higher right. Never, in all the years of their friendship, had they forgotten themselves as they forgot themselves now. For the first time her lips met his lips, in their farewell kiss. In a moment more, they remembered the restraints which honour imposed on them; they were only friends again. Silently she lowered her veil. Silently he took her arm and led her down to the carriage. It was moving away from them at a slow pace, towards the other end of the street. Instead of waiting for its return, they followed and overtook it. "We shall meet again," he whispered. She answered sadly: "Don't forget me." Mountjoy turned back. As he approached the hotel he noticed a tall man crossing from the opposite side of the street. Not two minutes after Iris was on her way home, her jealous husband and her old friend met at the hotel door. Lord Harry spoke first. "I have been dining out," he said, "and I came here to have a word with you, Mr. Mountjoy, on my road home." Hugh answered with formal politeness: "Let me show your lordship the way to my rooms." "Oh, it's needless to trouble you," Lord Harry declared. "I have so little to say--do you mind walking on with me for a few minutes?" Mountjoy silently complied. He was thinking of what might have happened if Iris had delayed her departure--or if the movement of the carriage had been towards, instead of away from the hotel. In either case it had been a narrow escape for the wife, from a dramatic discovery by the husband. "We Irishmen," Lord Harry resumed, "are not famous for always obeying the laws; but it is in our natures to respect the law of hospitality. When you were at the cottage yesterday I was inhospitable to my guest. My rude behaviour has weighed on my mind since--and for that reason I have come here to speak to you. It was ill-bred on my part to reproach you with your visit, and to forbid you (oh, quite needlessly, I don't doubt!) to call on me again. If I own that I have no desire to propose a renewal of friendly intercourse between us, you will understand me, I am sure; with my way of thinking, the less we see of each other for the future, the better it may be. But, for what I said when my temper ran away with me, I ask you to accept my excuses, and the sincere expression of my regret." "Your excuses are accepted, my lord, as sincerely as you have offered them," Mountjoy answered. "So far as I am concerned, the incident is forgotten from this moment." Lord Harry expressed his courteous acknowledgments. "Spoken as becomes a gentleman," he said. "I thank you." There it ended. They saluted each other; they wished each other good-night. "A mere formality!" Hugh thought, when they had parted. He had wronged the Irish lord in arriving at that conclusion. But time was to pass before events helped him to discover his error. CHAPTER XXXIII THE DECREE OF FATE ON his arrival in London, Mountjoy went to the Nurses' Institute to inquire for Mrs. Vimpany. She was again absent, in attendance on another patient. The address of the house (known only to the matron) was, on this occasion, not to be communicated to any friend who might make inquiries. A bad case of scarlet fever had been placed under the nurse's care, and the danger of contagion was too serious to be trifled with. The events which had led to Mrs. Vimpany's present employment had not occurred in the customary course. A nurse who had recently joined the Institute had been first engaged to undertake the case, at the express request of the suffering person--who was said to be distantly related to the young woman. On the morning when she was about to proceed to the scene of her labours, news had reached her of the dangerous illness of her mother. Mrs. Vimpany, who was free at the time, and who felt a friendly interest in her young colleague, volunteered to take her place. Upon this, a strange request had been addressed to the matron, on behalf of the sick man. He desired to be "informed of it, if the new nurse was an Irishwoman." Hearing that she was an Englishwoman, he at once accepted her services, being himself (as an additional element of mystery in the matter) an Irishman! The matron's English prejudices at once assumed that there had been some discreditable event in the man's life, which might be made a subject of scandalous exposure if he was attended by one of his own countrypeople. She advised Mrs. Vimpany to have nothing to do with the afflicted stranger. The nurse answered that she had promised to attend on him--and she kept her promise. Mountjoy left the Institute, after vainly attempting to obtain Mrs. Vimpany's address. The one concession which the matron offered to make was to direct his letter, and send it to the post, if he would be content with that form of communication. On reflection, he decided to write the letter. Prompt employment of time might be of importance, if it was possible to prevent any further communication with Lord Larry on the part of his Irish correspondent. Using the name with which Iris had provided him, Hugh wrote to inquire if it was familiar to Mrs. Vimpany, as the name of a person with whom she had been, at any time, acquainted. In this event, he assured her that an immediate consultation between them was absolutely necessary in the interests of Iris. He added, in a postscript, that he was in perfect health, and that he had no fear of infection--and sent his letter to the matron to be forwarded. The reply reached him late in the evening. It was in the handwriting of a stranger, and was to this effect: "Dear Mr. Mountjoy,--It is impossible that I can allow you to run the risk of seeing me while I am in my present situation. So serious is the danger of contagion in scarlet fever, that I dare not even write to you with my own hand on note-paper which has been used in the sick room. This is no mere fancy of mine; the doctor in attendance here knows of a case in which a small piece of infected flannel communicated the disease after an interval of no less than a year. I must trust to your own good sense to see the necessity of waiting, until I can receive you without any fear of consequences to yourself. In the meantime, I may answer your inquiry relating to the name communicated in your letter. I first knew the gentleman you mention some years since; we were introduced to each other by Lord Harry; and I saw him afterwards on more than one occasion." Mountjoy read this wise and considerate reply to his letter with indignation. Here was the good fortune for which he had not dared to hope, declaring itself in favour of Iris. Here (if Mrs. Vimpany could be persuaded to write to her friend) was the opportunity offered of keeping the hot-tempered Irish husband passive and harmless, by keeping him without further news of the assassin of Arthur Mountjoy. Under these encouraging circumstances the proposed consultation which might have produced such excellent results had been rejected; thanks to a contemptible fear of infection, excited by a story of a trumpery piece of flannel! Hugh snatched up the unfortunate letter (cast away on the floor) to tear it in pieces and throw it into the waste-paper basket--and checked himself. His angry hand had seized on it with the blank leaf of the note-paper uppermost. On that leaf he discovered two little lines of print, presenting, in the customary form, the address of the house at which the letter had been written! The writer, in taking the sheet of paper from the case, must have accidentally turned it wrong side uppermost on the desk, and had not cared to re-copy the letter, or had not discovered the mistake. Restored to his best good-humour, Hugh resolved to surprise Mrs. Vimpany by a visit, on the next day, which would set the theory of contagion at defiance, and render valuable service to Iris at a crisis in her life. Having time before him for reflection, in the course of the evening, he was at no loss to discover a formidable obstacle in the way of his design. Whether he gave his name or concealed his name, when he asked for Mrs. Vimpany at the house-door, she would in either case refuse to see him. The one accessible person whom he could consult in this difficulty was his faithful old servant. That experienced man--formerly employed, at various times, in the army, in the police, and in service at a public school--obtained leave to make some preliminary investigations on the next morning. He achieved two important discoveries. In the first place, Mrs. Vimpany was living in the house in which the letter to his master had been written. In the second place, there was a page attached to the domestic establishment (already under notice to leave his situation), who was accessible to corruption by means of a bribe. The boy would be on the watch for Mr. Mountjoy at two o'clock on that day, and would show him where to find Mrs. Vimpany, in the room near the sick man, in which she was accustomed to take her meals. Hugh acted on his instructions, and found the page waiting to admit him secretly to the house. Leading the way upstairs, the boy pointed with one hand to a door on the second floor, and held out the other hand to receive his money. While he pocketed the bribe, and disappeared, Mountjoy opened the door. Mrs. Vimpany was seated at a table waiting for her dinner. When Hugh showed himself she started to her feet with a cry of alarm. "Are you mad?" she exclaimed. "How did you get here? What do you want here? Don't come near me!" She attempted to pass Hugh on her way out of the room. He caught her by the arm, led her back to her chair, and forced her to seat herself again. "Iris is in trouble," he pleaded, "and you can help her." "The fever!" she cried, heedless of what he had said. "Keep back from me--the fever!" For the second time she tried to get out of the room. For the second time Hugh stopped her. "Fever or no fever," he persisted, "I have something to say to you. In two minutes I shall have said it, and I will go." In the fewest possible words he described the situation of Iris with her jealous husband. Mrs. Vimpany indignantly interrupted him. "Are you running this dreadful risk," she asked, "with nothing to say to me that I don't know already? Her husband jealous of her? Of course he is jealous of her! Leave me--or I will ring for the servant." "Ring, if you like," Hugh answered; "but hear this first. My letter to you alluded to a consultation between us, which might be necessary in the interests of Iris. Imagine her situation if you can! The assassin of Arthur Mountjoy is reported to be in London; and Lord Harry has heard of it." Mrs. Vimpany looked at him with horror in her eyes. "Gracious God!" she cried, "the man is here--under my care. Oh, I am not in the conspiracy to hide the wretch! I knew no more of him than you do when I offered to nurse him. The names that have escaped him, in his delirium, have told me the truth." As she spoke, a second door in the room was opened. An old woman showed herself for a moment, trembling with terror. "He's breaking out again, nurse! Help me to hold him!" Mrs. Vimpany instantly followed the woman into the bed-room. "Wait and listen," she said to Mountjoy--and left the door open. The quick, fierce, muttering tones of a man in delirium were now fearfully audible. His maddened memory was travelling back over his own horrible life. He put questions to himself; he answered himself: "Who drew the lot to kill the traitor? I did! I did! Who shot him on the road, before he could get to the wood? I did! I did! Arthur Mountjoy, traitor to Ireland. Set that on his tombstone, and disgrace him for ever. Listen, boys--listen! There is a patriot among you. I am the patriot--preserved by a merciful Providence. Ha, my Lord Harry, search the earth and search the sea, the patriot is out of your reach! Nurse! What's that the doctor said of me? The fever will kill him? Well, what does that matter, as long as Lord Harry doesn't kill me? Open the doors, and let everybody hear of it. I die the death of a saint--the greatest of all saints--the saint who shot Arthur Mountjoy. Oh, the heat, the heat, the burning raging heat!" The tortured creature burst into a dreadful cry of rage and pain. It was more than Hugh's resolution could support. He hurried out of the house. * * * * * * * * Ten days passed. A letter, in a strange handwriting, reached Iris at Passy. The first part of the letter was devoted to the Irish desperado, whom Mrs. Vimpany had attended in his illness. When she only knew him as a suffering fellow-creature she had promised to be his nurse. Did the discovery that he was an assassin justify desertion, or even excuse neglect? No! the nursing art, like the healing art, is an act of mercy--in itself too essentially noble to inquire whether the misery that it relieves merits help. All that experience, all that intelligence, all that care could offer, the nurse gave to the man whose hand she would have shrunk from touching in friendship, after she had saved his life. A time had come when the fever threatened to take Lord Harry's vengeance out of his hands. The crisis of the disease declared itself. With the shadow of death on him, the wretch lived through it--saved by his strong constitution, and by the skilled and fearless woman who attended on him. At the period of his convalescence, friends from Ireland (accompanied by a medical man of their own choosing) presented themselves at the house, and asked for him by the name under which he passed--Carrigeen. With every possible care, he was removed; to what destination had never been discovered. From that time, all trace of him had been lost. Terrible news followed on the next page. The subtle power of infection had asserted itself against the poor mortal who had defied it. Hugh Mountjoy, stricken by the man who had murdered his brother, lay burning under the scarlet fire of the fever. But the nurse watched by him, night and day. CHAPTER XXXIV MY LORD'S MIND HERE, my old-vagabond-Vimpany, is an interesting case for you--the cry of a patient with a sick mind. Look over it, and prescribe for your wild Irish friend, if you can. You will perhaps remember that I have never thoroughly trusted you, in all the years since we have known each other. At this later date in our lives, when I ought to see more clearly than ever what an unfathomable man you are, am I rash enough to be capable of taking you into my confidence? I don't know what I am going to do; I feel like a man who has been stunned. To be told that the murderer of Arthur Mountjoy had been seen in London--to be prepared to trace him by his paltry assumed name of Carrigeen--to wait vainly for the next discovery which might bring him within reach of retribution at my hands--and then to be overwhelmed by the news of his illness, his recovery, and his disappearance: these are the blows which have stupefied me. Only think of it! He has escaped me for the second time. Fever that kills thousands of harmless creatures has spared the assassin. He may yet die in his bed, and be buried, with the guiltless dead around him, in a quiet churchyard. I can't get over it; I shall never get over it. Add to this, anxieties about my wife, and maddening letters from creditors--and don't expect me to write reasonably. What I want to know is whether your art (or whatever you call it) can get at my diseased mind, through my healthy body. You have more than once told me that medicine can do this. The time has come for doing it. I am in a bad way, and a bad end may follow. My only medical friend, deliver me from myself. In any case, let me beg you to keep your temper while you read what follows. I have to confess that the devil whose name is Jealousy has entered into me, and is threatening the tranquillity of my married life. You dislike Iris, I know--and she returns your hostile feeling towards her. Try to do my wife justice, nevertheless, as I do. I don't believe my distrust of her has any excuse--and yet, I am jealous. More unreasonable still, I am as fond of her as I was in the first days of the honeymoon. Is she as fond as ever of me? You were a married man when I was a boy. Let me give you the means of forming an opinion by a narrative of her conduct, under (what I admit to have been) very trying circumstances. When the first information reached Iris of Hugh Mountjoy's dangerous illness, we were at breakfast. It struck her dumb. She handed the letter to me, and left the table. I hate a man who doesn't know what it is to want money; I hate a man who keeps his temper; I hate a man who pretends to be my wife's friend, and who is secretly in love with her all the time. What difference did it make to me whether Hugh Mountjoy ended in living or dying? If I had any interest in the matter, it ought by rights (seeing that I am jealous of him) to be an interest in his death. Well! I declare positively that the alarming news from London spoilt my breakfast. There is something about that friend of my wife--that smug, prosperous, well-behaved Englishman--which seems to plead for him (God knows how!) when my mind is least inclined in his favour. While I was reading about his illness, I found myself hoping that he would recover--and, I give you my sacred word of honour, I hated him all the time. My Irish friend is mad--you will say. Your Irish friend, my dear follow, does not dispute it. Let us get back to my wife. She showed herself again after a long absence, having something (at last) to say to her husband. "I am innocently to blame," she began, "for the dreadful misfortune that has fallen on Mr. Mountjoy. If I had not given him a message to Mrs. Vimpany, he would never have insisted on seeing her, and would never have caught the fever. It may help me to bear my misery of self-reproach and suspense, if I am kept informed of his illness. There is no fear of infection by my receiving letters. I am to write to a friend of Mrs. Vimpany, who lives in another house, and who will answer my inquiries. Do you object, dear Harry, to my getting news of Hugh Mountjoy every day, while he is in danger?" I was perfectly willing that she should get that news, and she ought to have known it. It seemed to me to be also a bad sign that she made her request with dry eyes. She must have cried, when she first heard that he was likely to sink under an attack of fever. Why were her tears kept hidden in her own room? When she came back to me, her face was pale and hard and tearless. Don't you think she might have forgotten my jealousy, when I was so careful myself not to show it? My own belief is that she was longing to go to London, and help your wife to nurse the poor man, and catch the fever, and die with him if _he_ died. Is this bitter? Perhaps it is. Tear it off, and light your pipe with it. Well, the correspondence relating to the sick man continued every day; and every day--oh, Vimpany, another concession to my jealousy!--she handed the letters to me to read. I made excuses (we Irish are good at that, if we are good at nothing else), and declined to read the medical reports. One morning, when she opened the letter of that day, there passed over her a change which is likely to remain in my memory as long as I live. Never have I seen such an ecstasy of happiness in any woman's face, as I saw when she read the lines which informed her that the fever was mastered. Iris is sweet and delicate and bright--essentially fascinating, in a word. But she was never a beautiful woman, until she knew that Mountjoy's life was safe; and she will never be a beautiful woman again, unless the time comes when my death leaves her free to marry him. On her wedding-day, he will see the transformation that I saw--and he will be dazzled as I was. She looked at me, as if she expected me to speak. "I am glad indeed," I said, "that he is out of danger." She ran to me--she kissed me; I wouldn't have believed it was in her to give such kisses. "Now I have your sympathy," she said, "my happiness is complete!" Do you think I was indebted for these kisses to myself or to that other man? No, no--here is an unworthy doubt. I discard it. Vile suspicion shall not wrong Iris this time. And yet---- Shall I go on, and write the rest of it? Poor, dear Arthur Mountjoy once told me of a foreign author, who was in great doubt of the right answer to some tough question that troubled him. He went into his garden and threw a stone at a tree. If he hit the tree, the answer would be--Yes. If he missed the tree, the answer would be--No. I am going into the garden to imitate the foreign author. You shall hear how it ends. I have hit the tree. As a necessary consequence, I must go on and write the rest of it. There is a growing estrangement between Iris and myself--and my jealousy doesn't altogether account for it. Sometimes, it occurs to me that we are thinking of what our future relations with Mountjoy are likely to be, and are ashamed to confess it to each other. Sometimes--and perhaps this second, and easiest, guess may be the right one--I am apt to conclude that we are only anxious about money matters. I am waiting for her to touch on the subject, and she is waiting for me; and there we are at a deadlock. I wish I had some reason for going to some other place. I wish I was lost among strangers. I should like to find myself in a state of danger, meeting the risks that I used to run in my vagabond days. Now I think of it, I might enjoy this last excitement by going back to England, and giving the Invincibles a chance of shooting me as a traitor to the cause. But my wife would object to that. Suppose we change the subject. You will be glad to hear that you knew something of law, as well as of medicine. I sent instructions to my solicitor in London to raise a loan on my life-insurance. What you said to me turns out to be right. I can't raise a farthing, for three years to come, out of all the thousands of pounds which I shall leave behind me when I die. Are my prospects from the newspaper likely to cheer me after such a disappointment as this? The new journal, I have the pleasure of informing you, is much admired. When I inquire for my profits, I hear that the expenses are heavy, and I am told that I must wait for a rise in our circulation. How long? Nobody knows. I shall keep these pages open for a few days more, on the chance of something happening which may alter my present position for the better. My position has altered for the worse. I have been obliged to fill my empty purse, for a little while, by means of a bit of stamped paper. And how shall I meet my liabilities when the note falls due? Let time answer the question; for the present the evil day is put off. In the meanwhile, if that literary speculation of yours is answering no better than my newspaper, I can lend you a few pounds to get on with. What do you say (on second thoughts) to coming back to your old quarters at Passy, and giving me your valuable advice by word of mouth instead of by letter? Come, and feel my pulse, and look at my tongue--and tell me how these various anxieties of mine are going to end, before we are any of us a year older. Shall I, like you, be separated from my wife--at her request; oh, not at mine! Or shall I be locked up in prison? And what will become of You? Do you take the hint, doctor? CHAPTER XXXV MY LADY'S MIND "ENTREAT Lady Harry not to write to me. She will be tempted to do so, when she hears that there is good hope of Mr. Mountjoy's recovery. But, even from that loving and generous heart, I must not accept expressions of gratitude which would only embarrass me. All that I have done, as a nurse, and all that I may yet hope to do, is no more than an effort to make amends for my past life. Iris has my heart's truest wishes for her happiness. Until I can myself write to her without danger, let this be enough." In those terms, dearest of women, your friend has sent your message to me. My love respects as well as admires you; your wishes are commands to me. At the same time, I may find some relief from the fears of the future that oppress me, if I can confide them to friendly ears. May I not harmlessly write to you, if I only write of my own poor self? Try, dear, to remember those pleasant days when you were staying with us, in our honeymoon time, at Paris. You warned me, one evening when we were alone, to be on my guard against any circumstances which might excite my husband's jealousy. Since then, the trouble that you foresaw has fallen on me; mainly, I am afraid, through my own want of self-control. It is so hard for a woman, when she really loves a man, to understand a state of mind which can make him doubt her. I have discovered that jealousy varies. Let me tell you what I mean. Lord Harry was silent and sullen (ah, how well I knew what that meant!) while the life of our poor Hugh was in jeopardy. When I read the good news which told me that he was no longer in danger, I don't know whether there was any change worth remarking in myself--but, there was a change in my husband, delightful to see. His face showed such sweet sympathy when he looked at me, he spoke so kindly and nicely of Hugh, that I could only express my pleasure by kissing him. You will hardly believe me, when I tell you that his hateful jealousy appeared again, at that moment. He looked surprised, he looked suspicious--he looked, I declare, as if he doubted whether I meant it with all my heart when I kissed him! What incomprehensible creatures men are! We read in novels of women who are able to manage their masters. I wish I knew how to manage mine. We have been getting into debt. For some weeks past, this sad state of things has been a burden on my mind. Day after day I have been expecting him to speak of our situation, and have found him obstinately silent. Is his mind entirely occupied with other things? Or is he unwilling to speak of our anxieties because the subject humiliates him? Yesterday, I could bear it no longer. "Our debts are increasing," I said. "Have you thought of any way of paying them?" I had feared that my question might irritate him. To my relief, he seemed to be diverted by it. "The payment of debts," he replied, "is a problem that I am too poor to solve. Perhaps I got near to it the other day." I asked how. "Well," he said, "I found myself wishing I had some rich friends. By-the-bye, how is _your_ rich friend? What have you heard lately of Mr. Mountjoy?" "I have heard that he is steadily advancing towards recovery." "Likely, I dare say, to return to France when he feels equal to it," my husband remarked. "He is a good-natured creature. If he finds himself in Paris again, I wonder whether he will pay us another visit?" He said this quite seriously. On my side, I was too much as astonished to utter a word. My bewilderment seemed to amuse him. In his own pleasant way he explained himself: "I ought to have told you, my dear, that I was in Mr. Mountjoy's company the night before he returned to England. We had said some disagreeable things to each other here in the cottage, while you were away in your room. My tongue got the better of my judgment. In short, I spoke rudely to our guest. Thinking over it afterwards, I felt that I ought to make an apology. He received my sincere excuses with an amiability of manner, and a grace of language, which raised him greatly in my estimation." There you have Lord Harry's own words! Who would suppose that he had ever been jealous of the man whom he spoke of in this way? I explain it to myself, partly by the charm in Hugh's look and manner, which everybody feels; partly by the readiness with which my husband's variable nature receives new impressions. I hope you agree with me. In any case, pray let Hugh see what I have written to you in this place, and ask him what he thinks of it.* *_Note by Mrs. Vimpany._--I shall certainly not be foolish enough to show what she has written to Mr. Mountjoy. Poor deluded Iris! Miserable fatal marriage! Encouraged, as you will easily understand, by the delightful prospect of a reconciliation between them, I was eager to take my first opportunity of speaking freely of Hugh. Up to that time, it had been a hard trial to keep to myself so much that was deeply interesting in my thoughts and hopes. But my hours of disappointment were not at an end yet. We were interrupted. A letter was brought to us--one of many, already received!--insisting on immediate payment of a debt that had been too long unsettled. The detestable subject of our poverty insisted on claiming attention when there was a messenger outside, waiting for my poor Harry's last French bank note. "What is to be done?" I said, when we were left by ourselves again. My husband's composure was something wonderful. He laughed and lit a cigar. "We have got to the crisis," he said. "The question of money has driven us into a corner at last. My darling, have you ever heard of such a thing as a promissory note?" I was not quite so ignorant as he supposed me to be; I said I had heard my father speak of promissory notes. This seemed to fail in convincing him. "Your father," he remarked, "used to pay his notes when they fell due." I betrayed my ignorance, after all. "Doesn't everybody do the same?" I asked. He burst out laughing. "We will send the maid to get a bit of stamped paper," he said; "I'll write the message for her, this time." Those last words alluded to Fanny's ignorance of the French language, which made it necessary to provide her with written instructions, when she was sent on an errand. In our domestic affairs, I was able to do this; but, in the present case, I only handed the message to her. When she returned with a slip of stamped paper, Harry called to me to come to the writing-table. "Now, my sweet," he said, "see how easily money is to be got with a scratch of the pen." I looked, over his shoulder. In less than a minute it was done; and he had produced ten thousand francs on paper--in English money (as he told me), four hundred pounds. This seemed to be a large loan; I asked how he proposed to pay it back. He kindly reminded me that he was a newspaper proprietor, and, as such, possessed of the means of inspiring confidence in persons with money to spare. They could afford, it seems, to give him three months in which to arrange for repayment. In that time, as he thought, the profits of the new journal might come pouring in. He knew best, of course. We took the next train to Paris, and turned our bit of paper into notes and gold. Never was there such a delightful companion as my husband, when he has got money in his pocket. After so much sorrow and anxiety, for weeks past, that memorable afternoon was like a glimpse of Paradise. On the next morning, there was an end to my short-lived enjoyment of no more than the latter half of a day. Watching her opportunity, Fanny Mere came to me while I was alone, carrying a thick letter in her hand. She held it before me with the address uppermost. "Please to look at that," she said. The letter was directed (in Harry's handwriting) to Mr. Vimpany, at a publishing office in London. Fanny next turned the envelope the other way. "Look at this side," she resumed. The envelope was specially protected by a seal; bearing a device of my husband's own invention; that is to say, the initials of his name (Harry Norland) surmounted by a star--his lucky star, as he paid me the compliment of calling it, on the day when he married me. I was thinking of that day now. Fanny saw me looking, with a sad heart, at the impression on the wax. She completely misinterpreted the direction taken by my thoughts. "Tell me to do it, my lady," she proceeded; "and I'll open the letter." I looked at her. She showed no confusion. "I can seal it up again," she coolly explained, "with a bit of fresh wax and my thimble. Perhaps Mr. Vimpany won't be sober enough to notice it." "Do you know, Fanny, that you are making a dishonourable proposal to me?" I said. "I know there's nothing I can do to help you that I won't do," she answered; "and you know why. I have made a dishonourable proposal--have I? That comes quite naturally to a lost woman like me. Shall I tell you what Honour means? It means sticking at nothing, in your service. Please tell me to open the letter." "How did you come by the letter, Fanny?" "My master gave it to me to put in the post." "Then, post it." The strange creature, so full of contraries--so sensitive at one time, so impenetrable at another--pointed again to the address. "When the master writes to that man," she went on--"a long letter (if you will notice), and a sealed letter--your ladyship ought to see what is inside it. I haven't a doubt myself that there's writing under this seal which bodes trouble to you. The spare bedroom is empty. Do you want to have the doctor for your visitor again? Don't tell me to post the letter, till I've opened it first." "I do tell you to post the letter." Fanny submitted, so far. But she had a new form of persuasion to try, before her reserves of resistance were exhausted. "If the doctor comes back," she continued, "will your ladyship give me leave to go out, whenever I ask for it?" This was surely presuming on my indulgence. "Are you not expecting a little too much?" I suggested--not unkindly. "If you say that, my lady," she answered, "I shall be obliged to ask you to suit yourself with another maid." There was a tone of dictation in this, which I found beyond endurance. In my anger, I said: "Leave me whenever you like." "I shall leave you when I'm dead--not before," was the reply that I received. "But if you won't let me have my liberty without going away from you, for a time, I must go--for your sake." (For my sake! Pray observe that.) She went on: "Try to see it, my lady, as I do! If we have the doctor with us again, I must be able to watch him." "Why?" "Because he is your enemy, as I believe." "How can he hurt me, Fanny?" "Through your husband, my lady, if he can do it in no other way. Mr. Vimpany shall have a spy at his heels. Dishonourable! oh, dishonourable again! Never mind. I don't pretend to know what that villain means to do, if he and my lord get together again. But this I can tell you, if it's in woman's wit to circumvent him, here I am with my mind made up. With my mind, made up!" she repeated fiercely--and recovered on a sudden her customary character as a quiet well-trained servant, devoted to her duties. "I'll take my master's letter to the post now," she said. "Is there anything your ladyship wants in the town?" What do you think of Fanny Mere? Ought I to have treated this last offer of her services, as I treated her proposal to open the letter? I was not able to do it. The truth is, I was so touched by her devotion to me, that I could not prevail on myself to mortify her by a refusal. I believe there may be a good reason for the distrust of the doctor which possesses her so strongly; and I feel the importance of having this faithful and determined woman for an ally. Let me hope that Mr. Vimpany's return (if it is to take place) may be delayed until you can safely write, with your own hand, such a letter of wise advice as I sadly need. In the meantime, give my love to Hugh, and say to this dear friend all that I might have said for myself, if I had been near him. But take care that his recovery is not retarded by anxiety for me. Pray keep him in ignorance of the doubts and fears with which I am now looking at the future. If I was not so fond of my husband, I should be easier in my mind. This sounds contradictory, but I believe you will understand it. For a while, my dear, good-bye. CHAPTER XXXVI THE DOCTOR MEANS MISCHIEF ON the day after Lord Harry's description of the state of his mind reached London, a gentleman presented himself at the publishing office of Messrs. Boldside Brothers, and asked for the senior partner, Mr. Peter Boldside. When he sent in his card, it bore the name of "Mr. Vimpany." "To what fortunate circumstance am I indebted, sir, for the honour of your visit?" the senior partner inquired. His ingratiating manners, his genial smile, his roundly resonant voice, were personal advantages of which he made a merciless use. The literary customer who entered the office, hesitating before the question of publishing a work at his own expense, generally decided to pay the penalty when he encountered Mr. Peter Boldside. "I want to inquire about the sale of my work," Mr. Vimpany replied. "Ah, doctor, you have come to the wrong man. You must go to my brother." Mr. Vimpany protested. "You mentioned the terms when I first applied to you," he said, "and you signed the agreement." "That is in _my_ department," the senior partner gently explained. "And I shall write the cheque when, as we both hope, your large profits shall fall due. But our sales of works are in the department of my brother, Mr. Paul Boldside." He rang a bell; a clerk appeared, and received his instructions: "Mr. Paul. Good-morning, doctor." Mr. Paul was, personally speaking, his brother repeated--without the deep voice, and without the genial smile. Conducted to the office of the junior partner, Mr. Vimpany found himself in the presence of a stranger, occupied in turning over the pages of a newspaper. When his name was announced, the publisher started, and handed his newspaper to the doctor. "This is a coincidence," he said. "I was looking, sir, for your name in the pages which I have just put into your hand. Surely the editor can't have refused to publish your letter?" Mr. Vimpany was sober, and therefore sad, and therefore (again) not to be trifled with by a mystifying reception. "I don't understand you," he answered gruffly. "What do you mean?" "Is it possible that you have not seen last week's number of the paper?" Mr. Paul asked. "And you a literary man!" He forthwith produced the last week's number, and opened it at the right place. "Read that, sir," he said, with something in his manner which looked like virtuous indignation. Mr. Vimpany found himself confronted by a letter addressed to the editor. It was signed by an eminent physician, whose portrait had appeared in the first serial part of the new work--accompanied by a brief memoir of his life, which purported to be written by himself. Not one line of the autobiography (this celebrated person declared) had proceeded from his pen. Mr. Vimpany had impudently published an imaginary memoir, full of false reports and scandalous inventions--and this after he had been referred to a trustworthy source for the necessary particulars. Stating these facts, the indignant physician cautioned readers to beware of purchasing a work which, so far as he was concerned, was nothing less than a fraud on the public. "If you can answer that letter, sir," Mr. Paul Boldside resumed, "the better it will be, I can tell you, for the sale of your publication." Mr. Vimpany made a reckless reply: "I want to know how the thing sells. Never mind the letter." "Never mind the letter?" the junior partner repeated. "A positive charge of fraud is advanced by a man at the head of his profession against a work which _we_ have published--and you say, Never mind the letter." The rough customer of the Boldsides struck his fist on the table. "Bother the letter! I insist on knowing what the sale is." Still preserving his dignity, Mr. Paul (like Mr. Peter) rang for the clerk, and briefly gave an order. "Mr. Vimpany's account," he said--and proceeded to admonish Mr. Vimpany himself. "You appear, sir, to have no defence of your conduct to offer. Our firm has a reputation to preserve. When I have consulted with my brother, we shall be under the disagreeable necessity--" Here (as he afterwards told his brother) the publisher was brutally interrupted by the author: "If you will have it," said this rude man, "here it is in two words. The doctor's portrait is the likeness of an ass. As he couldn't do it himself, I wanted materials for writing his life. He referred me to the year of his birth, the year of his marriage, the year of this, that, and the other. Who cares about dates? The public likes to be tickled by personal statements. Very well--I tickled the public. There you have it in a nutshell." The clerk appeared at that auspicious moment, with the author's account neatly exhibited under two sides: a Debtor side, which represented the expenditure of Hugh Mountjoy's money; and a Creditor side, which represented (so far) Mr. Vimpany's profits. Amount of these last: 3_l._ 14_s._ 10_d._ Mr. Vimpany tore up the account, threw the pieces in the face of Mr. Paul, and expressed his sentiments in one opprobrious word: "Swindlers!" The publisher said: "You shall hear of us, sir, through our lawyer." And the author answered: "Go to the devil!" Once out in the streets again, the first open door at which Mr. Vimpany stopped was the door of a tavern. He ordered a glass of brandy and water, and a cigar. It was then the hour of the afternoon, between the time of luncheon and the time of dinner, when the business of a tavern is generally in a state of suspense. The dining-room was empty when Mr. Vimpany entered it: and the waiter's unoccupied attention was in want of an object. Having nothing else to notice, he looked at the person who had just come in. The deluded stranger was drinking fiery potato-brandy, and smoking (at the foreign price) an English cigar. Would his taste tell him the melancholy truth? No: it seemed to matter nothing to him what he was drinking or what he was smoking. Now he looked angry, and now he looked puzzled; and now he took a long letter from his pocket, and read it in places, and marked the places with a pencil. "Up to some mischief," was the waiter's interpretation of these signs. The stranger ordered a second glass of grog, and drank it in gulps, and fell into such deep thought that he let his cigar go out. Evidently, a man in search of an idea. And, to all appearance, he found what he wanted on a sudden. In a hurry he paid his reckoning, and left his small change and his unfinished cigar on the table, and was off before the waiter could say, "Thank you." The next place at which he stopped was a fine house in a spacious square. A carriage was waiting at the door. The servant who opened the door knew him. "Sir James is going out again, sir, in two minutes," the man said. Mr. Vimpany answered: "I won't keep him two minutes." A bell rang from the room on the ground floor; and a gentleman came out, as Mr. Vimpany was shown in. Sir James's stethoscope was still in his hand; his latest medical fee lay on the table. "Some other day, Vimpany," the great surgeon said; "I have no time to give you now." "Will you give me a minute?" the humble doctor asked. "Very well. What is it?" "I am down in the world now, Sir James, as you know--and I am trying to pick myself up again." "Very creditable, my good fellow. How can I help you? Come, come--out with it. You want something?" "I want your great name to do me a great service. I am going to France. A letter of introduction, from you, will open doors which might be closed to an unknown man like myself." "What doors do you mean?" Sir James asked. "The doors of the hospitals in Paris." "Wait a minute, Vimpany. Have you any particular object in view?" "A professional object, of course," the ready doctor answered. "I have got an idea for a new treatment of diseases of the lungs; and I want to see if the French have made any recent discoveries in that direction." Sir James took up his pen--and hesitated. His ill-starred medical colleague had been his fellow-student and his friend, in the days when they were both young men. They had seen but little of each other since they had gone their different ways--one of them, on the high road which leads to success, the other down the byways which end in failure. The famous surgeon felt a passing doubt of the use which his needy and vagabond inferior might make of his name. For a moment his pen was held suspended over the paper. But the man of great reputation was also a man of great heart. Old associations pleaded with him, and won their cause. His companion of former times left the house provided with a letter of introduction to the chief surgeon at the Hotel Dieu, in Paris. Mr. Vimpany's next, and last, proceeding for that day, was to stop at a telegraph-office, and to communicate economically with Lord Harry in three words: "Expect me to-morrow." CHAPTER XXXVII THE FIRST QUARREL EARLY in the morning of the next day, Lord Harry received the doctor's telegram. Iris not having risen at the time, he sent for Fanny Mere, and ordered her to get the spare room ready for a guest. The maid's busy suspicion tempted her to put a venturesome question. She asked if the person expected was a lady or a gentleman. "What business is it of yours who the visitor is?" her master asked sharply. Always easy and good-humoured with his inferiors in general, Lord Harry had taken a dislike to his wife's maid, from the moment when he had first seen her. His Irish feeling for beauty and brightness was especially offended by the unhealthy pallor of the woman's complexion, and the sullen self-suppression of her manner. All that his native ingenuity had been able to do was to make her a means of paying a compliment to his wife. "Your maid has one merit in my eyes," he said; "she is a living proof of the sweetness of your temper." Iris joined her husband at the breakfast-table with an appearance of disturbance in her face, seldom seen, during the dull days of her life at Passy. "I hear of somebody coming to stay with us," she said. "Not Mr. Vimpany again, I hope and trust?" Lord Harry was careful to give his customary morning kiss, before he replied. "Why shouldn't my faithful old friend come and see me again?" he asked, with his winning smile. "Pray don't speak of that hateful man," she answered, "as your faithful old friend! He is nothing of the kind. What did you tell me when he took leave of us after his last visit, and I owned I was glad that he had gone? You said: 'Faith, my dear, I'm as glad as you are.'" Her good-natured husband laughed at this little picture of himself. "Ah, my darling, how many more times am I to make the same confession to my pretty priest? Try to remember, without more telling, that it's one of my misfortunes to be a man of many tempers. There are times when I get tired to death of Mr. Vimpany; and there are times when the cheery old devil exercises fascinations over me. I declare you're spoiling the eyebrows that I admire by letting them twist themselves into a frown! After the trouble I have taken to clear your mind of prejudice against an unfortunate man, it's disheartening to find you so hard on the poor fellow's faults and so blind to his virtues." The time had been when this remonstrance might have influenced his wife's opinion. She passed it over without notice now. "Does he come here by your invitation?" she asked. "How else should he come here, my dear?" She looked at her husband with doubt too plainly visible in her eyes. "I wonder what your motive is for sending for him," she said. He was just lifting his teacup to his lips--he put it down again when he heard those words. "Are you ill this morning?" he asked. "No." "Have I said anything that has offended you?" "Certainly not." "Then I must tell you this, Iris; I don't approve of what you have just said. It sounds, to my mind, unpleasantly like suspicion of me and suspicion of my friend. I see your face confessing it, my lady, at this moment." "You are half right, Harry, and no more. What you see in my face is suspicion of your friend." "Founded on what, if you please?" "Founded on what I have seen of him, and on what I know of him. When you tried to alter my opinion of Mr. Vimpany some time since, I did my best to make my view your view. I deceived myself, for your sake; I put the best construction on what he said and did, when he was staying here. It was well meant, but it was of no use. In a thousand different ways, while he was doing his best to win my favour, his true self was telling tales of him under the fair surface. Mr. Vimpany is a bad man. He is the very worst friend you could have about you at any time--and especially at a time when your patience is tried by needy circumstances." "One word, Iris. The more eloquent you are, the more I admire you. Only, don't mention my needy circumstances again." She passed over the interruption as she had already passed over the remonstrance, without taking notice of it. "Dearest, you are always good to me," she continued gently. "Am I wrong in thinking that love gives me some little influence over you still? Women are vain--are they not?--and I am no better than the rest of them. Flatter your wife's vanity, Harry, by attaching some importance to her opinion. Is there time enough, yet, to telegraph to Mr. Vimpany? Quite out of the question, is it? Well, then, if he must come here, do--pray, pray do consider Me. Don't let him stay in the house! I'll find a good excuse, and take a bedroom for him in the neighbourhood. Anywhere else, so long as he is not here. He turns me cold when I think of him, sleeping under the same roof with ourselves. Not with us! oh, Harry, not with us!" Her eyes eagerly searched her husband's face; she looked there for indulgence, she looked for conviction. No! he was still admiring her. "On my word of honour," he burst out, "you fascinate me. What an imagination you have got! One of these days, Iris, I shall be prouder of you than ever; I shall find you a famous literary character. I don't mean writing a novel; women who can't even hem a handkerchief can write a novel. It's poetry I'm thinking of. Irish melodies by Lady Harry that beat Tom Moore. What a gift! And there are fortunes made, as I have heard, by people who spoil fair white paper to some purpose. I wish I was one of them." "Have you no more to say to me?" she asked. "What more should there be? You wouldn't have me take you seriously, in what you have just said of Vimpany?" "Why not?" "Oh, come, come, my darling! Just consider. With a bedroom empty and waiting, upstairs, is my old Vimpany to be sent to quarters for the night among strangers? I wouldn't speak harshly to you, Iris, for the whole world; and I don't deny that the convivial doctor may be sometimes a little too fond of his drop of grog. You will tell me, maybe, that he hasn't got on nicely with his wife; and I grant it. There are not many people who set such a pretty example of matrimony as we do. Poor humanity--there's all that's to be said about it. But when you tell me that Vimpany is a bad man, and the worst friend I could possibly have, and so forth--what better can I do than set it down to your imagination? I've a pretty fancy, myself; and I think I see my angel inventing poetical characters, up among congenial clouds. What's the matter? Surely, you haven't done breakfast yet?" "Yes." "Are you going to leave me?" "I am going to my room." "You're in a mighty hurry to get away. I never meant to vex you, Iris. Ah, well, if you must leave the table, I'll have the honour of opening the door for you, at any rate. I wonder what you're going to do?" "To cultivate my imagination," she answered, with the first outbreak of bitterness that had escaped her yet. His face hardened. "There seems to be something like bearing malice in this," he said. "Are you treating me, for the first time, to an exhibition of enmity? What am I to call it, if it's not that?" "Call it disappointment," she suggested quietly, and left him. Lord Harry went back to his breakfast. His jealousy was up in arms again. "She's comparing me with her absent friend," he said to himself, "and wishing she had married the amiable Mountjoy instead of me." So the first quarrel ended--and Mr. Vimpany had been the cause of it. CHAPTER XXXVIII ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS THE doctor arrived in good time for dinner, and shook hands with the Irish lord in excellent spirits. He looked round the room, and asked where my lady was. Lord Harry's reply suggested the presence of a cloud on the domestic horizon. He had been taking a long ride, and had only returned a few minutes since; Iris would (as he supposed) join them immediately. The maid put the soup on the table, and delivered a message. Her mistress was suffering from a headache, and was not well enough to dine with the gentlemen. As an old married man, Mr. Vimpany knew what this meant; he begged leave to send a comforting message to the suffering lady of the house. Would Fanny be good enough to say that he had made inquiries on the subject of Mr. Mountjoy's health, before he left London. The report was still favourable; there was nothing to complain of but the after-weakness which had followed the fever. On that account only, the attendance of the nurse was still a matter of necessity. "With my respects to Lady Harry," he called after Fanny, as she went out in dogged silence. "I have begun by making myself agreeable to your wife," the doctor remarked with a self-approving grin. "Perhaps she will dine with us to-morrow. Pass the sherry." The remembrance of what had happened at the breakfast-table, that morning, seemed to be dwelling disagreeably on Lord Harry's mind. He said but little--and that little related to the subject on which he had already written, at full length, to his medical friend. In an interval, when the service of the table required the attendance of Fanny in the kitchen, Mr. Vimpany took the opportunity of saying a few cheering words. He had come (he remarked) prepared with the right sort of remedy for an ailing state of mind, and he would explain himself at a fitter opportunity. Lord Harry impatiently asked why the explanation was deferred. If the presence of the maid was the obstacle which caused delay, it would be easy to tell her that she was not wanted to wait. The wary doctor positively forbade this. He had observed Fanny, during his previous visit, and had discovered that she seemed to distrust him. The woman was sly and suspicious. Since they had sat down to dinner, it was easy to see that she was lingering in the room to listen to the conversation, on one pretence or another. If she was told not to wait, there could be no doubt of her next proceeding: she would listen outside the door. "Take my word for it," the doctor concluded, "there are all the materials for a spy in Fanny Mere." But Lord Harry was obstinate. Chafing under the sense of his helpless pecuniary position, he was determined to hear, at once, what remedy for it Vimpany had discovered. "We can set that woman's curiosity at defiance," he said. "How?" "When you were learning your profession, you lived in Paris for some years, didn't you? "All right!" "Well, then, you can't have entirely forgotten your French?" The doctor at once understood what this meant, and answered significantly by a wink. He had found an opportunity (he said) of testing his memory, not very long since. Time had undoubtedly deprived him of his early mastery over the French language; but he could still (allowing for a few mistakes) make a shift to understand it and speak it. There was one thing, however, that he wanted to know first. Could they be sure that my lady's maid had not picked up French enough to use her ears to some purpose? Lord Harry easily disposed of this doubt. So entirely ignorant was the maid of the language of the place in which she was living, that she was not able to ask the tradespeople for the simplest article of household use, unless it was written for her in French before she was sent on an errand. This was conclusive. When Fanny returned to the dining-room, she found a surprise waiting for her. The two gentlemen had taken leave of their nationality, and were talking the language of foreigners. An hour later, when the dinner-table had been cleared, the maid's domestic duties took her to Lady Harry's room to make tea. She noticed the sad careworn look on her mistress's face, and spoke of it at once in her own downright way. "I thought it was only an excuse," she said, "when you gave me that message to the gentlemen, at dinner-time. Are you really ill, my lady?" "I am a little out of spirits," Iris replied. Fanny made the tea. "I can understand that," she said to herself, as she moved away to leave the room; "I'm out of spirits myself." Iris called her back: "I heard you say just now, Fanny, that you were out of spirits yourself. If you were speaking of some troubles of your own, I am sorry for you, and I won't say any more. But if you know what my anxieties are, and share them--" "Mine is the biggest share of the two," Fanny broke out abruptly. "It goes against the grain with me to distress you, my lady; but we are beginning badly, and you ought to know it. The doctor has beaten me already." "Beaten you already?" Iris repeated. "Tell me plainly what you mean?" "Here it is, if you please, as plainly as words can say it. Mr. Vimpany has something--something wicked, of course--to say to my master; and he won't let it pass his lips here, in the cottage." "Why not?" "Because he suspects me of listening at the door, and looking through the keyhole. I don't know, my lady, that he doesn't even suspect You. 'I've learnt something in the course of my life,' he says to my master; 'and it's a rule with me to be careful of what I talk about indoors, when there are women in the house. What are you going to do to-morrow?' he says. My lord told him there was to be a meeting at the newspaper office. The doctor says: 'I'll go to Paris with you. The newspaper office isn't far from the Luxembourg Gardens. When you have done your business, you will find me waiting at the gate. What I have to tell you, you shall hear out of doors in the Gardens--and in an open part of them, too, where there are no lurking-places among the trees.' My master seemed to get angry at being put off in this way. 'What is it you have got to tell me?' he says. 'Is it anything like the proposal you made, when you were on your last visit here?' The doctor laughed. 'To-morrow won't be long in coming,' he says. 'Patience, my lord--patience.' There was no getting him to say a word more. Now, what am I to do? How am I to get a chance of listening to him, out in an open garden, without being seen? There's what I mean when I say he has beaten me. It's you, my lady--it's you who will suffer in the end." "You don't _know_ that, Fanny." "No, my lady--but I'm certain of it. And here I am, as helpless as yourself! My temper has been quiet, since my misfortune; it would be quiet still, but for this." The one animating motive, the one exasperating influence, in that sad and secret life was still the mistress's welfare--still the safety of the generous woman who had befriended and forgiven her. She turned aside from the table, to hide her ghastly face. "Pray try to control yourself." As Iris spoke, she pointed kindly to a chair. "There is something that I want to say when you are composed again. I won't hurry you; I won't look at you. Sit down, Fanny." She appeared to shrink from being seated in her mistress's presence. "Please to let me go to the window," she said; "the air will help me." To the window she went, and struggled with the passionate self so steadily kept under at other times; so obstinately conquered now. "What did you wish to say to me?" she asked. "You have surprised--you have perplexed me," Iris said. "I am at a loss to understand how you discovered what seems to have passed between your master and Mr. Vimpany. You don't surely mean to tell me that they talked of their private affairs while you were waiting at table?" "I don't tell lies, my lady," Fanny declared impulsively. "They talked of nothing else all through the dinner." "Before _you!"_ Iris exclaimed. There was a pause. Fear and shame confessed themselves furtively on the maid's colourless face. Silently, swiftly, she turned to the door. Had a slip of the tongue hurried her into the betrayal of something which it was her interest to conceal? "Don't be alarmed," Iris said compassionately; "I have no wish to intrude on your secrets." With her hand on the door, Fanny Mere closed it again, and came back. "I am not so ungrateful," she said, "as to have any secrets from You. It's hard to confess what may lower me in your good opinion, but it must be done. I have deceived your ladyship--and I am ashamed of it. I have deceived the doctor--and I glory in it. My master and Mr. Vimpany thought they were safe in speaking French, while I was waiting on them. I know French as well as they do." Iris could hardly believe what she heard. "Do you really mean what you say?" she asked. "There's that much good in me," Fanny replied; "I always mean what I say." "Why did you deceive me? Why have you been acting the part of an ignorant woman?" "The deceit has been useful in your service," the obstinate maid declared. "Perhaps it may be useful again." "Was that what you were thinking of," Iris said, "when you allowed me to translate English into French for you, and never told me the truth?" "At any rate, I will tell you the truth, now. No: I was not thinking of you, when you wrote my errands for me in French--I was thinking again of some advice that was once given to me." "Was it advice given by a friend?" "Given by a man, my lady, who was the worst enemy I have ever had." Her considerate mistress understood the allusion, and forbade her to distress herself by saying more. But Fanny felt that atonement, as well as explanation, was due to her benefactress. Slowly, painfully she described the person to whom she had referred. He was a Frenchman, who had been her music-master during the brief period at which she had attended a school: he had promised her marriage; he had persuaded her to elope with him. The little money that they had to live on was earned by her needle, and by his wages as accompanist at a music-hall. While she was still able to attract him, and to hope for the performance of his promise, he amused himself by teaching her his own language. When he deserted her, his letter of farewell contained, among other things the advice to which she had alluded. "In your station of life," this man had written, "knowledge of French is still a rare accomplishment. Keep your knowledge to yourself. English people of rank have a way of talking French to each other, when they don't wish to be understood by their inferiors. In the course of your career, you may surprise secrets which will prove to be a little fortune, if you play your cards properly. Anyhow, it is the only fortune I have to leave to you." Such had been the villain's parting gift to the woman whom he had betrayed. She had hated him too bitterly to be depraved by his advice. On the contrary, when the kindness of a friend (now no longer in England) had helped her to obtain her first employment as a domestic servant, she had thought it might be to her interest to mention that she could read, write, and speak French. The result proved to be not only a disappointment, but a warning to her for the future. Such an accomplishment as a knowledge of a foreign language possessed by an Englishwoman, in her humble rank of life, was considered by her mistress to justify suspicion. Questions were asked, which it was impossible for her to answer truthfully. Small scandal drew its own conclusions--her life with the other servants became unendurable--she left her situation. From that time, until the happy day when she met with Iris, concealment of her knowledge of French became a proceeding forced on her by her own poor interests. Her present mistress would undoubtedly have been taken into her confidence, if the opportunity had offered itself. But Iris had never encouraged her to speak of the one darkest scene in her life; and for that reason, she had kept her own counsel until the date of her mistress's marriage. Distrusting the husband, and the husband's confidential friend--for were they not both men?--she had thought of the vile Frenchman's advice, and had resolved to give it a trial; not with the degrading motive which he had suggested, but with the vague presentiment of making a discovery of wickedness, threatening mischief under a French disguise, which might be of service to her benefactress at some future time. "And I may still turn it to your advantage, my lady," Fanny ventured to add, "if you will consent to say nothing to anybody of your having a servant who has learnt French." Iris looked at her coldly and gravely. "Must I remind you," she said, "that you are asking my help in practicing a deception on my husband?" "I shall be sent away," Fanny answered, "if you tell my master what I have told you." This was indisputably true. Iris hesitated. In her present situation, the maid was the one friend on whom she could rely. Before her marriage, she would have recoiled from availing herself, under any circumstances, of such services as Fanny's reckless gratitude had offered to her. But the moral atmosphere in which she was living had begun, as Mrs. Vimpany had foreseen, to exert its baneful influence. The mistress descended to bargaining with the servant. "Deceive the doctor," she said, "and I well remember that it may be for my good." She stopped, and considered for a moment. Her noble nature rallied its forces, and prompted her next words: "But respect your master, if you wish me to keep your secret. I forbid you to listen to what my lord may say, when he speaks with Mr. Vimpany to-morrow." "I have already told your ladyship that I shall have no chance of listening to what they say to each other, out of doors," Fanny rejoined. "But I can watch the doctor at any rate. We don't know what he may not do when he is left by himself, while my master is at the meeting. I want to try if I can follow that rogue through the streets, without his finding me out. Please to send me on an errand to Paris to-morrow." "You will be running a terrible risk," her mistress reminded her, "if Mr. Vimpany discovers you." "I'll take my chance of that," was the reckless reply. Iris consented. CHAPTER XXXIX THE MYSTERY OF THE HOSPITAL ON the next morning Lord Harry left the cottage, accompanied by the doctor. After a long absence, he returned alone. His wife's worst apprehensions, roused by what Fanny had told her, were more than justified, by the change which she now perceived in him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was haggard, his movements were feeble and slow. He looked like a man exhausted by some internal conflict, which had vibrated between the extremes of anger and alarm. "I'm tired to death," he said; "get me a glass of wine." She waited on him with eager obedience, and watched anxiously for the reviving effect of the stimulant. The little irritabilities which degrade humanity only prolong their mischievous existence, while the surface of life stagnates in calm. Their annihilation follows when strong emotion stirs in the depths, and raises the storm. The estrangement of the day before passed as completely from the minds of the husband and wife--both strongly agitated--as if it had never existed. All-mastering fear was busy at their hearts; fear, in the woman, of the unknown temptation which had tried the man; fear, in the man, of the tell-tale disturbance in him, which might excite the woman's suspicion. Without venturing to look at him, Iris said: "I am afraid you have heard bad news?" Without venturing to look at her, Lord Harry answered: "Yes, at the newspaper office." She knew that he was deceiving her; and he felt that she knew it. For awhile, they were both silent. From time to time, she anxiously stole a look at him. His mind remained absorbed in thought. There they were, in the same room--seated near each other; united by the most intimate of human relationships--and yet how far, how cruelly far, apart! The slowest of all laggard minutes, the minutes which are reckoned by suspense, followed each other tardily and more tardily, before there appeared the first sign of a change. He lifted his drooping head. Sadly, longingly, he looked at her. The unerring instinct of true love encouraged his wife to speak to him. "I wish I could relieve your anxieties," she said simply. "Is there nothing I can do to help you?" "Come here, Iris." She rose and approached him. In the past days of the honeymoon and its sweet familiarities, he had sometimes taken her on his knee. He took her on his knee now, and put his arm round her. "Kiss me," he said. With all her heart she kissed him. He sighed heavily; his eyes rested on her with a trustful appealing look which she had never observed in them before. "Why do you hesitate to confide in me?" she asked. "Dear Harry, do you think I don't see that something troubles you?" "Yes," he said, "there is something that I regret." "What is it?" "Iris," he answered, "I am sorry I asked Vimpany to come back to us." At that unexpected confession, a bright flush of joy and pride overspread his wife's face. Again, the unerring instinct of love guided her to discovery of the truth. The opinion of his wicked friend must have been accidentally justified, at the secret interview of that day, by the friend himself! In tempting her husband, Vimpany had said something which must have shocked and offended him. The result, as she could hardly doubt, had been the restoration of her domestic influence to its helpful freedom of control--whether for the time only it was not in her nature, at that moment of happiness, to inquire. "After what you have just told me," she ventured to say, "I may own that I am glad to see you come home, alone." In that indirect manner, she confessed the hope that friendly intercourse between the two men had come to an end. His reply disappointed her. "Vimpany only remains in Paris," he said, "to present a letter of introduction. He will follow me home." "Soon?" she asked, piteously. "In time for dinner, I suppose." She was still sitting on his knee. His arm pressed her gently when he said his next words, "I hope you will dine with us to-day, Iris?" "Yes--if you wish it." "I wish it very much. Something in me recoils from being alone with Vimpany. Besides, a dinner at home without you is no dinner at all." She thanked him for that little compliment by a look. At the same time, her grateful sense of her husband's kindness was embittered by the prospect of the doctor's return. "Is he likely to dine with us often, now?" she was bold enough to say. "I hope not." Perhaps he was conscious that he might have made a more positive reply. He certainly took refuge in another subject--more agreeable to himself. "My dear, you have expressed the wish to relieve my anxieties," he said; "and you can help me, I think, in that way. I have a letter to write--of some importance, Iris, to your interests as well as to mine--which must go to Ireland by to-day's post. You shall read it, and say if you approve of what I have done. Don't let me be disturbed. This letter, I can tell you, will make a hard demand on my poor brains--I must go and write in my own room." Left alone with the thoughts that now crowded on her mind, Iris found her attention claimed once more by passing events. Fanny Mere arrived, to report herself on her return from Paris. She had so managed her departure from Passy as to precede Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany, and to watch for their arrival in Paris by a later train. They had driven from the railway to the newspaper office---with the maid in attendance on them in another cab. When they separated, the doctor proceeded on foot to the Luxembourg Gardens. Wearing a plain black dress, and protected from close observation by her veil, Fanny followed him, cautiously keeping at a sufficient distance, now on one side of the street and now on the other. When my lord joined his friend, she just held them in view, and no more, as they walked up and down in the barest and loneliest part of the Gardens that they could find. Their talk having come to an end, they parted. Her master was the first who came out into the street; walking at a great rate, and looking most desperately upset. Mr. Vimpany next appeared, sauntering along with his hands in his pockets, grinning as if his own villainous thoughts were thoroughly amusing him. Fanny was now more careful than ever not to lose sight of the doctor. The course which he pursued led them to the famous hospital called the Hotel Dieu. At the entrance she saw him take a letter out of his pocket, and give it to the porter. Soon afterwards, a person appeared who greeted him politely, and conducted him into the building. For more than an hour, Fanny waited to see Mr. Vimpany come out again, and waited in vain. What could he possibly want in a French hospital? And why had he remained in that foreign institution for so long a time? Baffled by these mysteries, and weary after much walking, Fanny made the best of her way home, and consulted her mistress. Even if Iris had been capable of enlightening her, the opportunity was wanting. Lord Harry entered the room, with the letter which he had just written, open in his hand, As a matter of course, the maid retired. CHAPTER XL DIRE NECESSITY THE Irish lord had a word to say to his wife, before he submitted to her the letter which he had just written. He had been summoned to a meeting of proprietors at the office of the newspaper, convened to settle the terms of a new subscription rendered necessary by unforeseen expenses incurred in the interests of the speculation. The vote that followed, after careful preliminary consultation, authorised a claim on the purses of subscribing proprietors, which sadly reduced the sum obtained by Lord Harry's promissory note. Nor was this inconvenience the only trial of endurance to which the Irish lord was compelled to submit. The hope which he had entertained of assistance from the profits of the new journal, when repayment of the loan that he had raised became due, was now plainly revealed as a delusion. Ruin stared him in the face, unless he could command the means of waiting for the pecuniary success of the newspaper, during an interval variously estimated at six months, or even at a year to come. "Our case is desperate enough," he said, "to call for a desperate remedy. Keep up your spirits, Iris--I have written to my brother." Iris looked at him in dismay. "Surely," she said, "you once told me you had written to your brother, and he answered you in the cruellest manner through his lawyers." "Quite true, my dear. But, this time, there is one circumstance in our favour--my brother is going to be married. The lady is said to be an heiress; a charming creature, admired and beloved wherever she goes. There must surely be something to soften the hardest heart in that happy prospect. Read what I have written, and tell me what you think of it." The opinion of the devoted wife encouraged the desperate husband: the letter was dispatched by the post of that day. If boisterous good spirits can make a man agreeable at the dinner-table, then indeed Mr. Vimpany, on his return to the cottage, played the part of a welcome guest. He was inexhaustible in gallant attentions to his friend's wife; he told his most amusing stories in his happiest way; he gaily drank his host's fine white Burgundy, and praised with thorough knowledge of the subject the succulent French dishes; he tried Lord Harry with talk on politics, talk on sport, and (wonderful to relate in these days) talk on literature. The preoccupied Irishman was equally inaccessible on all three subjects. When the dessert was placed on the table--still bent on making himself agreeable to Lady Harry--Mr. Vimpany led the conversation to the subject of floriculture. In the interests of her ladyship's pretty little garden, he advocated a complete change in the system of cultivation, and justified his revolutionary views by misquoting the published work of a great authority on gardening with such polite obstinacy that Iris (eager to confute him) went away to fetch the book. The moment he had entrapped her into leaving the room, the doctor turned to Lord Harry with a sudden change to the imperative mood in look and manner. "What have you been about," he asked, "since we had that talk in the Gardens to-day? Have you looked at your empty purse, and are you wise enough to take my way of filling it?" "As long as there's the ghost of a chance left to me," Lord Harry replied, "I'll take any way of filling my purse but yours." "Does that mean you have found a way?" "Do me a favour, Vimpany. Defer all questions till the end of the week." "And then I shall have your answer?" "Without fail, I promise it. Hush!" Iris returned to the dining-room with her book; and polite Mr. Vimpany owned in the readiest manner that he had been mistaken. The remaining days of the week followed each other wearily. During the interval, Lord Harry's friend carefully preserved the character of a model guest--he gave as little trouble as possible. Every morning after breakfast the doctor went away by the train. Every morning (with similar regularity) he was followed by the resolute Fanny Mere. Pursuing his way through widely different quarters of Paris, he invariably stopped at a public building, invariably presented a letter at the door, and was invariably asked to walk in. Inquiries, patiently persisted in by the English maid, led in each case to the same result. The different public buildings were devoted to the same benevolent purpose. Like the Hotel Dieu, they were all hospitals; and Mr. Vimpany's object in visiting them remained as profound a mystery as ever. Early on the last morning of the week the answer from Lord Harry's brother arrived. Hearing of it, Iris ran eagerly into her husband's room. The letter was already scattered in fragments on the floor. What the tone of the Earl's inhuman answer had been in the past time, that it was again now. Iris put her arms round her husband's neck. "Oh, my poor love, what is to be done?" He answered in one reckless word: "Nothing!" "Is there nobody else who can help us?" she asked. "Ah, well, darling, there's perhaps one other person still left," "Who is the person?" "Who should it be but your own dear self?" She looked at him in undisguised bewilderment: "Only tell me, Harry, what I can do?" "Write to Mountjoy, and ask him to lend me the money." He said it. In those shameless words, he said it. She, who had sacrificed Mountjoy to the man whom she had married, was now asked by that man to use Mountjoy's devotion to her, as a means of paying his debts! Iris drew back from him with a cry of disgust. "You refuse?" he said. "Do you insult me by doubting it?" she answered. He rang the bell furiously, and dashed out of the room. She heard him, on the stairs, ask where Mr. Vimpany was. The servant replied: "In the garden, my lord." Smoking a cigar luxuriously in the fine morning air, the doctor saw his excitable Irish friend hastening out to meet him. "Don't hurry," he said, in full possession of his impudent good-humour; "and don't lose your temper. Will you take my way out of your difficulties, or will you not? Which is it--Yes or No?" "You infernal scoundrel--Yes!" "My dear lord, I congratulate you." "On what, sir?" "On being as great a scoundrel as I am." CHAPTER XLI THE MAN IS FOUND. THE unworthy scheme, by means of which Lord Harry had proposed to extricate himself from his pecuniary responsibilities, had led to serious consequences. It had produced a state of deliberate estrangement between man and wife. Iris secluded herself in her own room. Her husband passed the hours of every day away from the cottage; sometimes in the company of the doctor, sometimes among his friends in Paris. His wife suffered acutely under the self-imposed state of separation, to which wounded pride and keenly felt resentment compelled her to submit. No friend was near her, in whose compassionate advice she might have token refuge. Not even the sympathy of her maid was offered to the lonely wife. With the welfare of Iris as her one end in view, Fanny Mere honestly believed that it would be better and safer for Lady Harry if she and her husband finally decided on living separate lives. The longer my lord persisted in keeping the doctor with him as his guest, the more perilously he was associated with a merciless wretch, who would be capable of plotting the ruin of anyone--man or woman, high person or low person--who might happen to be an obstacle in his way. So far as a person in her situation could venture on taking the liberty, the maid did her best to widen the breach between her master and her mistress. While Fanny was making the attempt to influence Lady Harry, and only producing irritation as the result, Vimpany was exerting stronger powers of persuasion in the effort to prejudice the Irish lord against any proposal for reconciliation which might reach him through his wife. "I find an unforgiving temper in your charming lady," the doctor declared. "It doesn't show itself on the surface, my dear fellow, but there it is. Take a wise advantage of circumstances--say you will raise no inconvenient objections, if she wants a separation by mutual consent. Now don't misunderstand me. I only recommend the sort of separation which will suit our convenience. You know as well as I do that you can whistle your wife back again--" Mr. Vimpany's friend was rude enough to interrupt him, there. "I call that a coarse way of putting it," Lord Harry interposed. "Put it how you like for yourself," the doctor rejoined. "Lady Harry may be persuaded to come back to you, when we want her for our grand project. In the meantime (for I am always a considerate man where women are concerned) we act delicately towards my lady, in sparing her the discovery of--what shall I call our coming enterprise?--venturesome villainy, which might ruin you in your wife's estimation. Do you see our situation now, as it really is? Very well. Pass the bottle, and drop the subject for the present." The next morning brought with it an event, which demolished the doctor's ingenious arrangement for the dismissal of Iris from the scene of action. Lord and Lady Harry encountered each other accidentally on the stairs. Distrusting herself if she ventured to look at him, Iris turned her eyes away from her husband. He misinterpreted the action as an expression of contempt. Anger at once inclined him to follow Mr. Vimpany's advice. He opened the door of the dining-room, empty at that moment, and told Iris that he wished to speak with her. What his villainous friend had suggested that he should say, on the subject of a separation, he now repeated with a repellent firmness which he was far from really feeling. The acting was bad, but the effect was produced. For the first time, his wife spoke to him. "Do you really mean it?" she asked, The tone in which she said those words, sadly and regretfully telling its tale of uncontrollable surprise; the tender remembrance of past happy days in her eyes; the quivering pain, expressive of wounded love, that parted her lips in the effort to breathe freely, touched his heart, try as he might in the wretched pride of the moment to conceal it. He was silent. "If you are weary of our married life," she continued, "say so, and let us part. I will go away, without entreaties and without reproaches. Whatever pain I may feel, you shall not see it!" A passing flush crossed her face, and left it pale again. She trembled under the consciousness of returning love--the blind love that had so cruelly misled her! At a moment when she most needed firmness, her heart was sinking; she resisted, struggled, recovered herself. Quietly, and even firmly, she claimed his decision. "Does your silence mean," she asked, "that you wish me to leave you?" No man who had loved her as tenderly as her husband had loved her, could have resisted that touching self-control. He answered his wife without uttering a word--he held out his arms to her. The fatal reconciliation was accomplished in silence. At dinner on that day Mr. Vimpany's bold eyes saw a new sight, and Mr. Vimpany's rascally lips indulged in an impudent smile. My lady appeared again in her place at the dinner-table. At the customary time, the two men were left alone over their wine. The reckless Irish lord, rejoicing in the recovery of his wife's tender regard, drank freely. Understanding and despising him, the doctor's devilish gaiety indulged in facetious reminiscences of his own married life. "If I could claim a sovereign," he said, "for every quarrel between Mrs. Vimpany and myself, I put it at a low average when I declare that I should be worth a thousand pounds. How does your lordship stand in that matter? Shall we say a dozen breaches of the marriage agreement up to the present time?" "Say two--and no more to come!" his friend answered cheerfully. "No more to come!" the doctor repeated. "My experience says plenty more to come; I never saw two people less likely to submit to a peaceable married life than you and my lady. Ha! you laugh at that? It's a habit of mine to back my opinion. I'll bet you a dozen of champagne there will be a quarrel which parts you two, for good and all, before the year is out. Do you take the bet?" "Done!" cried Lord Harry. "I propose my wife's good health, Vimpany, in a bumper. She shall drink confusion to all false prophets in the first glass of your champagne!" The post of the next morning brought with it two letters. One of them bore the postmark of London, and was addressed to Lady Harry Norland. It was written by Mrs. Vimpany, and it contained a few lines added by Hugh Mountjoy. "My strength is slow in returning to me" (he wrote); "but my kind and devoted nurse says that all danger of infection is at an end. You may write again to your old friend if Lord Harry sees no objection, as harmlessly as in the happy past time. My weak hand begins to tremble already. How glad I shall be to hear from you, it is, happily for me, quite needless to add." In her delight at receiving this good news Iris impulsively assumed that her husband would give it a kindly welcome on his side; she insisted on reading the letter to him. He said coldly, "I am glad to hear of Mr. Mountjoy's recovery"--and took up the newspaper. Was this unworthy jealousy still strong enough to master him, even at that moment? His wife had forgotten it. Why had he not forgotten it too? On the same day Iris replied to Hugh, with the confidence and affection of the bygone time before her marriage. After closing and addressing the envelope, she found that her small store of postage stamps was exhausted, and sent for her maid. Mr. Vimpany happened to pass the open door of her room, while she was asking for a stamp; he heard Fanny say that she was not able to accommodate her mistress. "Allow me to make myself useful," the polite doctor suggested. He produced a stamp, and fixed it himself on the envelope. When he had proceeded on his way downstairs, Fanny's distrust of him insisted on expressing itself. "He wanted to find out what person you have written to," she said. "Let me make your letter safe in the post." In five minutes more it was in the box at the office. While these trifling events were in course of progress, Mr. Vimpany had gone into the garden to read the second of the two letters, delivered that morning, addressed to himself. On her return from the post-office, Fanny had opportunities of observing him while she was in the greenhouse, trying to revive the perishing flowers--neglected in the past days of domestic trouble. Noticing her, after he had read his letter over for the second time, Mr. Vimpany sent the maid into the cottage to say that he wished to speak with her master. Lord Harry joined him in the garden--looked at the letter--and, handing it back, turned away. The doctor followed him, and said something which seemed to be received with objection. Mr. Vimpany persisted nevertheless, and apparently carried his point. The two gentlemen consulted the railway time-table, and hurried away together, to catch the train to Paris. Fanny Mere returned to the conservatory, and absently resumed her employment among the flowers. On what evil errand had the doctor left the cottage? And, why, on this occasion, had he taken the master with him? The time had been when Fanny might have tried to set these questions at rest by boldly following the two gentlemen to Paris; trusting to her veil, to her luck, and to the choice of a separate carriage in the train, to escape notice. But, although her ill-judged interference with the domestic affairs of Lady Harry had been forgiven, she had not been received again into favour unreservedly. Conditions were imposed, which forbade her to express any opinion on her master's conduct, and which imperatively ordered her to leave the protection of her mistress--if protection was really needed--in his lordship's competent hands. "I gratefully appreciate your kind intentions," Iris had said, with her customary tenderness of regard for the feelings of others; "but I never wish to hear again of Mr. Vimpany, or of the strange suspicions which he seems to excite in your mind." Still as gratefully devoted to Iris as ever, Fanny viewed the change in my lady's way of thinking as one of the deplorable results of her return to her husband, and waited resignedly for the coming time when her wise distrust of two unscrupulous men would be justified. Condemned to inaction for the present, Lady Harry's maid walked irritably up and down the conservatory, forgetting the flowers. Through the open back door of the cottage the cheap clock in the hall poured its harsh little volume of sound, striking the hour. "I wonder," she said to herself, "if those two wicked ones have found their way to a hospital yet?" That guess happened to have hit the mark. The two wicked ones were really approaching a hospital, well known to the doctor by more previous visits than one. At the door they were met by a French physician, attached to the institution--the writer of the letter which had reached Mr. Vimpany in the morning. This gentleman led the way to the official department of the hospital, and introduced the two foreigners to the French authorities assembled for the transaction of business. As a medical man, Mr. Vimpany's claims to general respect and confidence were carefully presented. He was a member of the English College of Surgeons; he was the friend, as well as the colleague of the famous President of that College, who had introduced him to the chief surgeon of the Hotel Dieu. Other introductions to illustrious medical persons in Paris had naturally followed. Presented under these advantages, Mr. Vimpany announced his discovery of a new system of treatment in diseases of the lungs. Having received his medical education in Paris, he felt bound in gratitude to place himself under the protection of "the princes of science," resident in the brilliant capital of France. In that hospital, after much fruitless investigation in similar institutions, he had found a patient suffering from the form of lung disease, which offered to him the opportunity that he wanted. It was impossible that he could do justice to his new system, unless the circumstances were especially favourable. Air more pure than the air of a great city, and bed-room accommodation not shared by other sick persons, were among the conditions absolutely necessary to the success of the experiment. These, and other advantages, were freely offered to him by his noble friend, who would enter into any explanations which the authorities then present might think it necessary to demand. The explanations having been offered and approved, there was a general move to the bed occupied by the invalid who was an object of professional interest to the English doctor. The patient's name was Oxbye. He was a native of Denmark, and had followed in his own country the vocation of a schoolmaster. His knowledge of the English language and the French had offered him the opportunity of migrating to Paris, where he had obtained employment as translator and copyist. Earning his bread, poorly enough in this way, he had been prostrated by the malady which had obliged him to take refuge in the hospital. The French physician, under whose medical care he had been placed, having announced that he had communicated his notes enclosed in a letter to his English colleague, and having frankly acknowledged that the result of the treatment had not as yet sufficiently justified expectation, the officers of the institution spoke next. The Dane was informed of the nature of Mr. Vimpany's interest in him, and of the hospitable assistance offered by Mr. Vimpany's benevolent friend; and the question was then put, whether he preferred to remain where he was, or whether he desired to be removed under the conditions which had just been stated? Tempted by the prospect of a change, which offered to him a bed-chamber of his own in the house of a person of distinction--with a garden to walk about in, and flowers to gladden his eyes, when he got better--Oxbye eagerly adopted the alternative of leaving the hospital. "Pray let me go," the poor fellow said: "I am sure I shall be the better for it." Without opposing this decision, the responsible directors reminded him that it had been adopted on impulse, and decided that it was their duty to give him a little time for consideration. In the meanwhile, some of the gentlemen assembled at the bedside, looking at Oxbye and then looking at Lord Harry, had observed a certain accidental likeness between the patient and "Milord, the philanthropist," who was willing to receive him. The restraints of politeness had only permitted them to speak of this curious discovery among themselves. At the later time, however, when the gentlemen had taken leave of each other, Mr. Vimpany--finding himself alone with Lord Harry--had no hesitation in introducing the subject, on which delicacy had prevented the Frenchmen from entering. "Did you look at the Dane?" he began abruptly. "Of course I did!" "And you noticed the likeness?" "Not I!" The doctor's uproarious laughter startled the people who were walking near them in the street. "Here's another proof," he burst out, "of the true saying that no man knows himself. You don't deny the likeness, I suppose?" "Do you yourself see it?" Lord Harry asked. Mr. Vimpany answered the question scornfully: "Is it likely that I should have submitted to all the trouble I have taken to get possession of that man, if I had not seen a likeness between his face and yours?" The Irish lord said no more. When his friend asked why he was silent, he gave his reason sharply enough: "I don't like the subject." CHAPTER XLII THE METTLESOME MAID ON the evening of that day Fanny Mere, entering the dining-room with the coffee, found Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany alone, and discovered (as soon as she opened the door) that they changed the language in which they were talking from English to French. She continued to linger in the room, apparently occupied in setting the various objects on the sideboard in order. Her master was speaking at the time; he asked if the doctor had succeeded in finding a bed-room for himself in the neighbourhood. To this Mr. Vimpany replied that he had got the bed-room. Also, that he had provided himself with something else, which it was equally important to have at his disposal. "I mean," he proceeded, in his bad French, "that I have found a photographic apparatus on hire. We are ready now for the appearance of our interesting Danish guest." "And when the man comes," Lord Harry added, "what am I to say to my wife? How am I to find an excuse, when she hears of a hospital patient who has taken possession of your bed-room at the cottage--and has done it with my permission, and with you to attend on him?" The doctor sipped his coffee. "We have told a story that has satisfied the authorities," he said coolly. "Repeat the story to your wife." "She won't believe it," Lord Harry replied. Mr. Vimpany waited until he had lit another cigar, and had quite satisfied himself that it was worth smoking. "You have yourself to thank for that obstacle," he resumed. "If you had taken my advice, your wife would have been out of our way by this time. I suppose I must manage it. If you fail, leave her ladyship to me. In the meanwhile, there's a matter of more importance to settle first. We shall want a nurse for our poor dear invalid. Where are we to find her?" As he stated that difficulty, he finished his coffee, and looked about him for the bottle of brandy which always stood on the dinner-table. In doing this, he happened to notice Fanny. Convinced that her mistress was in danger, after what she had already heard, the maid's anxiety and alarm had so completely absorbed her that she had forgotten to play her part. Instead of still busying herself at the sideboard, she stood with her back to it, palpably listening. Cunning Mr. Vimpany, possessing himself of the brandy, made a request too entirely appropriate to excite suspicion. "Some fresh cold water, if you please," was all that he said. The moment that Fanny left the room, the doctor addressed his friend in English, with his eye on the door: "News for you, my boy! We are in a pretty pickle--Lady Harry's maid understands French." "Quite impossible," Lord Harry declared. "We will put that to the test," Mr. Vimpany answered. "Watch her when she comes in again." "What are you going to do." "I am going to insult her in French. Observe the result." In another minute Fanny returned with the fresh water. As she placed the glass jug before Mr. Vimpany he suddenly laid his hand on her arm and looked her straight in the face. "Vous nous avez mis dedans, drolesse!"* he said. *In English: "You have taken us in, you jade!" An uncontrollable look of mingled rage and fear made its plain confession in Fanny's face. She had been discovered; she had heard herself called "drolesse;" she stood before the two men self-condemned. Her angry master threatened her with instant dismissal from the house. The doctor interfered. "No, no," he said; "you mustn't deprive Lady Harry, at a moment's notice, of her maid. Such a clever maid, too," he added with his rascally smile. "An accomplished person, who understands French, and is too modest to own it!" The doctor had led Fanny through many a weary and unrewarded walk when she had followed him to the hospitals; he had now inflicted a deliberate insult by calling her "drolesse" and he had completed the sum of his offences by talking contemptuously of her modesty and her mastery of the French language. The woman's detestation of him, which under ordinary circumstances she might have attempted to conceal, was urged into audaciously asserting itself by the strong excitement that now possessed her. Driven to bay, Fanny had made up her mind to discover the conspiracy of which Mr. Vimpany was the animating spirit, by a method daring enough to be worthy of the doctor himself. "My knowledge of French has told me something," she said. "I have just heard, Mr. Vimpany, that you want a nurse for your invalid gentleman. With my lord's permission, suppose you try Me?" Fanny's audacity was more than her master's patience could endure. He ordered her to leave the room. The peace-making doctor interfered again: "My dear lord, let me beg you will not be too hard on the young woman." He turned to Fanny, with an effort to look indulgent, which ended in the reappearance of his rascally smile. "Thank you, my dear, for your proposal," he said; "I will let you know if we accept it, to-morrow." Fanny's unforgiving master pointed to the door; she thanked Mr. Vimpany, and went out. Lord Harry eyed his friend in angry amazement. "Are you mad?" he asked. "Tell me something first," the doctor rejoined. "Is there any English blood in your family?" Lord Harry answered with a burst of patriotic feeling: "I regret to say my family is adulterated in that manner. My grandmother was an Englishwoman." Mr. Vimpany received this extract from the page of family history with a coolness all his own. "It's a relief to hear that," he said. "You may be capable (by the grandmother's side) of swallowing a dose of sound English sense. I can but try, at any rate. That woman is too bold and too clever to be treated like an ordinary servant--I incline to believe that she is a spy in the employment of your wife. Whether I am right or wrong in this latter case, the one way I can see of paring the cat's claws is to turn her into a nurse. Do you find me mad now?" "Madder than ever!" "Ah, you don't take after your grandmother! Now listen to me. Do we run the smallest risk, if Fanny finds it her interest to betray us? Suppose we ask ourselves what she has really found out. She knows we have got a sick man from a hospital coming here--does she know what we want him for? Not she! Neither you nor I said a word on that subject. But she also heard us agree that your wife was in our way. What does that matter? Did she hear us say what it is that we don't want your wife to discover? Not she, I tell you again! Very well, then--if Fanny acts as Oxbye's nurse, shy as the young woman may be, she innocently associates herself with the end that we have to gain by the Danish gentleman's death! Oh, you needn't look alarmed! I mean his natural death by lung disease--no crime, my noble friend! no crime!" The Irish lord, sitting near the doctor, drew his chair back in a hurry. "If there's English blood in my family," he declared, "I'll tell you what, Vimpany, there's devil's blood in yours!" "Anything you like but Irish blood," the cool scoundrel rejoined. As he made that insolent reply, Fanny came in again, with a sufficient excuse for her reappearance. She announced that a person from the hospital wished to speak to the English doctor. The messenger proved to be a young man employed in the secretary's office. Oxbye still persisting in his desire to be placed under Mr. Vimpany's care; one last responsibility rested on the official gentlemen now in charge of him. They could implicitly trust the medical assistance and the gracious hospitality offered to the poor Danish patient; but, before he left them, they must also be satisfied that he would be attended by a competent nurse. If the person whom Mr. Vimpany proposed to employ in this capacity could be brought to the hospital, it would be esteemed a favour; and, if her account of herself satisfied the physician in charge of Oxbye's case, the Dane might be removed to his new quarters on the same day. The next morning witnessed the first in a series of domestic incidents at the cottage, which no prophetic ingenuity could have foreseen. Mr. Vimpany and Fanny Mere actually left Passy together, on their way to Paris! CHAPTER XLIII FICTION: ATTEMPTED BY MY LORD THE day on which the doctor took his newly-appointed nurse with him to the hospital became an occasion associated with distressing recollections in the memory of Iris. In the morning, Fanny Mere had asked for leave to go out. For some time past this request had been so frequently granted, with such poor results so far as the maid's own designs were concerned, that Lady Harry decided on administering a tacit reproof, by means of a refusal. Fanny made no attempt at remonstrance; she left the room in silence. Half an hour later, Iris had occasion to ring for her attendant. The bell was answered by the cook--who announced, in explanation of her appearance, that Fanny Mere had gone out. More distressed than displeased by this reckless disregard of her authority, on the part of a woman who had hitherto expressed the most grateful sense of her kindness, Iris only said: "Send Fanny to me as soon as she comes back." Two hours passed before the truant maid returned. "I refused to let you go out this morning," Lady Harry said; "and you have taken the liberty of leaving the house for two hours. You might have made me understand, in a more becoming manner, that you intended to leave my service." Steadily respectful, Fanny answered: "I don't wish to leave your ladyship's service." "Then what does your conduct mean?" "It means, if you please, that I had a duty to do--and did it." "A duty to yourself?" Iris asked. "No, my lady; a duty to you." As she made that strange reply the door was opened, and Lord Harry entered the room. When he saw Fanny Mere he turned away again, in a hurry, to go out. "I didn't know your maid was with you," he said. "Another time will do." His permitting a servant to be an obstacle in his way, when he wished to speak to his wife, was a concession so entirely unbecoming in the master of the house, and so strangely contrary to his customary sense of what was due to himself, that Iris called him back in astonishment. She looked at her maid, who at once understood her, and withdrew. "What can you possibly be thinking of?" she said to her husband, when they were alone. Putting that question, she noticed an embarrassment in his manner, and an appearance of confusion in his face, which alarmed her. "Has something happened?" she asked; "and is it so serious that you hesitate to mention it to me?" He sat down by her and took her hand. The loving look in his eyes, which she knew so well, was not in them now; they expressed doubt, and something with it which suggested an effort at conciliation. "I am fearing I shall surprise you," he said. "Don't keep me in suspense!" she returned. "What is it?" He smiled uneasily: "It's something about Vimpany." Having got as far as that, he stopped. She drew her hand away from him. "I understand now," she said; "I must endeavour to control myself--you have something to tell me which will try my temper." He held up his hands in humorous protest: "Ah, my darling, here's your vivid imagination again, making mountains out of molehills, as they say! It's nothing half so serious as you seem to think; I have only to tell you of a little change." "A little change?" she repeated. "What change?" "Well, my dear, you see--" He hesitated and recovered himself. "I mean, you must know that Vimpany's plans are altered. He won't any longer occupy his bedroom in the cottage here." Iris looked inexpressibly relieved. "Going away, at last!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Harry, if you have been mystifying me, I hope you will never do it again. It isn't like you; it's cruel to alarm me about nothing. Mr. Vimpany's empty bedroom will be the most interesting room in the house, when I look into it to-night." Lord Harry got up, and walked to the window. As a sign of trouble in his mind, and of an instinctive effort to relieve it, the object of this movement was well-known to Iris. She followed him and stood by his side. It was now plain to her that there was something more to be told--and that he was hesitating how to confide it to his wife. "Go on," she said resignedly. He had expected her to take his arm, or perhaps to caress him, or at least to encourage him by her gentlest words and her prettiest smiles. The steady self-restraint which she now manifested was a sign, as he interpreted it, of suppressed resentment. Shrinking, honestly shrinking, from the bare possibility of another quarrel, he confronted the hard necessities of further confession. "Well, now," he said, "it's only this--you mustn't look into the empty bedroom to-night." "Why not?" "Ah, for the best of all good reasons! Because you might find somebody in there." This reply excited her curiosity: her eyes rested on him eagerly. "Some friend of yours?" she asked. He persisted in an assumption of good-humour, which betrayed itself as mere artifice in the clumsiest manner: "I declare I feel as if I were in a court of justice, being cross-examined by a lawyer of skill and dexterity! Well, my sweet counsellor, no--not exactly a friend of mine." She reflected for a moment. "You don't surely mean one of Mr. Vimpany's friends?" she said. He pretended not to have heard her, and pointed to the view of the garden from the window. "Isn't it a lovely day? Let's go and look at the flowers," he suggested. "Did you not hear what I said to you just now?" she persisted. "I beg your pardon, dear; I was thinking of something else. Suppose we go into the garden?" When women have a point to gain in which they are interested, how many of them are capable of deferring it to a better opportunity? One in a thousand, perhaps. Iris kept her place at the window, resolved on getting an answer. "I asked you, Harry, whether the person who is to occupy our spare bedroom, to-night, was one of Mr. Vimpany's friends?" "Say one of Mr. Vimpany's patients--and you will be nearer the truth," he answered, with an outburst of impatience. She could hardly believe him. "Do you mean a person who is really ill?" she said. "Of course I mean it," he said; irritated into speaking out, at last. "A man? or a woman?" "A man." "May I ask if he comes from England?" "He comes from one of the French hospitals. Anything more?" Iris left her husband to recover his good-humour, and went back to her chair. The extraordinary disclosure which she had extracted from him had produced a stupefying effect on her mind. Her customary sympathy with him, her subtle womanly observation of his character, her intimate knowledge of his merits and his defects, failed to find the rational motive which might have explained his conduct. She looked round at him with mingled feelings of perplexity and distrust. He was still at the window, but he had turned his back on the view of the garden; his eyes were fixed, in furtive expectation, on his wife. Was he waiting to hear her say something more? She ran the risk and said it. "I don't quite understand the sacrifice you seem to be making to Mr. Vimpany," she confessed. "Will you tell me, dear, what it means?" Here was the opportunity offered of following the doctor's advice, and putting his wife's credulity to the test. With her knowledge of Vimpany, would she really believe the story which had imposed on the strangers who managed the hospital? Lord Harry made up his mind, to try the experiment. No matter what the result might be, it would bring the responsibilities that were crushing him to an end. He need say no more, if the deception succeeded. He could do no more, if it failed. Under the influence of this cheering reflection, he recovered his temper; his handsome face brightened again with its genial boyish smile. "What a wonderful woman you are!" he cried. "Isn't it just the thing that I am here for, to tell you what I mean--and my clever wife sees through and through me, and reminds me of what I must do! Pay my fee beforehand, Iris! Give me a kiss--and my poor meaning shall be offered in return. It will help me if you remember one thing. Vimpany and I are old friends, and there's nothing we won't do to accommodate each other. Mind that!" Tried fairly on its own merits, the stupid fiction invented by the doctor produced an effect for which Lord Harry was not prepared. The longer Iris listened, the more strangely Iris looked at him. Not a word fell from her lips when he had done. He noticed that she had turned pale: it seemed to be almost possible that he had frightened her! If his bird-witted brains could have coupled cause and effect, this was exactly the result which he might have anticipated. She was asked to believe that a new system of medical practice had been invented by such a person as Mr. Vimpany. She was asked to believe that an invalid from a foreign hospital, who was a perfect stranger to Lord Harry, had been willingly made welcome to a bedroom at the cottage. She was asked to believe that this astounding concession had been offered to the doctor as a tribute of friendship, after her husband had himself told her that he regretted having invited Vimpany, for the second time, to become his guest. Here was one improbable circumstance accumulated on another, and a clever woman was expected to accept the monstrous excuses, thus produced, as a trustworthy statement of facts. Irresistibly, the dread of some evil deed in secret contemplation cast its darkening presence on the wife's mind. Lord Harry's observation had not misled him, when he saw Iris turn pale, and when the doubt was forced on him whether he might not have frightened her. "If my explanation of this little matter has satisfied you," he ventured to resume, "we need say no more about it." "I agree with you," she answered, "let us say no more about it." Conscious, in spite of the effort to resist it, of a feeling of oppression while she was in the same room with a man who had deliberately lied to her, and that man her husband, she reminded Lord Harry that he had proposed to take a walk in the garden. Out in the pure air, under the bright sky, she might breathe more freely. "Come to the flowers," she said. They went to the garden together--the wife fearing the deceitful husband, the husband fearing the quick-witted wife. Watching each other like two strangers, they walked silently side by side, and looked now and then at the collection of flowers and plants. Iris noticed a delicate fern which had fallen away from the support to which it had been attached. She stopped, and occupied herself in restoring it to its place. When she looked round again, after attending to the plant, her husband had disappeared, and Mr. Vimpany was waiting in his place. CHAPTER XLIV FICTION: IMPROVED BY THE DOCTOR "WHERE is Lord Harry?" Iris asked. The reply startled her: "Lord Harry leaves me to say to your ladyship, what he has not had resolution enough to say for himself." "I don't understand you, Mr. Vimpany." The doctor pointed to the fern which had just been the object of Lady Harry's care. "You have been helping that sickly plant there to live and thrive," he said, "and I have felt some curiosity in watching you. There is another sickly plant, which I have undertaken to rear if the thing can be done. My gardening is of the medical kind--I can only carry it on indoors--and whatever else it may be, I tell you plainly, like the outspoken sort of fellow I am, it's not likely to prove agreeable to a lady. No offence, I hope? Your humble servant is only trying to produce the right sort of impression--and takes leave to doubt his lordship in one particular." "In what particular, sir?" "I'll put it in the form of a question, ma'am. Has my friend persuaded you to make arrangements for leaving the cottage?" Iris looked at Lord Harry's friend without attempting to conceal her opinion of him. "I call that an impertinent question," she said. "By what right do you presume to inquire into what my husband and I may, or may not, have said to each other?" "Will you do me a favour, my lady? Or, if that is asking too much, perhaps you will not object to do justice to yourself. Suppose you try to exercise the virtue of self-control? "Quite needless, Mr. Vimpany. Pray understand that you are not capable of making me angry." "Many thanks, Lady Harry: you encourage me to go on. When I was bold enough to speak of your leaving the cottage, my motive was to prevent you from being needlessly alarmed." Did this mean that he was about to take her into his confidence? All her experience of him forbade her to believe it possible. But the doubts and fears occasioned by her interview with her husband had mastered her better sense; and the effort to conceal from the doctor the anxiety under which she suffered was steadily weakening the influence of her self-respect. "Why should I be alarmed?" she asked, in the vain hope of encouraging him to tell the truth. The doctor arrived at a hasty conclusion, on his side. Believing that he had shaken her resolution, he no longer troubled himself to assume the forms of politeness which he had hitherto, with some difficulty, contrived to observe. "In this curious little world of ours," he resumed, "we enjoy our lives on infernally hard terms. We live on condition that we die. The man I want to cure may die, in spite of the best I can do for him---he may sink slowly, by what we medical men call a hard death. For example, it wouldn't much surprise me if I found some difficulty in keeping him in his bed. He might roam all over your cottage when my back was turned. Or he might pay the debt of Nature--as somebody calls it--with screaming and swearing. If you were within hearing of him, I'm afraid you might be terrified, and, with the best wish to be useful, I couldn't guarantee (if the worst happened) to keep him quiet. In your place, if you will allow me to advise you--" Iris interrupted him. Instead of confessing the truth, he was impudently attempting to frighten her. "I don't allow a person in whom I have no confidence to advise me," she said; "I wish to hear no more." Mr. Vimpany found it desirable to resume the forms of politeness. Either he had failed to shake her resolution, or she was sufficiently in possession of herself to conceal what she felt. "One last word!" he said. "I won't presume to advise your ladyship; I will merely offer a suggestion. My lord tells me that Hugh Mountjoy is on the way to recovery. You are in communication with him by letter, as I happened to notice when I did you that trifling service of providing a postage-stamp. Why not go to London and cheer your convalescent friend? Harry won't mind it--I beg your pardon, I ought to have said Lord Harry. Come! come! my dear lady; I am a rough fellow, but I mean well. Take a holiday, and come back to us when my lord writes to say that he can have the pleasure of receiving you again." He waited for a moment. "Am I not to be favoured with an answer?" he asked. "My husband shall answer you." With those parting words, Iris turned her back on him. She entered the cottage. Now in one room, and now in another, she searched for Lord Harry; he was nowhere to be found. Had he purposely gone out to avoid her? Her own remembrance of Vimpany's language and Vimpany's manner told her that so it must be--the two men were in league together. Of all dangers, unknown danger is the most terrible to contemplate. Lady Harry's last resources of resolution failed her. She dropped helplessly into a chair. After an interval--whether it was a long or a short lapse of time she was unable to decide--someone gently opened the door. Had her husband felt for her? Had he returned? "Come in! she cried eagerly--" come in! CHAPTER XLV FACT: RELATED BY FANNY THE person who now entered the room was Fanny Mere. But one interest was stirring in the mind of Iris now. "Do you know where your master is?" she asked. "I saw him go out," the maid replied. "Which way I didn't particularly notice--" She was on the point of adding, "and I didn't particularly care," when she checked herself. "Yesterday and to-day, my lady, things have come to my knowledge which I must not keep to myself," the resolute woman continued. "If a servant may say such a thing without offence, I have never been so truly my mistress's friend as I am now. I beg you to forgive my boldness; there is a reason for it." So she spoke, with no presumption in her looks, with no familiarity in her manner. The eyes of her friendless mistress filled with tears, the offered hand of her friendless mistress answered in silence. Fanny took that kind hand, and pressed it respectfully--a more demonstrative woman than herself might perhaps have kissed it. She only said, "Thank you, my lady," and went on with what she felt it her duty to relate. As carefully as usual, as quietly as usual, she repeated the conversation, at Lord Harry's table; describing also the manner in which Mr. Vimpany had discovered her as a person who understood the French language, and who had cunningly kept it a secret. In this serious state of things, the doctor--yes, the doctor himself!--had interfered to protect her from the anger of her master, and, more wonderful still, for a reason which it seemed impossible to dispute. He wanted a nurse for the foreigner whose arrival was expected on that evening, and he had offered the place to Fanny. "Your ladyship will, I hope, excuse me; I have taken the place." This amazing end to the strange events which had just been narrated proved to be more than Iris was immediately capable of understanding. "I am in the dark," she confessed. "Is Mr. Vimpany a bolder villain even than I have supposed him to be?" "That he most certainly is!" Fanny said with strong conviction. "As to what he really had in his wicked head when he engaged me, I shall find that out in time. Anyway, I am the nurse who is to help him. When I disobeyed you this morning, my lady, it was to go to the hospital with Mr. Vimpany. I was taken to see the person whose nurse I am to be. A poor, feeble, polite creature, who looked as if he couldn't hurt a fly---and yet I promise you he startled me! I saw a likeness, the moment I looked at him." "A likeness to anybody whom I know?" Iris asked. "To the person in all the world, my lady, whom you know most nearly--a likeness to my master." "What!" "Oh, it's no fancy; I am sure of what I say. To my mind, that Danish man's likeness to my lord is (if you will excuse my language) a nasty circumstance. I don't know why or wherefore--all I can say is, I don't like it; and I shan't rest until I have found out what it means. Besides this, my lady, I must know the reason why they want to get you out of their way. Please to keep up your heart; I shall warn you in time, when I am sure of the danger." Iris refused to sanction the risk involved in this desperate design. "It's _you_ who will be in danger!" she exclaimed. In her coolest state of obstinacy, Fanny answered: "That's in your ladyship's service--and that doesn't reckon." Feeling gratefully this simple and sincere expression of attachment, Iris held to her own opinion, nevertheless. "You are in my service," she said; "I won't let you go to Mr. Vimpany. Give it up, Fanny! Give it up!" "I'll give it up, my lady, when I know what the doctor means to do--not before." The assertion of authority having failed, Iris tried persuasion next. "As your mistress, it is my duty to set you an example," she resumed. "One of us must be considerate and gentle in a dispute--let me try to be that one. There can be no harm, and there may be some good, in consulting the opinion of a friend; some person in whose discretion we can trust." "Am I acquainted with the person your ladyship is thinking of?" Fanny inquired. "In that case, a friend will know what we want of her by to-morrow morning. I have written to Mrs. Vimpany." "The very person I had in my mind, Fanny! When may we expect to hear from her?" "If Mrs. Vimpany can put what she has to say to us into few words," Fanny replied, "we shall hear from her to-morrow by telegraph." As she answered her mistress in those cheering words, they were startled by a heavy knock at the door of the room. Under similar circumstances, Lord Harry's delicate hand would have been just loud enough to be heard, and no more. Iris called out suspiciously: "Who's there?" The doctor's gross voice answered: "Can I say a word, if you please, to Fanny Mere?" The maid opened the door. Mr. Vimpany's heavy hand laid bold of her arm, pulled her over the threshold, and closed the door behind her. After a brief absence, Fanny returned with news of my lord. A commissioner had arrived with a message for the doctor; and Fanny was charged to repeat it or not, just as she thought right under the circumstances. Lord Harry was in Paris. He had been invited to go to the theatre with some friends, and to return with them to supper. If he was late in getting home, he was anxious that my lady should not be made uneasy. After having authorised Mr. Vimpany's interference in the garden, the husband evidently had his motives for avoiding another interview with the wife. Iris was left alone, to think over that discovery. Fanny had received orders to prepare the bedroom for the doctor's patient. CHAPTER XLVI MAN AND WIFE TOWARDS evening, the Dane was brought to the cottage. A feeling of pride which forbade any display of curiosity, strengthened perhaps by an irresistible horror of Vimpany, kept Iris in her room. Nothing but the sound of footsteps, outside, told her when the suffering man was taken to his bed-chamber on the same floor. She was, afterwards informed by Fanny that the doctor turned down the lamp in the corridor, before the patient was helped to ascend the stairs, as a means of preventing the mistress of the house from plainly seeing the stranger's face, and recognising the living likeness of her husband. The hours advanced--the bustle of domestic life sank into silence--everybody but Iris rested quietly in bed. Through the wakeful night the sense of her situation oppressed her sinking spirits. Mysteries that vaguely threatened danger made their presence felt, and took their dark way through her thoughts. The cottage, in which the first happy days of her marriage had been passed, might ere long be the scene of some evil deed, provoking the lifelong separation of her husband and herself! Were these the exaggerated fears of a woman in a state of hysterical suspicion? It was enough for Iris to remember that Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany had been alike incapable of telling her the truth. The first had tried to deceive her; the second had done his best to frighten her. Why? If there was really nothing to be afraid of--why? The hours of the early morning came; and still she listened in vain for the sound of my lord's footstep on the stairs; still she failed to hear the cautious opening of his dressing-room door. Leaving her chair, Iris rested on the bed. As time advanced, exhaustion mastered her; she slept. Awakening at a late hour, she rang for Fanny Mere. The master had just returned. He had missed the latest night-train to Passy; and, rather than waste money on hiring a carriage at that hour, he had accepted the offer of a bed at the house of his friends. He was then below stairs, hoping to see Lady Harry at breakfast. His wife joined him. Not even at the time of the honeymoon had the Irish lord been a more irresistibly agreeable man than he was on that memorable morning. His apologies for having failed to return at the right time were little masterpieces of grace and gaiety. The next best thing to having been present, at the theatrical performance of the previous night, was to hear his satirical summary of the story of the play, contrasting delightfully with his critical approval of the fine art of the actors. The time had been when Iris would have resented such merciless trifling with serious interests as this. In these earlier and better days, she would have reminded him affectionately of her claim to be received into his confidence--she would have tried all that tact and gentleness and patience could do to win his confession of the ascendency exercised over him by his vile friend--and she would have used the utmost influence of her love and her resolution to disunite the fatal fellowship which was leading him to his ruin. But Iris Henley was Lady Harry now. She was sinking--as Mrs. Vimpany had feared, as Mountjoy had foreseen--lower and lower on the descent to her husband's level. With a false appearance of interest in what he was saying she waited for her chance of matching him with his own weapons of audacious deceit. He ignorantly offered her the opportunity--setting the same snare to catch his wife, which she herself had it in contemplation to use for entrapping her husband into a confession of the truth. "Ah, well--I have said more than enough of my last night's amusement," he confessed. "It's your turn now, my dear. Have you had a look at the poor fellow whom the doctor is going to cure?" he asked abruptly; eager to discover whether she had noticed the likeness between Oxbye and himself. Her eyes rested on him attentively. "I have not yet seen the person you allude to," she answered. "Is Mr. Vimpany hopeful of his recovery?" He took out his case, and busied himself in choosing a cigar. In the course of his adventurous life, he had gained some knowledge of the effect of his own impetuous temper on others, and of difficulties which he had experienced when circumstances rendered it necessary to keep his face in a state of discipline. "Oh, there's no reason for anxiety!" he said, with an over-acted interest in examining his cigar. "Mr. Oxbye is in good hands." "People do sometimes sink under an illness," she quietly remarked. Without making any reply he took out his matchbox. His hand trembled a little; he failed at the first attempt to strike a light. "And doctors sometimes make mistakes," Iris went on. He was still silent. At the second attempt, he succeeded with the match, and lit his cigar. "Suppose Mr. Vimpany made a mistake," she persisted. "In the case of this stranger, it might lead to deplorable results." Lord Harry lost his temper, and with it his colour. "What the devil do you mean?" he cried. "I might ask, in my turn," she said, "what have I done to provoke an outbreak of temper? I only made a remark." At that critical moment, Fanny Mere entered the room with a telegram in her hand. "For you, my lady." Iris opened the telegram. The message was signed by Mrs. Vimpany, and was expressed in these words: "You may feel it your duty to go to your father. He is dangerously ill." Lord Harry saw a sudden change in his wife's face that roused his guilty suspicions. "Is it anything about me?" he asked. Iris handed the telegram to him in silence. Having looked at it, he desired to hear what her wishes were. "The telegram expresses my wishes," she said. "Have you any objection to my leaving you?" "None whatever," he answered eagerly. "Go, by all means." If it had still been possible for her to hesitate, that reply would have put an end to all further doubt. She turned away to leave the room. He followed her to the door. "I hope you don't think there is any want of sympathy on my part," he said. "You are quite right to go to your father. That was all I meant." He was agitated, honestly agitated, while he spoke. Iris saw it, and felt it gratefully. She was on the point of making a last appeal to his confidence, when he opened the door for her. "Don't let me detain you," he said. His voice faltered; he suddenly turned aside before she could look at him. Fanny was waiting in the hall, eager to see the telegram. She read it twice and reflected for a moment. "How often do things fit themselves to one's wishes in this convenient way?" she asked herself. "It's lucky," she privately decided--"almost too lucky. Let me pack up your things," she continued, addressing her mistress, "while I have some time to myself. Mr. Oxbye is asleep." As the day wore on, the noble influences in the nature of Iris, failing fast, yet still at rare intervals struggling to assert themselves, inspired her with the resolution to make a last attempt to give her husband an opportunity of trusting her. He was not in his room, not in any other part of the house, not in the garden. The hours passed--she was left to eat her dinner in solitude. For the second time, he was avoiding her. For the second time, he distrusted the influence of his wife. With a heavy heart she prepared for her departure by the night-mail. The duties of the new nurse kept her in the cottage. Filled with alarm for the faithful creature whom she was leaving--to what fate, who could say?--Iris kissed her at parting. Fanny's faint blue eyes filled with tears. She dashed them away, and held her mistress for an instant in her arms. "I know whom you are thinking of," she whispered. "He is not here to bid you good-bye. Let me see what I can find in his room." Iris had already looked round the room, in the vain hope of finding a letter. Fanny rushed up the stairs, determined on a last search--and ran down again with a folded morsel of flimsy foreign notepaper in her hand. "My ugly eyes are quicker than yours," she said. "The air must have come in at the window and blown it off the table." Iris eagerly read the letter: "I dare not deny that you will be better away from us, but only for a while. Forgive me, dearest; I cannot find the courage to say good-bye." Those few words spoke for him--and no more. Briefly on her side, but not unkindly, his wife answered him: "You have spared me a bitter moment. May I hope to find the man whom I have trusted and honoured, when I come back? Good-bye." When were they to meet again? And how? CHAPTER XLVII THE PATIENT AND MY LORD THERE now remained but one other person in Lord Harry's household whose presence on the scene was an obstacle to be removed. This person was the cook. On condition of her immediate departure (excused by alleged motives of economy), she received a month's wages from her master, in advance of the sum due to her, and a written character which did ample justice to her many good qualities. The poor woman left her employment with the heartiest expressions of gratitude. To the end of her days, she declared the Irish lord to be a nobleman by nature. Republican principles, inherited from her excellent parents, disinclined her to recognise him as a nobleman by birth. But another sweet and simple creature was still left to brighten the sinister gloom in the cottage. The good Dane sorely tried the patience of Fanny Mere. This countryman of Hamlet, as he liked to call himself, was a living protest against the sentiments of inveterate contempt and hatred, with which his nurse was accustomed to regard the men. When pain spared him at intervals, Mr. Oxbye presented the bright blue eyes and the winning smile which suggested the resemblance to the Irish lord. His beardless face, thin towards the lower extremities, completed the likeness in some degree only. The daring expression of Lord Harry, in certain emergencies, never appeared. Nursing him carefully, on the severest principles of duty as distinguished from inclination, Fanny found herself in the presence of a male human being, who in the painless intervals of his malady, wrote little poems in her praise; asked for a few flowers from the garden, and made prettily arranged nosegays of them devoted to herself; cried, when she told him he was a fool, and kissed her hand five minutes afterwards, when she administered his medicine, and gave him no pleasant sweet thing to take the disagreeable taste out of his mouth. This gentle patient loved Lord Harry, loved Mr. Vimpany, loved the furious Fanny, resist it as she might. On her obstinate refusal to confide to him the story of her life--after he had himself set her the example at great length--he persisted in discovering for himself that "this interesting woman was a victim of sorrows of the heart." In another state of existence, he was offensively certain that she would be living with _him._ "You are frightfully pale, you will soon die; I shall break a blood-vessel, and follow you; we shall sit side by side on clouds, and sing together everlastingly to accompaniment of celestial harps. Oh, what a treat!" Like a child, he screamed when he was in pain; and, like a child, he laughed when the pain had gone away. When she was angry enough with him to say, "If I had known what sort of man you were, I would never have undertaken to nurse you," he only answered, "my dear, let us thank God together that you did not know." There was no temper in him to be roused; and, worse still, on buoyant days, when his spirits were lively, there was no persuading him that he might not live long enough to marry his nurse, if he only put the question to her often enough. What was to be done with such a man as this? Fanny believed that she despised her feeble patient. At the same time, the food that nourished him was prepared by her own hands--while the other inhabitants of the cottage were left (in the absence of the cook) to the tough mercies of a neighbouring restaurant. First and foremost among the many good deeds by which the conduct of women claims the gratitude of the other sex, is surely the manner in which they let an unfortunate man master them, without an unworthy suspicion of that circumstance to trouble the charitable serenity of their minds. Carefully on the look-out for any discoveries which might enlighten her, Fanny noticed with ever-increasing interest the effect which the harmless Dane seemed to produce on my lord and the doctor. Every morning, after breakfast, Lord Harry presented himself in the bedroom. Every morning, his courteous interest in his guest expressed itself mechanically in the same form of words: "Mr. Oxbye, how do you find yourself to-day?" Sometimes the answer would be: "Gracious lord, I am suffering pain." Sometimes it was: "Dear and admirable patron, I feel as if I might get well again." On either occasion, Lord Harry listened without looking at Mr. Oxbye--said he was sorry to hear a bad account or glad to hear a good account, without looking at Mr. Oxbye--made a remark on the weather, and took his leave, without looking at Mr. Oxbye. Nothing could be more plain than that his polite inquiries (once a day) were unwillingly made, and that it was always a relief to him to get out of the room. So strongly was Fanny's curiosity excited by this strange behaviour, that she ventured one day to speak to her master. "I am afraid, my lord, you are not hopeful of Mr. Oxbye's recovering?" "Mind your own business," was the savage answer that she received. Fanny never again took the liberty of speaking to him; but she watched him more closely than ever. He was perpetually restless. Now he wandered from one room to another, and walked round and round the garden, smoking incessantly. Now he went out riding, or took the railway to Paris and disappeared for the day. On the rare occasions when he was in a state of repose, he always appeared to have taken refuge in his wife's room; Fanny's keyhole-observation discovered him, thinking miserably, seated in his wife's chair. It seemed to be possible that he was fretting after Lady Harry. But what did his conduct to Mr. Oxbye mean? What was the motive which made him persist, without an attempt at concealment, in keeping out of Mr. Vimpany's way? And, treated in this rude manner, how was it that his wicked friend seemed to be always amused, never offended? As for the doctor's behaviour to his patient, it was, in Fanny's estimation, worthy of a savage. He appeared to feel no sort of interest in the man who had been sent to him from the hospital at his own request, and whose malady it was supposed to be the height of his ambition to cure. When Mr. Oxbye described his symptoms, Mr. Vimpany hardly even made a pretence at listening. With a frowning face he applied the stethoscope, felt the pulse, looked at the tongue--and drew his own conclusions in sullen silence. If the nurse had a favourable report to make, he brutally turned his back on her. If discouraging results of the medical treatment made their appearance at night, and she felt it a duty to mention them, he sneered as if he doubted whether she was speaking the truth. Mr. Oxbye's inexhaustible patience and amiability made endless allowances for his medical advisor. "It is my misfortune to keep my devoted doctor in a state of perpetual anxiety," he used to say; "and we all know what a trial to the temper is the consequence of unrelieved suspense. I believe in Mr. Vimpany." Fanny was careful not to betray her own opinion by making any reply; her doubts of the doctor had, by this time, become terrifying doubts even to herself. Whenever an opportunity favoured her, she vigilantly watched him. One of his ways of finding amusement, in his leisure hours, was in the use of a photographic apparatus. He took little pictures of the rooms in the cottage, which were followed by views in the garden. Those having come to an end, he completed the mystification of the nurse by producing a portrait of the Dane, while he lay asleep one day after he had been improving in health for some little time past. Fanny asked leave to look at the likeness when it had been "printed" from the negative, in the garden. He first examined it himself--and then deliberately tore it up and let the fragments fly away in the wind. "I am not satisfied with it," was all the explanation he offered. One of the garden chairs happened to be near him; he sat down, and looked like a man in a state of torment under his own angry thoughts. If the patient's health had altered for the worse, and if the tendency to relapse had proved to be noticeable after medicine had been administered, Fanny's first suspicions might have taken a very serious turn. But the change in Oxbye--sleeping in purer air and sustained by better food than he could obtain at the hospital--pointed more and more visibly to a decided gain of vital strength. His hollow checks were filling out, and colour was beginning to appear again on the pallor of his skin. Strange as the conduct of Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany might be, there was no possibility, thus far, of connecting it with the position occupied by the Danish guest. Nobody who had seen his face, when he was first brought to the cottage, could have looked at him again, after the lapse of a fortnight, and have failed to discover the signs which promise recovery of health. CHAPTER XLVIII "THE MISTRESS AND THE MAID" IN the correspondence secretly carried on between the mistress in London and the maid at Passy, it was Fanny Mere's turn to write next. She decided on delaying her reply until she had once more given careful consideration to the first letter received from Lady Harry, announcing her arrival in England, and a strange discovery that had attended it. Before leaving Paris, Iris had telegraphed instructions to Mrs. Vimpany to meet her at the terminus in London. Her first inquiries were for her father. The answer given, with an appearance of confusion and even of shame, was that there was no need to feel anxiety on the subject of Mr. Henley's illness. Relieved on hearing this good news, Iris naturally expressed some surprise at her father's rapid recovery. She asked if the doctors had misunderstood his malady when they believed him to be in danger. To this question Mrs. Vimpany had replied by making an unexpected confession. She owned that Mr. Henley's illness had been at no time of any serious importance. A paragraph in a newspaper had informed her that he was suffering from nothing worse than an attack of gout. It was a wicked act to have exaggerated this report, and to have alarmed Lady Harry on the subject of her father's health. Mrs. Vimpany had but one excuse to offer. Fanny's letter had filled her with such unendurable doubts and forebodings that she had taken the one way of inducing Lady Harry to secure her own safety by at once leaving Passy--the way by a false alarm. Deceit, so sincerely repented, so resolutely resisted, had tried its power of temptation again, and had prevailed. "When I thought of you at the mercy of my vile husband," Mrs. Vimpany said, "with your husband but too surely gained as an accomplice, my good resolutions failed me. Is it only in books that a true repentance never stumbles again? Or am I the one fallible mortal creature in the world? I am ashamed of myself. But, oh, Lady Harry, I was so frightened for you! Try to forgive me; I am so fond of you, and so glad to see you here in safety. Don't go back! For God's sake, don't go back!" Iris had no intention of returning, while the doctor and his patient were still at Passy; and she found in Mrs. Vimpany's compassion good reason to forgive an offence committed through devotion to herself, and atoned for by sincere regret. Fanny looked carefully over the next page of the letter, which described Lady Harry's first interview with Mr. Mountjoy since his illness. The expressions of happiness on renewing her relations with her old and dear friend confirmed the maid in her first impression that there was no fear of a premature return to Passy, with the wish to see Lord Harry again as the motive. She looked over the later letters next--and still the good influence of Mr. Mountjoy seemed to be in time ascendant. There was anxiety felt for Fanny's safety, and curiosity expressed to hear what discoveries she might have made; but the only allusions to my lord contained ordinary inquiries relating to the state of his health, and, on one occasion, there was a wish expressed to know whether he was still on friendly terms with Mr. Vimpany. There seemed to be no fear of tempting her mistress to undervalue the danger of returning to the cottage, if she mentioned the cheering improvement now visible in Mr. Oxbye. And yet Fanny still hesitated to trust her first impressions, even after they had been confirmed. Her own sad experience reminded her of the fatal influence which an unscrupulous man can exercise over the woman who loves him. It was always possible that Lady Harry might not choose to confide the state of her feelings towards her husband to a person who, after all, only occupied the position of her maid. The absence, in her letters, of any expressions of affectionate regret was no proof that she was not thinking of my lord. So far as he was personally concerned, the Dane's prospects of recovery would appear to justify the action of the doctor and his accomplice. Distrusting them both as resolutely as ever, and determined to keep Lady Harry as long as possible at the safe distance of London, Fanny Mere, in writing her reply, preserved a discreet silence on the subject of Mr. Oxbye's health. [At this point Wilkie Collins' health prevented his finishing the novel.] CHAPTER XLIX THE NURSE IS SENT AWAY "YOU have repented and changed your mind, Vimpany?" said Lord Harry. "I repented?" the doctor repeated, with a laugh. "You think me capable of that, do you?" "The man is growing stronger and better every day. You are going to make him recover, after all. I was afraid"--he corrected himself--"I thought"--the word was the truer--"that you were going to poison him." "You thought I was going--we were going, my lord--to commit a stupid and a useless crime. And, with our clever nurse present, all the time watching with the suspicions of a cat, and noting every change in the symptoms? No--I confess his case has puzzled me because I did not anticipate this favourable change. Well--it is all for the best. Fanny sees him grow stronger every day--whatever happens she can testify to the care with which the man has been treated. So far she thought she would have us in her power, and we have her." "You are mighty clever, Vimpany; but sometimes you are too clever for me, and, perhaps, too clever for yourself." "Let me make myself clearer"--conscious of the nurse's suspicions, he leaned forward and whispered: "Fanny must go. Now is the time. The man is recovering. The man must go: the next patient will be your lordship himself. Now do you understand?" "Partly." "Enough. If I am to act it is sufficient for you to understand step by step. Our suspicious nurse is to go. That is the next step. Leave me to act." Lord Harry walked away. He left the thing to the doctor. It hardly seemed to concern him. A dying man; a conspiracy; a fraud:--yet the guilty knowledge of all this gave him small uneasiness. He carried with him his wife's last note: "May I hope to find on my return the man whom I have trusted and honoured?" His conscience, callous as regards the doctor's scheme, filled him with remorse whenever--which was fifty times a day--he took this little rag of a note from his pocket-book and read it again. Yes: she would always find the man, on her return--the man whom she had trusted and honoured--the latter clause he passed over--it would be, of course the same man: whether she would still be able to trust and honour him--that question he did not put to himself. After all, the doctor was acting--not he, himself. And he remembered Hugh Mountjoy. Iris would be with him--the man whose affection was only brought out in the stronger light by his respect, his devotion, and his delicacy. She would be in his society: she would understand the true meaning of this respect and delicacy: she would appreciate the depth of his devotion: she would contrast Hugh, the man she might have married, with himself, the man she did marry. And the house was wretched without her; and he hated the sight of the doctor--desperate and reckless. He resolved to write to Iris: he sat down and poured out his heart, but not his conscience, to her. "As for our separation," he said, "I, and only I, am to blame. It is my own abominable conduct that has caused it. Give me your pardon, dearest Iris. If I have made it impossible for you to live with me, it is also impossible for me to live without you. So am I punished. The house is dull and lonely; the hours crawl, I know not how to kill the time; my life is a misery and a burden because you are not with me. Yet I have no right to complain; I ought to rejoice in thinking that you are happy in being relieved of my presence. My dear, I do not ask you to come at present"--he remembered, indeed, that her arrival at this juncture might be seriously awkward--"I cannot ask you to come back yet, but let me have a little hope--let me feel that in the sweetness of your nature you will believe in my repentance, and let me look forward to a speedy reunion in the future." When he had written this letter, which he would have done better to keep in his own hands for awhile, he directed it in a feigned hand to Lady Harry Norland, care of Hugh Mountjoy, at the latter's London hotel. Mountjoy would not know Iris's correspondent, and would certainly forward the letter. He calculated--with the knowledge of her affectionate and impulsive nature--that Iris would meet him half-way, and would return whenever he should be able to call her back. He did not calculate, as will be seen, on the step which she actually took. The letter despatched, he came back to the cottage happier--he would get his wife again. He looked in at the sick-room. The patient was sitting up, chatting pleasantly; it was the best day he had known; the doctor was sitting in a chair placed beside the bed, and the nurse stood quiet, self-composed, but none the less watchful and suspicious. "You are going on so well, my man," Doctor Vimpany was saying, "That we shall have you out and about again in a day or two. Not quite yet, though--not quite yet," he pulled out his stethoscope and made an examination with an immense show of professional interest. "My treatment has succeeded, you see"--he made a note or two in his pocket-book--"has succeeded," he repeated. "They will have to acknowledge that." "Gracious sir, I am grateful. I have given a great deal too much trouble." "A medical case can never give too much trouble--that is impossible. Remember, Oxbye, it is Science which watches at your bedside. You are not Oxbye; you are a case; it is not a man, it is a piece of machinery that is out of order. Science watches: she sees you through and through. Though you are made of solid flesh and bones, and clothed, to Science you are transparent. Her business is not only to read your symptoms, but to set the machinery right again." The Dane, overwhelmed, could only renew his thanks. "Can he stand, do you think, nurse?" the doctor went on. "Let us try--not to walk about much to-day, but to get out of bed, if only to prove to himself that he is so much better; to make him understand that he is really nearly well. Come, nurse, let us give him a hand." In the most paternal manner possible the doctor assisted his patient, weak, after so long a confinement to his bed, to get out of bed, and supported him while he walked to the open window, and looked out into the garden. "There," he said, "that is enough. Not too much at first. To-morrow he will have to get up by himself. Well, Fanny, you agree at last, I suppose, that I have brought this poor man round? At last, eh?" His look and his words showed what he meant. "You thought that some devilry was intended." That was what the look meant. "You proposed to nurse this man in order to watch for and to discover this devilry. Very well, what have you got to say?" All that Fanny had to say was, submissively, that the man was clearly much better; and, she added, he had been steadily improving ever since he came to the cottage. That is what she said; but she said it without the light of confidence in her eyes--she was still doubtful and suspicious. Whatever power the doctor had of seeing the condition of lungs and hidden machinery, he certainly had the power of reading this woman's thoughts. He saw, as clearly as if upon a printed page, the bewilderment of her mind. She knew that something was intended---something not for her to know. That the man had been brought to the cottage to be made the subject of a scientific experiment she did not believe. She had looked to see him die, but he did not die. He was mending fast; in a little while he would be as well as ever he had been in his life. What had the doctor done it for? Was it really possible that nothing was ever intended beyond a scientific experiment, which had succeeded? In the case of any other man, the woman's doubts would have been entirely removed; in the case of Dr. Vimpany these doubts remained. There are some men of whom nothing good can be believed, whether of motive or of action; for if their acts seem good, their motive must be bad. Many women know, or fancy they know, such a man--one who seems to them wholly and hopelessly bad. Besides, what was the meaning of the secret conversation and the widespread colloquies of the doctor and my lord? And why, at first, was the doctor so careless about his patient? "The time has come at last," said the doctor that evening, when the two men were alone, "for this woman to go. The man is getting well rapidly, he no longer wants a nurse; there is no reason for keeping her. If she has suspicions there is no longer the least foundation for them; she has assisted at the healing of a man desperately sick by a skilful physician. What more? Nothing--positively nothing." "Can she tell my wife so much and no more?" asked Lord Harry. "Will there be no more?" "She can tell her ladyship no more, because she will have no more to tell," the doctor replied quietly. "She would like to learn more; she is horribly disappointed that there is no more to tell; but she shall hear no more. She hates me: but she hates your lordship more." "Why?" "Because her mistress loves you still. Such a woman as this would like to absorb the whole affection of her mistress in herself. You laugh. She is a servant, and a common person. How can such a person conceive an affection so strong as to become a passion for one so superior? But it is true. It is perfectly well known, and there have been many recorded instances of such a woman, say a servant, greatly inferior in station, conceiving a desperate affection for her mistress, accompanied by the fiercest jealousy. Fanny Mere is jealous--and of you. She hates you; she wants your wife to hate you. She would like nothing better than to go back to her mistress with the proofs in her hand of such acts on your part--such acts, I say," he chose his next words carefully, "as would keep her from you for ever." "She's a devil, I dare say," said Lord Harry, carelessly. "What do I care? What does it matter to me whether a lady's maid, more or less, hates me or loves me?" "There spoke the aristocrat. My lord, remember that a lady's maid is a woman. You have been brought up to believe, perhaps, that people in service are not men and women. That is a mistake--a great mistake. Fanny Mere is a woman--that is to say, an inferior form of man; and there is no man in the world so low or so base as not to be able to do mischief. The power of mischief is given to every one of us. It is the true, the only Equality of Man--we can all destroy. What? a shot in the dark; the striking of a lucifer match; the false accusation; the false witness; the defamation of character;--upon my word, it is far more dangerous to be hated by a woman than by a man. And this excellent and faithful Fanny, devoted to her mistress, hates you, my lord, even more"--he paused and laughed--"even more than the charming Mrs. Vimpany hates her husband. Never mind. To-morrow we see the last of Fanny Mere. She goes; she leaves her patient rapidly recovering. That is the fact that she carries away--not the fact she hoped and expected to carry away. She goes to-morrow and she will never come back again." The next morning the doctor paid a visit to his patient rather earlier than usual. He found the man going on admirably: fresh in colour, lively and cheerful, chatting pleasantly with his nurse. "So," said Dr. Vimpany, after the usual examination and questions, "this is better than I expected. You are now able to get up. You can do so by-and-by, after breakfast; you can dress yourself, you want no more help. Nurse," he turned to Fanny, "I think that we have done with you. I am satisfied with the careful watch you have kept over my patient. If ever you think of becoming a nurse by profession, rely on my recommendation. The experiment," he added, thoughtfully, "has fully succeeded. I cannot deny that it has been owing partly to the intelligence and patience with which you have carried out my instructions. But I think that your services may now be relinquished." "When am I to go, sir?" she asked, impassively. "In any other case I should have said, 'Stay a little longer, if you please. Use your own convenience.' In your case I must say, 'Go to your mistress.' Her ladyship was reluctant to leave you behind. She will be glad to have you back again. How long will you take to get ready?" "I could be ready in ten minutes, if it were necessary." "That is not necessary. You can take the night mail _via_ Dieppe and Newhaven. It leaves Paris at 9.50. Give yourself an hour to get from station to station. Any time, therefore, this evening before seven o'clock will do perfectly well. You will ask his lordship for any letters or messages he may have." "Yes, sir," Fanny replied. "With your permission, sir, I will go at once, so as to get a whole day in Paris." "As you please, as you please," said the doctor, wondering why she wanted a day in Paris; but it could have nothing to do with his sick man. He left the room, promising to see the Dane again in an hour or two, and took up a position at the garden gate through which the nurse must pass. In about half an hour she walked down the path carrying her box. The doctor opened the gate for her. "Good-bye, Fanny," he said. "Again, many thanks for your care and your watchfulness--especially the latter. I am very glad," he said, with what he meant for the sweetest smile, but it looked like a grin, "that it has been rewarded in such a way as you hardly perhaps expected." "Thank you, sir," said the girl. "The man is nearly well now, and can do without me very well indeed." "The box is too heavy for you, Fanny. Nay, I insist upon it: I shall carry it to the station for you." It was not far to the station, and the box was not too heavy, but Fanny yielded it. "He wants to see me safe out of the station," she thought. "I will see her safe out of the place," he thought. Ten minutes later the doors of the _salle d'attente_ were thrown open, the train rolled in, and Fanny was carried away. The doctor returned thoughtfully to the house. The time was come for the execution of his project. Everybody was out of the way. "She is gone," he said, when Lord Harry returned for breakfast at eleven. "I saw her safely out of the station." "Gone!" his confederate echoed: "and I am alone in the house with you and--and----" "The sick man--henceforth, yourself, my lord, yourself." CHAPTER L IN THE ALCOVE THE doctor was wrong. Fanny Mere did return, though he did not discover the fact. She went away in a state of mind which is dangerous when it possesses a woman of determination. The feminine mind loves to understand motives and intentions; it hates to be puzzled. Fanny was puzzled. Fanny could not understand what had been intended and what was now meant. For, first, a man, apparently dying, had been brought into the house--why? Then the man began slowly to recover, and the doctor, whose attentions had always been of the most slender character, grew more morose every day. Then he suddenly, on the very day when he sent her away, became cheerful, congratulated the patient on his prospect of recovery, and assisted in getting him out of bed for a change. The cook having been sent away, there was now no one in the house but the Dane, the doctor, and Lord Harry. Man hunts wild creatures; woman hunts man. Fanny was impelled by the hunting instinct. She was sent out of the house to prevent her hunting; she began to consider next, how, without discovery, she could return and carry on the hunt. Everything conspired to drive her back: the mystery of the thing; the desire to baffle, or at least to discover, a dark design; the wish to be of service to her mistress; and the hope of finding out something which would keep Iris from going back to her husband. Fanny was unable to comprehend the depth of her mistress's affection for Lord Harry; but that she was foolishly, weakly in love with him, and that she would certainly return to him unless plain proofs of real villainy were prepared--so much Fanny understood very well. When the omnibus set her down, she found a quiet hotel near the terminus for Dieppe. She spent the day walking about--to see the shops and streets, she would have explained; to consider the situation, she should have explained. She bought a new dress, a new hat, and a thick veil, so as to be disguised at a distance. As for escaping the doctor's acuteness by any disguise should he meet her face to face, that was impossible. But her mind was made up--she would run any risk, meet any danger, in order to discover the meaning of all this. Next morning she returned by an omnibus service which would allow her to reach the cottage at about a quarter-past eleven. She chose this time for two reasons: first, because breakfast was sent in from the restaurant at eleven, and the two gentlemen would certainly be in the _salle 'a manger_ over that meal; and, next, because the doctor always visited his patient after breakfast. She could, therefore, hope to get in unseen, which was the first thing. The spare bedroom--that assigned to the patient--was on the ground-floor next to the dining-room; it communicated with the garden by French windows, and by a small flight of steps. Fanny walked cautiously along the road past the garden-gate; a rapid glance assured her that no one was there; she hastily opened the gate and slipped in. She knew that the windows of the sick-room were closed on the inner side, and the blinds were still down. The patient, therefore, had not yet been disturbed or visited. The windows of the dining-room were on the other side of the house. The woman therefore slipped round to the back, where she found, as she expected, the door wide open. In the hall she heard the voices of the doctor and Lord Harry and the clicking of knives and forks. They were at breakfast. One thing more--What should she say to Oxbye? What excuse should she make for coming back? How should she persuade him to keep silence about her presence? His passion suggested a plan and a reason. She had come back, she would tell him, for love of him, to watch over him, unseen by the doctor, to go away with him when he was strong enough to travel. He was a simple and a candid soul, and he would fall into such a little innocent conspiracy. Meantime, it would be quite easy for her to remain in the house perfectly undisturbed and unknown to either of the gentlemen. She opened the door and looked in. So far, no reason would be wanted. The patient was sleeping peacefully. But not in the bed. He was lying, partly dressed and covered with a blanket, on the sofa. With the restlessness of convalescence he had changed his couch in the morning after a wakeful night, and was now sleeping far into the morning. The bed, as is common in French houses, stood in an alcove. A heavy curtain hung over a rod, also in the French manner. Part of this curtain lay over the head of the bed. The woman perceived the possibility of using the curtain as a means of concealment. There was a space of a foot between the bed and the wall. She placed herself, therefore, behind the bed, in this space, at the head, where the curtain entirely concealed her. Nothing was more unlikely than that the doctor should look behind the bed in that corner. Then with her scissors she pierced a hole in the curtain large enough for her to see perfectly without the least danger of being seen, and she waited to see what would happen. She waited for half an hour, during which the sleeping man slept on without movement, and the voices of the two men in the _salle 'a manger_ rose and fell in conversation. Presently there was silence, broken only by an occasional remark. "They have lit their cigars," Fanny murmured; "they will take their coffee, and in a few minutes they will be here." When they came in a few minutes later, they had their cigars, and Lord Harry's face was slightly flushed, perhaps with the wine he had taken at breakfast--perhaps with the glass of brandy after his coffee. The doctor threw himself into a chair and crossed his legs, looking thoughtfully at his patient. Lord Harry stood over him. "Every day," he said, "the man gets better." "He has got better every day, so far," said the doctor. "Every day his face gets fatter, and he grows less like me." "It is true," said the doctor. "Then--what the devil are we to do?" "Wait a little longer," said the doctor. The woman in her hiding-place hardly dared to breathe. "What?" asked Lord Harry. "You mean that the man, after all--" "Wait a little longer," the doctor repeated quietly. "Tell me"--Lord Harry bent over the sick man eagerly--"you think----" "Look here," the doctor said. "Which of us two has had a medical education--you, or I?" "You, of course." "Yes; I, of course. Then I tell you, as a medical man, that appearances are sometimes deceptive. This man, for instance--he looks better; he thinks he is recovering; he feels stronger. You observe that he is fatter in the face. His nurse, Fanny Mere, went away with the knowledge that he was much better, and the conviction that he was about to leave the house as much recovered as such a patient with such a disorder can expect." "Well?" "Well, my lord, allow me to confide in you. Medical men mostly keep their knowledge in such matters to themselves. We know and recognise symptoms which to you are invisible. By these symptoms--by those symptoms," he repeated slowly and looking hard at the other man, "I know that this man--no longer Oxbye, my patient, but--another--is in a highly dangerous condition. I have noted the symptoms in my book"--he tapped his pocket--"for future use." "And when--when----" Lord Harry was frightfully pale. His lips moved, but he could not finish the sentence. The Thing he had agreed to was terribly near, and it looked uglier than he had expected. "Oh! when?" the doctor replied carelessly. "Perhaps to-day--perhaps in a week. Here, you see, Science is sometimes baffled. I cannot say." Lord Harry breathed deeply. "If the man is in so serious a condition," he said, "is it safe or prudent for us to be alone in the house without a servant and without a nurse?" "I was not born yesterday, my lord, I assure you," said the doctor in his jocular way. "They have found me a nurse. She will come to-day. My patient's life is, humanly speaking"--Lord Harry shuddered--"perfectly safe until her arrival." "Well--but she is a stranger. She must know whom she is nursing." "Certainly. She will be told--I have already told her--that she is going to nurse Lord Harry Norland, a young Irish gentleman. She is a stranger. That is the most valuable quality she possesses. She is a complete stranger. As for you, what are you? Anything you please. An English gentleman staying with me under the melancholy circumstances of his lordship's illness. What more natural? The English doctor is staying with his patient, and the English friend is staying with the doctor. When the insurance officer makes inquiries, as he is very likely to do, the nurse will be invaluable for the evidence she will give." He rose, pulled up the blinds noiselessly, and opened the windows. Neither the fresh air nor the light awoke the sleeping man. Vimpany looked at his watch. "Time for the medicine," he said. "Wake him up while I get it ready." "Would you not--at least---suffer him to have his sleep out?" asked Lord Harry, again turning pale. "Wake him up. Shake him by the shoulder. Do as I tell you," said the doctor, roughly. "He will go to sleep again. It is one of the finer qualities of my medicine that it sends people to sleep. It is a most soothing medicine. It causes a deep--a profound sleep. Wake him up, I say." he went to the cupboard in which the medicines were kept. Lord Harry with some difficulty roused the sick man, who awoke dull and heavy, asking why he was disturbed. "Time for your medicine, my good fellow," said the doctor. "Take it, and you shall not be disturbed again--I promise you that." The door of the cupboard prevented the spy from seeing what the doctor was doing; but he took longer than usual in filling the glass. Lord Harry seemed to observe this, for he left the Dane and looked over the doctor's shoulder. "What are you doing?" he asked in a whisper. "Better not inquire, my lord," said the doctor. "What do you know about the mysteries of medicine?" "Why must I not inquire?" Vimpany turned, closing the cupboard behind him. In his hand was a glass full of the stuff he was about to administer. "If you look in the glass," he said, "you will understand why." Lord Harry obeyed. He saw a face ghastly in pallor: he shrank back and fell into a chair, saying no more. "Now, my good friend," said the doctor, "drink this and you'll be better--ever so much better, ever so much better. Why--that is brave----" he looked at him strangely, "How do you like the medicine?" Oxbye shook his head as a man who has taken something nauseous. "I don't like it at all," he said. "It doesn't taste like the other physic." "No I have been changing it--improving it." The Dane shook his head again. "There's a pain in my throat," he said; "it stings--it burns!" "Patience--patience. It will pass away directly, and you will lie down again and fall asleep comfortably." Oxbye sank back upon the sofa. His eyes closed. Then he opened them again, looking about him strangely, as one who is suffering some new experience. Again he shook his head, again he closed his eyes, and he opened them no more. He was asleep. The doctor stood at his head watching gravely. Lord Harry, in his chair, leaned forward, also watching, but with white face and trembling hands. As they watched, the man's head rolled a little to the side, turning his face more towards the room. Then a curious and terrifying thing happened. His mouth began slowly to fall open. "Is he--is he--is he fainting?" Lord Harry whispered. "No; he is asleep. Did you never see a man sleep with his mouth wide open?" They were silent for a space. The doctor broke the silence. "There's a good light this morning," he said carelessly. "I think I will try a photograph. Stop! Let me tie up his mouth with a handkerchief--so." The patient was not disturbed by the operation, though the doctor tied up the handkerchief with vigour enough to awaken a sound sleeper. "Now--we'll see if he looks like a post-mortem portrait." He went into the next room, and returned with his camera. In a few minutes he had taken the picture, and was holding the glass negative against the dark sleeve of his coat, so as to make it visible. "We shall see how it looks," he said, "when it is printed. At present I don't think it is good enough as an imitation of you to be sent to the insurance offices. Nobody, I am afraid, who knew you, would ever take this for a post-mortem portrait of Lord Harry. Well, we shall see. Perhaps by-and-by--to-morrow--we may be able to take a better photograph. Eh?" Lord Harry followed his movements, watching him closely, but said nothing. His face remained pale and his fingers still trembled. There was now no doubt at all in his mind, not only as to Vimpany's intentions, but as to the crime itself. He dared not speak or move. A ring at the door pealed through the house. Lord Harry started in his chair with a cry of terror. "That," said the doctor, quietly, "is the nurse--the new nurse---the stranger." He took off the handkerchief from Oxbye's face, looked about the room as if careful that everything should be in its right place, and went out to admit the woman. Lord Harry sprang to his feet and passed his hand over the sick man's face. "Is it done?" he whispered. "Can the man be poisoned? Is he already dead?--already? Before my eyes?" He laid his finger on the sick man's pulse. But the doctor's step and voice stopped him. Then the nurse came in, following Vimpany. She was an elderly, quiet-looking French woman. Lord Harry remained standing at the side of the sofa, hoping to see the man revive. "Now," said Vimpany, cheerfully, "here is your patient, nurse. He is asleep now. Let him have his sleep out--he has taken his medicine and will want nothing more yet awhile. If you want anything let me know. We shall be in the next room or in the garden--somewhere about the house. Come, my friend." He drew away Lord Harry gently by the arm, and they left the room. Behind the curtain Fanny Mere began to wonder how she was to get off unseen. The nurse, left alone, looked at her patient, who lay with his head turned partly round, his eyes closed, his mouth open. "A strange sleep," she murmured; "but the doctor knows, I suppose. He is to have his sleep out." "A strange sleep, indeed!" thought the watcher. She was tempted at this moment to disclose herself and to reveal what she had seen; but the thought of Lord Harry's complicity stopped her. With what face could she return to her mistress and tell her that she herself was the means of her husband being charged with murder? She stayed herself, therefore, and waited. Chance helped her, at last, to escape. The nurse took off her bonnet and shawl and began to look about the room. She stepped to the bed and examined the sheets and pillow-case as a good French housewife should. Would she throw back the curtain? If so--what would happen next? Then it would become necessary to take the new nurse into confidence, otherwise----Fanny did not put the remainder of this sentence into words. It remained a terror: it meant that if Vimpany found out where she had been and what she had seen and heard, there would be two, instead of one, cast into a deep slumber. The nurse turned from the bed, however, attracted by the half-open door of the cupboard. Here were the medicine bottles. She took them out one by one, looked at them with professional curiosity, pulled out the corks, smelt the contents, replaced the bottles. Then she went to the window, which stood open; she stepped out upon the stone steps which led into the garden, looking about her, to breathe the soft air of noon among the flowers. She came back, and it again seemed as if she would examine the bed, but her attention was attracted by a small book-case. She began to pull down the books one after the other and to turn them over, as a half-educated person does, in the hope of finding something amusing. She found a book with pictures. Then she sat down in the armchair beside the sofa and began to turn over the leaves slowly. How long was this going to last? It lasted about half an hour. The nurse laid down the volume with a yawn, stretched herself, yawned again, crossed her hands, and closed her eyes. She was going to sleep. If she would only fall so fast asleep that the woman behind the curtain could creep away! But sometimes at the sleepiest moment sleep is driven away by an accident. The accident in this case was that the nurse before finally dropping off remembered that she was nursing a sick man, and sat up to look at him before she allowed herself to drop off. Stung with sudden inspiration she sprang to her feet and bent over the man. "Does he breathe?" she asked. She bent lower. "His pulse! does it beat?" she caught his wrist. "Doctor!" she shrieked, running into the garden. "Doctor! Come--come quick! He is dead!" Fanny Mere stepped from her hiding-place and ran out of the back door, and by the garden gate into the road. She had escaped. She had seen the crime committed. She knew now at least what was intended and why she was sent away. The motive for the crime she could not guess. CHAPTER LI WHAT NEXT? WHAT should she do with the terrible secret? She ought to inform the police. But there were two objections. First, the nurse may have been mistaken in supposing her patient to be dead. She herself had no choice but to escape as she did. Next, the dreadful thought occurred to her that she herself until the previous day had been the man's nurse--his only nurse, day and night. What was to prevent the doctor from fixing the guilt of poisoning upon herself? Nay; it would be his most obvious line of action. The man was left alone all the morning; the day before he had shown every sign of returning strength; she would have to confess that she was in hiding. How long had she been there? Why was she in hiding? Was it not after she had poisoned the man and when she heard the doctor's footstep? Naturally ignorant of poisons and their symptoms, it seemed to her as if these facts so put together would be conclusive against her. Therefore, she determined to keep quiet in Paris that day and to cross over by the night boat from Dieppe in the evening. She would at first disclose everything to Mrs. Vimpany and to Mountjoy. As to what she would tell her mistress she would be guided by the advice of the others. She got to London in safety and drove straight to Mr. Mountjoy's hotel, proposing first to communicate the whole business to him. But she found in his sitting-room Mrs. Vimpany herself. "We must not awake him," she said, "whatever news you bring. His perfect recovery depends entirely on rest and quiet. There"--she pointed to the chimneypiece--"is a letter in my lady's handwriting. I am afraid I know only too well what it tells him." "What does it tell?" "This very morning," Mrs. Vimpany went on, "I called at her lodging. She has gone away." "Gone away? My lady gone away? Where is she gone?" "Where do you think she is most likely to have gone?" "Not?--oh!--not to her husband? Not to him!--oh! this is more terrible--far more terrible--than you can imagine." "You will tell me why it is now so much more terrible. Meantime, I find that the cabman was told to drive to Victoria. That is all I know. I have no doubt, however, but that she has gone back to her husband. She has been in a disturbed, despondent condition ever since she arrived in London. Mr. Mountjoy has been as kind as usual: but he has not been able to chase away her sadness. Whether she was fretting after her husband, or whether--but this I hardly think--she was comparing the man she had lost with the man she had taken--but I do not know. All I do know is that she has been uneasy ever since she came from France, and what I believe is that she has been reproaching herself with leaving her husband without good cause." "Good cause!" echoed Fanny. "Oh! good gracious! If she only knew, there's cause enough to leave a hundred husbands." "Nothing seemed to rouse her," Mrs. Vimpany continued, without regarding the interruption. "I went with her to the farm to see her former maid, Rhoda. The girl's health is re-established; she is engaged to marry the farmer's brother. Lady Harry was kind, and said the most pleasant things; she even pulled off one of her prettiest rings and gave it to the girl. But I could see that it was an effort for her to appear interested--her thoughts were with her husband all the time. I was sure it would end in this way, and I am not in the least surprised. But what will Mr. Mountjoy say when he opens the letter?" "Back to her husband!" Fanny repeated. "Oh! what shall we do?" "Tell me what you mean. What has happened?" "I must tell you. I thought I would tell Mr. Mountjoy first: but I must tell you, although--" She stopped. "Although it concerns my husband. Never mind that consideration--go on." Fanny told the story from the beginning. When she had finished, Mrs. Vimpany looked towards the bedroom door. "Thank God!" she said, "that you told this story to me instead of to Mr. Mountjoy. At all events, it gives me time to warn you not to tell him what you have told me. We can do nothing. Meantime, there is one thing you must do--go away. Do not let Mr. Mountjoy find you here. He must not learn your story. If he hears what has happened and reads her letter, nothing will keep him from following her to Passy. He will see that there is every prospect of her being entangled in this vile conspiracy, and he will run any risk in the useless attempt to save her. He is too weak to bear the journey--far too weak for the violent emotions that will follow; and, oh! how much too weak to cope with my husband--as strong and as crafty as he is unprincipled! "Then, what, in Heaven's name, are we to do?" "Anything--anything--rather than suffer Mr. Mountjoy, in his weak state, to interfere between man and wife." "Yes--yes--but such a man! Mrs. Vimpany, he was present when the Dane was poisoned. He _knew_ that the man was poisoned. He sat in the chair, his face white, and he said nothing. Oh! It was as much as I could do not to rush out and dash the glass from his hands. Lord Harry said nothing." "My dear, do you not understand what you have got to do?" Fanny made no reply. "Consider--my husband---Lord Harry--neither of them knows that you were present. You can return with the greatest safety; and then whatever happens, you will be at hand to protect my lady. Consider, again, as her maid, you can be with her always--in her own room; at night; everywhere and at all times; while Mr. Mountjoy could only be with her now and then, and at the price of not quarrelling with her husband." "Yes," said Fanny. "And you are strong, and Mr. Mountjoy is weak and ill." "You think that I should go back to Passy?" "At once, without the delay of an hour. Lady Harry started last night. Do you start this evening. She will thus have you with her twenty-four hours after her arrival." Fanny rose. "I will go," she said. "It terrifies me even to think of going back to that awful cottage with that dreadful man. Yet I will go. Mrs. Vimpany, I know that it will be of no use. Whatever is going to happen now will happen without any power of mine to advance or to prevent. I am certain that my journey will prove useless. But I will go. Yes, I will go this evening." Then, with a final promise to write as soon as possible--as soon as there should be anything to communicate--Fanny went away. Mrs. Vimpany, alone, listened. From the bedroom came no sound at all. Mr. Mountjoy slept still. When he should be strong enough it would be time to let him know what had been done. But she sat thinking--thinking--even when one has the worst husband in the world, and very well knows his character, it is disagreeable to hear such a story as Fanny had told that wife this morning. CHAPTER LII THE DEAD MAN'S PHOTOGRAPH "HE is quite dead," said the doctor, with one finger on the man's pulse and another lifting his eyelid. "He is dead. I did not look for so speedy an end. It is not half an hour since I left him breathing peacefully. Did he show signs of consciousness?" "No, sir; I found him dead." "This morning he was cheerful. It is not unusual in these complaints. I have observed it in many cases of my own experience. On the last morning of life, at the very moment when Death is standing on the threshold with uplifted dart, the patient is cheerful and even joyous: he is more hopeful than he has felt for many months: he thinks--nay, he is sure--that he is recovering: he says he shall be up and about before long: he has not felt so strong since the beginning of his illness. Then Death strikes him, and he falls." He made this remark in a most impressive manner. "Nothing remains," he said, "but to certify the cause of death and to satisfy the proper forms and authorities. I charge myself with this duty. The unfortunate young man belonged to a highly distinguished family. I will communicate with his friends and forward his papers. One last office I can do for him. For the sake of his family, nurse, I will take a last photograph of him as he lies upon his death-bed." Lord Harry stood in the doorway, listening with an aching and a fearful heart. He dared not enter the chamber. It was the Chamber of Death. What was his own part in calling the Destroying Angel who is at the beck and summons of every man--even the meanest? Call him and he comes. Order him to strike--and he obeys. But under penalties. The doctor's prophecy, then, had come true. But in what way and by what agency? The man was dead. What was his own share in the man's death? He knew when the Dane was brought into the house that he was brought there to die. As the man did not die, but began to recover fast, he had seen in the doctor's face that the man would have to die. He had heard the doctor prophesy out of his medical knowledge that the man would surely die; and then, after the nurse had been sent away because her patient required her services no longer, he had seen the doctor give the medicine which burned the patient's throat. What was that medicine? Not only had it burned his throat, but it caused him to fall into a deep sleep, in which his heart ceased to beat and his blood ceased to flow. He turned away and walked out of the cottage. For an hour he walked along the road. Then he stopped and walked back. Ropes drew him; he could no longer keep away. He felt as if something must have happened. Possibly he would find the doctor arrested and the police waiting for himself, to be charged as an accomplice or a principal. He found no such thing. The doctor was in the salon, with letters and official forms before him. He looked up cheerfully. "My English friend," he said, "the unexpected end of this young Irish gentleman is a very melancholy affair. I have ascertained the name of the family solicitors and have written to them. I have also written to his brother as the head of the house. I find also, by examination of his papers, that his life is insured--the amount is not stated, but I have communicated the fact of the death. The authorities--they are, very properly, careful in such matters--have received the necessary notices and forms: to-morrow, all legal forms having been gone through, we bury the deceased." "So soon?" "So soon? In these eases of advanced pulmonary disease the sooner the better. The French custom of speedy interment may be defended as more wholesome than our own. On the other hand, I admit that it has its weak points. Cremation is, perhaps, the best and only method of removing the dead which is open to no objections except one. I mean, of course, the chance that the deceased may have met with his death by means of poison. But such cases are rare, and, in most instances, would be detected by the medical man in attendance before or at the time of death. I think we need not----My dear friend, you look ill. Are you upset by such a simple thing as the death of a sick man? Let me prescribe for you. A glass of brandy neat. So," he went into the _salle 'a manger_ and returned with his medicine. "Take that. Now let us talk." The doctor continued his conversation in a cheerfully scientific strain, never alluding to the conspiracy or to the consequences which might follow. He told hospital stories bearing on deaths sudden and unexpected; some of them he treated in a jocular vein. The dead man in the next room was a Case: he knew of many similar and equally interesting Cases. When one has arrived at looking upon a dead man as a Case, there is little fear of the ordinary human weakness which makes us tremble in the awful presence of death. Presently steps were heard outside. The doctor rose and left the room--but returned in a few minutes. "The _croque-morts_ have come," he said. "They are with the nurse engaged upon their business. It seems revolting to the outside world. To them it is nothing but the daily routine of work. By-the-way, I took a photograph of his lordship in the presence of the nurse. Unfortunately--but look at it----" "It is the face of the dead man"--Lord Harry turned away. "I don't want to see it. I cannot bear to see it. You forget--I was actually present when--" "Not when he died. Come, don't be a fool. What I was going to say was this: The face is no longer in the least like you. Nobody who ever saw you once even would believe that this is your face. The creature--he has given us an unconscionable quantity of trouble--was a little like you when he first came. I was wrong in supposing that this likeness was permanent. Now he is dead, he is not in the least like you. I ought to have remembered that the resemblance would fade away and disappear in death. Come and look at him." "No, no." "Weakness! Death restores to every man his individuality. No two men are like in death, though they may be like in life. Well. It comes to this. We are going to bury Lord Harry Norland to-morrow, and we must have a photograph of him as he lay on his deathbed." "Well?" "Well, my friend, go upstairs to your own room, and I will follow with the camera." In a quarter of an hour he was holding the glass against his sleeve. "Admirable!" he said. "The cheek a little sunken--that was the effect of the chalk and the adjustment of the shadows--the eyes closed, the face white, the hands composed. It is admirable! Who says that we cannot make the sun tell lies?" As soon as he could get a print of the portrait, he gave it to Lord Harry. "There," he said, "we shall get a better print to-morrow. This is the first copy." He had mounted it on a frame of card, and had written under it the name once borne by the dead man, with the date of his death. The picture seemed indeed that of a dead man. Lord Harry shuddered. "There," he said, "everything else has been of no use to us--the presence of the sick man--the suspicions of the nurse--his death--even his death--has been of no use to us. We might have been spared the memory--the awful memory--of this death!" "You forget, my English friend, that a dead body was necessary for us. We had to bury somebody. Why not the man Oxbye?" CHAPTER LIII THE WIFE'S RETURN OF course Mrs. Vimpany was quite right. Iris had gone back to her husband. She arrived, in fact, at the cottage in the evening just before dark--in the falling day, when some people are more than commonly sensitive to sights and sounds, and when the eyes are more apt than at other times to be deceived by strange appearances. Iris walked into the garden, finding no one there. She opened the door with her own key and let herself in. The house struck her as strangely empty and silent. She opened the dining-room door: no one was there. Like all French dining-rooms, it was used for no other purpose than for eating, and furnished with little more than the barest necessaries. She closed the door and opened that of the salon: that also was empty. She called her husband: there was no answer. She called the name of the cook: there was no answer. It was fortunate that she did not open the door of the spare room, for there lay the body of the dead man. She went upstairs to her husband's room. That too was empty. But there was something lying on the table--a photograph. She took it up. Her face became white suddenly and swiftly. She shrieked aloud, then drooped the picture and fell fainting to the ground. For the photograph was nothing less than that of her husband, dead in his white graveclothes, his hands composed, his eyes closed, his cheek waxen. The cry fell upon the ears of Lord Harry, who was in the garden below. He rushed into the house and lifted his wife upon the bed. The photograph showed him plainly what had happened. She came to her senses again, but seeing her husband alive before her, and remembering what she had seen, she shrieked again, and fell into another swoon. "What is to be done now?" asked the husband. "What shall I tell her? How shall I make her understand? What can I do for her?" As for help, there was none: the nurse was gone on some errand; the doctor was arranging for the funeral of Oxbye under the name of Lord Harry Norland; the cottage was empty. Such a fainting fit does not last for ever. Iris came round, and sat up, looking wildly around. "What is it?" she cried. "What does it mean?" "It means, my love, that you have returned to your husband." He laid an arm round her, and kissed her again and again. "You are my Harry!--living!--my own Harry?" "Your own Harry, my darling. What else should I be?" "Tell me then, what does it mean--that picture--that horrid photograph?" "That means nothing--nothing--a freak--a joke of the doctor's. What could it mean?" He took it up. "Why, my dear, I am living--living and well. What should this mean but a joke?" He laid it on the table again, face downwards. But her eyes showed that she was not satisfied. Men do not make jokes on death; it is a sorry jest indeed to dress up a man in grave-clothes, and make a photograph of him as of one dead. "But you--you, my Iris; you are here--tell me how and why--and when, and everything? Never mind that stupid picture: tell me." "I got your letter, Harry," she replied. "My letter?" he repeated. "Oh! my dear, you got my letter, and you saw that your husband loved you still." "I could not keep away from you, Harry, whatever had happened. I stayed as long as I could. I thought about you day and night. And at last I--I--I came back. Are you angry with me, Harry?" "Angry? Good God! my dearest, angry?" He kissed her passionately--not the less passionately that she had returned at a time so terrible. What was he to say to her? How was he to tell her? While he showered kisses on her he was asking himself these questions. When she found out--when he should confess to her the whole truth--she would leave him again. Yet he did not understand the nature of the woman who loves. He held her in his arms; his kisses pleaded for him; they mastered her--she was ready to believe, to accept, to surrender even her truth and honesty; and she was ready, though she knew it not, to become the accomplice of a crime. Rather than leave her husband again, she would do everything. Yet, Lord Harry felt there was one reservation: he might confess everything, except the murder of the Dane. No word of confession had passed the doctor's lips, yet he knew too well that the man had been murdered; and, so far as the man had been chosen for his resemblance to himself, that was perfectly useless, because the resemblance, though striking at the first, had been gradually disappearing as the man Oxbye grew better; and was now, as we have seen, wholly lost after death. "I have a great deal--a great deal--to tell you, dear," said the husband, holding both her hands tenderly. "You will have to be very patient with me. You must make up your mind to be shocked at first, though I shall be able to convince you that there was really nothing else to be done--nothing else at all." "Oh! go on, Harry. Tell me all. Hide nothing." "I will tell you all," he replied. "First, where is that poor man whom the doctor brought here and Fanny nursed? And where is Fanny?" "The poor man," he replied carelessly, "made so rapid a recovery that he has got on his legs and gone away--I believe, to report himself to the hospital whence he came. It is a great triumph for the doctor, whose new treatment is now proved to be successful. He will make a grand flourish of trumpets about it. I dare say, if all he claims for it is true, he has taken a great step in the treatment of lung diseases." Iris had no disease of the lungs, and consequently cared very little for the scientific aspect of the question. "Where is my maid, then?" "Fanny? She went away--let me see: to-day is Friday--on Wednesday morning. It was no use keeping her here. The man was well, and she was anxious to get back to you. So she started on Wednesday morning, proposing to take the night boat from Dieppe. She must have stopped somewhere on the way." "I suppose she will go to see Mrs. Vimpany. I will send her a line there." "Certainly. That will be sure to find her." "Well, Harry, is there anything else to tell me? "A great deal," he repeated. "That photograph, Iris, which frightened you so much, has been very carefully taken by Vimpany for a certain reason." "What reason?" "There are occasions," he replied, "when the very best thing that can happen to a man is the belief that he is dead. Such a juncture of affairs has happened to myself--and to you--at this moment. It is convenient--even necessary--for me that the world should believe me dead. In point of fact, I must be dead henceforth. Not for anything that I have done, or that I am afraid of--don't think that. No; it is for the simple reason that I have no longer any money or any resources whatever. That is why I must be dead. Had you not returned in this unexpected manner, my dear, you would have heard of my death from the doctor, and he would have left it to chance to find a convenient opportunity of letting you know the truth. I am, however, deeply grieved that I was so careless as to leave that photograph upon the table." "I do not understand," she said. "You pretend to be dead?" "Yes. I _must_ have money. I have some left--a very little. I _must_ have money; and, in order to get it, I must be dead." "How will that help?" "Why, my dear, I am insured, and my insurances will be paid after my death; but not before." "Oh! must you get money--even by a----" She hesitated. "Call it a conspiracy, my dear, if you please. As there is no other way whatever left, I must get money that way." "Oh, this is dreadful! A conspiracy, Harry? a--a--fraud?" "If you please. That is the name which lawyers give to it." "But oh, Harry!--it is a crime. It is a thing for which men are tried and found guilty and sentenced." "Certainly; if they are found out. Meantime, it is only the poor, ignorant, clumsy fool who gets found out. In the City these things are done every day. Quite as a matter of course," he added carelessly. "It is not usual for men to take their wives into confidence, but in this case I must take you into confidence: I have no choice, as you will understand directly." "Tell me, Harry, who first thought of this way?" "Vimpany, of course. Oh! give him the credit where real cleverness is concerned. Vimpany suggested the thing. He found me well-nigh as desperately hard up as he is himself. He suggested it. At first, I confess, I did not like it. I refused to listen to any more talk about it. But, you see, when one meets destitution face to face, one will do anything--everything. Besides, as I will show you, this is not really a fraud. It is only an anticipation of a few years. However, there was another reason." "Was it to find the money to meet the promissory note?" "My dear, you may forget--you may resolve never to throw the thing in my teeth; but my love for you will never suffer me to forget that I have lost your little fortune in a doubtful speculation. It is all gone, never to be recovered again; and this after I had sworn never to touch a farthing of it. Iris!"--he started to his feet and walked about the room as one who is agitated by emotion--"Iris! I could face imprisonment for debt, I could submit to pecuniary ruin, for that matter; the loss of money would not cause me the least trouble, but I cannot endure to have ruined you." "Oh! Harry, as if I mind. Everything that I have is yours. When I gave you myself I gave all. Take--use--lose it all. As you think, I should never _feel_ reproach, far less utter a word of blame. Dearest Harry, if that is all--" "No; it is the knowledge that you will not even feel reproach that is my constant accuser. At my death you will get all back again. But I am not old; I may live for many, many years to come. How can I wait for my own death when I can repair this wickedness by a single stroke?" "But by another wickedness--and worse." "No--not another crime. Remember that this money is mine. It will come to my heirs some day, as surely as to-morrow's sun will rise. Sooner or later it will be mine; I will make it sooner, that is all. The Insurance Company will lose nothing but the paltry interest for the remainder of my life. My dear, if it is disgraceful to do this I will endure disgrace. It is easier to bear that than constant self-reproach which I feel when I think of you and the losses I have inflicted upon you." Again he folded her in his arms; he knelt before her; he wept over her. Carried out of herself by this passion, Iris made no more resistance. "Is it--is it," she asked timidly, "too late to draw back?" "It is too late," he replied, thinking of the dead man below. "It is too late. All is completed." "My poor Harry! What shall we do? How shall we live? How shall we contrive never to be found out?" She would not leave him, then. She accepted the situation. He was amazed at the readiness with which she fell; but he did not understand how she was ready to cling to him, for better for worse, through worse evils than this; nor could he understand how things formerly impossible to her had been rendered possible by the subtle deterioration of the moral nature, when a woman of lofty mind at the beginning loves and is united to a man of lower nature and coarser fibre than herself. Only a few months before, Iris would have swept aside these sophistrics with swift and resolute hand. Now she accepted them. "You have fallen into the doctor's hands, dear," she said. "Pray Heaven it brings us not into worse evils! What can I say? it is through love of your wife--through love of your wife--oh! husband!" she threw herself into his arms, and forgave everything and accepted everything. Henceforth she would be--though this she knew not--the willing instrument of the two conspirators. CHAPTER LIV ANOTHER STEP "I HAVE left this terrible thing about once too often already," and Lord Harry took it from the table. "Let me put it in a place of safety." He unlocked a drawer and opened it. "I will put it here," he said. "Why"--as if suddenly recollecting something--"here is my will. I shall be leaving that about on the table next. Iris, my dear, I have left everything to you. All will be yours." He took out the document. "Keep it for me, Iris. It is yours. You may as well have it now, and then I know, in your careful hands, it will be quite safe. Not only is everything left to you, but you are the sole executrix." Iris took the will without a word. She understood, now, what it meant. If she was the sole executrix she would have to act. If everything was left to her she would have to receive the money. Thus, at a single step, she became not only cognisant of the conspiracy, but the chief agent and instrument to carry it out. This done, her husband had only to tell her what had to be done at once, in consequence of her premature arrival. He had planned, he told her, not to send for her--not to let her know or suspect anything of the truth until the money had been paid to the widow by the Insurance Company. As things had turned out, it would be best for both of them to leave Passy at once--that very evening--before her arrival was known by anybody, and to let Vimpany carry out the rest of the business. He was quite to be trusted--he would do everything that was wanted. "Already," he said, "the Office will have received from the doctor a notification of my death. Yesterday evening he wrote to everybody--to my brother--confound him!--and to the family solicitor. Every moment that I stay here increases the danger of my being seen and recognised--after the Office has been informed that I am dead." "Where are we to go?" "I have thought of that. There is a little quiet town in Belgium where no English people ever come at all. We will go there, then we will take another name; we will be buried to the outer world, and will live, for the rest of our lives, for ourselves alone. Do you agree?" "I will do, Harry, whatever you think best." "It will be for a time only. When all is ready, you will have to step to the front--the will in your hand to be proved--to receive what is due to you as the widow of Lord Harry Norland. You will go back to Belgium, after awhile, so as to disarm suspicion, to become once more the wife of William Linville." Iris sighed heavily, Then she caught her husband's eyes gathering with doubt, and she smiled again. "In everything, Harry," she said, "I am your servant. When shall we start?" "Immediately. I have only to write a letter to the doctor. Where is your bag? Is this all? Let me go first to see that no one is about. Have you got the will? Oh! it is here--yes--in the bag. I will bring along the bag." He ran downstairs, and came up quickly. "The nurse has returned," he said. "She is in the spare room." "What nurse?" "The nurse who came after Fanny left. The man was better, but the doctor thought it wisest to have a nurse to the end," he explained hurriedly, and she suspected nothing till afterwards. "Come down quietly--go out by the back-door--she will not see you." So Iris obeyed. She went out of her own house like a thief, or like her own maid Fanny, had she known. She passed through the garden, and out of the garden into the road. There she waited for her husband. Lord Harry sat down and wrote a letter. "Dear Doctor," he said, "while you are arranging things outside an unexpected event has happened inside. Nothing happens but the unexpected. My wife has come back. It is the most unexpected event of any. Anything else might have happened. Most fortunately she has not seen the spare bedroom, and has no idea of its contents. "At this point reassure yourself. "My wife has gone. "She found on the table your first print of the negative. The sight of this before she saw me threw her into some kind of swoon, from which, however, she recovered. "I have explained things to a certain point. She understands that Lord Harry Norland is deceased. She does not understand that it was necessary to have a funeral; there is no necessity to tell her of that. I think she understands that she must not seem to have been here. Therefore she goes away immediately. "The nurse has not seen her. No one has seen her. "She understands, further, that as the widow, heir, and executrix of Lord Harry she will have to prove his will, and to receive the money due to him by the Insurance Company. She will do this out of love for her husband. I think that the persuasive powers of a certain person have never yet been estimated at their true value. "Considering the vital importance of getting her out of the place before she can learn anything of the spare bedroom, and of getting me out of the place before any messenger can arrive from the London office, I think you will agree with me that I am right in leaving Passy--and Paris--with Lady Harry this very afternoon. "You may write to William Linville, Poste-Restante, Louvain, Belgium. I am sure I can trust you to destroy this letter. "Louvain is a quiet, out-of-the-way place, where one can live quite separated from all old friends, and very cheaply. "Considering the small amount of money that I have left, I rely upon you to exercise the greatest economy. I do not know how long it may be before just claims are paid up--perhaps in two months--perhaps in six--but until things are settled there will be tightness. "At the same time it will not be difficult, as soon as Lady Harry goes to London, to obtain some kind of advance from the family solicitor on the strength of the insurance due to her from her late husband. "I am sorry, dear doctor, to leave you alone over the obsequies of this unfortunate gentleman. You will also have, I hear, a good deal of correspondence with his family. You may, possibly, have to see them in England. All this you will do, and do very well. Your bill for medical attendance you will do well to send in to the widow. "One word more. Fanny Mere, the maid, has gone to London; but she has not seen Lady Harry. As soon as she hears that her mistress has left London she will be back to Passy. She may come at any moment. I think if I were you I would meet her at the garden gate and send her on. It would be inconvenient if she were to arrive before the funeral. "My dear doctor, I rely on your sense, your prudence, and your capability.--Yours very sincerely, "Your ENGLISH FRIEND." He read this letter very carefully. Nothing in it he thought the least dangerous, and yet something suggested danger. However, he left it; he was obliged to caution and warn the doctor, and he was obliged to get his wife away as quietly as possible. This done, he packed up his things and hurried off to the station, and Passy saw him no more. The next day the mortal remains of Lord Harry Norland were lowered into the grave. CHAPTER LV THE ADVENTURES OF A FAITHFUL MAID IT was about five o'clock on Saturday afternoon. The funeral was over. The unfortunate young Irish gentleman was now lying in the cemetery of Auteuil in a grave purchased in perpetuity. His name, age, and rank were duly inscribed in the registers, and the cause of his death was vouched for by the English physician who had attended him at the request of his family. He was accompanied, in going through the formalities, by the respectable woman who had nursed the sick man during his last seizure. Everything was perfectly in order. The physician was the only mourner at the funeral. No one was curious about the little procession. A funeral, more or less, excites no attention. The funeral completed, the doctor gave orders for a single monument to be put in memory of Lord Harry Norland, thus prematurely cut off. He then returned to the cottage, paid and dismissed the nurse, taking her address in case he should find an opportunity, as he hoped, to recommend her among his numerous and distinguished clientele, and proceeded to occupy himself in setting everything in order before giving over the key to the landlord. First of all he removed the medicine bottles from the cupboard with great care, leaving nothing. Most of the bottles he threw outside into the dust-hole; one or two he placed in a fire which he made for the purpose in the kitchen: they were shortly reduced to two or three lumps of molten glass. These contained, no doubt, the mysteries and secrets of Science. Then he went into every room and searched in every possible place for any letters or papers which might have been left about. Letters left about are always indiscreet, and the consequences of an indiscretion may be far-reaching and incalculable. Satisfied at last that the place was perfectly cleared, he sat down in the salon and continued his business correspondence with the noble family and the solicitors. Thus engaged, he heard footsteps outside, footsteps on the gravel, footsteps on the doorstop. He got up, not without the slightest show of nervousness, and opened the door. Lord Harry was right. There stood the woman who had been his first nurse--the woman who overheard and watched--the woman who suspected. The suspicion and the intention of watching were legible in her eyes still. She had come back to renew her watch. In her hand she carried her box, which she had lugged along from the place where the omnibus had deposited her. She made as if she were stepping in; but the big form of the doctor barred the way. "Oh!" he said carelessly, "it is you. Who told you to come back?" "Is my mistress at home?" "No; she is not." He made no movement to let her pass. "I will come in, please, and wait for her." He still stood in the way. "What time will she return?" "Have you heard from her?" "No." "Did she leave orders that you were to follow her?" "No; none that I received. I thought--" "Servants should never think. They should obey." "I know my duty, Dr. Vimpany, without learning it from you. Will you let me pass?" He withdrew, and she entered. "Come in, by all means," he said, "if you desire my society for a short time. But you will not find your mistress here." "Not here! Where is she, then?" "Had you waited in London for a day or two you would, I dare say, have been informed. As it is, you have had your journey for nothing." "Has she not been here?" "She has not been here." "Dr. Vimpany," said the woman, driven to desperation, "I don't believe you! I am certain she has been here. What have you done with her?" "Don't you believe me? That is sad, indeed. But one cannot always help these wanderings. You do not believe me? Melancholy, truly!" "You may mock as much as you like. Where is she?" "Where, indeed?" "She left London to join his lordship. Where is he? "I do not know. He who would answer that question would be a wise man indeed." "Can I see him?" "Certainly not. He has gone away. On a long journey. By himself." "Then I shall wait for him. Here!" she added with decision. "In this house!" "By all means." She hesitated. There was an easy look about the doctor which she did not like. "I believe," she said, "that my mistress is in the house. She must be in the house. What are you going to do with her? I believe you have put her somewhere." "Indeed!" "You would do anything! I will go to the police." "If you please." "Oh! doctor, tell me where she is!" "You are a faithful servant: it is good, in these days, to find a woman so zealous on account of her mistress. Come in, good and faithful. Search the house all over. Come in--what are you afraid of? Put down your box, and go and look for your mistress." Fanny obeyed. She ran into the house, opened the doors of the salon and the dining-room one after the other: no one was there. She ran up the stairs and looked into her mistress's room: nothing was there, not even a ribbon or a hair-pin, to show the recent presence of a woman. She looked into Lord Harry's room. Nothing was there. If a woman leaves hairpins about, a man leaves his toothbrush: nothing at all was there. Then she threw open the armoire in each room: nothing behind the doors. She came downstairs slowly, wondering what it all meant. "May I look in the spare room?" she asked, expecting to be roughly refused. "By all means--by all means," said the doctor, blandly. "You know your way about. If there is anything left belonging to your mistress or to you, pray take it." She tried one more question. "How is my patient? How is Mr. Oxbye?" "He is gone." "Gone? Where has he gone to? Gone?" "He went away yesterday--Friday. He was a grateful creature. I wish we had more such grateful creatures as well as more such faithful servants. He said something about finding his way to London in order to thank you properly. A good soul, indeed!" "Gone?" she repeated. "Why, on Thursday morning I saw him--" She checked herself in time. "It was on Wednesday morning that you saw him, and he was then recovering rapidly." "But he was far too weak to travel." "You may be quite certain that I should not have allowed him to go away unless he was strong enough." Fanny made no reply. She had seen with her own eyes the man lying still and white, as if in death; she had seen the new nurse rushing off, crying that he was dead. Now she was told that he was quite well, and that he had gone away! But it was no time for thought. She was on the point of asking where the new nurse was, but she remembered in time that it was best for her to know nothing, and to awaken no suspicions. She opened the door of the spare room and looked in. Yes; the man was gone--dead or alive--and there were no traces left of his presence. The place was cleared up; the cupboard stood with open doors, empty; the bed was made; the curtain pushed back; the sofa was in its place against the wall; the window stood open. Nothing in the room at all to show that there had been an occupant only two days before. She stared blankly. The dead man was gone, then. Had her senses altogether deceived her? Was he not dead, but only sleeping? Was her horror only a thing of imagination? Behind her, in the hall, stood the doctor, smiling, cheerful. She remembered that her first business was to find her mistress. She was not connected with the Dane. She closed the door and returned to the hall. "Well," asked the doctor, "have you made any discoveries? You see that the house is deserted. You will perhaps learn before long why. Now what will you do? Will you go back to London?" "I must find her ladyship." The doctor smiled. "Had you come here in a different spirit," he said, "I would have spared you all this trouble. You come, however, with suspicion written on your face. You have always been suspecting and watching. It may be in a spirit of fidelity to your mistress; but such a spirit is not pleasing to other people, especially when there is not a single person who bears any resentment towards that mistress. Therefore, I have allowed you to run over the empty house, and to satisfy your suspicious soul. Lady Harry is not hidden here. As for Lord Harry--but you will hear in due time no doubt. And now I don't mind telling you that I have her ladyship's present address." "Oh! What is it?" "She appears to have passed through Paris on her way to Switzerland two days ago, and has sent here her address for the next fortnight. She has now, I suppose, arrived there. The place is Berne; the Hotel ----. But how do I know that she wants you?" "Of course she wants me." "Or of course you want her? Very good. Yours is the responsibility, not mine. Her address is the Hotel d'Angleterre. Shall I write it down for you? There it is. 'Hotel d'Angleterre, Berne.' Now you will not forget. She will remain there for one fortnight only. After that, I cannot say whither she may go. And, as all her things have been sent away, and as I am going away, I am not likely to hear." "Oh I must go to her. I must find her!" cried the woman earnestly; "if it is only to make sure that no evil is intended for her." "That is your business. For my own part, I know of no one who can wish her ladyship any evil." "Is my lord with her?" "I don't know whether that is your business. I have already told you that he is gone. If you join your mistress in Berne, you will very soon find out if he is there as well." Something in his tone made Fanny look up quickly. But his face revealed nothing. "What shall you do then?" asked the doctor. "You must make up your mind quickly whether you will go back to England or whether you will go on to Switzerland. You cannot stay here, because I am putting together the last things, and I shall give the landlord the key of the house this evening. All the bills are paid, and I am going to leave the place." "I do not understand. There is the patient," she murmured vaguely. "What does it mean? I cannot understand." "My good creature," he replied roughly, "what the devil does it matter to me whether you understand or whether you do not understand? Her ladyship is, as I have told you, at Berne. If you please to follow her there, do so. It is your own affair, not mine. If you prefer to go back to London, do so. Still--your own affair. Is there anything else to say?" Nothing. Fanny took up her box--this time the doctor did not offer to carry it for her. "Where are you going?" he asked. "What have you decided?" "I can get round by the Chemin de Fer de Ceinture to the Lyons station. I shall take the first cheap train which will take me to Berne." "Bon voyage!" said the doctor, cheerfully, and shut the door. It is a long journey from Paris to Berne even for those who can travel first class and express--that is, if sixteen hours can be called a long journey. For those who have to jog along by third class, stopping at all the little country stations, it is a long and tedious journey indeed. The longest journey ends at last. The train rolled slowly into the station of Berne, and Fanny descended with her box. Her wanderings were over for the present. She would find her mistress and be at rest. She asked to be directed to the Hotel d'Angleterre. The Swiss guardian of the peace with the cocked hat stared at her. She repeated the question. "Hotel d'Angleterre?" he echoed. "There is no Hotel d'Angleterre in Berne." "Yes, yes; there is. I am the maid of a lady who is staying at that hotel." "No; there is no Hotel d'Angleterre," he reported. "There is the Hotel Bernehof." "No." She took out the paper and showed it to him--"Lady Harry Norland, Hotel d'Angleterre, Berne." "There is the Hotel de Belle Vue, the Hotel du Faucon, the Hotel Victoria, the Hotel Schweizerhof. There is the Hotel schrodel, the Hotel Schneider, the Pension Simkin." Fanny as yet had no other suspicion than that the doctor had accidentally written a wrong name. Her mistress was at Berne: she would be in one of the hotels. Berne is not a large place. Very good; she would go round to the hotels and inquire. She did so. There are not, in fact, more than half a dozen hotels in Berne where an English lady could possibly stay. Fanny went to every one of these. No one had heard of any such lady: they showed her the lists of their visitors. She inquired at the post-office. No lady of that name had asked for letters. She asked if there were any pensions, and went round them all--uselessly. No other conclusion was possible. The doctor had deceived her wilfully. To get her out of the way he sent her to Berne. He would have sent her to Jericho if her purse had been long enough to pay the fare. She was tricked. She counted her money. There was exactly twenty-eight shillings and tenpence in her purse. She went back to the cheapest (and dirtiest) of the pensions she had visited. She stated her case--she had missed milady her mistress--she must stay until she should receive orders to go on, and money--would they take her in until one or the other arrived? Certainly. They would take her in, at five francs a day, payable every morning in advance. She made a little calculation--she had twenty-eight and tenpence; exactly thirty-five francs--enough for seven days. If she wrote to Mrs. Vimpany at once she could get an answer in five days. She accepted the offer, paid her five shillings, was shown into a room, and was informed that the dinner was served at six o'clock. Very good. Here she could rest, at any rate, and think what was to be done. And first she wrote two letters--one to Mrs. Vimpany and one to Mr. Mountjoy. In both of these letters she told exactly what she had found: neither Lord Harry nor his wife at the cottage, the place vacated, and the doctor on the point of going away. In both letters she told how she had been sent all the way into Switzerland on a fool's errand, and now found herself planted there without the means of getting home. In the letter to Mrs. Vimpany she added the remarkable detail that the man whom she had seen on the Thursday morning apparently dead, whose actual poisoning she thought she had witnessed, was reported on the Saturday to have walked out of the cottage, carrying his things, if he had any, and proposing to make his way to London in order to find out his old nurse. "Make what you can out of that," she said. "For my own part, I understand nothing." In the letter which she wrote to Mr. Mountjoy she added a petition that he would send her money to bring her home. This, she said, her mistress she knew would willingly defray. She posted these letters on Tuesday, and waited for the answers. Mrs. Vimpany wrote back by return post. "My dear Fanny," she said, "I have read your letter with the greatest interest. I am not only afraid that some villainy is afloat, but I am perfectly sure of it. One can only hope and pray that her ladyship may be kept out of its influence. You will be pleased to hear that Mr. Mountjoy is better. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to stand the shock of violent emotion, I put Lady Harry's letter into his hands. It was well that I had kept it from him, for he fell into such a violence of grief and indignation that I thought he would have had a serious relapse. 'Can any woman,' he cried, 'be justified in going back to an utterly unworthy husband until he has proved a complete change? What if she had received a thousand letters of penitence? Penitence should be shown by acts, not words: she should have waited.' He wrote her a letter, which he showed me. 'Is there,' he asked, 'anything in the letter which could justly offend her?' I could find nothing. He told her, but I fear too late, that she risks degradation--perhaps worse, if there is anything worse--if she persists in returning to her unworthy husband. If she refuses to be guided by his advice, on the last occasion on which he would presume to offer any device, he begged that she would not answer. Let her silence say--No. That was the substance of his letter. Up to the present moment no answer has been received from Lady Harry. Nor has he received so much as an acknowledgment of the letter. What can be understood by this silence? Clearly, refusal. "You must return by way of Paris, though it is longer than by Basle and Laon. Mr. Mountjoy, I know, will send you the money you want. He has told me as much. 'I have done with Lady Harry,' he said. 'Her movements no longer concern me, though I can never want interest in what she does. But since the girl is right to stick to her mistress, I will send her the money--not as a loan to be paid back by Iris, but as a gift from myself.' "Therefore, my dear Fanny, stop in Paris for one night at least, and learn what has been done if you can. Find out the nurse, and ask her what really happened. With the knowledge that you already possess, it will be hard, indeed, if we cannot arrive at the truth. There must be people who supplied things to the cottage--the restaurant, the _pharmacien,_ the laundress. See them all--you know them already, and we will put the facts together. As for finding her ladyship, that will depend entirely upon herself. I shall expect you back in about a week. If anything happens here I shall be able to tell you when you arrive. "Yours affectionately, L. Vimpany." This letter exactly coincided with Fanny's own views. The doctor was now gone. She was pretty certain that he was not going to remain alone in the cottage; and the suburb of Passy, though charming in many ways, is not exactly the place for a man of Dr. Vimpany's temperament. She would stay a day, or even two days or more, if necessary, at Passy. She would make those inquiries. The second letter, which reached her the same day, was from Mr. Mountjoy. He told her what he had told Mrs. Vimpany: he would give her the money, because he recognised the spirit of fidelity which caused Fanny to go first to Paris and then to Berne. But he could not pretend to any right to interference in the affairs of Lord and Lady Harry Norland. He enclosed a _mandat postal_ for a hundred and twenty-five francs, which he hoped would be sufficient for her immediate wants. She started on her return-journey on the same day--namely, Saturday. On Sunday evening she was in a pension at Passy, ready to make those inquiries. The first person whom she sought out was the _rentier_--the landlord of the cottage. He was a retired tradesman--one who had made his modest fortune in a _charcuterie_ and had invested it in house property. Fanny told him that she had been lady's-maid to Lady Harry Norland, in the recent occupancy of the cottage, and that she was anxious to know her present address. "Merci, mon Dieu! que sais-je? What do I know about it?" he replied. "The wife of the English milord is so much attached to her husband that she leaves him in his long illness--" "His long illness?" "Certainly--Mademoiselle is not, perhaps, acquainted with the circumstances--his long illness; and does not come even to see his dead body after he is dead. There is a wife for you--a wife of the English fashion!" Fanny gasped. "After he is dead! Is Lord Harry dead? When did he die?" "But, assuredly, Mademoiselle has not heard? The English milord died on Thursday morning, a week and more ago, of consumption, and was buried in the cemetery of Auteuil last Saturday. Mademoiselle appears astonished." "En effet, Monsieur, I am astonished." "Already the tombstone is erected to the memory of the unhappy young man, who is said to belong to a most distinguished family of Ireland. Mademoiselle can see it with her own eyes in the cemetery." "One word more, Monsieur. If Monsieur would have the kindness to tell her who was the nurse of milord in his last seizure?" "But certainly. All the world knows the widow La Chaise. It was the widow La Chaise who was called in by the doctor. Ah! there is a man--what a man! What a miracle of science! What devotion to his friend! What admirable sentiments! Truly, the English are great in sentiments when their insular coldness allows them to speak. This widow can be found--easily found." He gave Fanny, in fact, the nurse's address. Armed with this, and having got out of the landlord the cardinal fact of Lord Harry's alleged death, the lady's-maid went in search of this respectable widow. She found her, in her own apartments, a respectable woman indeed, perfectly ready to tell everything that she knew, and evidently quite unsuspicious of anything wrong. She was invited to take charge of a sick man on the morning of Thursday: she was told that he was a young Irish lord, dangerously ill of a pulmonary disorder; the doctor, in fact, informed her that his life hung by a thread, and might drop at any moment, though on the other hand he had known such cases linger on for many months. She arrived as she had been ordered, at midday: she was taken into the sick-room by the doctor, who showed her the patient placidly sleeping on a sofa: the bed had been slept in, and was not yet made. After explaining the medicines which she was to administer, and the times when they were to be given, and telling her something about his diet, the doctor left her alone with the patient. "He was still sleeping profoundly," said the nurse. "You are sure that he was sleeping, and not dead?" asked Fanny, sharply. "Mademoiselle, I have been a nurse for many years. I know my duties. The moment the doctor left me I verified his statements. I proved that the patient was sleeping by feeling his pulse and observing his breath." Fanny made no reply. She could hardly remind this respectable person that after the doctor left her she employed herself first in examining the cupboards, drawers, _armoire,_ and other things; that she then found a book with pictures, in which she read for a quarter of an hour or so; that she then grew sleepy and dropped the book-- "I then," continued the widow, "made arrangements against his waking--that is to say, I drew back the curtains and turned over the sheet to air the bed"--O Madame! Madame! Surely this was needless!--"shook up the pillows, and occupied myself in the cares of a conscientious nurse until the time came to administer the first dose of medicine. Then I proceeded to awaken my patient. Figure to yourself! He whom I had left tranquilly breathing, with the regularity of a convalescent rather than a dying man, was dead! He was dead!" "You are sure he was dead?" "As if I had never seen a dead body before! I called the doctor, but it was for duty only, for I knew that he was dead." "And then?" "Then the doctor--who must also have known that he was dead--felt his pulse and his heart, and looked at his eyes, and declared that he was dead." "And then?" "What then? If a man is dead he is dead. You cannot restore him to life. Yet one thing the doctor did. He brought a camera and took a photograph of the dead man for the sake of his friends." "Oh! he took a photograph of--of Lord Harry Norland. What did he do that for?" "I tell you: for the sake of his friends." Fanny was more bewildered than ever. Why on earth should the doctor want a photograph of the Dane Oxbye to show the friends of Lord Harry? Could he have made a blunder as stupid as it was uncalled for? No one could possibly mistake the dead face of that poor Dane for the dead face of Lord Harry. She had got all the information she wanted--all, in fact, that was of any use to her. One thing remained. She would see the grave. The cemetery of Auteuil is not so large as that of Pere-la-Chaise, nor does it contain so many celebrated persons as the latter--perhaps the greatest cemetery, as regards its illustrious dead, in the whole world. It is the cemetery of the better class. The tombs are not those of Immortals but of Respectables. Among them Fanny easily found, following the directions given to her, the tomb she was searching after. On it was written in English, "Sacred to the Memory of Lord Harry Norland, second son of the Marquis of Malven." Then followed the date and the age, and nothing more. Fanny sat down on a bench and contemplated this mendacious stone. "The Dane Oxbye," she said, "was growing better fast when I went away. That was the reason why I was sent away. The very next day the doctor, thinking me far away, poisoned him. I saw him do it. The nurse was told that he was asleep, and being left alone presently discovered that he was dead. She has been told that the sick man is a young Irish gentleman. He is buried under the name of Lord Harry. That is the reason I found the doctor alone. And my lady? Where is she?" CHAPTER LVI FANNY'S NARRATIVE FANNY returned to London. Partly, the slenderness of her resources gave her no choice; partly, she had learned all there was to learn, and would do no good by staying longer at Passy. She arrived with thirty shillings left out of Mr. Mountjoy's timely gift. She sought a cheap lodging, and found a room, among people who seemed respectable, which she could have for four-and-sixpence a week, with board at a shilling a day. This settled, she hastened to Mr. Mountjoy's hotel brimful of her news for Mrs. Vimpany. Everyone knows the disappointment when the one person in the world whom you want at the moment to see and to talk with proves to be out. Then the news has to be suppressed; the conclusions, the suspicions, the guesses have to be postponed; the active brain falls back upon itself. This disappointment--almost as great as that at Berne--was experienced by Fanny Mere at the hotel. Mr. Mountjoy was no longer there. The landlady of the hotel, who knew Fanny, came out herself and told her what had happened. "He was better," she said, "but still weak. They sent him down to Scotland in Mrs. Vimpany's care. He was to travel by quick or slow stages, just as he felt able. And I've got the address for you. Here it is. Oh! and Mrs. Vimpany left a message. Will you, she says, when you write, send the letter to her and not to him? She says, you know why." Fanny returned to her lodging profoundly discouraged. She was filled with this terrible secret that she had discovered. The only man who could advise at this juncture was Mr. Mountjoy, and he was gone. And she knew not what had become of her mistress. What could she do? The responsibility was more than she could bear. The conversation with the French nurse firmly established one thing in her mind. The man who was buried in the cemetery of Auteuil with the name of Lord Harry Norland on a headstone, the man who had lingered so long with pulmonary disease, was the man whose death she had witnessed. It was Oxbye the Dane. Of that there could be no doubt. Equally there was no doubt in her own mind that he had been poisoned by the doctor--by Mrs. Vimpany's husband--in the presence and, to all appearance, with the consent and full knowledge of Lord Harry himself. Then her mistress was in the power of these two men--villains who had now added murder to their other crimes. As for herself, she was alone, almost friendless; in a week or two she would be penniless. If she told her tale, what mischief might she not do? If she was silent, what mischief might not follow? She sat down to write to the only friend she had. But her trouble froze her brain. She had not been able to put the case plainly. Words failed her. She was not at any time fluent with her pen. She now found herself really unable to convey any intelligible account of what had happened. To state clearly all that she knew so that the conclusion should be obvious and patent to the reader would have been at all times difficult, and was now impossible. She could only confine herself to a simple vague statement. "I can only say that from all I have seen and heard I have reasons for believing that Lord Harry is not dead at all." She felt that this was a feeble way of summing up, but she was not at the moment equal to more. "When I write again, after I have heard from you, I will tell you more. To-day I cannot. I am too much weighed down. I am afraid of saying too much. Besides, I have no money, and must look for work. I am not anxious, however, about my own future, because my lady will not forsake me. I am sure of that. It is my anxiety about her and the dreadful secrets I have learned which give me no rest." Several days passed before the answer came. And then it was an answer which gave her little help. "I have no good news for you," she said. "Mr. Mountjoy continues weak. Whatever your secret, I cannot ask you to communicate it to him in his present condition. He has been grieved and angry beyond all belief by Lady Harry's decision to rejoin her husband. It is hard to understand that a man should be so true a friend and so constant a lover. Yet he has brought himself to declare that he has broken off all friendly relations with her. He could no longer endure London. It was associated with thoughts and memories of her. In spite of his weak condition, he insisted on coming down here to his Scotch villa. Ill as he was, he would brook no delay. We came down by very easy stages, stopping at Peterborough, York, Durham, Newcastle, and Berwick--at some places for one night, and others for more. In spite of all my precautions, when we arrived at the villa he was dangerously exhausted. I sent for the local doctor, who seems to know something. At all events, he is wise enough to understand that this is not a case for drugs. Complete rest and absence from all agitating thoughts must be aimed at. Above all, he is not to see the newspapers. That is fortunate, because, I suppose, Lord Harry's death has been announced in them, and the thought that his former mistress is a widow might excite him very dangerously. You will now understand why I left that message at the hotel for you, and why I have not shown him your letter. I told him, it is true, that you had returned without finding your mistress. 'Speak no more to me of Lady Harry,' he replied irritably. So I have said no more. As for money, I have a few pounds by me, which are at your service. You can repay me at some future time. I have thought of one thing--that new Continental paper started by Lord Harry. Wherever she may be, Lady Harry is almost sure to see that. Put an advertisement in it addressed to her, stating that you have not heard of her address, but that you yourself will receive any letter sent to some post-office which you can find. I think that such an advertisement will draw a reply from her, unless she desires to remain in seclusion." Fanny thought the suggestion worth adopting. After careful consideration, she drew up an advertisement:-- "Fanny H. to L--H--. I have not been able to ascertain your address. Please write to me, at the Post Office, Hunter Street, London, W.C." She paid for the insertion of this advertisement three times on alternate Saturdays. They told her that this would be a more likely way than to take three successive Saturdays. Then, encouraged by the feeling that something, however little, had been done, she resolved to sit down to write out a narrative in which she would set down in order everything that had happened--exactly as it had happened. Her intense hatred and suspicion of Dr. Vimpany aided her, strange to say, to keep to the strictest fidelity as regards the facts. For it was not her desire to make up charges and accusations. She wanted to find out the exact truth, and so to set it down that anybody who read her statement would arrive at the same conclusion as she herself had done. In the case of an eye-witness there are thousands of things which cannot be produced in evidence which yet are most important in directing and confirming suspicions. The attitude, the voice, the look of a speaker, the things which he conceals as well as the things which he reveals--all these are evidence. But these Fanny was unable to set down. Therefore it behoved her to be strictly careful. First, she stated how she became aware that there was some secret scheme under consideration between Lord Harry and the doctor. Next, she set down the fact that they began to talk French to each other, thinking that she could not understand them; that they spoke of deceiving Lady Harry by some statement which had already deceived the authorities; that the doctor undertook to get the lady out of the house; that they engaged herself as nurse to a sick man; that she suspected from the beginning that their design was to profit in some way by the death of this sick than, who bore a slight resemblance to Lord Harry himself. And so on, following the story as closely as she could remember, to the death of the Dane and her own subsequent conversation with the nurse. She was careful to put in the dates, day after day. When she had done all this--it took a good deal of time--she bought a manuscript book and copied it all out. This enabled her to remember two or three facts which had escaped her at the beginning. Then she made another copy this time without names of people or place. The second copy she forwarded as a registered letter to Mrs. Vimpany, with a letter of which this was the conclusion: "Considering, therefore, that on Wednesday morning I left Lord Harry in perfect health; considering that on the Thursday morning I saw the man who had been ill so long actually die--how, I have told you in the packet enclosed; considering that the nurse was called in purposely to attend a patient who was stated to have long been ill--there can be no doubt whatever that the body in the cemetery is that of the unfortunate Dane, Oxbye; and that, somewhere or other, Lord Harry is alive and well. "What have they done it for? First of all, I suppose, to get money. If it were not for the purpose of getting money the doctor would have had nothing to do with the conspiracy, which was his own invention. That is very certain. Your idea was they would try to get money out of the Insurance Offices. I suppose that is their design. But Lord Harry may have many other secret reasons of his own for wishing to be thought dead. They say his life has been full of wicked things, and he may well wish to be considered dead and gone. Lots of wicked men would like above all things, I should think, to be considered dead and buried. But the money matter is at the bottom of all, I am convinced. What are we to do?" What could they do? These two women had got hold of a terrible secret. Neither of them could move. It was too big a thing. One cannot expect a woman to bring her own husband--however wicked a husband he may be--to the awful shame and horror of the gallows if murder should be proved--or to a lifelong imprisonment if the conspiracy alone should be brought home to him. Therefore Mrs. Vimpany could do nothing. As for Fanny, the mere thought of the pain she would inflict upon her mistress, were Lord Harry, through her interference, to be brought to justice and an infamous sentence, kept her quiet. Meantime, the announcement of Lord Harry's death had been made. Those who knew the family history spoke cheerfully of the event. "Best timing he had ever done. Very good thing for his people. One more bad lot out of the way. Dead, Sir, and a very good thing, too. Married, I believe. One of the men who have done everything. Pity they can't write a life of him." These were the comments made upon the decease of this young gentleman. Such is fame. Next day he was clean forgotten; just as if he had never existed. Such is life. CHAPTER LVII AT LOUVAIN NOT many English tourists go out of their way to visit Louvain, even though it has a Hotel de Ville surpassing even that of Brussels itself, and though one can get there in an hour from that city of youth and pleasure. And there are no English residents at all in the place--at least, none in evidence, though perhaps there may be some who have gone there for the same reasons which led Mr. William Linville and his wife to choose this spot--in order to be private and secluded. There are many more people than we know of who desire, above all things, seclusion and retirement, and dread nothing so much as a chance meeting with an old friend. Mr. William Linville took a small house, furnished, like the cottage at Passy, and, also like that little villa, standing in its own garden. Here, with a cook and a maid, Iris set up her modest _menage._ To ask whether she was happy would be absurd. At no time since her marriage had she been happy; to live under the condition of perpetual concealment is not in itself likely to make a woman any the happier. Fortunately she had no time to experience the full bitterness of the plan proposed by her husband. Consider. Had their scheme actually been carried out quite successfully, this pair, still young, would have found themselves condemned to transportation for life. That was the first thing. Next, they could never make any friends among their own countrymen or countrywomen for fear of discovery. Iris could never again speak to an English lady. If they had children the risk would appear ten times more terrible, the consequences ten times more awful. The children themselves would have to grow up without family and without friends. The husband, cut off from intercourse with other men, would be thrown back upon himself. Husband and wife, with this horrible load laid upon them, would inevitably grow to loathe and hate the sight of each other. The man would almost certainly take to drink: the woman--but we must not follow this line any further. The situation lasted only so long as to give the wife a glimpse of what it might become in the future. They took their house, and sat down in it. They were very silent. Lord Harry, his great _coup_ successfully carried so far, sat taciturn and glum. He stayed indoors all day, only venturing out after dark. For a man whose whole idea of life was motion, society, and action, this promised ill. The monotony was first broken by the arrival of Hugh's letter, which was sent in with other documents from Passy. Iris read it; she read it again, trying to understand exactly what it meant. Then she tore it up. "If he only knew," she said, "he would not have taken the trouble even to write this letter. There is no answer, Hugh. There can be none--now. Act by your advice? Henceforth, I must act by order. I am a conspirator." Two days afterwards came a letter from the doctor. He did not think it necessary to say anything about Fanny's appearance or her journey to Borne. "Everything," he wrote, "has so far gone well. The world knows, through the papers, that Lord Harry is dead. There will be now only the business of claiming the money. For this purpose, as his widow is the sole heiress and executrix, it will be necessary for her to place the will and the policies of insurance in the hands of her husband's lawyers, so that the will may be proved and the claims duly made. Forms will have to be signed. The medical certificate of death and the forms attesting the burial are already in the lawyers' hands. The sooner the widow goes to London the better. She should write to announce her arrival, and she should write from Paris as if she had been staying there after her husband's death. "I have only to remind you, my dear Linville, that you are indebted to me in a good round sum. Of course, I shall be very pleased to receive a cheque for this sum in full as soon as you have touched the amount due to you. I shall be in Paris, at the Hotel Continental, where you may address me. Naturally, there is no desire for concealment, and if the Insurance Companies desire any information from me I am always ready and willing to afford it." Lord Harry gave this letter to his wife. She read it, and laid it open in her lap. "Must it be, Harry? Oh! must it be?" "There is no other way possible, dear. But really, it is nothing. You were not at Passy when your husband died. You had been in London--you were in Brussels--anywhere; when you arrived it was all over; you have seen his headstone. Dr. Vimpany had him in his care; you knew he was ill, but you thought it was a trifling matter which time would cure; you go to the lawyers and present the will. They have the policies, and will do everything else; you will not even have to sign anything. The only thing that you must do is to get a complete rig-out of widow's weeds. Mind--there will not be the slightest doubt or question raised. Considering everything, you will be more than justified in seeing no one and going nowhere." Hugh's letter breaking in upon her fool's paradise had awakened the poor woman to her better self; she had gone so far with the fraud as to acquiesce in it; but she recoiled with horror and shame when this active part was forced upon her. "Oh, Harry!"--she burst into tears. "I cannot--I cannot. You ask me to be a liar and a thief--oh! heavens!--a vile thief! "It is too late, Iris! We are all vile thieves. It is too late to begin crying now." "Harry"--she threw herself upon her knees--"spare me! Let some other woman go, and call herself your widow. Then I will go away and hide myself." "Don't talk nonsense, Iris," he replied roughly. "I tell you it is far too late. You should have thought of this before. It is now all arranged." "I cannot go," she said. "You must go; otherwise, all our trouble may prove useless." "Then I will not go!" she declared, springing to her feet. "I will not degrade myself any further. I will not go!" Harry rose too. He faced her for a moment. His eyes dropped. Even he remembered, at that moment, how great must be the fall of a woman who would consent to play such a part. "You shall not go," he said, "unless you like. You can leave me to the consequences of my own acts--to my own degradation. Go back to England. In one thing only spare me. Do not tell what you know. As for me, I will forge a letter from you--" "Forge a letter!" "It is the only way left open, giving the lawyers authority to act, and inclosing the will. What will happen next? By whose hands the money is to reach me I know not yet. But you can leave me, Iris. Better that you should leave me--I shall only drag you lower." "Why must you forge the letter? Why not come with me somewhere--the world is large!--to some place where you are not known, and there let us begin a new life? We have not much money, but I can sell my watches and chains and rings, and we shall have enough. O Harry! for once be guided--listen to me! We shall find some humble manner of living, and we may be happy yet. There is no harm done if you have only pretended to be dead; nobody has been injured or defrauded--" "Iris, you talk wildly! Do you imagine, for one moment, that the doctor will release me from my bargain?" "What bargain?" "Why--of course he was to be paid for the part he has taken in the business. Without him it could never have been done at all." "Yes--yes--it was in the letter that you gave me," she said, conscious that such agreements belonged to works of fiction and to police courts. "Certainly I have to pay him a good large slice out of the money." "It is fifteen thousand pounds, is it not? How much is to be paid to the--to the doctor?" "We agreed that he was to have the half," said Lord Harry, laughing lightly. "But as I thought that seven thousand five hundred pounds was a sum of money which would probably turn his head and bring him to starvation in a year or two, I told him that the whole amount was four thousand pounds. Therefore he is to have two thousand pounds for his share. And quite enough too." "Treachery on treachery!" said his wife. "Fraud on fraud! Would to GOD," she added with a sigh, "that you had never met this man!" "I dare say it would have been better for me, on the whole," he replied. "But then, my dear, a man like myself is always meeting people whom it would have been better not to have met. Like will to like, I suppose. Given the active villain and the passive consenter, and they are sure to meet. Not that I throw stones at the worthy doctor. Not at all." "We cannot, Harry," said his wife. "We cannot, my dear. _Bien entendu!_ Well, Iris, there is no more to be said. You know the situation completely. You can back out of it if you please, and leave me. Then I shall have to begin all over again a new conspiracy far more dangerous than the last. Well, I shall not drag you down with me. That is my resolution. If it comes to public degradation--but it shall not. Iris, I promise you one thing." For once he looked as if he meant it. "Death before dishonour. Death without your name being mixed up at all, save with pity for being the wife of such a man." Again he conquered her. "Harry," she said, "I will go." CHAPTER LVIII OF COURSE THEY WILL PAY THREE days afterwards a hansom cab drove to the offices of the very respectable firm of solicitors who managed the affairs of the Norland family. They had one or two other families as well, and in spite of agricultural depression, they made a very good thing indeed out of a very comfortable business. The cab contained a lady in deep widow's weeds. Lady Harry Norland expected to be received with coldness and suspicion. Her husband, she knew, had not led the life expected in these days of a younger son. Nor had his record been such as to endear him to his elder brother. Then, as may be imagined, there were other tremors, caused by a guilty knowledge of certain facts which might by some accident "come out." Everybody has tremors for whom something may come out. Also, Iris had had no experience of solicitors, and was afraid of them. Instead of being received, however, by a gentleman as solemn as the Court of Chancery and as terrible as the Court of Assize, she found an elderly gentleman, of quiet, paternal manners, who held both her hands, and looked as if he was weeping over her bereavement. By long practice this worthy person could always, at a moment's notice, assume the appearance of one who was weeping with his client. "My dear lady!" he murmured. "My dear lady! This is a terrible time for you." She started. She feared that something had come out. "In the moment of bereavement, too, to think of business." "I have brought you," she replied curtly, "my husband's--my late husband's--will." "Thank you. With your permission--though it may detain your ladyship--I will read it. Humph! it is short and to the point. This will certainly give us little trouble. I fear, however, that, besides the insurances, your ladyship will not receive much." "Nothing. My husband was always a poor man, as you know. At the time of his death he left a small sum of money only. I am, as a matter of fact, greatly inconvenienced." "Your ladyship shall be inconvenienced no longer. You must draw upon us. As regards Lord Harry's death, we are informed by Dr. Vimpany, who seems to have been his friend as well as his medical adviser--" "Dr. Vimpany had been living with him for some time." --"that he had a somewhat protracted illness?" "I was away from my husband. I was staying here in London--on business--for some time before his death. I was not even aware that he was in any danger. When I hurried back to Passy I was too late. My husband was--was already buried." "It was most unfortunate. And the fact that his lordship was not on speaking terms with the members of his own family--pray understand that I am not expressing any opinion on the case--but this fact seems to render his end more unhappy." "He had Dr. Vimpany," said Iris, in a tone which suggested to the lawyer jealousy or dislike of the doctor. "Well," he said, "it remains to prove the will and to make our claims against the Insurance Office. I have the policy here. His lordship was insured in the Royal Unicorn Life Insurance Company for the sum of 15,000 pounds. We must not expect to have this large claim satisfied quite immediately. Perhaps the office will take three months to settle. But, as I said before, your ladyship can draw upon us." "You are certain that the Company will pay?" "Assuredly. Why not? They must pay." "Oh! I thought that perhaps so large a sum--" "My dear Madam"--the man who administered so much real and personal property smiled--"fifteen thousand pounds is not what we call a very large sum. Why, if an Insurance Company refused to pay a lawful claim it would cut its own throat--absolutely. Its very existence depends upon its meeting all just and lawful claims. The death being proved it remains for the Company to pay the insurance into the hands of the person entitled to receive it. That is, in this case, to me, acting for you." "Yes--I see--but I thought that, perhaps, my husband having died abroad there might be difficulty--" "There might, if he had died in Central Africa. But he died in a suburb of Paris, under French law, which, in such matters, is even more careful and exacting than our own. We have the official papers, and the doctor's certificate. We have, besides, a photograph of the unfortunate gentleman lying on his death-bed--this was well thought of: it is an admirable likeness--the sun cannot lie--we have also a photograph of the newly erected tombstone. Doubt? Dear me, Madam, they could no more raise a doubt as to your husband's death than if he were buried in the family vault. If anything should remove any ground for doubt, it is the fact that the only person who benefits by his death is yourself. If, on the other hand, he had been in the hands of persons who had reason to wish for his death, there might have been suspicions of foul play, which would have been matter for the police--but not for an insurance company." "Oh! I am glad to learn, at least, that there will be no trouble. I have no knowledge of business, and I thought that--" "No--no--your ladyship need have no such ideas. In fact, I have already anticipated your arrival, and have sent to the manager of the company. He certainly went so far as to express a doubt as to the cause of death. Consumption in any form was not supposed to be in your husband's family. But Lord Harry--ahem!--tried his constitution--tried his constitition, as I put it." He had put it a little differently. What he said was to the following effect--"Lord Harry Norland, sir, was a devil. There was nothing he did not do. I only wonder that he has lived so long. Had I been told that he died of everything all together, I should not have been surprised. Ordinary rapid consumption was too simple for such a man." Iris gave the lawyer her London address, obeyed him by drawing a hundred pounds, half of which she sent to Mr. William Linville, at Louvain, and went home to wait. She must now stay in London until the claim was discharged. She waited six weeks. At the end of that time she learned from her solicitors that the company had settled, and that they, the lawyers, had paid to her bankers the sum of 15,000 pounds being the whole of the insurance. Acting, then, on her husband's instructions, she sought another bank and opened an account for one William Linville, gentleman, residing abroad. She gave herself as a reference, left the usual signature of William Linville, and paid to his account a cheque for 8,000 pounds. She saw the manager of her own bank, explained that this large cheque was for an investment, and asked him to let her have 2,000 pounds in bank notes. This sum, she added, was for a special purpose. The manager imagined that she was about to perform some act of charity, perhaps an expiatory work on behalf of her late husband. She then wrote to Dr. Vimpany, who was in Paris, making an appointment with him. Her work of fraud and falsehood was complete. "There has been no trouble at all," she wrote to her husband; "and there will not be any. The insurance company has already settled the claim. I have paid 8,000 pounds to the account of William Linville. My own banker--who knows my father--believes that the money is an investment. My dear Harry, I believe that, unless the doctor begins to worry us--which he will do as soon as his money is all gone--a clear course lies before us. Let us, as I have already begged you to do, go straight away to some part of America, where you are certain not to be known. You can dye your hair and grow a beard to make sure. Let us go away from every place and person that may remind us of time past. Perhaps, in time, we may recover something of the old peace and--can it ever be?--the old self-respect." There was going to be trouble, however, and that of a kind little expected, impossible to be guarded against. And it would be trouble caused by her own act and deed. CHAPTER LIX THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN ADVERTISEMENT THE trouble was made by Iris herself. In this way-- She saw Fanny's advertisement. Her first impulse was to take her back into her service. But she remembered the necessity for concealment. She must not place herself--she realised already the fact that she had done a thing which would draw upon her the vengeance of the law--and her husband in the power of this woman, whose fidelity might not stand the shock of some fit of jealousy, rage, or revenge for fancied slight. She must henceforth be cut off altogether from all her old friends. She therefore answered the letter by one which contained no address, and which she posted with her own hand at the General Post Office. She considered her words carefully. She must not say too much or too little. "I enclose," she said, "a bank note for ten pounds to assist you. I am about to travel abroad, but must, under existing circumstances, dispense with the services of a maid. In the course of my travels I expect to be in Brussels. If, therefore, you have anything to tell me or to ask of me, write to me at the Poste Restante of that city, and in the course of six mouths or so I am tolerably sure to send for the letter. In fact, I shall expect to find a letter from you. Do not think that I have forgotten you or your faithful services, though for a moment I am not able to call you to my side. Be patient." There was no address given in the letter. This alone was mysterious. If Lady Harry was in London and the letter was posted at the General Post Office--why should she not give her address? If she was abroad, why should she hide her address? In any case, why should she do without a maid--she who had never been without a maid--to whom a maid was as necessary as one of her hands? Oh! she could never get along at all without a maid. As for Iris's business in London and her part in the conspiracy, of course Fanny neither knew nor suspected. She had recourse again to her only friend--Mrs. Vimpany--to whom she sent Lady Harry's letter, and imploring her to lay the whole before Mr. Mountjoy. "He is getting so much stronger," Mrs. Vimpany wrote back, "that I shall be able to tell him every thing before long. Do not be in a hurry. Let us do nothing that may bring trouble upon her. But I am sure that something is going on--something wicked. I have read your account of what has happened over and over again. I am as convinced as you could possibly be that my husband and Lord Harry are trading on the supposed death of the letter. We can do nothing. Let us wait." Three days afterwards she wrote again. "The opportunity for which I have been waiting has come at last. Mr. Mountjoy is, I believe, fully recovered. This morning, seeing him so well and strong, I asked him if I might venture to place in his hands a paper containing a narrative. "'Is it concerning Iris?' he asked. "'It has to do with Lady Harry--indirectly.' "For a while he made no reply. Then he asked me if it had also to do with her husband. "'With her husband and with mine,' I told him. "Again he was silent. "After a bit he looked up and said, 'I had promised myself never again to interfere in Lady Harry Norland's affairs. You wish me to read this document, Mrs. Vimpany?" "'Certainly; I am most anxious that you should read it and should advise upon it.' "'Who wrote it?' "'Fanny Mere, Lady Harry's maid.' "'If it is only to tell me that her husband is a villain,' he said, 'I will not read it.' "'If you were enabled by reading it to keep Lady Harry from a dreadful misfortune?' I suggested. "'Give me the document,' he said. "Before I gave it to him--it was in my pocket--I showed him a newspaper containing a certain announcement. "'Lord Harry dead?' he cried. 'Impossible! Then Iris is free.' "'Perhaps you will first read the document.' I drew it out of my pocket, gave it to him, and retired. He should be alone while he read it. "Half an hour afterwards I returned. I found him in a state of the most violent agitation, without, however, any of the weakness which he betrayed on previous occasions. "'Mrs. Vimpany,' he cried, 'this is terrible! There is no doubt--not the least doubt--in my mind that the man Oxbye is the man buried under the name of Lord Harry, and that he was murdered--murdered in cold blood--by that worst of villains----' "'My husband,' I said. "'Your husband--most unfortunate of wives! As for Lord Harry's share in the murder, it is equally plain that he knew of it, even if he did not consent to it. Good heavens! Do you understand? Do you realise what they have done? Your husband and Iris's husband may be tried--actually tried--for murder and put to a shameful death. Think of it!' "'I do think of it, Heaven knows! I think of it every day--I think of it all day long. But, remember, I will say nothing that will bring this fate upon them. And Fanny will say nothing. Without Fanny's evidence there cannot be even a suspicion of the truth.' "'What does Iris know about it?' "'I think that she cannot know anything of the murder. Consider the dates. On Wednesday Fanny was dismissed; on Thursday she returned secretly and witnessed the murder. It was on Thursday morning that Lady Harry drove to Victoria on her return to Passy, as we all supposed, and as I still suppose. On Saturday Funny was back again. The cottage was deserted. She was told that the man Oxbye had got up and walked away; that her mistress had not been at the house at all, but was travelling in Switzerland; and that Lord Harry was gone on a long journey. And she was sent into Switzerland to get her out of the way. I gather from all this that Lady Harry was taken away by her husband directly she arrived--most likely by night--and that of the murder she knew nothing.' "'No--no--she could know nothing! That, at least, they dared not tell her. But about the rest? How much does she know? How far has she lent herself to the conspiracy? Mrs. Vimpany, I shall go back to London to-night. We will travel by the night train. I feel quite strong enough.' "I began this letter in Scotland; I finish it in London. "We are back again in town. Come to the hotel at once, and see us." So, there was now a Man to advise. For once, Fanny was thankful for the creation of Man. To the most misanthropic female there sometimes comes a time when she must own that Man has his uses. These two women had now got a Man with whom to take counsel. "I do not ask you," said Mr. Mountjoy, with grave face, "how far this statement of yours is true: I can see plainly that it is true in every particular." "It is quite true, sir; every word of it is true. I have been tempted to make out a worse case against the doctor, but I have kept myself to the bare truth." "You could not make out a worse case against any man. It is the blackest case that I ever heard of or read. It is the foulest murder. I do not understand the exact presence of Lord Harry when the medicine was given. Did he see the doctor administer it? Did he say anything?" "He turned white when the doctor told him that the man was going to die--that day, perhaps, or next day. When the doctor was pouring out the medicine he turned pale again and trembled. While the doctor was taking the photograph he trembled again. I think, sir--I really think--that he knew all along that the man was going to die, but when it came to the moment, he was afraid. If it had depended on him, Oxbye would be alive still." "He was a consenting party. Well; for the moment both of you keep perfect silence. Don't discuss the timing with each other lest you should be overheard: bury the thing. I am going to make some inquiries." The first thing was to find out what steps had been taken, if any, with insurance companies. For Iris's sake his inquiry had to be conducted quite openly. His object must seem none other than the discovery of Lady Harry Norland's present address. When bankers, insurance companies, and solicitors altogether have to conduct a piece of business it is not difficult to ascertain such a simple matter. He found out the name of the family solicitor, he went to the office, sent in his card, and stated his object. As a very old friend of Lady Harry's, he wanted to learn her address. He had just come up from Scotland, where he had been ill, and had only just learned her terrible bereavement. The lawyer made no difficulty at all. There was no reason why he should. Lady Harry had been in London; she was kept in town for nearly two months by business connected with the unfortunate event; but she had now gone--she was travelling Switzerland or elsewhere. As for her address, a letter addressed to his care should be forwarded on hearing from her ladyship. "Her business, I take it, was the proving of the will and the arrangement of the property." "That was the business which kept her in town." "Lady Harry," Mr. Mountjoy went on, "had a little property of her own apart from what she may ultimately get from her father. About five thousand pounds--not more." "Indeed? She did not ask my assistance in respect of her own property." "I suppose it is invested and in the hands of trustees. But, indeed, I do not know. Lord Harry himself, I have heard, was generally in a penniless condition. Were there any insurances?" "Yes; happily there was insurance paid for him by the family. Otherwise there would have been nothing for the widow." "And this has been paid up, I suppose?" "Yes; it has been paid into her private account." "Thank you," said Mr. Mountjoy. "With your permission, I will address a letter to Lady Harry here. Will you kindly order it to be forwarded at the very earliest opportunity?" "Iris," he thought, "will not come to London any more. She has been persuaded by her husband to join in the plot. Good heavens! She has become a swindler--a conspirator---a fraudulent woman! Iris!--it is incredible--it is horrible! What shall we do?" He first wrote a letter, to the care of the lawyers. He informed her that he had made a discovery of the highest importance to herself--he refrained from anything that might give rise to suspicion; he implored her to give him an interview anywhere, in any part of the world--alone, he told her that the consequences of refusal might be fatal--absolutely fatal--to her future happiness: he conjured her to believe that he was anxious for nothing but her happiness: that he was still, as always, her most faithful friend. Well; he could do no more. He had not the least expectation that his letter would do any good; he did not even believe that it would reach Iris. The money was received and paid over to her own account. There was really no reason at all why she should place herself again in communication with these lawyers. What would she do, then? One thing only remained. With her guilty husband, this guilty woman must remain in concealment for the rest of their days, or until death released her of the man who was pretending to be dead. At the best, they might find some place where there would be no chance of anybody ever finding them who knew either of them before this wicked thing was done. But could she know of the murder? He remembered the instruction given to Fanny. She was to write to Brussels. Let her therefore write at once. He would arrange what she was to say. Under his dictation, therefore, Fanny wrote as follows:-- "My Lady,--I have received your ladyship's letter, and your kind gift of ten pounds. I note your directions to write to you at Brussels, and I obey them. "Mr. Mountjoy, who has been ill and in Scotland, has come back to London. He begs me to tell you that he has had an interview with your lawyers, and has learned that you have been in town on business, the nature of which he has also learned. He has left an important letter for you at their office. They will forward it as soon as they learn your address. "Since I came back from Passy I have thought it prudent to set down in writing an exact account of everything that happened there under my own observation. Mr. Mountjoy has read my story, and thinks that I ought without delay to send a copy of it to you. I therefore send you one, in which I have left out all the names, and put in A, B, and C instead, by his directions. He says that you will have no difficulty in filling up the names. "I remain, my dear Lady, "Your ladyship's most obedient and humble servant, "FANNY MERE." This letter, with the document, was dispatched to Brussels that night. And this is the trouble which Iris brought upon herself by answering Fanny's advertisement. CHAPTER LX ON THE EVE OF A CHANGE IRIS returned to Louvain by way of Paris. She had to settle up with the doctor. He obeyed her summons and called upon her at the hotel. "Well, my lady," he began in his gross voice, rubbing his hands and laughing, "it has come off, after all; hasn't it?" "I do not desire, Dr. Vimpany, to discuss anything with you. We will proceed to settle what business we have together." "To think that your ladyship should actually fall in!" he replied. "Now I confess that this was to me the really difficult part of the job. It is quite easy to pretend that a man is dead, but not so easy to touch his money. I really do not see how we could have managed at all without your co-operation. Well, you've had no difficulty, of course?" "None at all." "I am to have half." "I am instructed to give you two thousand pounds. I have the money here for you." "I hope you consider that I deserve this share?" "I think, Dr. Vimpany, that whatever you get in the future or the present you will richly deserve. You have dragged a man down to your own level--" "And a woman too." "A woman too. Your reward will come, I doubt not." "If it always takes the form of bank-notes I care not how great the reward may be. You will doubtless, as a good Christian, expect your own reward--for him and for you?" "I have mine already," she replied sadly. "Now, Dr. Vimpany, let me pay you, and get rid of your company." He counted the money carefully and put it in the banker's bag in his coat-pocket. "Thank you, my lady. We have exchanged compliments enough over this job." "I hope--I pray--that we may never set eyes on you again." "I cannot say. People run up against each other in the strangest manner, especially people who've done shady things and have got to keep in the background." "Enough!--enough!" "The background of the world is a very odd place, I assure you. It is full of interesting people. The society has a piquancy which you will find, I hope, quite charming. You will be known by another name, of course?" "I shall not tell you by what name--" "Tut--tut! I shall soon find out. The background gets narrower when you fall into misery." "What do you mean?" "I mean, Lady Harry, that your husband has no idea whatever as to the value of money. The two thousand that you are taking him will vanish in a year or two. What will you do then? As for myself, I know the value of money so well that I am always buying the most precious and delightful things with it. I enjoy them immensely. Never any man enjoyed good things so much as I do. But the delightful things cost money. Let us be under no illusions. Your ladyship and your noble husband and I all belong to the background; and in a year or two we shall belong to the needy background. I daresay that very soon after that the world will learn that we all belong to the criminal background. I wish your ladyship a joyful reunion with your husband!" He withdrew, and Iris set eyes on him no more. But the prophecy with which he departed remained with her, and it was with a heart foreboding fresh sorrows that she left Paris and started for Louvain. Here began the new life--that of concealment and false pretence. Iris put off her weeds, but she never ventured abroad without a thick veil. Her husband, discovering that English visitors sometimes ran over from Brussels to see the Hotel de Ville, never ventured out at all till evening. They had no friends and no society of any kind. The house, which stood secluded behind a high wall in its garden, was in the quietest part of this quiet old city; no sound of life and work reached it; the pair who lived there seldom spoke to each other. Except at the midday breakfast and the dinner they did not meet. Iris sat in her own room, silent; Lord Harry sat in his, or paced the garden walks for hours. Thus the days went on monotonously. The clock ticked; the hours struck; they took meals; they slept; they rose and dressed; they took meals again--this was all their life. This was all that they could expect for the future. The weeks went on. For three months Iris endured this life. No news came to her from the outer world; her husband had even forgotten the first necessary of modern life--the newspaper. It was not the ideal life of love, apart from the world, where the two make for themselves a Garden of Eden; it was a prison, in which two were confined together who were kept apart by their guilty secret. They ceased altogether to speak; their very meals were taken in silence. The husband saw continual reproach in his wife's eyes; her sad and heavy look spoke more plainly than any words, "It is to this that you have brought me." One morning Iris was idly turning over the papers in her desk. There were old letters, old photographs, all kinds of trifling treasures that reminded her of the past--a woman keeps everything; the little mementoes of her childhood, her first governess, her first school, her school friendships--everything. As Iris turned over these things her mind wandered back to the old days. She became again a young girl--innocent, fancy free; she grew up--she was a woman innocent still. Then her mind jumped at one leap to the present, and she saw herself as she was--innocent no longer, degraded and guilty, the vile accomplice of a vile conspiracy. Then, as one who has been wearing coloured glasses puts them off and sees things in their own true colours, she saw how she had been pulled down by a blind infatuation to the level of the man who had held her in his fascination; she saw him as he was--reckless, unstable, careless of name and honour. Then for the first time she realised the depths into which she was plunged and the life which she was henceforth doomed to lead. The blind love fell from her--it was dead at last; but it left her bound to the man by a chain which nothing could break; she was in her right senses; she saw things as they were; but the knowledge came too late. Her husband made no attempt to bridge over the estrangement which had thus grown up between them: it became wider every day; he lived apart and alone; he sat in his own room, smoking more cigars, drinking more brandy-and-water than was good for him; sometimes he paced the gravel walks in the garden; in the evening, after dinner, he went out and walked about the empty streets of the quiet city. Once or twice he ventured into a cafe, sitting in a corner, his hat drawn over his eyes; but that was dangerous. For the most part he kept in the streets, and he spoke to no one. Meantime the autumn had given place to winter, which began in wet and dreary fashion. Day and night the rain fell, making the gravel walks too wet and the streets impossible. Then Lord Harry sat in his room and smoked all day long. And still the melancholy of the one increased, and the boredom of the other. He spoke at last. It was after breakfast. "Iris," he said, "how long is this to continue?" "This--what?" "This life--this miserable solitude and silence." "Till we die," she replied. "What else do you expect? You have sold our freedom, and we must pay the price." "No; it shall end. I will end it. I can endure it no longer." "You are still young. You will perhaps have forty years more to live--all like this--as dull and empty. It is the price we must pay." "No," he repeated, "it shall end. I swear that I will go on like this no longer." "You had better go to London and walk in Piccadilly to get a little society." "What do you care what I do or where I go?" "We will not reproach each other, Harry." "Why--what else do you do all day long but reproach me with your gloomy looks and your silence?" "Well--end it if you can. Find some change in the life." "Be gracious for a little, and listen to my plan. I have made a plan. Listen, Iris. I can no longer endure this life. It drives me mad." "And me too. That is one reason why we should not desire to change it. Mad people forget. They think they are somewhere else. For us to believe that we were somewhere else would be in itself happiness." "I am resolved to change it--to change it, I say--at any risk. We will leave Louvain." "We can, I dare say," Iris replied coldly, "find another town, French or Belgian, where we can get another cottage, behind high walls in a garden, and hide there." "No. I will hide no longer. I am sick of hiding." "Go on. What is your plan? Am I to pretend to be some one else's widow?" "We will go to America. There are heaps of places in the States where no English people ever go---neither tourists nor settlers--places where they have certainly never heard of us. We will find some quiet village, buy a small farm, and settle among the people. I know something about farming. We need not trouble to make the thing pay. And we will go back to mankind again. Perhaps, Iris--when we have gone back to the world--you will--" he hesitated--"you will be able to forgive me, and to regard me again with your old thoughts. It was done for your sake." "It was not done for my sake. Do not repeat that falsehood. The old thoughts will never come back, Harry. They are dead and gone. I have ceased to respect you or myself. Love cannot survive the loss of self-respect. Who am I that I should give love to anybody? Who are you that you should expect love?" "Will you go with me to America--love or no love? I cannot stay here--I will not stay here." "I will go with you wherever you please. I should like not to run risks. There are still people whom it would pain to see Iris Henley tried and found guilty with two others on a charge of fraudulent conspiracy." "I wouldn't accustom myself, if I were you, Iris, to speak of things too plainly. Leave the thing to me and I will arrange it. See now, we will travel by a night train from Brussels to Calais. We will take the cross-country line from Amiens to Havre; there we will take boat for New York--no English people ever travel by the Havre line. Once in America we will push up country--to Kentucky or somewhere--and find that quiet country place: after that I ask no more. I will settle down for the rest of my life, and have no more adventures. Do you agree, Iris?" "I will do anything that you wish," she replied coldly. "Very well. Let us lose no time. I feel choked here. Will you go into Brussels and buy a Continental Bradshaw or a Baedeker, or something that will tell us the times of sailing, the cost of passage, and all the rest of it? We will take with us money to start us with: you will have to write to your bankers. We can easily arrange to have the money sent to New York, and it can be invested there--except your own fortune--in my new name. We shall want no outfit for a fortnight at sea. I have arranged it all beautifully. Child, look like your old self." He took an unresisting hand. "I want to see you smile and look happy again." "You never will." "Yes--when we have got ourselves out of this damnable, unwholesome way of life; when we are with our fellow-creatures again. You will forget this--this little business--which was, you know, after all, an unhappy necessity." "Oh! how can I ever forget?" "New interests will arise; new friendships will be formed--" "Harry, it is myself that I cannot forgive. Teach me to forgive myself, and I will forget everything." He pressed her no longer. "Well, then," he said, "go to Brussels and get this information. If you will not try to conquer this absurd moral sensitiveness--which comes too late--you will at least enable me to place you in a healthier atmosphere." "I will go at once," she said, "I will go by the next train." "There is a train at a quarter to two. You can do all you have to do and catch the train at five. Iris"--the chance of a change made him impatient--"let us go to-morrow. Let us go by the night express. There will be English travellers, but they shall not recognise me. We shall be in Calais at one in the morning. We will go on by an early train before the English steamer comes in. Will you be ready?" "Yes; there is nothing to delay me. I suppose we can leave the house by paying the rent? I will go and do what you want." "Let us go this very night." "If you please; I am always ready." "No: there will be no time; it will look like running away. We will go to-morrow night. Besides, you would be too tired after going to Brussels and back. Iris, we are going to be happy again--I am sure we are." He, for one, looked as if there was nothing to prevent a return of happiness. He laughed and waved his hands. "A new sky---new scenes--new work--you will be happy again, Iris. You shall go, dear. Get me the things I want." She put on her thick veil and started on her short journey. The husband's sudden return to his former good spirits gave her a gleam of hope. The change would be welcome indeed if it permitted him to go about among other men, and to her if it gave her occupation. As to forgetting--how could she forget the past, so long as they were reaping the fruit of their wickedness in the shape of solid dividends? She easily found what she wanted. The steamer of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique left Havre every eighth day. They would go by that line. The more she considered the plan the more it recommended itself. They would at any rate go out of prison. There would be a change in their life. Miserable condition! To have no other choice of life but that of banishment and concealment: no other prospect than that of continual fraud renewed by every post that brought them money. When she had got all the information that was wanted she had still an hour or two before her. She thought she would spend the time wandering about the streets of Brussels. The animation and life of the cheerful city--where all the people except the market-women are young--pleased her. It was long since she had seen any of the cheerfulness that belongs to a busy street. She walked slowly along, up one street and down another, looking into the shops. She made two or three little purchases. She looked into a place filled with Tauchnitz Editions, and bought two or three books. She was beginning to think that she was tired and had better make her way back to the station, when suddenly she remembered the post-office and her instructions to Fanny Mere. "I wonder," she said, "if Fanny has written to me." She asked the way to the post-office. There was time if she walked quickly. At the Poste Restante there was a letter for her--more than a letter, a parcel, apparently a book. She received it and hurried back to the station. In the train she amused herself with looking through the leaves of her new books. Fanny Mere's letter she would read after dinner. At dinner they actually talked. Lord Harry was excited with the prospect of going back to the world. He had enjoyed his hermitage, he said, quite long enough. Give him the society of his fellow-creatures. "Put me among cannibals," he said, "and I should make friends with them. But to live alone--it is the devil! To-morrow we begin our new flight." After dinner he lit his cigar, and went on chattering about the future. Iris remembered the packet she had got at the post-office, and opened it. It contained a small manuscript book filled with writing and a brief letter. She read the letter, laid it down, and opened the book. CHAPTER LXI THE LAST DISCOVERY "I SHALL like to turn farmer," Lord Harry went on talking while Iris opened and began to read Fanny's manuscript. "After all my adventures, to settle down in a quiet place and cultivate the soil. On market-day we will drive into town together"--he talked as if Kentucky were Warwickshire--"side by side in a spring cart. I shall have samples of grain in bags, and you will have a basket of butter and cream. It will be an ideal life. We shall dine at the ordinary, and, after dinner, over a pipe and a glass of grog, I shall discuss the weather and the crops. And while we live in this retreat of ours, over here the very name of Harry Norland will have been forgotten. Queer, that! We shall go on living long after we are dead and buried and forgotten. In the novels the man turns up after he is supposed to be cast away--wrecked--drowned--dead long ago. But he never turns up when he is forgotten--unless he is Rip Van Winkle. By Gad, Iris! when we are old people we will go home and see the old places together. It will be something to look forward to--something to live for--eh?" "I feel quite happy this evening, Iris; happier than I have been for months. The fact is, this infernal place has hipped us both confoundedly. I didn't like to grumble, but I've felt the monotony more than a bit. And so have you. It's made you brood over things. Now, for my part, I like to look at the bright side. Here we are comfortably cut off from the past. That's all done with. Nothing in the world can revive the memory of disagreeable things if we are only true to ourselves and agree to forget them. What has been done can never be discovered. Not a soul knows except the doctor, and between him and ourselves we are going to put a few thousand--What's the matter, Iris? What the devil is the matter?" For Iris, who had been steadily reading while her husband chattered on, suddenly dropped the book, and turned upon him a white face and eyes struck with horror. "What is it?" Lord Harry repeated. "Oh! Is this true?" "What?" "I cannot say it. Oh, my God! can this be true?" "What? Speak, Iris." He sprang to his feet. "Is it--is it discovered?" "Discovered? Yes, all--all--all--is discovered!" "Where? How? Give me the thing, Iris. Quick! Who knows? What is known?" He snatched the book from her hands. She shrank from his touch, and pushed back her chair, standing in an attitude of self-defence--watching him as one would watch a dangerous creature. He swiftly read page after page, eager to know the worst. Then he threw the book upon the table. "Well?" he said, not lifting his eyes. "The man was murdered--murdered!" she whispered. He made no reply. "You looked on while he was murdered! You looked on consenting! You are a murderer!" "I had no share or part in it. I did not know he was being poisoned." "You knew when I was with you. Oh! the dead man--the murdered man--was in the house at the very moment! Your hands were red with blood when you took me away--to get me out of the way--so that I should not know--" She stopped, she could not go on. "I did not know, Iris--not with certainty. I thought he was dying when he came into the house. He did not die; he began to recover. When the doctor gave him his medicine--after that woman went away--I suspected. When he died, my suspicions were stronger. I challenged him. He did not deny it. Believe me, Iris, I neither counselled it nor knew of it." "You acquiesced in it. You consented. You should have warned the--the other murderer that you would denounce him if the man died. You took advantage of it. His death enabled you to carry out your fraud with me as your accomplice. With ME! I am an accomplice in a murder!" "No, no, Iris; you knew nothing of it. No one can ever accuse you--" "You do not understand. It is part of the accusation which I make against myself." "As for what this woman writes," her husband went on, "it is true. I suppose it is useless to deny a single word of it. She was hidden behind the curtain, then! She heard and saw all! If Vimpany had found her! He was right. No one so dangerous as a woman. Yes; she has told you exactly what happened. She suspected all along. We should have sent her away and changed our plans. This comes of being too clever. Nothing would do for the doctor but the man's death. I hoped--we both hoped--that he would die a natural death. He did not. Without a dead man we were powerless. We had to get a dead man, Iris, I will hide nothing more from you, whatever happens. I confess everything. I knew that he was going to die. When he began to get well I was filled with forebodings, because I knew that he would never be allowed to go away. How else could we find a dead body? You can't steal a body; you can't make one up. You must have one for proof of death. I say"--his voice was harsh and hoarse--"I say that I knew he must die. I saw his death in the doctor's face. And there was no more money left for a new experiment if Oxbye should get well and go away. When it came to the point I was seized with mortal terror. I would have given up everything--everything--to see the man get up from his bed and go away. But it was too late. I saw the doctor prepare the final dose, and when he had it to his lips I saw by his eyes that it was the drink of death. I have told you all," he concluded. "You have told me all," she repeated. "All! Good Heavens! All!" "I have hidden nothing from you. Now there is nothing more to tell." She stood perfectly still--her hands clasped, her eyes set, her face white and stern. "What I have to do now," she said, "lies plain before me." "Iris! I implore you, make no change in our plans. Let us go away as we proposed. Let the past be forgotten. Come with me--" "Go with you? With you? With you? Oh!" she shuddered. "Iris! I have told you all. Let us go on as if you had heard nothing. We cannot be more separated than we have been for the last three months. Let us remain as we are until the time when you will be able to feel for me--to pity my weakness--and to forgive me." "You do not understand. Forgive you? It is no longer a question of forgiveness. Who am I that my forgiveness should be of the least value to you--or to any?" "What is the question, then?" "I don't know. A horrible crime has been committed--a horrible, ghastly, dreadful crime--such a thing as one reads of in the papers and wonders, reading it, what manner of wild beasts must be those who do such things. Perhaps one wonders, besides, what manner of women must be those who associate with those wild beasts. My husband is one of those wild beasts!--my husband!--my husband!--and--I--I am one of the women who are the fit companions of these wild creatures." "You can say what you please, Iris; what you please." "I have known--only since I came here have I really known and understood--that I have wrecked my life in a blind passion. I have loved you, Harry; it has been my curse. I followed you against the warnings of everybody: I have been rewarded--by this. We are in hiding. If we are found we shall be sent to a convict prison for conspiracy. We shall be lucky if we are not tried for murder and hanged by the neck until we are dead. This is my reward!" "I have never played the hypocrite with you, Iris. I have never pretended to virtues which I do not possess. So far--" "Hush! Do not speak to me. I have something more to say, and then I shall never speak to you any more. Hush! Let me collect my thoughts. I cannot find the words. I cannot. . . Wait--wait! Oh!" She sat down and burst into sobbings and moanings. But only for a minute. Then she sprang to her feet again and dashed back the tears. "Time for crying," she said, "when all is done. Harry, listen carefully; these are my last words. You will never hear from me any more. You must manage your own life in your own way, to save it or to spoil it; I will never more bear any part in it. I am going back to England--alone. I shall give up your name, and I shall take my maiden name again--or some other. I shall live somewhere quietly where you will not discover me. But perhaps you will not look for me?" "I will not," he said. "I owe you so much. I will not look for you." "As regards the money which I have obtained for you under false pretences, out of the fifteen thousand pounds for which you were insured, five thousand have been paid to my private account. I shall restore to the Company all that money." "Good Heavens! Iris, you will be prosecuted on a criminal charge." "Shall I? That will matter little, provided I make reparation. Alas! who shall make reparation--who shall atone--for the blood-spilling? For all things else in this world we may make what we call atonement; but not for the spilling of blood." "You mean this? You will deliberately do this?" "I mean every word. I will do nothing and say nothing that will betray you. But the money that I can restore, I will restore--SO HELP ME, GOD!" With streaming eyes she raised her hand and pointed upwards. Her husband bowed his head. "You have said all you wished to say?" he asked humbly. "I have said all." "Let me look in your face once more---so--full--with the light upon it. Yes; I have loved you, Iris--I have always loved you. Better, far better, for you had you fallen dead at my feet on the day when you became my wife. Then I should have been spared--I should have been spared a great deal. You are right, Iris. Your duty lies plainly before you. As for me, I must think of mine. Farewell! The lips of a murderer are not fit to touch even the hem of your garments. Farewell!" He left her. She heard the hall door open and shut. She would see her husband no more. She went to her own room and packed a single box with necessary things. Then she called the housemaid and informed her that she had been summoned to return suddenly to England; she must reach Brussels at least that evening. The woman brought a porter who carried her box to the station; and Iris left Louvain--and her husband--for ever. CHAPTER LXII THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT a Board Meeting of the Royal Unicorn Life Insurance Company, specially convened, the Chairman had to make a communication of a very remarkable character. "Gentlemen," he said, "I call upon the Secretary, without further introduction, to read a letter, to consider which you are called together this day." "The letter," the Secretary began, "is simply headed 'Paris,' dated two days ago." "Only two days ago," said the Chairman, mysteriously. "But, of course, that means nothing. There has been plenty of time for him to change his residence. I dare say he may be in London at our very elbow. Go on, if you please." "Gentlemen"--the Secretary proceeded to read the letter. "It is now three months since a claim was sent in to you by the firm of Erskine, Mansfield, Denham & Co., solicitors of Lincoln's Inn Fields, for the sum of 15,000 pounds due to the heirs of Lord Harry Norland in respect of an insurance effected upon his life." "The claim, gentlemen," said the Chairman, "was duly acknowledged and paid some weeks later. It was a heavy loss; but these things will occur, and there seemed no reason to doubt the facts alleged, or to dispute the claim." "I write this letter," the Secretary continued reading, "in order to inform you that the claim was fraudulent, inasmuch as Lord Harry Norland was at the time, and is still, actually living." Fraudulent! The man still living! At this point there was a sudden awakening. Everybody sat up and listened with all their ears. "I may tell you, gentlemen," the Chairman explained, "that the writer of this remarkable letter is none other than Lord Harry Norland himself. We will now proceed without further interruption." "In conjunction with another person, I devised and carried out successfully a plan by which I was enabled to touch at once, and without the disagreeable necessity of previously expiring and being buried, the whole of the money for which I was insured. Other people have attempted the same design, I believe, but the thing has hitherto been managed clumsily. In my own case, it has been managed with great dexterity and artistic skill. As you will naturally be curious on a subject which interests you so closely I have no objection to reveal the method. It is not enough to write to your office and state that a certain person is dead. One must be prepared with proofs of the death should any doubt arise. No proof of death is quite satisfactory without evidence as to the disposal of the dead body. With that object, we procured from the Hotel Dieu a patient apparently in an advanced state of consumption. My accomplice, being a medical man, highly recommended, was able to do this without suspicion. We nursed him ostentatiously. During the latter part of the illness he was nursed under the name of Lord Harry Norland. He died. His name was entered in the official register as Lord Harry Norland. He was buried in the cemetery at Auteuil, near Paris, as Lord Harry Norland. A headstone marks his grave, which is purchased in perpetuity. The doctor certified the cause of his death, and communicated the fact to the deceased's brother, Lord Malven, and to the deceased's solicitors. The death was also announced to the papers. The difficulties attendant on the successful conduct of the business are so great that you need not fear a repetition. Nobody, in order to assist a fraud, will consent to die and lend his own body. It is seldom, indeed, that a sick man can be found--a foreigner and friendless--whose death will cause no curiosity and raise no questions. Add to this, it is extremely difficult, as I have now experienced, to find the necessary assistance without encountering the objections of conscience." "Upon my word!" cried one of the Directors, "this is a most wonderful letter. I beg your pardon. Pray go on." "We began very well. We buried our man under the name of Lord Harry Norland, as I have said. The difficulty then arose as to the presentation of the claim. It was most desirable that the claim should be made by the person who would most naturally be the deceased's heir and after proving his will and by his own solicitor. "I am married. I have no children. I have not lived on good terms with my family. It was, therefore, quite reasonable to expect that I should leave my wife sole heir and executrix. It was also natural that she should go to my solicitors--the family solicitors--and ask them to manage her affairs. "With this object I confessed to my wife as much of the conspiracy as was necessary. Like many women, she possesses, in addition to every virtue, a blessed devotion to her husband. Where he is concerned she is easily led even from the paths of honour. I practised on that devotion; I used all the arguments and persuasions based on that devotion necessary to convert a woman of honour into the accomplice of a conspiracy. In brief, I made my wife join in the fraud. She consented to act for me, persuaded that if she did not the conspiracy would be discovered. The business has, therefore been carried through with the greatest success. You have paid the claim in full without question. For me there was left the very comfortable provision of 15,000 pounds, with the consciousness of a daring and successful swindle. Unfortunately, my wife has now discovered that her conscience will give her no peace or rest until full restitution of the money has been made. She has informed me of her intention to send back without delay that part of it which lies at her bank in her own name--that is to say, five thousand pounds. "I do not suppose that, as gentlemen, you would be disposed to subject a woman who thus desires to repair a wrong to the degradation of a public prosecution. No useful end, in fact, will be served in so doing. It is, in fact, in the conviction that you will take no proceedings that I write this letter. "Further, as I wish my wife's scruples of conscience to be completely set at rest, I am prepared, on an assurance that the matter will be allowed to drop, to forward to you the remainder of the money, less two thousand pounds, which I have reason to believe will be sent to you in course of time. I am also prepared to instruct my wife, as my heir, in the event of my death to make no claim on the Company; and I have requested my solicitor to cease paying the annual premium. The Company will, therefore, be the gainers of the whole premiums which have been paid--namely, 300 pounds a year for ten years: that is to say, 3,000 pounds. "As for myself, I will take the necessary steps as soon as you have given me that letter of assurance. As regards the other principal in the Conspiracy, it is hardly worth your while to search after him. I shall be obliged if you will be so good as to acknowledge this letter without delay, with any assurance which you may be able to make as regards the person whom I have dragged into the affair. I send you an address where a letter will find me. You may wish to watch the house. I assure you beforehand that it is useless. I shall not go there.--I remain, Gentlemen, "Your obedient servant, "HARRY NORLAND." "Perhaps," said the Secretary, "it is in connection with this letter that I have this day received a packet of bank-notes amounting in all to the sum of five thousand pounds. The packet is endorsed 'Restitution money.'" "Bank-notes, gentlemen," said the Chairman significantly, "may be traced if necessary." The Directors looked at each other. This was, indeed, a very remarkable story, and one never before brought to the notice of any Board. "Gentlemen," said the Chairman, "you have heard the letter; you now have the case before you. I should like to hear your views." "We are likely to get most of our money back," said one of the Directors, "it seems to me, by holding our tongues. That is the main thing." "If we could get Lord Harry himself," said another, "I should say: Go for him, but not for his wife. I wonder we ever took his life at all. If all stories are true about him he is as bad as they make 'em. He ran away when he was a boy, and went to sea: he was a strolling actor after that: he went out to the States and was reported to have been seen in the West: he has been a ship's steward: he has been on the turf. What has he not been?" "We have got the money," said another; "that is the great thing. We must remember that we should never have found out the thing unless--" "The Company must not compound a felony," said the Chairman. "Certainly not. By no means. At the same time, would any good purpose be served by public scandal in connection with a noble House?" "The noble House," said another Director, who was Radical, "may very well take care of itself. Question is, Would it do any good to anybody if we ran in the wife?" "Who is she?" "You would expect a ruffian like Lord Harry to marry a woman like himself. Not at all. He married a most charming creature named Henley--Iris Henley--father very well known in the City. I heard of it at the time. She would have him---infatuated about him--sad business. Mr. Chairman, I submit that it is quite impossible for us to take proceedings against this unfortunate lady, who is doing her utmost to make restitution." "The Company must not compound a felony," the Chairman repeated. "Even if we do not get back that two thousand pounds," said the Secretary, "the Company will lose nothing. The surrender value must be considered." Then another of the Directors spoke. "We do not know where this lady is to be found. She is probably passing under another name. It is not our business to hunt her down." "And if we found her we should have to prove the case, and her guilty knowledge of the conspiracy," said another. "How would this precious letter be taken as evidence? Why, we do not even know that it is true. We might exhume the body: what would that prove after three months? We might open up the case, and spend a heap of money, and create a great scandal, and be none the better for it afterwards. My advice is, let the thing drop." "Well, but," objected another, "suppose we admit that the man is still living. He may die, and then there would be another claim upon us." "Of that," said the Chairman, "I think there need be no apprehension whatever. You have heard his letter. But, I repeat, we must not compound a felony!" "I submit, Mr. Chairman," said one who had not spoken--and he was a barrister--"that the Company knows nothing at all about Lady Harry Norland. We have had to deal with the firm of Erskine, Mansfield, Denham & Co., of Lincoln's Inn Fields: and a most respectable firm too. On their representations we paid the money. If it can be ascertained that we have been defrauded we must look to them. If we have to prosecute anybody it must be that respectable firm." "Good," said the Chairman. "I propose, therefore, that the Secretary write to Lord Harry Norland, informing him that the Company have had nothing at all to do with his wife, and do not recognise her action in any way. We shall then see what happens, and can proceed in accordance." At this moment a card was brought in. It was that of Mr. Erskine himself, senior partner in the very firm. He came in, old, eminently respectable, but shaken. He was greatly shaken. "Gentlemen," he said nervously, "I hasten to bring you a communication, a most extraordinary communication, which I have just received. It is nothing less than a confession--a full confession--from a person whom I had every reason to believe was dead. It is from Lord Harry Norland." "We know already," said the Chairman, superior, "the main facts which you are going to lay before us. We are met to-day in order to discuss our action in view of these facts. There has been a conspiracy of a very artful and ingenious character. It has been successful so far through the action of a woman. By the action of the same woman it is sought to make restitution. The hand of justice, however--" "Perhaps," said the lawyer, "you will oblige me by allowing me to read the letter." "Pray read it"--the Chairman bowed--"though I do not suppose it will add to the information we already possess." "Gentlemen"--the lawyer read--"You will be surprised and pained to learn that I am not--as you were given to understand--dead; but on the other hand, living and in the enjoyment of rude health. I see no reason why my life should not be prolonged to threescore years and ten. "The claim, therefore, which you sent in to the Royal Unicorn Life Insurance Company was fraudulent. It was the result of a deep-laid conspiracy. You have been made the innocent accomplice of a great crime. "My wife, who now knows the whole truth, is most anxious for restitution to be made. She is about to restore that portion of the money which lies in her name. Most of the rest will be sent back by myself, on certain conditions. "In communicating the fact of my being still alive to the head of my family you will please also to inform him that I authorise the discontinuance of the premium. This will save the family 300 pounds a year. This will be a solatium to him for the fact that his brother still lives to disgrace the name. If I should die before the next premium is due I order my heirs not to claim the money.--I remain, Gentlemen, your obedient servant, "HARRY NORLAND." "The premium which should have been paid under ordinary circumstances," said the Secretary, "was due six weeks ago. The policy has therefore expired." "It is a characteristic letter," said the lawyer. "Lord Harry was born to be a trouble to his family. There has never been a time, so far as I remember, when he was not a trouble and a disgrace. Hitherto, however, he has avoided actual crime--at least, actual detection. Now, I suppose, the game is up. Yet, gentlemen, the letter is not that of an utter villain." "He will not be caught," observed the Chairman. "The letter is from too cool a hand. He has prepared a retreat. I dare say by this time he is in some safe and convenient disguise. We are only concerned--are we not?--for the moment with the lady. She has received the money from you. We paid it to you on your representations." "Observe," said the lawyer, "that the moment she learns the truth she hastens to make restitution." "Humph!" said the Director, turning over Lord Harry's letter so that the lawyer should not be able to read the contents. "Have you seen her?" "I have not. I expect to do so before long. She will certainly call upon me." "She will be ill-advised," said the Chairman, "if she calls upon anybody just at present. Well, sir, I confess that I should be sorry--every member of this Board would be sorry--to see that lady placed in the dock beside her husband." "In the interests of the noble family concerned, I hope that neither of them will be placed in the dock." "Do you know who is the other man--the second principal?" "I can guess. I do not know, however, where he is. All I know is what I have communicated to you--the contents of this letter." "One would like to get hold of the other man," said the Chairman. "Presumably he does not belong to a noble family. Well, sir, I don't know what may be done; but this Company cannot, I repeat, compound a felony." "Certainly not. Most certainly not. At present, however, you have got very little to go upon. And unless evidence is forthcoming--" "We will not discuss that part of the business," said the Chairman. "A conspiracy has been undoubtedly entered into. We may be compelled to bring an action of some kind against your firm, Mr. Erskine. As regards the lady, if she is guilty--" "No--no," said the lawyer, "upon my life! Sinned against--not guilty." The Chairman folded up Lord Harry's letter and gave it to the Secretary. "We are much obliged to you, sir, for your prompt action. It is, of course, only what we should have expected of your firm. Meantime, remember that the claim was made by you, that you received the money, and--but we will communicate with you in a few days." The Secretary wrote such a letter as was suggested. By return of post a cheque was sent, signed by one William Linville, for the sum of eight thousand pounds. The Company had, therefore, recovered thirteen out of fifteen thousand pounds. The Secretary had another interview with Mr. Erskine, the result of which was that the Company recovered the remaining two thousand pounds. Every firm of solicitors contains its own secrets and keeps them. Therefore, we need not inquire whether it was intended that this money should be paid by the firm or by the noble family to which Lord Harry Norland belonged. It is, however, certain that a few days afterwards Mr. Hugh Mountjoy called at the office and had a long conversation with the senior partner, and that he left behind him a very big cheque. The subject has never been brought before the Directors again. It was, indeed, privately discussed, and that frequently. Perhaps the story was whispered about outside the Board-room. These things do get about. There has been, however, a feeling that the thing, which would have been perfectly successful but for the conscience of a woman concerned, might be repeated with less tender consciences, and so the Companies be defrauded. Now the wickedness of the world is already so great that it needs no more teaching to make it worse. On the whole, the less said the better. Besides, the tragic event which happened a day or two later effectively prevented any further step. That in itself was sufficient to wipe out the whole business. CHAPTER LXIII A REFUGE IT was all over. Iris had sent in her money. She was in a small lodging found for her by Fanny Mere, who called her cousin. She stayed indoors all day long, afraid of stirring abroad; afraid to read the papers; afraid that her husband was arrested on the charge of conspiracy and fraud; afraid that some kind of hue and cry might be out after her. Therefore, when she heard a manly step on the stair, she started and turned pale, expecting nothing short of an armed messenger of the law. She never was in this danger for a single minute, but conscience made a coward of her. The step was that of Hugh Mountjoy. "I found you out," he said, "by means of Fanny. The girl knew that she was safe in letting me know your secret. Why are you in concealment?" "You cannot know all, or you would not ask me that." "I do know all; and again I ask, why are you in concealment?" "Because--Oh, Hugh--spare me!" "I know all, which is the reason why I cannot choose but come to see you. Come out of this poor place; resume your own name. There is no reason why you should not. You were not present at Passy when this conspiracy was hatched; you got there after the funeral. You, naturally, went to see the family solicitors. Iris, what has the conspiracy to do with you?" It will be observed that Hugh had not read the letter written to the Directors of the Company. "Do you know about the money?" "Certainly. You sent back all that you could--five thousand pounds. That showed your own innocence--" "Hugh, you know that I am guilty." "The world will think that you are innocent. At any rate, you can come out and go about without fear. Tell me, what are your plans?" "I have no plans. I only want to hide my head--somewhere." "Yes; we will talk about that presently. Meantime, I have some news for you." "News? What news?" "Really good news. I have to tell you a thing which will surprise you." "Good news? What good news is there for me?" "Your husband has sent back the whole of the money." "Sent back? To the Insurance Office?" "All has been sent back. He wrote two letters--one to the solicitors and the other to the Insurance Company. It is not likely now that anything can be said, because the Directors have accepted the money. Moreover, it appears that they might have proceeded against the lawyers for the recovery of the money, but that they have nothing to do either with you or with Lord Harry Norland. That is a difficult point, however. Somebody, it seems, has compounded--or is going to compound--a felony. I do not understand exactly what this means, or what dreadful consequences might follow; but I am assured by the lawyers that we need apprehend nothing more. All is over." Iris heaved a profound sigh. "Then he is safe?" she said. "You think of him first," said Hugh, jealously. "Yes: he is safe; and, I do hope, gone away, out of the country, never to come back any more. The more important thing is that you should be safe from him. As for the doctor--but I cannot speak of the doctor with common patience. Let him be left to the end which always awaits such men. It is to be hoped that he will never, wherever he goes, feel himself in safety." "I am safe," said Iris, "not only from my husband, but from what else beside? You know what I mean. You mean that I, as well as my husband, am safe from that. Oh! the fear of it has never left me--never for one moment. You tell me that I am safe from public disgrace, and I rejoice--when I ought to sink into the earth with shame!" She covered her face with her hands. "Iris, we know what you have done. We also know why you did it. What need we say more? The thing is finished and done with. Let us never again allude to it. The question now is--what will you do next? Where will you live?" "I do not know. I have got Fanny Mere with me. Mrs. Vimpany is also anxious to live with me. I am rich, indeed, since I have two faithful dependants and one friend." "In such wealth, Iris, you will always be rich. Now listen seriously. I have a villa in the country. It is far away from London, in the Scottish Lowlands--quite out of the way--remote even from tourists and travellers. It is a very lonely place, but there is a pretty house, with a great garden behind and a stretch of sand and seashore in front. There one may live completely isolated. I offer you that villa for your residence. Take it; live in it as long as you please." "No, no. I must not accept such a gift." "You must, Iris--you shall. I ask it of you as a proof of friendship, and nothing more. Only, I fear that you will get tired of the loneliness." "No--no," she said. "I cannot get tired of loneliness it is all I want." "There is no society at all." "Society? Society for me?" "I go to the neighbourhood sometimes for fishing. You will let me call upon you?" "Who else has such a right?" "Then you will accept my offer?" "I feel that I must. Yes, Hugh; yes, with deepest gratitude." The next day she went down by the night-mail to Scotland. With her travelled Mrs. Vimpany and Fanny Mere. CHAPTER LXIV THE INVINCIBLES THE proceedings of Lord Harry after he had sent off that cheque were most remarkable. If he had invited--actually courted--what followed--he could not have acted differently. He left London and crossed over to Dublin. Arrived there, he went to a small hotel entirely frequented by Irish Americans and their friends. It was suspected of being the principal place of resort of the Invincibles. It was known to be a house entirely given up to the Nationalists. He made no attempt to conceal his name. He entered the hotel, greeted the landlord cheerfully, saluted the head waiter, ordered his dinner, and took no notice of the sullen looks with which he was received or the scowls which followed him about the coffee-room, where half a dozen men were sitting and talking, for the most part in whispers. He slept there that night. The next day, still openly and as if there was nothing to fear, either from England or from Ireland, he walked to the station and took his ticket, paying no attention to what all the world might have seen and understood--that he was watched. When he had taken his ticket two men immediately afterwards took tickets to the same place. The place where he was going was that part of Kerry where the Invincibles had formerly assassinated Arthur Mountjoy. The two men who followed him--who took their tickets for the same place--who got into the same carriage with him--were two members of that same fraternity. It is well known that he who joins that body and afterwards leaves it, or disobeys its order, or is supposed to betray its secrets, incurs the penalty of death. On the unexpected arrival of Lord Harry at this hotel, there had been hurriedly called together a meeting of those members then in Dublin. It was resolved that the traitor must be removed. Lots were cast, and the lot fell upon one who remembered past acts of kindness done by Lord Harry to his own people. He would fain have been spared this business, but the rules of the society are imperative. He must obey. It is the practice of the society when a murder has been resolved upon to appoint a second man, whose duty it is to accompany the murderer and to see that he executes his task. In the afternoon, about an hour before sunset, the train arrived at the station where Lord Harry was to get down. The station-master recognised him, and touched his hat. Then he saw the two other men got down after him, and he turned pale. "I will leave my portmanteau," said Lord Harry, "in the cloak-room. It will be called for." Afterwards the station-master remembered those words. Lord Harry did not say "I will call for it," but "It will be called for." Ominous words. The weather was cold; a drizzling rain fell; the day was drawing in. Lord Harry left the station, and started with quick step along the road, which stretched across a dreary desolate piece of country. The two men walked after him. One presently quickened his step, leaving the second man twenty yards behind. The station-master looked after them till he could see them no longer. Then he shook his head and returned to his office. Lord Harry walking along the road knew that the two men were following him. Presently he became aware that one of them was quickening his pace. He walked on. Perhaps his cheeks paled and his lips were set close, because he knew that he was walking to his death. The steps behind him approached faster--faster. Lord Harry never even turned his head. The man was close behind him. The man was beside him. "Mickey O'Flynn it is," said Lord Harry. "'Tis a ---- traitor, you are," said the man. "Your friends the Invincibles told you that, Mickey. Why, do you think I don't know, man, what are you here for? Well?" he stopped. "I am unarmed. You have got a revolver in your hand--the hand behind your back. What are you stopping for?" "I cannot," said the man. "You must, Mickey O'Flynn--you must; or it's murdered you'll be yourself," said Lord Harry, coolly. "Why, man, 'tis but to lift your hand. And then you'll be a murderer for life. I am another--we shall both be murderers then. Why don't you fire, man." "By ---- I cannot!" said Mickey. He held the revolver behind him, but he did not lift his arm. His eyes started: his mouth was open; the horror of the murderer was upon him before the murder was committed. Then he started. "Look!" he cried. "Look behind you, my lord!" Lord Harry turned. The second man was upon him. He bent forward and peered in his face. "Arthur Mountjoy's murderer!" he cried, and sprang at his throat. One, two, three shots rang out in the evening air. Those who heard them in the roadside cabin, at the railway-station on the road, shuddered. They knew the meaning of those shots. One more murder to load the soul of Ireland. But Lord Harry lay dead in the middle of the road. The second man got up and felt at his throat. "Faith!" he said, "I thought I was murdered outright. Come, Mick, let us drag him to the roadside." They did so, and then with bent heads and slouched hats, they made their way across country to another station where they would not be recognised as the two who had followed Lord Harry down the road. Two mounted men of the Constabulary rode along an hour later and found the body lying where it had been left. They searched the pockets. They found a purse with a few sovereigns; the portrait of a lady---the murdered man's wife--a sealed envelope addressed to Hugh Mountjoy, Esq, care of his London hotel; and a card-case: nothing of any importance. "It is Lord Harry Norland," said one. "The wild lord--he has met his end at last." The letter to Iris was brief. It said: "Farewell! I am going to meet the death of one who is called a Traitor to the Cause. I am the Traitor of a Cause far higher. May the end that is already plotted for me be accepted as an atonement! Forgive me, Iris! Think of me as kindly as you can. But I charge you--it is my latest word--mourn not for one who has done his best to poison your life and to ruin your soul." In the other letter he said: "I know the affection you have always entertained for Iris. She will tell you what she pleases about the past. If she tells you nothing about her late husband, think the worst and you will not be wrong. Remember that whatever she has done was done for me and at my instigation. She ought to have married you instead of me. "I am in the presence of Death. The men who are going to kill me are under this very roof. They will kill me, perhaps to-night. Perhaps they will wait for a quieter and a safer place. But they will kill me. "In the presence of Death, I rise superior to the pitiful jealousy with which I have always regarded you. I now despise it. I ask your pardon for it. Help Iris to forget the action of her life of which she has most reason to be ashamed. Show that you forgive me--when you have forgiven her--and when you have helped her in the warmth and strength of your love to drive me out of your thoughts for ever. "H. N." EPILOGUE IT is two years after the murder of Lord Harry Norland, the last event connected with this history. Iris, when she accepted Hugh Mountjoy's offer of his Scotch villa, went there resolved to hide herself from the world. Too many people, she thought, knew her history, and what she had done. It was not likely that the Directors of the Insurance Company would all hold their tongues about a scandal so very unusual. Even if they did not charge her with complicity, as they could, they would certainly tell the story--all the more readily since Lord Harry's murder--of the conspiracy and its success. She could never again, she told herself, be seen in the world. She was accompanied by her friend and maid--the woman whose fidelity to her had been so abundantly proved--and by Mrs. Vimpany, who acted as housekeeper. After a decent interval, Hugh Mountjoy joined her. She was now a widow. She understood very well what he wished to say, and she anticipated him. She informed him that nothing would ever induce her to become the wife of any other man after her degradation. Hugh received this intimation without a remark. He remained in the neighbourhood, however, calling upon her frequently and offering no word of love. But he became necessary to her. The frequent visits became daily; the afternoon visits were paid in the morning: the visitor stayed all day. When the time came for Iris to yield, and he left the house no more, there seemed to be no change. But still they continued their retired life, and now I do not think they will ever change it again. Their villa was situated on the north shore of the Solway Firth, close to the outfall of the Annan River, but on the west bank, opposite to the little town of Annan. At the back was a large garden, the front looked out upon the stretch of sand at low tide and the water at high tide. The house was provided with a good library. Iris attended to her garden, walked on the sands, read, or worked. They were a quiet household. Husband and wife talked little. They walked about in the garden, his arm about her waist, or hand in hand. The past, if not forgotten, was ceasing to trouble them; it seemed a dreadful, terrible dream. It left its mark in a gentle melancholy which had never belonged to Iris in the old days. And then happened the last event which the chronicler of this history has to relate. It began in the morning with a letter. Mrs. Vimpany received it. She knew the handwriting, started, and hid it quickly in her bosom. As soon as she could get away to her own room she opened and read it. "Good and Tender Creature,--I ascertained, a good while ago, thinking that probably I might have to make this kind of application to you, where you were living and with whom. It was not difficult; I only had to connect you with Mr. Hugh Mountjoy and to find out where he lived. I congratulate you on being so well able to take care of yourself. You are probably settled for life in a comfortable home. I feel as happy about it as if I had myself contributed to thus satisfactory result. "I have no intention of making myself more disagreeable than I am obliged to do. Necessity, however, knows no law. You will understand me when I tell you that I have spent all my money. I do not regret the manner in which the money has been spent, but the fact that it has all gone. This it is which cuts me to the heart. "I have also discovered that the late lamented Lord Harry, whose death I myself have the greatest reasons to deplore, played me a scurvy trick in regard to certain sums of money. The amount for which he was insured was not less than 15,000 pounds. The amount as he stated it to me was only 4,000 pounds. In return for certain services rendered at a particular juncture I was to receive the half of the insurance money. I only received 2,000 pounds, consequently there is still due to me the sum of 5,500 pounds. This is a large lump of money. But Mr. Mountjoy is, I believe, a wealthy man. He will, doubtless, see the necessity of paying this money to me without further question or delay. "You will, therefore, seek his presence--he is now, I hear, at home. You may read to him any part of this letter that you please, and you will let him know that I am in earnest. A man with empty pockets cannot choose but be in earnest. "He may very possibly object. "Very good. In that case you will tell him that a fraud has been committed in connection with which I am prepared to make a full confession. I consented, on the death of my patient, and at the earnest entreaty of Lord Harry Norland, to represent the dead man as his lordship. I then went away, resolving to have nothing more to do with the further villainy which I believe was carried on to the obtaining of the whole amount for which he was insured. "The murder of Lord Harry immediately afterwards caused the Company to drop their intended prosecution. I shall reveal to them the present residence of his widow, and shall place my evidence at their disposition. Whatever happens I shall make the facts of the case public. This done, nothing can hurt me; while, whether the Public Prosecutor intervenes or not, neither Mr. Hugh Mountjoy nor his wife can ever show face to the world again. "Tell Mr. Mountjoy, I say, whatever you please, except that I am joking. You must not tell him that. I shall call to-morrow morning, and shall expect to find the business as good as done. "A. V." Mrs. Vimpany dropped the letter in dismay. Her husband had vanished out of her life for more than two years. She hoped that she was effectually hidden; she hoped that he had gone away to some far-off country where he would never more return. Alas! This world of ours has no far-off country left, and, even if the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness so far as to go to the Rocky Mountains, an express train and a swift boat will bring him back to his wickedness whenever he desires a little more enjoyment and the society of his old friends. Mr. Vimpany was back again. What should she do? What would Iris do? What would Mr. Mountjoy do? She read the letter again. Two things were obvious: first, that he had no clue of the restitution; and, next, that he had no idea of the evidence against him for the murder of the Dane. She resolved to communicate the latter fact only. She was braver now than she had been formerly. She saw more clearly that the way of the wicked man is not always so easy for him. If he knew that his crime could be brought home to him; that he would certainly be charged with murder if he dared to show himself, or if he asked for money, he would desist. Before such a danger the most hardened villain would shrink. She also understood that it was desirable to hide from him the nature of the evidence and the name of the only witness against him. She would calmly tell him what would happen, and bid him begone, or take the consequences. Yet even if he were driven off he would return. She would live henceforth in continual apprehension of his return. Her tranquillity was gone. Heavens! That a man should have such power over the lives of others! She passed the most wretched day of her whole life. She saw in anticipation the happiness of that household broken up. She pictured his coming, but she could not picture his departure. For she had never seen him baffled and defeated. He would come in, big, burly, with his farmer-like manner confident, bullying, masterful. He would ask her what she had done; he would swear at her when he learned that she had done nothing; he would throw himself into the most comfortable chair, stretch out his legs, and order her to go and fetch Mr. Mountjoy. Would she be subdued by him as of old? Would she find the courage to stand up to him? For the sake of Iris--yes. For the sake of the man who had been so kind to her--yes. In the evening, the two women--Mrs. Vimpany and Fanny--were seated in the housekeeper's room. Both had work in their laps: neither was doing any work. The autumnal day had been boisterous; the wind was getting higher. "What are you thinking of?" asked Fanny. "I was thinking of my husband. If he were to come back, Fanny--if he were to threaten--" "You would loose my tongue--you would let me speak?" "Yes; for her sake. I would have shielded him once---if I could. But not now. I know, at last, that there is no single good thing left in him." "You have heard from him. I saw the letter this morning, in the box. I knew the handwriting. I have been waiting for you to speak." "Hush! Yes, Fanny; I have heard from him. He wants money. He will come here to-morrow morning, and will threaten Mr. Mountjoy. Keep your mistress in her own room. Persuade her to lie in bed--anything." "He does not know what I have seen. Charge him with the murder of the Dane. Tell him," said Fanny, her lips stiffening, "that if he dares to come again--if he does not go away--he shall be arrested for murder. I will keep silence no longer!" "I will--I am resolved! Oh! who will rid us of this monster?" Outside, the gale rose higher--higher still. They heard it howling, grinding branches together; they heard the roaring and the rushing of the waters as the rising tide was driven over the shallow sands, like a mountain reservoir at loose among the valleys below. In the midst of the tempest there came a sudden lull. Wind and water alike seemed hushed. And out of the lull, as if in answer to the woman's question, there came a loud cry--the shriek of a man in deadly peril. The two women caught each other by the hand and rushed to the window. They threw it open; the tempest began again; a fresh gust drove them back; the waters roared: the wind howled; they heard the voice no more. They closed the window and put up the shutters. It was long past midnight when they dared to go to bed. One of them lay awake the whole night long. In the roaring tempest she had seen an omen of the wrath of Heaven about to fall once more upon her mistress. She was wrong. The wrath of Heaven fell upon one far more guilty. In the morning, with the ebbing tide, a dead body was found lashed to the posts of one of the standing nets in the Solway. It was recognised by Hugh, who went out to look at it, and found it the body of Vimpany. Whether he was on his way back to Annan, or whether he intended to call at the villa that evening instead of next morning, no one can tell. His wife shed tears, but they were tears of relief. The man was buried as a stranger. Hugh kept his counsel. Mrs. Vimpany put the letter in the fire. Neither of them thought it wise to disturb the mind of Iris by any mention of the man. Some days later, however, Mrs. Vimpany came downstairs in a widow's cap. To Iris's look of interrogation she replied calmly, "Yes, I heard the other day. He is dead. Is it not better--even for him, perhaps--that he should be dead? He can do no more wickedness; he can bring misery into no more households. He is dead." Iris made no reply. Better--better far--that he was dead. But how she had been delivered from the man, to what new dangers she had been exposed, she knew not, and will never know. She has one secret--and only one--which she keeps from her husband. In her desk she preserves a lock of Lord Harry's hair. Why? I know not. Blind Love doth never wholly die. THE END 5227 ---- SANT' ILARIO BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "ZOROASTER," "A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH," ETC. TO My Wife THIS SECOND PART OF "SARACINESCA" IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED CHAPTER I. Two years of service in the Zouaves had wrought a change in Anastase Gouache, the painter. He was still a light man, nervously built, with small hands and feet, and a delicate face; but constant exposure to the weather had browned his skin, and a life of unceasing activity had strengthened his sinews and hardened his compact frame. The clustering black curls were closely cropped, too, while the delicate dark moustache had slightly thickened. He had grown to be a very soldierly young fellow, straight and alert, quick of hand and eye, inured to that perpetual readiness which is the first characteristic of the good soldier, whether in peace or war. The dreamy look that was so often in his face in the days when he sat upon a high stool painting the portrait of Donna Tullia Mayer, had given place to an expression of wide-awake curiosity in the world's doings. Anastase was an artist by nature and no amount of military service could crush the chief aspirations of his intelligence. He had not abandoned work since he had joined the Zouaves, for his hours of leisure from duty were passed in his studio. But the change in his outward appearance was connected with a similar development in his character. He himself sometimes wondered how he could have ever taken any interest in the half-hearted political fumbling which Donna Tullia, Ugo Del Ferice, and others of their set used to dignify by the name of conspiracy. It seemed to him that his ideas must at that time have been deplorably confused and lamentably unsettled. He sometimes took out the old sketch of Madame Mayer's portrait, and setting it upon his easel, tried to realise and bring back those times when she had sat for him. He could recall Del Ferice's mock heroics, Donna Tullia's ill-expressed invectives, and his own half-sarcastic sympathy in the liberal movement; but the young fellow in an old velveteen jacket who used to talk glibly about the guillotine, about stringing-up the clericals to street-lamps and turning the churches into popular theatres, was surely not the energetic, sunburnt Zouave who had been hunting down brigands in the Samnite hills last summer, who spent three-fourths of his time among soldiers like himself, and who had pledged his honour to follow the gallant Charette and defend the Pope as long as he could carry a musket. There is a sharp dividing line between youth and manhood. Sometimes we cross it early, and sometimes late, but we do not know that we are passing from one life to another as we step across the boundary. The world seems to us the same for a while, as we knew it yesterday and shall know it to-morrow. Suddenly, we look back and start with astonishment when we see the past, which we thought so near, already vanishing in the distance, shapeless, confused, and estranged from our present selves. Then, we know that we are men, and acknowledge, with something like a sigh, that we have put away childish things. When Gouache put on the gray jacket, the red sash and the yellow gaiters, he became a man and speedily forgot Donna Tullia and her errors, and for some time afterwards he did not care to recall them. When he tried to remember the scenes at the studio in the Via San Basilio, they seemed very far away. One thing alone constantly reminded him disagreeably of the past, and that was his unfortunate failure to catch Del Ferice when the latter had escaped from Rome in the disguise of a mendicant friar. Anastase had never been able to understand how he had missed the fugitive. It had soon become known that Del Ferice had escaped by the very pass which Gouache was patrolling, and the young Zouave had felt the bitterest mortification in losing so valuable and so easy a prey. He often thought of it and promised himself that he would visit his anger on Del Ferice if he ever got a chance; but Del Ferice was out of reach of his vengeance, and Donna Tullia Mayer had not returned to Rome since the previous year. It had been rumoured of late that she had at last fulfilled the engagement contracted some time earlier, and had consented to be called the Contessa Del Ferice; this piece of news, however, was not yet fully confirmed. Gouache had heard the gossip, and had immediately made a lively sketch on the back of a half-finished picture, representing Donna Tullia, in her bridal dress, leaning upon the arm of Del Ferice, who was arrayed in a capuchin's cowl, and underneath, with his brush, he scrawled a legend, "Finis coronat opus." It was nearly six o'clock in the afternoon of the 23d of September. The day had been rainy, but the sky had cleared an hour before sunset, and there was a sweet damp freshness in the air, very grateful after the long weeks of late summer. Anastase Gouache had been on duty at the Serristori barracks in the Borgo Santo Spirito and walked briskly up to the bridge of Sant' Angelo. There was not much movement in the streets, and the carriages were few. A couple of officers were lounging at the gate of the castle and returned Gouache's salute as he passed. In the middle of the bridge he stopped and looked westward, down the short reach of the river which caught a lurid reflection of the sunset on its eddying yellow surface. He mused a moment, thinking more of the details of his duty at the barracks than of the scene before him. Then he thought of the first time he had crossed the bridge in his Zouave uniform, and a faint smile flickered on his brown features. It happened almost every day that he stopped at the same place, and as particular spots often become associated with ideas that seem to belong to them, the same thought almost always recurred to his mind as he stood there. Then followed the same daily wondering as to how all these things were to end; whether he should for years to come wear the red sash and the yellow gaiters, a corporal of Zouaves, and whether for years he should ask himself every day the same question. Presently, as the light faded from the houses of the Borgo, he turned away with an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and continued his walk upon the narrow pavement at the side of the bridge. As he descended the step at the end, to the level of the square, a small bright object in a crevice of the stones attracted his attention. He stooped and picked it up. It was a little gold pin, some two inches long, the head beaten out and twisted into the shape of the letter C. Gouache examined it attentively, and saw that it must have been long used, for it was slightly bent in more than one place as though it had often been thrust through some thick material. It told no other tale of its possessor, however, and the young man slipped it into his pocket and went on his way, idly wondering to whom the thing belonged. He reflected that if he had been bent on any important matter he would probably have considered the finding of a bit of gold as a favourable omen; but he was merely returning to his lodging as usual, and had no engagement for the evening. Indeed, he expected no event in his life at that time, and following the train of his meditation he smiled a little when he thought that he was not even in love. For a Frenchman, nearly thirty years of age, the position was an unusual one enough. In Gouache's case it was especially remarkable. Women liked him, he liked them, and he was constantly in the society of some of the most beautiful in the world. Nevertheless, he turned from one to another and found a like pleasure in the conversation of them all. What delighted him in the one was not what charmed him most in the next, but the equilibrium of satisfaction was well maintained between the dark and the fair, the silent beauty and the pretty woman of intelligence. There was indeed one whom he thought more noble in heart and grander in symmetry of form and feature, and stronger in mind than the rest; but she was immeasurably removed from the sphere of his possible devotion by her devoted love of her husband, and he admired her from a distance, even while speaking with her. As he passed the Apollo theatre and ascended the Via di Tordinona the lights were beginning to twinkle in the low doorways, and the gas-lamps, then a very recent innovation in Rome, shone out one by one in the distance. The street is narrow, and was full of traffic, even in the evening. Pedestrians elbowed their way along in the dusk, every now and then flattening themselves against the dingy walls to let a cab or a carriage rush past them, not without real risk of accident. Before the deep, arched gateway of the Orso, one of the most ancient inns in the world, the empty wine-carts were getting ready for the return journey by night across the Campagna, the great bunches of little bells jingling loudly in the dark as the carters buckled the harness on their horses' backs. Just as Gouache reached this place, the darkest and most crowded through which he had to pass, a tremendous clatter and rattle from the Via dell' Orso made the hurrying people draw back to the shelter of the doorsteps and arches. It was clear that a runaway horse was not far off. One of the carters, the back of whose waggon was half-way across the opening of the street, made desperate efforts to make his beast advance and clear the way; but the frightened animal only backed farther up. A moment later the runaway charged down past the tail of the lumbering vehicle. The horse himself just cleared the projecting timbers of the cart, but the cab he was furiously dragging caught upon them while going at full speed and was shivered to pieces, throwing the horse heavily upon the stones, so that he slid along several feet on his head and knees with the fragments of the broken shafts and the wreck of the harness about him. The first man to spring from the crowd and seize the beast's head was Anastase. He did not see that the same instant a large private carriage, drawn by a pair of powerful horses, emerged quickly from the Vicolo dei Soldati, the third of the streets which meet the Via di Tordinona at the Orso. The driver, who owing to the darkness had not seen the disaster which had just taken place, did his best to stop in time; but before the heavy equipage could be brought to a stand Anastase had been thrown to the ground, between the hoofs of the struggling cab-horse and the feet of the startled pair of bays. The crowd closed in as near as was safe, while the confusion and the shouts of the people and the carters increased every minute. The coachman of the private carriage threw the reins to the footman and sprang down to go to the horses' heads. "You have run over a Zouave!" some one shouted from the crowd. "Meno male! Thank goodness it was not one of us!" exclaimed another voice. "Where is he? Get him out, some of you!" cried the coachman as he seized the reins close to the bit. By this time a couple of stout gendarmes and two or three soldiers of the Antibes legion had made their way to the front and were dragging away the fallen cab-horse. A tall, thin, elderly gentleman, of a somewhat sour countenance, descended from the carriage and stooped over the injured soldier. "It is only a Zouave, Excellency," said the coachman, with a sort of sigh of relief. The tall gentleman lifted Gouache's head a little so that the light from the carriage-lamp fell upon his face. He was quite insensible, and there was blood upon his pale forehead and white cheeks. One of the gendarmes came forward. "We will take care of him, Signore," he said, touching his three-cornered hat. "But I must beg to know your revered name," he added, in the stock Italian phrase. "Capira--I am very sorry--but they say your horses--" "Put him into my carriage," answered the elderly gentleman shortly. "I am the Principe Montevarchi." "But, Excellency--the Signorina---" protested the coachman. The prince paid no attention to the objection and helped the gendarme to deposit Anastase in the interior of the vehicle. Then he gave the man a silver scudo. "Send some one to the Serristori barracks to say that a Zouave has been hurt and is at my house," he said. Therewith he entered the carriage and ordered the coachman to drive home. "In heaven's name, what has happened, papa?" asked a young voice in the darkness, tremulous with excitement. "My dear child, there has been an accident in the street, and this young man has been wounded, or killed--" "Killed! A dead man in the carriage!" cried the young girl in some terror, and shrinking away into the corner. "You should really control your nerves, Faustina," replied her father in austere tones. "If the young man is dead, it is the will of Heaven. If he is alive we shall soon find it out. Meanwhile I must beg you to be calm--to be calm, do you understand?" Donna Faustina Montevarchi made no answer to this parental injunction, but withdrew as far as she could into the corner of the back seat, while her father supported the inanimate body of the Zouave as the carriage swung over the uneven pavement. In a few minutes they rolled beneath a deep arch and stopped at the foot of a broad marble staircase. "Bring him upstairs carefully, and send for a surgeon," said the prince to the men who came forward. Then he offered his arm to his daughter to ascend the steps, as though nothing had happened, and without bestowing another look on the injured soldier. Donna Faustina was just eighteen years old, and had only quitted the convent of the Sacro Cuore a month earlier. It might have been said that she was too young to be beautiful, for she evidently belonged to that class of women who do not attain their full development until a later period. Her figure was almost too slender, her face almost too delicate and ethereal. There was about her a girlish look, an atmosphere of half-saintly maidenhood, which was not so much the expression of her real nature as the effect produced by her being at once very thin and very fresh. There was indeed nothing particularly angelic about her warm brown eyes, shaded by unusually long black lashes; and little wayward locks of chestnut hair, curling from beneath the small round hat of the period, just before the small pink ears, softened as with a breath of worldliness the grave outlines of the serious face. A keen student of women might have seen that the dim religious halo of convent life which still clung to the young girl would soon fade and give way to the brilliancy of the woman of the world. She was not tall, though of fully average height, and although the dress of that time was ill-adapted to show to advantage either the figure or the movements, it was evident, as she stepped lightly from the carriage, that she had a full share of ease and grace. She possessed that unconscious certainty in motion which proceeds naturally from the perfect proportion of all the parts, and which exercises a far greater influence over men than a faultless profile or a dazzling skin. Instead of taking her father's arm, Donna Faustina turned and looked at the face of the wounded Zouave, whom three men had carefully taken from the carriage and were preparing to carry upstairs. Poor Gouache was hardly recognisable for the smart soldier who had crossed the bridge of Sant' Angelo half an hour earlier. His uniform was all stained with mud, there was blood upon his pale face, and his limbs hung down, powerless and limp. But as the young girl looked at him, consciousness returned, and with it came the sense of acute suffering. He opened his eyes suddenly, as men often do when they revive after being stunned, and a short groan escaped from his lips. Then, as he realised that he was in the presence of a lady, he made an effort as though to release himself from the hands of those who carried him, and to stand upon his feet. "Pardon me, Madame," he began to say, but Faustina checked him by a gesture. Meanwhile old Montevarchi had carefully scrutinised the young man's face, and had recognised him, for they had often met in society. "Monsieur Gouache!" he exclaimed in surprise. At the same time he made the men move on with their burden. "You know him, papa?" whispered Donna Faustina as they followed together. "He is a gentleman? I was right?" "Of course, of course," answered her father. "But really, Faustina, had you nothing better to do than to go and look into his face? Imagine, if he had known you! Dear me! If you begin like this, as soon as you are out of the convent--" Montevarchi left the rest of the sentence to his daughter's imagination, merely turning up his eyes a little as though deprecating the just vengeance of heaven upon his daughter's misconduct. "Really, papa--" protested Faustina. "Yes--really, my daughter--I am much surprised," returned her incensed parent, still speaking in an undertone lest the injured man should overhear what was said. They reached the head of the stairs and the men carried Gouache rapidly away; not so quickly, however, as to prevent Faustina from getting another glimpse of his face. His eyes were open and met hers with an expression of mingled interest and gratitude which she did not forget. Then he was carried away and she did not see him again. The Montevarchi household was conducted upon the patriarchal principle, once general in Rome, and not quite abandoned even now, twenty years later than the date of Gouache's accident. The palace was a huge square building facing upon two streets, in front and behind, and opening inwards upon two courtyards. Upon the lower floor were stables, coach-houses, kitchens, and offices innumerable. Above these there was built a half story, called a mezzanino--in French, entresol, containing the quarters of the unmarried sons of the house, of the household chaplain, and of two or three tutors employed in the education of the Montevarchi grandchildren. Next above, came the "piano nobile," or state apartments, comprising the rooms of the prince and princess, the dining-room, and a vast suite of reception-rooms, each of which opened into the next in such a manner that only the last was not necessarily a passage. In the huge hall was the dais and canopy with the family arms embroidered in colours once gaudy but now agreeably faded to a softer tone. Above this floor was another, occupied by the married sons, their wives and children; and high over all, above the cornice of the palace, were the endless servants' quarters and the roomy garrets. At a rough estimate the establishment comprised over a hundred persons, all living under the absolute and despotic authority of the head of the house, Don Lotario Montevarchi, Principe Montevarchi, and sole possessor of forty or fifty other titles. From his will and upon his pleasure depended every act of every member of his household, from his eldest son and heir, the Duca di Bellegra, to that of Pietro Paolo, the under-cook's scullion's boy. There were three sons and four daughters. Two of the sons were married, to wit, Don Ascanio, to whom his father had given his second title, and Don Onorato, who was allowed to call himself Principe di Cantalupo, but who would have no legal claim to that distinction after his father's death. Last of the three came Don Carlo, a young fellow of twenty years, but not yet emancipated from the supervision of his tutor. Of the daughters, the two eldest, Bianca and Laura, were married and no longer lived in Rome, the one having been matched with a Neapolitan and the other with a Florentine. There remained still at home, therefore, the third, Donna Flavia, and the youngest of all the family, Donna Faustina. Though Flavia was not yet two and twenty years of age, her father and mother were already beginning to despair of marrying her, and dropped frequent hints about the advisability of making her enter religion, as they called it; that is to say, they thought she had better take the veil and retire from the world. The old princess Montevarchi was English by birth and education, but thirty-three years of life in Rome had almost obliterated all traces of her nationality. That all-pervading influence, which so soon makes Romans of foreigners who marry into Roman families, had done its work effectually. The Roman nobility, by intermarriage with the principal families of the rest of Europe, has lost many Italian characteristics; but its members are more essentially Romans than the full-blooded Italians of the other classes who dwell side by side with the aristocracy in Rome. When Lady Gwendoline Fontenoy married Don Lotario Montevarchi in the year 1834, she, no doubt, believed that her children would grow up as English as she herself, and that her husband's house would not differ materially from an establishment of the same kind in England. She laughed merrily at the provisions of the marriage contract, which even went so far as to stipulate that she was to have at least two dishes of meat at dinner, and an equivalent on fast-days, a drive every day--the traditional trottata--two new gowns every year, and a woman to wait upon her. After these and similar provisions had been agreed upon, her dowry, which was a large one for those days, was handed over to the keeping of her father-in-law and she was duly married to Don Lotario, who at once assumed the title of Duca di Bellegra. The wedding journey consisted of a fortnight's retirement in the Villa Montevarchi at Frascati, and at the end of that time the young couple were installed under the paternal roof in Rome. Before she had been in her new abode a month the young Duchessa realised the utter hopelessness of attempting to change the existing system of patriarchal government under which she found herself living. She discovered, in the first place, that she would never have five scudi of her own in her pocket, and that if she needed a handkerchief or a pair of stockings it was necessary to obtain from the head of the house not only the permission to buy such necessaries, but the money with which to pay for them. She discovered, furthermore, that if she wanted a cup of coffee or some bread and butter out of hours, those things were charged to her daily account in the steward's office, as though she had been in an inn, and were paid for at the end of the year out of the income arising from her dowry. Her husband's younger brother, who had no money of his own, could not even get a lemonade in his father's house without his father's consent. Moreover, the family life was of such a nature as almost to preclude all privacy. The young Duchessa and her husband had their bedroom in the upper story, but Don Lotario's request that his wife might have a sitting-room of her own was looked upon as an attempt at a domestic revolution, and the privilege was only obtained at last through the formidable intervention of the Duke of Agincourt, the Duchessa's own father. All the family meals, too, were eaten together in the solemn old dining-hall, hung with tapestries and dingy with the dust of ages. The order of precedence was always strictly observed, and though the cooking was of a strange kind, no plate or dish was ever used which was not of solid silver, battered indeed, and scratched, and cleaned only after Italian ideas, but heavy and massive withal. The Duchessa soon learned that the old Roman houses all used silver plates from motives of economy, for the simple reason that metal did not break. But the sensible English woman saw also that although the most rigid economy was practised in many things, there was lavish expenditure in many departments of the establishment. There were magnificent horses in the stables, gorgeously gilt carriages in the coach-houses, scores of domestics in bright liveries at every door. The pay of the servants did not, indeed, exceed the average earnings of a shoe-black in London, but the coats they wore were exceeding glorious with gold lace. It was clear from the first that nothing was expected of Don Lotario's wife but to live peaceably under the patriarchal rule, making no observations and offering no suggestions. Her husband told her that he was powerless to introduce any changes, and added, that since his father and all his ancestors had always lived in the same way, that way was quite good enough for him. Indeed, he rather looked forward to the time when he should be master of the house, having children under him whom he might rule as absolutely and despotically as he was ruled himself. In the course of years the Duchessa absorbed the traditions of her new home, so that they became part of her, and as everything went on unchanged from year to year she acquired unchanging habits which corresponded with her surroundings. Then, when at last the old prince and princess were laid side by side in the vault of the family chapel and she was princess in her turn, she changed nothing, but let everything go on in the same groove, educating her children and managing them, as her husband had been educated and as she herself had been managed by the old couple. Her husband grew more and more like his father, punctilious, rigid; a strict observant in religious matters, a pedant in little things, prejudiced against all change; too satisfied to desire improvement, too scrupulously conscientious to permit any retrogression from established rule, a model of the immutability of an ancient aristocracy, a living paradigm of what always had been and a stubborn barrier against all that might be. Such was the home to which Donna Faustina Montevarchi returned to live after spending eight years in the convent of the Sacro Cuore. During that time she had acquired the French language, a slight knowledge of music, a very limited acquaintance with the history of her own country, a ready memory for prayers and litanies--and her manners. Manners among the Italians are called education. What we mean by the latter word, namely, the learning acquired, is called, more precisely, instruction. An educated person means a person who has acquired the art of politeness. An instructed person means some one who has learnt rather more than the average of what is generally learnt by the class of people to whom he belongs. Donna Faustina was extremely well educated, according to Roman ideas, but her instruction was not, and was not intended to be, any better than that imparted to the young girls with whom she was to associate in the world. As far as her character was concerned, she herself knew very little of it, and would probably have found herself very much embarrassed if called upon to explain what character meant. She was new and the world was very old. The nuns had told her that she must never care for the world, which was a very sinful place, full of thorns, ditches, pitfalls and sinners, besides the devil and his angels. Her sister Flavia, on the contrary, assured her that the world was very agreeable, when mamma happened to go to sleep in a corner during a ball; that all men were deceivers, but that when a man danced well it made no difference whether he were a deceiver or not, since he danced with his legs and not with his conscience; that there was no happiness equal to a good cotillon, and that there were a number of these in every season; and, finally, that provided one did not spoil one's complexion one might do anything, so long as mamma was not looking. To Donna Faustina, these views, held by the nuns on the one hand and by Flavia on the other, seemed very conflicting. She would not, indeed, have hesitated in choosing, even if she had been permitted any choice; for it was clear that, since she had seen the convent side of the question, it would be very interesting to see the other. But, having been told so much about sinners, she was on the look-out for them, and looked forward to making the acquaintance of one of them with a pardonable excitement. Doubtless she would hate a sinner if she saw one, as the nuns had taught her, although the sinner of her imagination was not a very repulsive personage. Flavia probably knew a great many, and Flavia said that society was very amusing. Faustina wished that the autumn months would pass a little more quickly, so that the carnival season might begin. Prince Montevarchi, for his part, intended his youngest daughter to be a model of prim propriety. He attributed to Flavia's frivolity of behaviour the difficulty he experienced in finding her a husband, and he had no intention of exposing himself to a second failure in the case of Faustina. She should marry in her first season, and if she chose to be gay after that, the responsibility thereof might fall upon her husband, or her father-in-law, or upon whomsoever it should most concern; he himself would have fulfilled his duty so soon as the nuptial benediction was pronounced. He knew the fortune and reputation of every marriageable young man in society, and was therefore eminently fitted for the task he undertook. To tell the truth, Faustina herself expected to be married before Easter, for it was eminently fitting that a young girl should lose no time in such matters. But she meant to choose a man after her own heart, if she found one; at all events, she would not submit too readily to the paternal choice nor appear satisfied with the first tolerable suitor who should be presented to her. Under these circumstances it seemed probable that Donna Faustina's first season, which had begun with the unexpected adventure at the corner of the old Orso, would not come to a close without some passage of arms between herself and her father, even though the ultimate conclusion should lead to the steps of the altar. The men carried the wounded Zouave away to a distant room, and Faustina entered the main apartments by the side of the old prince. She sighed a little as she went. "I hope the poor man will get well!" she exclaimed. "Do not disturb your mind about the young man," answered her father. "He will be attended by the proper persons, and the doctor will bleed him and the will of Heaven will be done. It is not the duty of a well-conducted young woman to be thinking of such things, and you may dismiss the subject at once." "Yes, papa," said Faustina submissively. But in spite of the dutiful tone of voice in which she spoke, the dim light of the tall lamps in the antechambers showed a strange expression of mingled amusement and contrariety in the girl's ethereal face. CHAPTER II. "You know Gouache?" asked old Prince Saracinesca, in a tone which implied that he had news to tell. He looked from his daughter-in-law to his son as he put the question, and then went on with his breakfast. "Very well," answered Giovanni. "What about him?" "He was knocked down by a carriage last night. The carriage belonged to Montevarchi, and Gouache is at his house, in danger of his life." "Poor fellow!" exclaimed Corona in ready sympathy. "I am so sorry! I am very fond of Gouache." Giovanni Saracinesca, known to the world since his marriage as Prince of Sant' Ilario, glanced quickly at his wife, so quickly that neither she nor the old gentleman noticed the fact. The three persons sat at their midday breakfast in the dining-room of the Palazzo Saracinesca. After much planning and many discussions the young couple had determined to take up their abode with Giovanni's father. There were several reasons which had led them to this decision, but the two chief ones were that they were both devotedly attached to the old man; and secondly, that such a proceeding was strictly fitting and in accordance with the customs of Romans. It was true that Corona, while her old husband, the Duca d'Astrardente, was alive, had grown used to having an establishment exclusively her own, and both the Saracinesca had at first feared that she would be unwilling to live in her father-in-law's house. Then, too, there was the Astrardente palace, which, could not lie shut up and allowed to go to ruin; but this matter was compromised advantageously by Corona's letting it to an American millionaire who wished to spend the winter in Rome. The rent paid was large, and Corona never could have too much money for her improvements out at Astrardente. Old Saracinesca wished that the tenant might have been at least a diplomatist, and cursed the American by his gods, but Giovanni said that his wife had shown good sense in getting as much as she could for the palace. "We shall not need it till Orsino grows up--unless you marry again," said Sant' Ilario to his father, with a laugh. Now, Orsino was Giovanni's son and heir, aged, at the time of this tale, six months and a few days. In spite of his extreme youth, however, Orsino played a great and important part in the doings of the Saracinesca household. In the first place, he was the heir, and the old prince had been found sitting by his cradle with an expression never seen in his face since Giovanni had been a baby. Secondly, Orsino was a very fine child, swarthy of skin, and hard as a tiger cub, yet having already his mother's eyes, large, coal-black and bright, but deep and soft withal. Thirdly, Orsino had a will of his own, admirably seconded by an enormous lung power. Not that he cried, when he wanted anything. His baby eyes had not yet been seen to shed tears. He merely shouted, loud and long, and thumped the sides of his cradle with his little clenched fists, or struck out straight at anybody who chanced to be within reach. Corona rejoiced in the child, and used to say that he was like his grandfather, his father and his mother all put together. The old prince thought that if this were true the boy would do very well; Corona was the most beautiful dark woman of her time; he himself was a sturdy, tough old man, though his hair and beard were white as snow, and Giovanni was his father's ideal of what a man of his race should be. The arrival of the baby Orsino had been an additional argument in favour of living together, for the child's grandfather could not have been separated from him even by the quarter of a mile which lay between the two palaces. And so it came to pass that they all dwelt under the same roof, and were sitting together at breakfast on the morning of the 24th of September, when the old prince told them of the accident which had happened to Gouache. "How did you hear the news?" asked Giovanni. "Montevarchi told me this morning. He was very much disturbed at the idea of having an interesting young man in his house, with Flavia and Faustina at home." Old Saracinesca smiled grimly. "Why should that trouble him?" inquired Corona. "He has the ancient ideas," replied her father-in-law. "After all--Flavia--" "Yes Flavia, after all--" "I shall be curious to see how the other one turns out," remarked Giovanni. "There seems to be a certain unanimity in our opinion of Flavia. However, I daresay it is mere gossip, and Casa Montevarchi is not a gay place for a girl of her age." "Not gay? How do you know?" asked the old prince. "Does the girl want Carnival to last till All Souls'? Did you ever dine there, Giovannino?" "No--nor any one else who is not a member of the most Excellent Casa Montevarchi." "Then how do you know whether it is gay or not?" "You should hear Ascanio Bellegra describe their life," retorted Giovanni. "And I suppose you describe your life to him, in exchange?" Prince Saracinesca was beginning to lose his temper, as he invariably did whenever he could induce his son to argue any question with him. "I suppose you deplore each other's miserable condition. I tell you what I think, Giovanni. You had better go and live in Corona's house if you are not happy here." "It is let," replied Giovanni with imperturbable calm, but his wife bit her lip to control her rising laughter. "You might travel," growled the old gentleman. "But I am very happy here." "Then what do you mean by talking like that about Casa Montevarchi?" "I fail to see the connection between the two ideas," observed Giovanni. "You live in precisely the same circumstances as Ascanio Bellegra. I think the connection is clear enough. If his life is sad, so is yours." "For downright good logic commend me to my beloved father!" cried Giovanni, breaking into a laugh at last. "A laughing-stock for my children! I have come to this!" exclaimed his father gruffly. But his features relaxed into a good-humoured smile, that was pleasant to see upon his strong dark face. "But, really, I am very sorry to hear this of poor Gouache," said Corona at last, returning to the original subject of their conversation. "I hope it is nothing really dangerous." "It is always dangerous to be run over by a carriage," answered Giovanni. "I will go and see him, if they will let me in." At this juncture Orsino was brought in by his nurse, a splendid creature from Saracinesca, with bright blue eyes and hair as fair as any Goth's, a contrast to the swarthy child she carried in her arms. Immediately the daily ovation began, and each of the three persons began to worship the baby in an especial way. There was no more conversation, after that, for some time. The youngest of the Saracinesca absorbed the attention of the family. Whether he clenched his little fists, or opened his small fat fingers, whether he laughed and crowed at his grandfather's attempts to amuse him, or struck his nurse's rosy cheeks with his chubby hands, the result was always applause and merriment from those who looked on. The scene recalled Joseph's dream, in which the sheaves of his brethren bowed down to his sheaf. After a while, however, Orsino grew sleepy and had to be taken away. Then the little party broke up and separated. The old prince went to his rooms to read and doze for an hour. Corona was called away to see one of the numberless dressmakers whose shadows darken the beginning of a season in town, and Giovanni took his hat and went out. In those days young men of society had very little to do. The other day a German diplomatist was heard to say that Italian gentlemen seemed to do nothing but smoke, spit, and criticise. Twenty years ago their manners might have been described less coarsely, but there was even more truth in the gist of the saying. Not only they did nothing. There was nothing for them to do. They floated about in a peaceful millpool, whose placid surface reflected nothing but their own idle selves, little guessing that the dam whereby their mimic sea was confined, would shortly break with a thundering crash and empty them all into the stream of real life that flowed below. For the few who disliked idleness there was no occupation but literature, and literature, to the Roman mind of 1867, and in the Roman meaning of the word, was scholarship. The introduction to a literary career was supposed to be obtained only by a profound study of the classics, with a view to avoiding everything classical, both in language and ideas, except Cicero, the apostle of the ancient Roman Philistines; and the tendency to clothe stale truisms and feeble sentiments in high-sounding language is still found in Italian prose and is indirectly traceable to the same source. As for the literature of the country since the Latins, it consisted, and still consists, in the works of the four poets, Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, and Petrarch. Leopardi is more read now than then, but is too unhealthily melancholy to be read long by any one. There used to be Roman princes who spent years in committing to memory the verses of those four poets, just as the young Brahman of to-day learns to recite the Rig Veda. That was called the pursuit of literature. The Saracinesca were thought very original and different from other men, because they gave some attention to their estates. It seemed very like business to try and improve the possessions one had inherited or acquired by marriage, and business was degradation. Nevertheless, the Saracinesca were strong enough to laugh at other people's scruples, and did what seemed best in their own eyes without troubling themselves to ask what the world thought. But the care of such matters was not enough to occupy Giovanni all day. He had much time on his hands, for he was an active man, who slept little and rarely needed rest. Formerly he had been used to disappear from Rome periodically, making long journeys, generally ending in shooting expeditions in some half-explored country. That was in the days before his marriage, and his wanderings had assuredly done him no harm. He had seen much of the world not usually seen by men of his class and prejudices, and the acquaintance he had thus got with things and people was a source of great satisfaction to him. But the time had come to give up all this. He was now not only married and settled in his own home, but moreover he loved his wife with his whole heart, and these facts were serious obstacles against roughing it in Norway, Canada, or Transylvania. To travel with Corona and little Orsino seemed a very different matter from travelling with Corona alone. Then there was his father's growing affection for the child, which had to be taken into account in all things. The four had become inseparable, old Saracinesca, Giovanni, Corona, and the baby. Now Giovanni did not regret his old liberty. He knew that he was far happier than he had ever been in his life before. But there were days when the time hung heavily on his hands and his restless nature craved some kind of action which should bring with it a generous excitement. This was precisely what he could not find during the months spent in Rome, and so it fell out that he did very much what most young men of his birth found quite sufficient as an employment; he spent a deal of time in strolling where others strolled, in lounging at the club, and in making visits which filled the hours between sunset and dinner. To him this life was new, and not altogether tasteful; but his friends did not fail to say that Giovanni had been civilised by his marriage with the Astrardente, and was much less reserved than he had formerly been. When Corona went to see the dressmaker, Giovanni very naturally took his hat and went out of the house. The September day was warm and bright, and in such weather it was a satisfaction merely to pace the old Roman streets in the autumn sun. It was too early to meet any of his acquaintance, and too soon in the season for any regular visiting. He did not know what to do, but allowed himself to enjoy the sunshine and the sweet air. Presently, the sight of a couple of Zouaves, talking together at the corner of a street, recalled to his mind the accident which had happened to Gouache. It would be kind to go and see the poor fellow, or, at least, to ask after him. He had known him for some time and had gradually learned to like him, as most people did who met the gifted artist day after day throughout the gaiety of the winter. At the Palazzo Montevarchi Giovanni learned that the princess had just finished breakfast. He could hardly ask for Gouache without making a short visit in the drawing-room, and he accordingly submitted, regretting after all that he had come. The old princess bored him, he did not know Faustina, who was just out of the convent, and Flavia, who amused many people, did not amuse him in the least. He inwardly rejoiced that he was married, and that his visit could not be interpreted as a preliminary step towards asking for Flavia's hand. The princess looked up with an expression of inquiry in her prominent blue eyes, as Sant' Ilario entered. She was stout, florid, and not well dressed. Her yellow hair, already half gray, for she was more than fifty years old, was of the unruly kind, and had never looked neat even in her best days. Her bright, clear complexion saved her, however, as it saves hundreds of middle-aged Englishwomen, from that look of peculiar untidiness which belongs to dark-skinned persons who take no trouble about their appearance or personal adornment. In spite of thirty-three years of residence in Rome, she spoke Italian with a foreign accent, though otherwise correctly enough. But she was nevertheless a great lady, and no one would have thought of doubting the fact. Fat, awkwardly dressed, of no imposing stature, with unmanageable hair and prominent teeth, she was not a person to be laughed at. She had what many a beautiful woman lacks and envies--natural dignity of character and manner, combined with a self-possession which is not always found in exalted personages. That repose of manner which is commonly believed to be the heirloom of noble birth is seen quite as often in the low-born adventurer, who regards it as part of his stock-in-trade; and there are many women, and men too, whose position might be expected to place them beyond the reach of what we call shyness, but who nevertheless suffer daily agonies of social timidity and would rather face alone a charge of cavalry than make a new acquaintance. The Princess Montevarchi was made of braver stuff, however, and if her daughters had not inherited all her unaffected dignity they had at least received their fair share of self-possession. When Sant' Ilario entered, these two young ladies, Donna Flavia and Donna Faustina, were seated one on each side of their mother. The princess extended her hand, the two daughters held theirs demurely crossed upon their knees. Faustina looked at the carpet, as she had been taught to do in the convent. Flavia looked up boldly at Giovanni, knowing by experience that her mother could not see her while greeting the visitor. Sant' Ilario muttered some sort of civil inquiry, bowed to the two young ladies and sat down. "How is Monsieur Gouache?" he asked, going straight to the point. He had seen the look of surprise on the princess's face as he entered, and thought it best to explain himself at once. "Ah, you have heard? Poor man! He is badly hurt, I fear. Would you like to see him?" "Presently, if I may," answered Giovanni. "We are all fond of Gouache. How did the accident happen?" "Faustina ran over him," said Flavia, fixing her dark eyes on Giovanni and allowing her pretty face to assume an expression of sympathy--for the sufferer. "Faustina and papa," she added. "Flavia! How can you say such things!" exclaimed the princess, who spent a great part of her life in repressing her daughter's manner of speech. "Well, mamma--it was the carriage of course. But papa and Faustina were in it. It is the same thing." Giovanni looked at Faustina, but her thin fresh face expressed nothing, nor did she show any intention of commenting on her sister's explanation. It was the first time he had seen her near enough to notice her, and his attention was arrested by something in her looks which surprised and interested him. It was something almost impossible to describe, and yet so really present that it struck Sant' Ilario at once, and found a place in his memory. In the superstitions of the far north, as in the half material spiritualism of Polynesia, that look has a meaning and an interpretation. With us, the interpretation is lost, but the instinctive persuasion that the thing itself is not wholly meaningless remains ineradicable. We say, with a smile at our own credulity, "That man looks as though he had a story," or, "That woman looks as though something odd might happen to her." It is an expression in the eyes, a delicate shade in the features, which speak of many things which we do not understand; things which, if they exist at all, we feel must be inevitable, fatal, and beyond human control. Giovanni looked and was surprised, but Faustina said nothing. "It was very good of the prince to bring him here," remarked Sant' Ilario. "It was very unlike papa," exclaimed Flavia, before her mother could answer. "But very kind, of course, as you say," she added, with a little smile. Flavia had a habit of making rather startling remarks, and of then adding something in explanation or comment, before her hearers had recovered breath. The addition did not always mend matters very much. "Do not interrupt me, Flavia," said her mother, severely. "I beg your pardon, were you speaking, mamma?" asked the young girl, innocently. Giovanni was not amused by Flavia's manners, and waited calmly for the princess to speak. "Indeed," said she, "there was nothing else to be done. As we had run over the poor man--" "The carriage--" suggested Flavia. But her mother took no notice of her. "The least we could do, of course, was to bring him here. My husband would not have allowed him to be taken to the hospital." Flavia again fixed her eyes on Giovanni with a look of sympathy, which, however, did not convey any very profound belief in her father's charitable intentions. "I quite understand," said Giovanni. "And how has he been since you brought him here? Is he in any danger?" "You shall see him at once," answered the princess, who rose and rang the bell, and then, as the servant's footsteps were heard outside, crossed the room to meet him at the door. "Mamma likes to run about," said Flavia, sweetly, in explanation. Giovanni had risen and made as though he would have been of some assistance. The action was characteristic of the Princess Montevarchi. An Italian woman would neither have rung the bell herself, nor have committed such an imprudence as to turn her back upon her two daughters when there was a man in the room. But she was English, and a whole lifetime spent among Italians could not extinguish her activity; so she went to the door herself. Faustina's deep eyes followed her mother as though she were interested to know the news of Gouache. "I hope he is better," she said, quietly. "Of course," echoed Flavia, "So do I. But mamma amuses me so much! She is always in a hurry." Faustina made no answer, but she looked at Sant' Ilario, as though she wondered what he thought of her sister. He returned her gaze, trying to explain to himself the strange attraction of her expression, watching her critically as he would have watched any new person or sight. She did not blush nor avoid his bold eyes, as he would have expected had he realised that he was staring at her. A few minutes later Giovanni found himself in a narrow, high room, lighted by one window, which showed the enormous thickness of the walls in the deep embrasure. The vaulted ceiling was painted in fresco with a representation of Apollo in the act of drawing his bow, arrayed for the time being in his quiver, while his other garments, of yellow and blue, floated everywhere save over his body. The floor of the room was of red bricks, which had once been waxed, and the furniture was scanty, massive and very old. Anastase Gouache lay in one corner in a queer-looking bed covered with a yellow damask quilt the worse for a century or two of wear, upon which faded embroideries showed the Montevarchi arms surmounted by a cardinal's hat. Upon a chair beside the patient lay the little heap of small belongings he had carried in his pocket when hurt, his watch and purse, his cigarettes, his handkerchief and a few other trifles, among which, half concealed by the rest, was the gold pin he had picked up by the bridge on the previous evening. There was a mingled smell of dampness and of stale tobacco in the comfortless room, for the windows were closely shut, in spite of the bright sunshine that flooded the opposite side of the street. Gouache lay on his back, his head tied up in a bandage and supported by a white pillow, which somehow conveyed the impression of one of those marble cushions upon which in old-fashioned monuments the effigies of the dead are made to lean in eternal prayer, if not in eternal ease. He moved impatiently as the door opened, and then recognising Giovanni, he hailed him in a voice much more lively and sonorous than might have been expected. "You, prince!" he cried, in evident delight. "What saint has brought you?" "I heard of your accident, and so I came to see if I could do anything for you. How are you?" "As you see," replied Gouache. "In a hospitable tomb, with my head tied up like an imperfectly-resurrected Lazarus. For the rest there is nothing the matter with me, except that they have taken away my clothes, which is something of an obstacle to my leaving the house at once. I feel as if I had been in a revolution and had found myself on the wrong side of the barricade--nothing worse than that." "You are in good spirits, at all events. But are you not seriously hurt?" "Oh, nothing--a broken collar-bone somewhere, I believe, and some part of my head gone--I am not quite sure which, and a bad headache, and nothing to eat, and a general sensation as though somebody had made an ineffectual effort to turn me into a sausage." "What does the doctor say?" "Nothing. He is a man of action. He bled me because I had not the strength to strangle him, and poured decoctions of boiled grass down my throat because I could not speak. He has fantastic ideas about the human body." "But you will have to stay here several days," said Giovanni, considerably amused by Gouache's view of his own case. "Several days! Not even several hours, if I can help it." "Things do not go so quickly in Rome. You must be patient." "In order to starve, when there is food as near as the Corso?" inquired the artist. "To be butchered by a Roman phlebotomist, and drenched with infusions of hay by the Principessa Montevarchi, when I might be devising means of being presented to her daughter? What do you take me for? I suppose the young lady with the divine eyes is her daughter, is she not?" "You mean Donna Faustina, I suppose. Yes. She is the youngest, just out of the Sacro Cuore. She was in the drawing-room when I called just now. How did you see her?" "Last night, as they brought me upstairs, I was lucky enough to wake up just as she was looking at me. What eyes! I can think of nothing else. Seriously, can you not help me to get out of here?" "So that you may fall in love with Donna Faustina as soon as possible, I suppose," answered Giovanni with a laugh. "It seems to me that there is but one thing to do, if you are really strong enough. Send for your clothes, get up, go into the drawing-room and thank the princess for her hospitality." "That is easily said. Nothing is done in this house without the written permission of the old prince, unless I am much mistaken. Besides, there is no bell. I might as well be under arrest in the guard-room of the barracks. Presently the doctor will come and bleed me again and the princess will send me some more boiled grass. I am not very fat, as it is, but another day of this diet will make me diaphanous--I shall cast no shadow. A nice thing, to be caught without a shadow on parade!" "I will see what I can do," said Giovanni, rising. "Probably, the best thing would be to send your military surgeon. He will not be so tender as the other leech, but he will get you away at once. My wife wished me to say that she sympathised, and hoped you might soon be well." "My homage and best thanks to the princess," answered Gouache, with a slight change of tone, presumably to be referred to his sense of courtesy in speaking of the absent lady. So Giovanni went away, promising to send the surgeon at once. The latter soon arrived, saw Gouache, and was easily persuaded to order him home without further delay. The artist-soldier would not leave the house without thanking his hostess. His uniform had been cleansed from the stains it had got in the accident, and his left arm was in a sling. The wound on his head was more of a bruise than a cut, and was concealed by his thick black hair. Considering the circumstances he presented a very good appearance. The princess received him in the drawing-room, and Flavia and Faustina were with her, but all three were now dressed to go out, so that the interview was necessarily a short one. Gouache made a little speech of thanks and tried to forget the decoction of mallows he had swallowed, fearing lest the recollection should impart a tone of insincerity to his expression of gratitude. He succeeded very well, and afterwards attributed the fact to Donna Faustina's brown eyes, which were not cast down as they had been when Sant' Ilario had called, but appeared on the contrary to contemplate the new visitor with singular interest. "I am sure my husband will not approve of your going so soon," said the princess in somewhat anxious tones. It was almost the first time she had ever known any step of importance to be taken in her house without her husband's express authority. "Madame," answered Gouache, glancing from Donna Faustina to his hostess, "I am in despair at having thus unwillingly trespassed upon your hospitality, although I need not tell you that I would gladly prolong so charming an experience, provided I were not confined to solitude in a distant chamber. However, since our regimental surgeon pronounces me fit to go home, I have no choice but to obey orders. Believe me, Madame, I am deeply grateful to yourself as well as to the Principe Montevarchi for your manifold kindnesses, and shall cherish a remembrance of your goodness so long as I live." With these words Gouache bowed as though he would be gone and stood waiting for the princess's last word. But before her mother could speak, Faustina's voice was heard. "I cannot tell you how dreadfully we feel--papa and I--at having been the cause of such a horrible accident! Is there nothing we can do to make you forget it?" The princess stared at her daughter in the utmost astonishment at her forwardness. She would not have been surprised if Flavia had been guilty of such imprudence, but that Faustina should thus boldly address a young man who had not spoken to her, was such a shock to her belief in the girl's manners that she did not recover for several seconds. Anastase appreciated the situation, for as he answered, he looked steadily at the mother, although his words were plainly addressed to the brown-eyed beauty. "Mademoiselle is too kind. She exaggerates. And yet, since she has put the question, I will say that I should forget my broken bones very soon if I might be permitted to paint Mademoiselle's portrait. I am a painter," he added, in modest explanation. "Yes," said the princess, "I know. But, really--this is a matter which would require great consideration--and my husband's consent--and, for the present---" She paused significantly, intending to convey a polite refusal, but Gouache completed the sentence. "For the present, until my bones are mended, we will not speak of it. When I am well again I will do myself the honour of asking the prince's consent myself." Flavia leaned towards her mother and whispered into her ear. The words were quite audible, and the girl's dark eyes turned to Gouache with a wicked laugh in them while she was speaking. "Oh, mamma, if you tell papa it is for nothing he will be quite delighted!" Gouache's lip trembled as he suppressed a smile, and the elderly princess's florid cheeks flushed with annoyance. "For the present," she said, holding out her hand rather coldly, "we will not speak of it. Pray let us know of your speedy recovery, Monsieur Gouache." As the artist took his leave he glanced once more at Donna Faustina. Her face was pale and her eyes flashed angrily. She, too, had heard Flavia's stage whisper and was even more annoyed than her mother. Gouache went his way toward his lodging in the company of the surgeon, pondering on the inscrutable mysteries of the Roman household of which he had been vouchsafed a glimpse. He was in pain from his head and shoulder, but insisted that the walk would do him good and refused the cab which his companion had brought. A broken collar-bone is not a dangerous matter, but it can be very troublesome for a while, and the artist was glad to get back to his lodgings and to find himself comfortably installed in an easy chair with something to eat before him, of a more substantial nature than the Principessa Montevarchi's infusions of camomile and mallows. CHAPTER III. While Giovanni was at the Palazzo Montevarchi, and while Corona was busy with her dressmakers, Prince Saracinesca was dozing over the Osservatore Romano in his study. To tell the truth the paper was less dull than usual, for there was war and rumour of war in its columns. Garibaldi had raised a force of volunteers and was in the neighbourhood of Arezzo, beginning to skirmish with the outlying posts of the pontifical army along the frontier. The old gentleman did not know, of course, that on that very day the Italian Government was issuing its proclamation against the great agitator, and possibly if he had been aware of the incident it would not have produced any very strong impression upon his convictions. Garibaldi was a fact, and Saracinesca did not believe that any proclamations would interfere with his march unless backed by some more tangible force. Even had he known that the guerilla general had been arrested at Sinalunga and put in confinement as soon as the proclamation had appeared, the prince would have foreseen clearly enough that the prisoner's escape would be only a question of a few days, since there were manifold evidences that an understanding existed between Ratazzi and Garibaldi of much the same nature as that which in 1860 had been maintained between Garibaldi and Cavour during the advance upon Naples. The Italian Government kept men under arms to be ready to take advantage of any successes obtained by the Garibaldian volunteers, and at the same time to suppress the republican tendencies of the latter, which broke out afresh with every new advance, and disappeared, as by magic, under the depressing influence of a forced retreat. The prince knew all these things, and had reflected upon them so often that they no longer afforded enough interest to keep him awake. The warm September sun streamed into the study and fell upon the paper as it slowly slipped over the old gentleman's knees, while his head sank lower and lower on his breast. The old enamelled clock upon the chimney-piece ticked more loudly, as clocks seem to do when people are asleep and they are left to their own devices, and a few belated flies chased each other in the sunbeams. The silence was broken by the entrance of a servant, who would have withdrawn again when he saw that his master was napping, had not the latter stirred and raised his head before the man had time to get away. Then the fellow came forward with an apology and presented a visiting-card. The prince stared at the bit of pasteboard, rubbed his eyes, stared again, and then laid it upon the table beside him, his eyes still resting on the name, which seemed so much to surprise him. Then he told the footman to introduce the visitor, and a few moments later a very tall man entered the room, hat in hand, and advanced slowly towards him with the air of a person who has a perfect right to present himself but wishes to give his host time to recognise him. The prince remembered the newcomer very well. The closely-buttoned frock-coat showed the man's imposing figure to greater advantage than the dress in which Saracinesca had last seen him, but there was no mistaking the personality. There was the same lean but massive face, broadened by the high cheekbones and the prominent square jaw; there were the same piercing black eyes, set near together under eyebrows that met in the midst of the forehead, the same thin and cruel lips, and the same strongly-marked nose, set broadly on at the nostrils, though pointed and keen. Had the prince had any doubts as to his visitor's identity they would have been dispelled by the man's great height and immense breadth of shoulder, which would have made it hard indeed for him to disguise himself had he wished to do so. But though very much surprised, Saracinesca had no doubts whatever. The only points that were new to him in the figure before him were the outward manner and appearance, and the dress of a gentleman. "I trust I am not disturbing you, prince?" The words were spoken in a deep, clear voice, and with a notable southern accent. "Not at all. I confess I am astonished at seeing you in Rome. Is there anything I can do for you? I shall always be grateful to you for having been alive to testify to the falsehood of that accusation made against my son. Pray sit down. How is your Signora? And the children? All well, I hope?" "My wife is dead," returned the other, and the grave tones of his bass voice lent solemnity to the simple statement. "I am sincerely sorry--" began the prince, but his visitor interrupted him. "The children are well. They are in Aquila for the present. I have come to establish myself in Rome, and my first visit is naturally to yourself, since I have the advantage of being your cousin." "Naturally," ejaculated Saracinesca, though his face expressed considerable surprise. "Do not imagine that I am going to impose myself upon you as a poor relation," continued the other with a faint smile. "Fortune has been kind to me since we met, perhaps as a compensation for the loss I suffered in the death of my poor wife. I have a sufficient independence and can hold my own." "I never supposed--" "You might naturally have supposed that I had come to solicit your favour, though it is not the case. When we parted I was an innkeeper in Aquila. I have no cause to be ashamed of my past profession. I only wish to let you know that it is altogether past, and that I intend to resume the position which my great-grandfather foolishly forfeited. As you are the present head of the family I judged that it was my duty to inform you of the fact immediately." "By all means. I imagined this must be the case from your card. You are entirely in your rights, and I shall take great pleasure in informing every one of the fact. You are the Marchese di San Giacinto, and the inn at Aquila no longer exists." "As these things must be done, once and for always, I have brought my papers to Rome," answered the Marchese. "They are at your disposal, for you certainly have a right to see them, if you like. I will recall to your memory the facts of our history, in case you have forgotten them." "I know the story well enough," said Saracinesca. "Our great-grandfathers were brothers. Yours went to live in Naples. His son grew up and joined the French against the King. His lands were forfeited, he married and died in obscurity, leaving your father, his only son. Your father died young and you again are his only son. You married the Signora Felice--" "Baldi," said the Marchese, nodding in confirmation of the various statements. "The Signora Felice Baldi, by whom you have two children--" "Boys." "Two boys. And the Signora Marchesa, I grieve to hear, is dead. Is that accurate?" "Perfectly. There is one circumstance, connected with our great-grandfathers, which you have not mentioned, but which I am sure you remember." "What is that?" asked the prince, fixing his keen eyes on his companion's face. "It is only this," replied San Giacinto, calmly. "My great-grandfather was two years older than yours. You know he never meant to marry, and resigned the title to his younger brother, who had children already. He took a wife in his old age, and my grandfather was the son born to him. That is why you are so much older than I, though we are of the same generation in the order of descent." "Yes," assented the prince. "That accounts for it. Will you smoke?" Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto, looked curiously at his cousin as he took the proffered cigar. There was something abrupt in the answer which attracted his attention and roused his quick suspicions. He wondered whether that former exchange of titles, and consequent exchange of positions were an unpleasant subject of conversation to the prince. But the latter, as though anticipating such a doubt in his companion's mind, at once returned to the question with the boldness which was natural to him. "There was a friendly agreement," he said, striking a match and offering it to the Marchese. "I have all the documents, and have studied them with interest. It might amuse you to see them, some day." "I should like to see them, indeed," answered San Giacinto. "They must be very curious. As I was saying, I am going to establish myself in Rome. It seems strange to me to be playing the gentleman--it must seem even more odd to you." "It would be truer to say that you have been playing the innkeeper," observed the prince, courteously. "No one would suspect it," he added, glancing at his companion's correct attire. "I have an adaptable nature," said the Marchese, calmly. "Besides, I have always looked forward to again taking my place in the world. I have acquired a little instruction--not much, you will say, but it is sufficient as the times go; and as for education, it is the same for every one, innkeeper or prince. One takes off one's hat, one speaks quietly, one says what is agreeable to hear--is it not enough?" "Quite enough," replied the prince. He was tempted to smile at his cousin's definition of manners, though he could see that the man was quite able to maintain his position. "Quite enough, indeed, and as for instruction, I am afraid most of us have forgotten our Latin. You need have no anxiety on that score. But, tell me, how comes it that, having been bred in the south, you prefer to establish yourself in Rome rather than in Naples? They say that you Neapolitans do not like us." "I am a Roman by descent, and I wish to become one in fact," returned the Marchese. "Besides," he added, in a peculiarly grave tone of voice, "I do not like the new order of things. Indeed, I have but one favour to ask of you, and that is a great one." "Anything in my power--" "To present me to the Holy Father as one who desires to become his faithful subject. Could you do so, do you think, without any great inconvenience?" "Eh! I shall be delighted! Magari!" answered the prince, heartily. "To tell the truth, I was afraid you meant to keep your Italian convictions, and that, in Rome, would be against you, especially in these stormy days. But if you will join us heart and soul you will be received with open arms. I shall take great pleasure in seeing you make the acquaintance of my son and his wife. Come and dine this evening." "Thank you," said the Marchese. "I will not fail." After a few more words San Giacinto took his leave, and the prince could not but admire the way in which this man, who had been brought up among peasants, or at best among the small farmers of an outlying district, assumed at once an air of perfect equality while allowing just so much of respect to appear in his manner as might properly be shown by a younger member to the head of a great house. When he was gone Saracinesca rang the bell. "Pasquale," he said, addressing the old butler who answered the summons, "that gentleman who is just gone is my cousin, Don Giovanni Saracinesca, who is called Marchese di San Giacinto. He will dine here this evening. You will call him Eccellenza, and treat him as a member of the family. Go and ask the princess if she will receive me." Pasquale opened his mental eyes very wide as he bowed and left the room. He had never heard of this other Saracinesca, and the appearance of a new member of the family upon the scene, who must, from his appearance, have been in existence between thirty and forty years, struck him as astonishing in the extreme; for the old servant had been bred up in the house from a boy and imagined himself master of all the secrets connected with the Saracinesca household. He was, indeed, scarcely less surprised than his master who, although he had been aware for some time past that Giovanni Saracinesca existed and was his cousin, had never anticipated the event of his coming to Rome, and had expected still less that the innkeeper would ever assume the title to which he had a right and play the part of a gentleman, as he himself had expressed it. There was a strange mixture of boldness and foresight in the way the old prince had received his new relation. He knew the strength of his own position in society, and that the introduction of a humble cousin could not possibly do him harm. At the worst, people might laugh a little among themselves and remark that the Marchese must be a nuisance to the Saracinesca. On the other hand, the prince was struck from the first with the air of self-possession which he discerned in San Giacinto, and foresaw that the man would very probably play a part in Roman life. He was a man who might be disliked, but who could not be despised; and since his claims to consideration were undeniably genuine, it seemed wiser to accept him from the first as a member of the family and unhesitatingly to treat him as such. After all, he demanded nothing to which he had not a clear right from the moment he announced his intention of taking his place in the world, and it was certainly far wiser to receive him cordially at once, than to draw back from acknowledging the relationship because he had been brought up in another sphere. This was the substance of what Prince Saracinesca communicated to his daughter-in-law a few minutes later. She listened patiently to all he had to say, only asking a question now and then in order to understand more clearly what had happened. She was curious to see the man whose name had once been so strangely confounded with her husband's by the machinations of the Conte Del Ferice and Donna Tullia Mayer, and she frankly confessed her curiosity and her satisfaction at the prospect of meeting San Giacinto that evening. While she was talking with the prince, Giovanni unexpectedly returned from his walk. He had turned homewards as soon as he had sent the military surgeon to Gouache. "Well, Giovannino," cried the old gentleman, "the prodigal innkeeper has returned to the bosom of the family." "What innkeeper?" "Your worthy namesake, and cousin, Giovanni Saracinesca, formerly of Aquila." "Does Madame Mayer want to prove that it is he who has married Corona?" inquired Sant 'Ilario with a laugh. "No, though I suppose he is a candidate for marriage. I never was more surprised in my life. His wife is dead. He is rich, or says he is. He has his card printed in full, 'Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto,' in the most correct manner. He wears an excellent coat, and announces his intention of being presented to the Pope and introduced to Roman society." Sant' Ilario stared incredulously at his father, and then looked inquiringly at his wife as though to ask if it were not all a jest. When he was assured that the facts were true he looked grave and slowly stroked his pointed black beard, a gesture which was very unusual with him, and always accompanied the deepest meditation. "There is nothing to be done but to receive him into the family," he said at last. "But I do not wholly believe in his good intentions. We shall see. I shall be glad to make his acquaintance." "He is coming to dinner." The conversation continued for some time and the arrival of San Giacinto was discussed in all its bearings. Corona took a very practical view of the question, and said that it was certainly best to treat him well, thereby relieving her father-in-law of a considerable anxiety. He had indeed feared lest she should resent the introduction of a man who might reasonably be supposed to have retained a certain coarseness of manner from his early surroundings, and he knew that her consent was all-important in such a case, since she was virtually the mistress of the house. But Corona regarded the matter in much the same light as the old gentleman himself, feeling that nothing of such a nature could possibly injure the imposing position of her husband's family, and taking it for granted that no one who had good blood in his veins could ever behave outrageously. Of all the three, Sant' Ilario was the most silent and thoughtful, for he feared certain consequences from the arrival of this new relation which did not present themselves to the minds of the others, and was resolved to be cautious accordingly, even while appearing to receive San Giacinto with all due cordiality. Later in the day he was alone with his father for a few minutes. "Do you like this fellow?" he asked, abruptly. "No," answered the prince. "Neither do I, though I have not seen him." "We shall see," was the old gentleman's answer. The evening came, and at the appointed hour San Giacinto was announced. Both Corona and her husband were surprised at his imposing appearance, as well as at the dignity and self-possession he displayed. His southern accent was not more noticeable than that of many Neapolitan gentlemen, and his conversation, if neither very brilliant nor very fluent, was not devoid of interest. He talked of the agricultural condition of the new Italy, and old Saracinesca and his son were both interested in the subject. They noticed, too, that during dinner no word escaped him which could give any clue to his former occupation or position, though afterwards, when the servants were not present, he alluded more than once with a frank smile to his experiences as an innkeeper. On the whole, he seemed modest and reserved, yet perfectly self-possessed and conscious of his right to be where he was. Such conduct on the part of such a man did not appear so surprising to the Saracinesca household, as it would have seemed to foreigners. San Giacinto had said that he had an adaptable character, and that adaptability is one of the most noticeable features of the Italian race. It is not necessary to discuss the causes of this peculiarity. They would be incomprehensible to the foreigner at large, who never has any real understanding of Italians. I do not hesitate to say that, without a single exception, every foreigner, poet or prose-writer, who has treated of these people has more or less grossly misunderstood them. That is a sweeping statement, when it is considered that few men of the highest genius in our century have not at one time or another set down upon paper their several estimates of the Italian race. The requisite for accurately describing people, however, is not genius, but knowledge of the subject. The poet commonly sees himself in others, and the modern writer upon Italy is apt to believe that he can see others in himself. The reflection of an Italian upon the mental retina of the foreigner is as deceptive as his own outward image is when seen upon the polished surface of a concave mirror; and indeed the character studies of many great men, when the subject is taken from a race not their own, remind one very forcibly of what may be seen by contemplating oneself in the bowl of a bright silver spoon. To understand Italians a man must have been born and bred among them; and even then the harder, fiercer instinct, which dwells in northern blood, may deceive the student and lead him far astray. The Italian is an exceedingly simple creature, and is apt to share the opinion of the ostrich, who ducks his head and believes his whole body is hidden. Foreigners use strong language concerning the Italian lie; but this only proves how extremely transparent the deception is. It is indeed a singular fact, but one which may often be observed, that two Italians who lie systematically will frequently believe each other, to their own ruin, with a childlike faith rarely found north of the Alps. This seems to me to prove that their dishonesty has outgrown their indolent intelligence; and indeed they deceive themselves nearly as often as they succeed in deceiving their neighbours. In a country where a lie easily finds credence, lying is not likely to be elevated to the rank of a fine art. I have often wondered how such men as Cesare Borgia succeeded in entrapping their enemies by snares which a modern northerner would detect from the first and laugh to scorn as mere child's play. There is an extraordinary readiness in Italians to fit themselves and their lives to circumstances whenever they can save themselves trouble by doing so. Their constitutions are convenient to this end, for they are temperate in most things and do not easily fall into habits which they cannot change at will. The desire to avoid trouble makes them the most courteous among nations; and they are singularly obliging to strangers when, by conferring an obligation, they are able to make an acquaintance who will help them to pass an idle hour in agreeable conversation. They are equally surprised, whether a stranger suspects them of making advances for the sake of extracting money from him, or expresses resentment at having been fraudulently induced to part with any cash. The beggar in the street howls like a madman if you refuse an alms, and calls you an idiot to his fellow-mendicant if you give him five centimes. The servant says in his heart that his foreign employer is a fool, and sheds tears of rage and mortification when his shallow devices for petty cheating are discovered. And yet the servant, the beggar, the shopkeeper, and the gentleman, are obliging sometimes almost to philanthropy, and are ever ready to make themselves agreeable. The Marchese di San Giacinto differed from his relations, the Saracinesca princes, in that he was a full-blooded Italian, and not the result of a cosmopolitan race-fusion, like so many of the Roman nobles. He had not the Roman traditions, but, on the other hand, he had his full share of the national characteristics, together with something individual which lifted him above the common herd in point of intelligence and in strength. He was a noticeable man; all the more so because, with many pleasant qualities, his countrymen rarely possess that physical and mental combination of size, energy, and reserve, which inspires the sort of respect enjoyed by imposing personages. As he sat talking with the family after dinner on the evening of his first introduction to the household what passed in his mind and in the minds of his hosts can be easily stated. Sant' Ilario, whose ideas were more clear upon most subjects than those of his father or his wife, said to himself that he did not like the man; that he suspected him, and believed he had some hidden intention in coming to Rome; that it would be wise to watch him perpetually and to question everything he did; but that he was undeniably a relation, possessing every right to consideration, and entitled to be treated with a certain familiarity; that, finally and on the whole, he was a nuisance, to be borne with a good grace and a sufficient show of cordiality. San Giacinto, for his part, was deeply engaged in maintaining the exact standard of manners which he knew to be necessary for the occasion, and his thoughts concerning his relatives were not yet altogether defined. It was his intention to take his place among them, and he was doing his best to accomplish this object as speedily and quietly as possible. He had not supposed that princes and princesses were in any way different from other human beings except by the accidents of wealth and social position. Master of these two requisites there was no reason why he should not feel as much at home with the Saracinesca as he had felt in the society of the mayor and municipal council of Aquila, who possessed those qualifications also, though in a less degree. The Saracinesca probably thought about most questions very much as he himself did, or if there were any difference in their mode of thinking it was due to Roman prejudice and tradition rather than to any peculiarity inherent in the organisation of the members of the higher aristocracy. If he should find himself in any dilemma owing to his ignorance of social details he would not hesitate to apply to the prince for information, since it was by no means his fault if he had been brought up an innkeeper and was now to be a nobleman. His immediate object was to place himself among his equals, and his next purpose was to marry again, in his new rank, a woman of good position and fortune. Of this matter he intended to speak to the prince in due time, when he should have secured the first requisite to his marriage by establishing himself firmly in society. He meant to apply to the prince, ostensibly as to the head of the family, thereby showing a deference to that dignity, which he supposed would be pleasing to the old gentleman; but he had not forgotten in his calculations the pride which old Saracinesca must naturally feel in his race, and which would probably induce him to take very great pains in finding a suitable wife for San Giacinto rather than permit the latter to contract a discreditable alliance. San Giacinto left the house at half-past nine o'clock, under the pretext of another engagement, for he did not mean to weary his relations with too much of his company in the first instance. When he was gone the three looked at each other in silence for some moments. "He has surprisingly good manners, for an innkeeper," said Corona at last. "No one will ever suspect his former life. But I do not like him." "Nor I," said the prince. "He wants something," said Sant' Ilario. "And he will probably get it," he added, after a short pause. "He has a determined face." CHAPTER IV. Anastase Gouache recovered rapidly from his injuries, but not so quickly as he wished. There was trouble in the air, and many of his comrades were already gone to the frontier where the skirmishing with the irregular volunteers of Garibaldi's guerilla force had now begun in earnest. To be confined to the city at such a time was inexpressibly irksome to the gallant young Frenchman, who had a genuine love of fighting in him, and longed for the first sensation of danger and the first shower of whistling bullets. But his inactivity was inevitable, and he was obliged to submit with the best grace he could, hoping only that all might not be over before he was well enough to tramp out and see some service with his companions-in-arms. The situation was indeed urgent. The first article of the famous convention between France and Italy, ratified in September, 1864, read as follows:-- "Italy engages not to attack the actual territory of the Holy Father, and to prevent, even by force, all attack coming from outside against such territory." Relying upon the observance of this chief clause, France had conscientiously executed the condition imposed by the second article, which provided that all French troops should be withdrawn from the States of the Church. The promise of Italy to prevent invasion by force applied to Garibaldi and his volunteers. Accordingly, on the 24th of September, 1867, the Italian Government issued a proclamation against the band and its proceedings, and arrested Garibaldi at Sinalunga, in the neighbourhood of Arezzo. This was the only force employed, and it may be believed that the Italian Government firmly expected that the volunteers would disperse as soon as they found themselves without a leader; and had proper measures been taken for keeping the general in custody this would in all probability have followed very shortly, as his sons, who were left at large, did not possess any of their father's qualifications for leadership. Garibaldi, however, escaped eighteen days later, and again joined his band, which had meanwhile been defeated by the Pope's troops in a few small engagements, and had gained one or two equally insignificant advantages over the latter. As soon as it was known that Garibaldi was again at large, a simultaneous movement began, the numerous Garibaldian emissaries who had arrived in Rome stirring up an attempt at insurrection within the city, while Garibaldi himself made a bold dash and seized Monte Rotondo, another force at the same time striking at Sutbiaco, which, by a strange ignorance of the mountains, Garibaldi appears to have believed to be the southern key to the Campagna. In consequence of the protestations of the French minister to the court of Italy, and perhaps, too, in consequence of the approach of a large body of French troops by sea, the Italian Government again issued a proclamation against Garibaldi, who, however, remained in his strong position at Monte Rotondo. Finally, on the 30th of October, the day on which the French troops re-entered Rome, the Italians made a show of interfering in the Pope's favour, General Menatiea authorising the Italian forces to enter the Papal States in order to maintain order. They did not, however, do more than make a short advance, and no active measures were taken, but Garibaldi was routed on the 3d and 4th of November by the Papal forces, and his band being dispersed the incident was at an end. But for the armed intervention of France the result would have been that which actually came about in 1870, when, the same Convention being still valid, the French were prevented by their own disasters from sending a force to the assistance of the Pope. It is not yet time to discuss the question of the annexation of the States of the Church to the kingdom of Italy. It is sufficient to have shown that the movement of 1867 took place without any actual violation of the letter of the Convention. The spirit in which the Italian Government acted might be criticised at length. It is sufficient however to notice that the Italian Government was, as it still is, a parliamentary one; and to add that parliamentary government, in general, exhibits its weakest side in the emergency of war, as its greatest advantages are best appreciated in times of peace. In the Italian Parliament of that day, as in that of the present time, there was a preponderance of representatives who considered Rome to be the natural capital of the country, and who were as ready to trample upon treaties for the accomplishment of what they believed a righteous end, as most parliaments have everywhere shown themselves in similar circumstances. That majority differed widely, indeed, in opinion from Garibaldi and Mazzini, but they conceived that they had a right to take full advantage of any revolution the latter chanced to bring about, and that it was their duty to their country to direct the stream of disorder into channel which should lead to the aggrandisement of Italy, by making use of Italy's standing army. The defenders of the Papal States found themselves face to face, not with any organised and disciplined force, but with a horde of brutal ruffians and half-grown lads, desperate in that delight of unbridled license which has such attractions for the mob in all countries; and all alike, Zouaves, native troops and Frenchmen, were incensed to the highest degree by the conduct of their enemies. It would be absurd to make the Italian Government responsible for the atrocious defiling of churches, the pillage and the shocking crimes of all sorts, which marked the advance or retreat of the Garibaldians; but it is equally absurd to deny that a majority of the Italians regarded these doings as a means to a very desirable end, and, if they had not been hindered by the French, would have marched a couple of army corps in excellent order to the gates of Rome through the channel opened by a mob of lawless insurgents. Anastase Gouache was disgusted with his state of forced inaction as he paced the crowded pavement of the Corso every afternoon for three weeks after his accident, smoking endless cigarettes, and cursing the fate which kept him an invalid at home when his fellow-soldiers were enjoying themselves amidst the smell of gunpowder and the adventures of frontier skirmishing. It was indeed bad luck, he thought, to have worn the uniform during nearly two years of perfect health and then to be disabled just when the fighting began. He had one consolation, however, in the midst of his annoyance, and he made the most of it. He had been fascinated by Donna Faustina Montevarchi's brown eyes, and for lack of any other interest upon which to expend his energy he had so well employed his time that he was now very seriously in love with that young lady. Among her numerous attractions was one which had a powerful influence on the young artist, namely, the fact that she was, according to all human calculations, absolutely beyond his reach. Nothing had more charm for Gouache, as for many gifted and energetic young men, than that which it must require a desperate effort to get, if it could be got at all. Frenchmen, as well as Italians, consider marriage so much in the light of a mere contract which must be settled between notaries and ratified by parental assent, that to love a young girl seems to them like an episode out of a fairy tale, enchantingly novel and altogether delightful. To us, who consider love as a usual if not an absolutely necessary preliminary to marriage, this point of view is hardly conceivable; but it is enough to tell a Frenchman that you have married your wife because you loved her, and not because your parents or your circumstances arranged the match for you, to hear him utter the loudest exclamations of genuine surprise and admiration, declaring that his ideal of happiness, which he considers of course as quite unattainable, would be to marry the woman of his affections. The immediate result of a state in which that sort of bliss is considered to be generally beyond the grasp of humanity has been to produce the moral peculiarities of the French novel, of the French play, and of the French household, as it is usually exhibited in books and on the stage. The artist-Zouave was made of determined stuff. It was not for nothing that he had won the great prize which brought him to the Academy in Rome, nor was it out of mere romantic idleness that he had thrown over the feeble conspiracies of Madame Mayer and her set in order to wear a uniform. He had profound convictions, though he was not troubled with any great number of them. Each new one which took hold of him marked an epoch in his young life, and generally proved tenacious in proportion as he had formerly regarded it as absurd; and it was a proof of the sound balance of his mind that the three or four real convictions which he had accumulated during his short life were in no way contradictory to each other. On the contrary, each one seemed closely bound up with the rest, and appeared to bring a fresh energy to that direct action which, with Anastase, was the only possible result of any belief whatsoever. There was therefore a goodly store of logic in his madness, and though, like Childe Harold, he had sighed to many, and at present loved but one, yet he was determined, if it were possible, that this loved one should be his; seeing that to sigh for anything, and not to take it if it could be taken, was the part of a boy and not of a strong man. Moreover, although the social difficulties which lay in his way were an obstacle which would have seemed insurmountable to many, there were two considerations which gave Anastase some hope of ultimate success. In the first place Donna Faustina herself was not indifferent; and, secondly, Anastase was no longer the humble student who had come to Rome some years earlier with nothing but his pension in his pocket and his talent in his fingers. He was certainly not of ancient lineage, but since he had attained that position which enabled him to be received as an equal in the great world, and had by his skill accumulated a portion of that filthy lucre which is the platform whereon society moves and has its exclusive being, he had the advantage of talking to Donna Faustina, wherever he met her, in spite of her father's sixty-four quarterings. Nor did those meetings take place only under the auspices of so much heraldry and blazon, as will presently appear. At that period of the year, and especially during such a time of disturbance, there was no such thing as gaiety possible in Rome. People met quietly in little knots at each other's houses and talked over the state of the country, or walked and drove as usual in the villas and on the Pincio. When society cannot be gay it is very much inclined to grow confidential, to pull a long face, and to say things which, if uttered above a whisper, would be considered extremely shocking, but which, being communicated, augmented, criticised, and passed about quickly without much noise, are considered exceedingly interesting. When every one is supposed to be talking of politics it is very easy for every one to talk scandal, and to construct neighbourly biography of an imaginary character which shall presently become a part of contemporary history. On the whole, society would almost as gladly do this as dance. In those days of which I am speaking, therefore, there were many places where two or three, and sometimes as many as ten, were gathered together in council, ostensibly for the purpose of devising means whereby the Holy Father might overcome his enemies, though they were very often engaged in criticising the indecent haste exhibited by their best friends in yielding to the wiles of Satan. There were several of these rallying points, among which may be chiefly noticed the Palazzo Valdarno, the Palazzo Saracinesca, and the Palazzo Montevarchi. In the first of these three it may be observed in passing that there was a division of opinion, the old people being the most rigid of conservatives, while the children declared as loudly as they dared that they were for Victor Emmanuel and United Italy. The Saracinesca, on the other hand, were firmly united and determined to stand by the existing order of things. Lastly, the Montevarchi all took their opinions from the head of the house, and knew very well that they would submit like sheep to be led whichever way was most agreeable to the old prince. The friends who frequented those various gatherings were of course careful to say whatever was most sure to please their hosts, and after the set speeches were made most of them fell to their usual occupation of talking about each other. Gouache was an old friend of the Saracinesca, and came whenever he pleased; since his accident, too, he had become better acquainted with the Montevarchi, and was always a welcome guest, as he generally brought the latest news of the fighting, as well as the last accounts from France, which he easily got through his friendship with the young attaches of his embassy. It is not surprising therefore that he should have found so many opportunities of meeting Donna Faustina, especially as Corona di Sant' Ilario had taken a great fancy to the young girl and invited her constantly to the house. On the very first occasion when Gouache called upon the Princess Montevarchi in order to express again his thanks for the kindness he had received, he found the room half full of people. Faustina was sitting alone, turning over the pages of a book, and no one seemed to pay any attention to her. After the usual speeches to the hostess Gouache sat down beside her. She raised her brown eyes, recognised him, and smiled faintly. "What a wonderful contrast you are enjoying, Donna Faustina," said the Zouave. "How so? I confess it seems monotonous enough." "I mean that it is a great change for you, from the choir of the Sacro Cuore, from the peace of a convent, to this atmosphere of war." "Yes; I wish I were back again." "You do not like what you have seen of the world, Mademoiselle? It is very natural. If the world were always like this its attraction would not be dangerous. It is the pomps and vanities that are delightful." "I wish they would begin then," answered Donna Faustina with more natural frankness than is generally found in young girls of her education. "But were you not taught by the good sisters that those things are of the devil?" asked Gouache with a smile. "Of course. But Flavia says they are very nice." Gouache imagined that Flavia ought to know, but he thought fit to conceal his conviction. "You mean Donna Flavia, your sister, Mademoiselle?" "Yes." "I suppose you are very fond of her, are you not? It must be very pleasant to have a sister so nearly of one's own age in the world." "She is much older than I, but I think we shall be very good friends." "Your family must be almost as much strangers to you as the rest of the world," observed Gouache. "Of course you have only seen them occasionally for a long time past. You are fond of reading, I see." He made this remark to change the subject, and glanced at the book the young girl still held in her hand. "It is a new book," she said, opening the volume at the title-page. "It is Manon Lescaut. Flavia has read it--it is by the Abbe Prevost. Do you know him?" Gouache did not know whether to laugh or to look grave. "Did your mother give it to you?" he asked. "No, but she says that as it is by an abbe, she supposes it must be very moral. It is true that it has not the imprimatur, but being by a priest it cannot possibly be on the Index." "I do not know," replied Gouache, "Prevost was certainly in holy orders, but I do not know him, as he died rather more than a hundred years ago. You see the book is not new." "Oh!" exclaimed Donna Faustina, "I thought it was. Why do you laugh? Am I very ignorant not to know all about it?" "No, indeed. Only, you will pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I offer a suggestion. You see I am French and know a little about these matters. You will permit me?" Faustina opened her brown eyes very wide, and nodded gravely. "If I were you, I would not read that book yet. You are too young." "You seem to forget that I am eighteen years old, Monsieur Gouache." "No, not at all. But five and twenty is a better age to read such books. Believe me," he added seriously, "that story is not meant for you." Faustina looked at him for a few seconds and then laid the volume on the table, pushing it away from her with a puzzled air. Gouache was inwardly much amused at the idea of finding himself the moral preceptor of a young girl he scarcely knew, in the house of her parents, who passed for the most strait-laced of their kind. A feeling of deep resentment against Flavia, however, began to rise beneath his first sensation of surprise. "What are books for?" asked Donna Faustina, with a little sigh. "The good ones are dreadfully dull, and it is wrong to read the amusing ones--until one is married. I wonder why?" Gouache did not find any immediate answer and might have been seriously embarrassed had not Giovanni Sant' Ilario come up just then. Gouache rose to relinquish his seat to the newcomer, and as he passed before the table deftly turned over the book with his finger so that the title should not be visible. It jarred disagreeably on his sensibilities to think that Giovanni might see a copy of Manon Lescaut lying by the elbow of Donna Faustina Montevarchi. Sant' Ilario did not see the action and probably would not have noticed it if he had. Anastase pondered all that afternoon and part of the next morning over his short conversation, and the only conclusion at which he arrived was that Faustina was the most fascinating girl he had ever met. When he compared the result produced in his mind with his accurate recollection of what had passed between them, he laughed at his haste and called himself a fool for yielding to such nonsensical ideas. The conversation of a young girl, he argued, could only be amusing for a short time. He wondered what he should say at their next meeting, since all such talk, according to his notions, must inevitably consist of commonplaces. And yet at the end of a quarter of an hour of such meditation he found that he was constructing an interview which was anything but dull, at least in his own anticipatory opinion. Meanwhile the first ten days of October passed in comparative quiet. The news of Garibaldi's arrest produced temporary lull in the excitement felt in Rome, although the real struggle was yet to come. People observed to each other that strange faces were to be seen in the streets, but as no one could enter without a proper passport, very little anxiety gained the public mind. Gouache saw Faustina very often during the month that followed his accident. Such good fortune would have been impossible under any other circumstances, but, as has been explained, there were numerous little social confabulations on foot, for people were drawn together by a vague sense of common danger, and the frequent meetings of the handsome Zouave with the youngest of the Montevarchi passed unnoticed in the general stir. The old princess indeed often saw the two together, but partly owing to her English breeding, and partly because Gouache was not in the least eligible or possible as a husband for her daughter, she attached no importance to the acquaintance. The news that Garibaldi was again at large caused great excitement, and every day brought fresh news of small engagements along the frontier. Gouache was not yet quite recovered, though he felt as strong as ever, and applied every day for leave to go to the front. At last, on the 22d of October, the surgeon pronounced him to be completely recovered, and Anastase was ordered to leave the city on the following morning at daybreak. As he mounted the sombre staircase of the Palazzo Saracinesca on the afternoon previous to his departure, the predominant feeling in his breast was great satisfaction and joy at being on the eve of seeing active service, and he himself was surprised at the sharp pang he suffered in the anticipation of bidding farewell to his friends. He knew what friend it was whom he dreaded to leave, and how bitter that parting would be, for which three weeks earlier he could have summoned a neat speech expressing just so much of feeling as should be calculated to raise an interest in the hearer, and prompted by just so much delicate regret as should impart a savour of romance to his march on the next day. It was different now. Donna Faustina was in the room, as he had reason to expect, but it was several minutes before Anastase could summon the determination necessary to go to her side. She was standing near the piano, which faced outwards towards the body of the room, but was screened by a semicircular arrangement of plants, a novel idea lately introduced by Corona, who was weary of the stiff old-fashioned way of setting all the furniture against the wall. Faustina was standing at this point therefore, when Gouache made towards her, having done homage to Corona and to the other ladies in the room. His attention was arrested for a moment by the sight of San Giacinto's gigantic figure. The cousin of the house was standing before Flavia Montevarchi, bending slightly towards her and talking in low tones. His magnificent proportions made him by far the most noticeable person in the room, and it is no wonder that Gouache paused and looked at him, mentally observing that the two would make a fine couple. As he stood still he became aware that Corona herself was at his side. He glanced at her with something of inquiry in his eyes, and was about to speak when she made him a sign to follow her. They sat down together in a deserted corner at the opposite end of the room. "I have something to say to you, Monsieur Gouache," she said, in a low voice, as she settled herself against the cushions. "I do not know that I have any right to speak, except that of a good friend--and of a woman." "I am at your orders, princess." "No, I have no orders to give you. I have only a suggestion to make. I have watched you often during the last month. My advice begins with a question. Do you love her?" Gouache's first instinct was to express the annoyance he felt at this interrogation. He moved quickly and glanced sharply at Corona's velvet eyes. Before the words that were on his lips could be spoken he remembered all the secret reverence and respect he had felt for this woman since he had first known her, he remembered how he had always regarded her as a sort of goddess, a superior being, at once woman and angel, placed far beyond the reach of mortals like himself. His irritation vanished as quickly as it had arisen. But Corona had seen it. "Are you angry?" she asked. "If you knew how I worship you, you would know that I am not," answered Gouache with a strange simplicity. For an instant the princess's deep eyes flashed and a dark blush mounted through her olive skin. She drew back, rather proudly. A delicate, gentle smile played round the soldier's mouth. "Perhaps it is your turn to be angry, Madame," he said, quietly. "But you need not be. I would say it to your husband, as I would say it to you in his presence. I worship you. You are the most beautiful woman in the world, the most nobly good. Everybody knows it, why should I not say it? I wish I were a little child, and that you were my mother. Are you angry still?" Corona was silent, and her eyes grew soft again as she looked kindly at the man beside her. She did not understand him, but she knew that he meant to express something which was not bad. Gouache waited for her to speak. "It was not for that I asked you to come with me," she said at last. "I am glad I said it," replied Gouache. "I am going away to-morrow, and it might never have been said. You asked me if I loved her. I trust you. I say, yes, I do. I am going to say good-bye this afternoon." "I am sorry you love her. Is it serious?" "Absolutely, on my part. Why are you sorry? Is there anything unnatural in it?" "No, on the contrary, it is too natural. Our lives are unnatural. You cannot marry her. It seems brutal to tell you so, but you must know it already." "There was once a little boy in Paris, Madame, who did not have enough to eat every day, nor enough clothes when the north wind blew. But he had a good heart. His name was Anastase Gouache." "My dear friend," said Corona, kindly, "the atmosphere of Casa Montevarchi is colder than the north wind. A man may overcome almost anything more easily than the old-fashioned prejudices of a Roman prince." "You do not forbid me to try?" "Would the prohibition make any difference?" "I am not sure." Gouache paused and looked long at the princess. "No," he said at last, "I am afraid not." "In that case I can only say one thing. You are a man of honour. Do your best not to make her uselessly unhappy. Win her if you can, by any fair means. But she has a heart, and I am very fond of the child. If any harm comes to her I shall hold you responsible. If you love her, think what it would be should she love you and be married to another man." A shade of sadness darkened Corona's brow, as she remembered those terrible months of her own life. Gouache knew what she meant and was silent for a few moments. "I trust you," said she, at last. "And since you are going to-morrow, God bless you. You are going in a good cause." She held out her hand as she rose to leave him, and he bent over it and touched it with his lips, as he would have kissed the hand of his mother. Then, skirting the little assembly of people, Anastase went back towards the piano, in search of Donna Faustina. He found her alone, as young girls are generally to be found in Roman drawing-rooms, unless there are two of them present to sit together. "What have you been talking about with the princess?" asked Donna Faustina when Gouache was seated beside her. "Could you see from here?" asked Gouache instead of answering. "I thought the plants would have hindered you." "I saw you kiss her hand when you got up, and so I supposed that the conversation had been serious." "Less serious than ours must be," replied Anastase, sadly. "I was saying good-bye to her, and now--" "Good-bye? Why--?" Faustina checked herself and looked away to hide her pallor. She felt cold, and a slight shiver passed over her slender figure. "I am going to the front to-morrow morning." There was a long silence, during which the two looked at each other from time to time, neither finding courage to speak. Since Gouache had been in the room it had grown dark, and as yet but one lamp had been brought. The young man's eyes sought those he loved in the dusk, and as his hand stole out it met another, a tender, nervous hand, trembling with emotion. They did not heed what was passing near them. As though their silence were contagious, the conversation died away, and there was a general lull, such as sometimes falls upon an assemblage of people who have been talking for some time. Then, through the deep windows there came up a sound of distant uproar, mingled with occasional sharp detonations, few indeed, but the more noticeable for their rarity. Suddenly the door of the drawing-room burst open, and a servant's voice was heard speaking in a loud key, the coarse accents and terrified tone contrasting strangely with the sounds generally heard in such a place. "Excellency! Excellency! The revolution! Garibaldi is at the gates! The Italians are coming! Madonna! Madonna! The revolution, Eccellenza mia!" The man was mad with fear. Every one spoke at once. Some laughed, thinking the man crazy. Others, who had heard the distant noise from the streets, drew back and looked nervously towards the door. Then Sant' Ilario's clear, strong voice, rang like a clarion through the room. "Bar the gates. Shut the blinds all over the house--it is of no use to let them break good windows. Don't stand there shivering like a fool. It is only a mob." Before he had finished speaking, San Giacinto was calmly bolting the blinds of the drawing-room windows, fastening each one as steadily and securely as he had been wont to put up the shutters of his inn at Aquila in the old days. In the dusky corner by the piano Gouache and Faustina were overlooked in the general confusion. There was no time for reflection, for at the first words of the servant Anastase knew that he must go instantly to his post. Faustina's little hand was still clasped in his, as they both sprang to their feet. Then with a sudden movement he clasped her in his arms and kissed her passionately. "Good-bye--my beloved!" The girl's arms were twined closely about him, and her eyes looked up to his with a wild entreaty. "You are safe here, my darling--good-bye!" "Where are you going?" "To the Serristori barracks. God keep you safe till I come back--good-bye!" "I will go with you," said Faustina, with a strange look of determination in her angelic face. Gouache smiled, even then, at the mad thought which presented itself to the girl's mind. Once more he kissed her, and then, she knew not how, he was gone. Other persons had come near them, shutting the windows rapidly, one after the other, in anticipation of danger from without. With instinctive modesty Faustina withdrew her arms from the young man's neck and shrank back. In that moment he disappeared in the crowd. Faustina stared wildly about her for a few seconds, confused and stunned by the suddenness of what had passed, above all by the thought that the man she loved was gone from her side to meet his death. Then without hesitation she left the room. No one hindered her, for the Saracinesca men were gone to see to the defences of the house, and Corona was already by the cradle of her child. No one noticed the slight figure as it slipped through the door and was gone in the darkness of the unlighted halls. All was confusion and noise and flashing of passing lights as the servants hurried about, trying to obey orders in spite of their terror. Faustina glided like a shadow down the vast staircase, slipped through one of the gates just as the bewildered porter was about to close it, and in a moment was out in the midst of the multitude that thronged the dim streets--a mere child and alone, facing a revolution in the dark. CHAPTER V. Gouache made his way as fast as he could to the bridge of Sant' Angelo, but his progress was constantly impeded by moving crowds--bodies of men, women, and children rushing frantically together at the corners of the streets and then surging onward in the direction of the resultant produced by their combined forces in the shock. There was loud and incoherent screaming of women and shouting of men, out of which occasionally a few words could be distinguished, more often "Viva Pio Nono!" or "Viva la Repubblica!" than anything else. The scene of confusion baffled description. A company of infantry was filing out of the castle of Sant' Angelo on to the bridge, where it was met by a dense multitude of people coming from the opposite direction. A squadron of mounted gendarmes came up from the Borgo Nuovo at the same moment, and half a dozen cabs were jammed in between the opposing masses of the soldiers and the people. The officer at the head of the column of foot-soldiers loudly urged the crowd to make way, and the latter, consisting chiefly of peaceable but terrified citizens, attempted to draw back, while the weight of those behind pushed them on. Gouache, who was in the front of the throng, was allowed to enter the file of infantry, in virtue of his uniform, and attempted to get through and make his way to the opposite bank. But with the best efforts he soon found himself unable to move, the soldiers being wedged together as tightly as the people. Presently the crowd in the piazza seemed to give way and the column began to advance again, bearing Gouache backwards in the direction he had come. He managed to get to the parapet, however, by edging sideways through the packed ranks. "Give me your shoulder, comrade!" he shouted to the man next to him. The fellow braced himself, and in an instant the agile Zouave was on the narrow parapet, running along as nimbly as a cat, and winding himself past the huge statues at every half-dozen steps. He jumped down at the other end and ran for the Borgo Santo Spirito at the top of his speed. The broad space was almost deserted and in three minutes he was before the gates of the barracks, which were situated on the right-hand side of the street, just beyond the College of the Penitentiaries and opposite the church of San Spirito in Sassia. Meanwhile Donna Faustina Montevarchi was alone in the streets. In desperate emergencies young and nervously-organised people most commonly act in accordance with the dictates of the predominant passion by which they are influenced. Very generally that passion is terror, but when it is not, it is almost impossible to calculate the consequences which may follow. When the whole being is dominated by love and by the greatest anxiety for the safety of the person loved, the weakest woman will do deeds which might make a brave man blush for his courage. This was precisely Faustina's case. If any man says that he understands women he is convicted of folly by his own speech, seeing that they are altogether incomprehensible. Of men, it may be sufficient for general purposes to say with David that they are all liars, even though we allow that they may be all curable of the vice of falsehood. Of women, however, there is no general statement which is true. The one is brave to heroism, the next cowardly in a degree fantastically comic. The one is honest, the other faithless; the one contemptible in her narrowness of soul, the next supremely noble in broad truth as the angels in heaven; the one trustful, the other suspicious; this one gentle as a dove, that one grasping and venomous as a strong serpent. The hearts of women are as the streets of a great town--some broad and straight and clean; some dim and narrow and winding; or as the edifices and buildings of that same city, wherein there are holy temples, at which men worship in calm and peace, and dens where men gamble away the souls given them by God against the living death they call pleasure, which is doled out to them by the devil; in which there are quiet dwellings, and noisy places of public gathering, fair palaces and loathsome charnel-houses, where the dead are heaped together, even as our dead sins lie ghastly and unburied in that dark chamber of the soul, whose gates open of their own selves and shall not be sealed while there is life in us to suffer. Dost thou boast that thou knowest the heart of woman? Go to, thou more than fool! The heart of woman containeth all things, good and evil; and knowest thou then all that is? Donna Faustina was no angel. She had not that lofty calmness which we attribute to the angelic character. She was very young, utterly inexperienced and ignorant of the world. The idea which over-towers all other ideas was the first which had taken hold upon her, and under its strength she was like a flower before the wind. She was not naturally of the heroic type either, as Corona d'Astrardente had been, and perhaps was still, capable of sacrifice for the ideal of duty, able to suffer torment rather than debase herself by yielding, strong to stem the torrent of a great passion until she had the right to abandon herself to its mighty flood. Faustina was a younger and a gentler woman, not knowing what she did from the moment her heart began to dictate her actions, willing, above all, to take the suggestion of her soul as a command, and, because she knew no evil, rejoicing in an abandonment which might well have terrified one who knew the world. She already loved Anastase intensely. Under the circumstances of his farewell, the startling effect of the announcement of a revolution, the necessity under which, as a soldier, he found himself of leaving her instantly in order to face a real danger, with his first kiss warm upon her lips, and with the frightful conviction that if he left her it might be the last--under all the emotions brought about by these things, half mad with love and anxiety, it was not altogether wonderful that she acted as she did. She could not have explained it, for the impulse was so instinctive that she did not comprehend it, and the deed followed so quickly upon the thought that there was no time for reflection. She fled from the room and from the palace, out into the street, wholly unconscious of danger, like a creature in a dream. The crowd which had impeded Gouache's progress was already thinning when Faustina reached the pavement. She was born and bred in Rome, and as a child, before the convent days, had been taken to walk many a time in the neighbourhood of Saint Peter's. She knew well enough where the Serristori barracks were situated, and turned at once towards Sant' Angelo. There were still many people about, most of them either hurrying in the direction whence the departing uproar still proceeded, or running homewards to get out of danger. Few noticed her, and for some time no one hindered her progress, though it was a strange sight to see a fair young girl, dressed in the fashion of the time which so completely distinguished her from Roman women of lower station, running at breathless speed through the dusky streets. Suddenly she lost her way. Coming down the Via de' Coronari she turned too soon to the right and found herself in the confusing byways which form a small labyrinth around the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. She had entered a blind alley on the left when she ran against two men, who unexpectedly emerged from one of those underground wine-shops which are numerous in that neighbourhood. They were talking in low and earnest tones, and one of them staggered backward as the young girl rushed upon him in the dark. Instinctively the man grasped her and held her tightly by the arms. "Where are you running to, my beauty?" he asked, as she struggled to get away. "Oh, let me go! let me go!" she cried in agonised tones, twisting her slender wrists in his firm grip. The other man stood by, watching the scene. "Better let her go, Peppino," he said. "Don't you see she is a lady?" "A lady, eh?" echoed the other. "Where are you going to, with that angel's face?" "To the Serristori barrack," answered Faustina, still struggling with all her might. At this announcement both men laughed loudly and glanced quickly at each other. They seemed to think the answer a very good joke. "If that is all, you may go, and the devil accompany you. What say you, Gaetano?" Then they laughed again. "Take that chain and brooch as a ricordo--just for a souvenir," said Gaetano, who then himself tore off the ornaments while the other held Faustina's hands. "You are a pretty girl indeed!" he cried, looking at her pale face in the light of the filthy little red lamp that hung over the low door of the wine-shop. "I never kissed a lady in my life." With that he grasped her delicate chin in his foul hand and bent down, bringing his grimy face close to hers. But this was too much. Though Faustina had hitherto fought with all her natural strength against the ruffians, there was a reserved force, almost superhuman, in her slight frame, which was suddenly roused by the threatened outrage. With a piercing shriek she sprang backwards and dashed herself free, sending the two blackguards reeling into the darkness. Then, like a flash she was gone. By chance she took the right turning and in a moment more found herself in the Via di Tordinona, just opposite the entrance of the Apollo theatre. The torn white handbills on the wall, and the projecting shed over the doors told her where she was. By this time the soldiers who had intercepted Gouache's passage across the bridge, as well as the dense crowd, had disappeared, and Faustina ran like the wind along the pavement it had taken the soldier so long to traverse. Like a flitting bird she sped over the broad space beyond and up the Borgo Nuovo, past the long low hospital, wherein the sick and dying lay in their silence, tended by the patient Sisters of Mercy, while all was in excitement without. The young girl ran past the corner. A Zouave was running before her towards the gate of the barrack where a sentinel stood motionless under the lamp, his gray hood drawn over his head and his rifle erect by his shoulder. At that instant a terrific explosion rent the air, followed a moment later by the dull crash of falling fragments of masonry, and then by a long thundering, rumbling sound, dreadful to hear, which lasted several minutes, as the ruins continued to fall in, heaps upon heaps, sending immense clouds of thick dust up into the night air. Then all was still. The little piazza before San Spirito in Sassia was half filled with masses of stone and brickwork and crumbling mortar. A young girl lay motionless upon her face at the corner of the hospital, her white hands stretched out towards the man who lay dead but a few feet before her, crushed under a great irregular mound of stones and rubbish. Beneath the central heap where the barracks had stood lay the bodies of the poor Zouaves, deep buried in wreck of the main building, the greater part of which had fallen across the side street that passes between the Penitenzieri and the Serristori. All was still for many minutes, while the soft light streamed from the high windows of the hospital and faintly illuminated some portion of the hideous scene. Very slowly a few stragglers came in sight, then more, and then by degrees a great dark crowd of awestruck people were collected together and stood afar off, fearing to come near, lest the ruins should still continue falling. Presently the door of the hospital opened and a party of men in gray blouses, headed by three or four gentlemen in black coats--one indeed was in his shirt sleeves--emerged into the silent street and went straight towards the scene of the disaster. They carried lanterns and a couple of stretchers such as are used for bearing the wounded. It chanced that the straight line they followed from the door did not lead them to where the girl was lying, and it was not until after a long and nearly fruitless search that they turned back. Two soldiers only, and both dead, could they find to bring back. The rest were buried far beneath, and it would be the work of many hours to extricate the bodies, even with a large force of men. As the little procession turned sadly back, they found that the crowd had advanced cautiously forward and now filled the street. In the foremost rank a little circle stood about a dark object that lay on the ground, curious, but too timid to touch it. "Signor Professore," said one man in a low voice, "there is a dead woman." The physicians came forward and bent over the body. One of them shook his head, as the bright light of the lantern fell on her face while he raised the girl from the ground. "She is a lady," said one of the others in a low voice. The men brought a stretcher and lifted the girl's body gently from the ground, scarcely daring to touch her, and gazing anxiously but yet in wonder at the white face. When she was laid upon the coarse canvas there was a moment's pause. The crowd pressed closely about the hospital men, and the yellow light of the lanterns was reflected on many strange faces, all bent eagerly forward and down to get a last sight of the dead girl's features. "Andiamo," said one of the physicians in a quiet sad voice. The bearers took up the dead Zouaves again, the procession of death entered the gates of the hospital, and the heavy doors closed behind like the portals of a tomb. The crowd closed again and pressed forward to the ruins. A few gendarmes had come up, and very soon a party of labourers was at work clearing away the lighter rubbish under the lurid glare of pitch torches stuck into the crevices and cracks of the rent walls. The devilish deed was done, but by a providential accident its consequences had been less awful than might have been anticipated. Only one-third of the mine had actually exploded, and only thirty Zouaves were at the time within the building. "Did you see her face, Gaetano?" asked a rough fellow of his companion. They stood together in a dark corner a little aloof from the throng of people. "No, but it must have been she. I am glad I have not that sin on my soul." "You are a fool, Gaetano. What is a girl to a couple of hundred soldiers? Besides, if you had held her tight she would not have got here in time to be killed." "Eh--but a girl! The other vagabonds at least, we have despatched in a good cause. Viva la liberta!" "Hush! There are the gendarmes! This way!" So they disappeared into the darkness whence they had come. It was not only in the Borgo Nuovo that there was confusion and consternation. The first signal for the outbreak had been given in the Piazza Colonna, where bombs had been exploded. Attacks were made upon the prisons by bands of those sinister-looking, unknown men, who for several days had been noticed in various parts of the city. A compact mob invaded the capitol, armed with better weapons than mobs generally find ready to their hands. At the Porta San Paolo, which was rightly judged to be one of the weakest points of the city, a furious attack was made from without by a band of Garibaldians who had crept up near the walls in various disguises during the last two days. More than one of the barracks within the city were assaulted simultaneously, and for a short time companies of men paraded the streets, shouting their cries of "Viva Garibaldi, Viva la liberta!" A few cried "Viva Vittorio!" and "Viva l'Italia!" But a calm observer--and there were many such in Rome that night--could easily see that the demonstration was rather in favour of an anarchic republic than of the Italian monarchy. On the whole, the population showed no sympathy with the insurrection. It is enough to say that this tiny revolution broke out at dusk and was entirely quelled before nine o'clock of the same evening. The attempts made were bold and desperate in many cases, but were supported by a small body of men only, the populace taking no active part in what was done. Had a real sympathy existed between the lower classes of Romans and the Garibaldians the result could not have been doubtful, for the vigour and energy displayed by the rioters would inevitably have attracted any similarly disposed crowd to join in a fray, when the weight of a few hundreds more would have turned the scale at any point. There was not a French soldier in the city at the time, and of the Zouaves and native troops a very large part were employed upon the frontier. Rome was saved and restored to order by a handful of soldiers, who were obliged to act at many points simultaneously, and the insignificance of the original movement may be determined from this fact. It is true that of the two infernal schemes, plotted at once to destroy the troops in a body and to strike terror into the inhabitants, one failed in part and the other altogether. If the whole of the gunpowder which Giuseppe Monti and Gaetano Tognetti had placed in the mine under the Serristori barracks had exploded, instead of only one-third of the quantity, a considerable part of the Borgo Nuovo would have been destroyed; and even the disaster which actually occurred would have killed many hundreds of Zouaves if these had chanced to be indoors at the time. But it is impossible to calculate the damage and loss of life which would have been recorded had the castle of Sant' Angelo and the adjacent fortifications been blown into the air. A huge mine had been laid and arranged for firing in the vaults of one of the bastions, but the plot was betrayed at the very last moment by one of the conspirators. I may add that these men, who were tried, and condemned only to penal servitude, were liberated in 1870, three years later, by the Italian Government, on the ground that they were merely political prisoners. The attempt in which they had been engaged would, however, even in time of declared war, have been regarded as a crime against the law of nations. Rome was immediately declared under a state of siege, and patrols of troops began to parade the streets, sending all stragglers whom they met to their homes, on the admirable principle that it is the duty of every man who finds himself in a riotous crowd to leave it instantly unless he can do something towards restoring order. Persons who found themselves in other people's houses, however, had some difficulty in at once returning to their own, and as it has been seen that the disturbance began precisely at the time selected by society for holding its confabulations, there were many who found themselves in that awkward situation. As the sounds in the street subsided, the excitement in the drawing-room at the Palazzo Saracinesca diminished likewise. Several of those present announced their intention of departing at once, but to this the old prince made serious objections. The city was not safe, he said. Carriages might be stopped at any moment, and even if that did not occur, all sorts of accidents might arise from the horses shying at the noises, or running over people in the crowds. He had his own views, and as he was in his own house it was not easy to dispute them. "The gates are shut," he said, with a cheerful laugh, "and none of you can get out at present. As it is nearly dinner-time you must all dine with me. It will not be a banquet, but I can give you something to eat. I hope nobody is gone already." Every one, at these words, looked at everybody else, as though to see whether any one were missing. "I saw Monsieur Gouache go out," said Flavia Montevarchi. "Poor fellow!" exclaimed the princess, her mother. "I hope nothing will happen to him!" She paused a moment and looked anxiously round the room. "Good Heavens!" she cried suddenly, "where is Faustina?" "She must have gone out of the room with my wife," said Sant' Ilario, quietly. "I will go and see." The princess thought this explanation perfectly natural and waited till he should return. He did not come back, however, so soon as might have been expected. He found his wife just leaving the nursery. Her first impulse had been to go to the child, and having satisfied herself that he had not been carried off by a band of Garibaldians but was sound asleep in his cradle, she was about to rejoin her guests. "Where is Faustina Montevarchi?" asked Giovanni, as though it were the most natural question in the world. "Faustina?" repeated Corona. "In the drawing-room, to be sure. I have not seen her." "She is not there," said Sant' Ilario, in a more anxious tone. "I thought she had come here with you." "She must be with the rest. You have overlooked her in the crowd. Come back with me and see your son--he does not seem to mind revolution in the least!" Giovanni, who had no real doubt but that Faustina was in the house, entered the nursery with his wife, and they stood together by the child's cradle. "Is he not beautiful?" exclaimed Corona, passing her arm affectionately through her husband's, and leaning her cheek on his shoulder. "He is a fine baby," replied Giovanni, his voice expressing more satisfaction than his words. "He will look like my father when he grows up." "I would rather he should look like you," said Corona. "If he could look like you, dear, there would be some use in wishing." Then they both gazed for some seconds at the swarthy little boy, who lay on his pillows, his arms thrown back above his head and his two little fists tightly clenched. The rich blood softly coloured the child's dark cheeks, and the black lashes, already long, like his mother's, gave a singularly expressive look to the small face. Giovanni tenderly kissed his wife and then they softly left the room. As soon as they were outside Sant' Ilario's thoughts returned to Faustina. "She was certainly not in the drawing-room," he said, "I am quite sure. It was her mother who asked for her and everybody heard the question. I dare not go back without her." They stopped together in the corridor, looking at each other with grave faces. "This is very serious," said Corona. "We must search the house. Send the men. I will tell the women. We will meet at the head of the stairs." Five minutes later, Giovanni returned in pursuit of his wife. "She has left the house," he said, breathlessly. "The porter saw her go out." "Good Heavens! Why did he not stop her?" cried Corona. "Because he is a fool!" answered Sant' Ilario, very pale in his anxiety. "She must have lost her head and gone home. I will tell her mother." When it was known in the drawing-room that Donna Faustina Montevarchi had left the palace alone and on foot every one was horrorstruck. The princess turned as white as death, though she was usually very red in the face. She was a brave woman, however, and did not waste words. "I must go home at once," said she. "Please order my carriage and have the gates opened." Giovanni obeyed silently, and a few minutes later the princess was descending the stairs, accompanied by Flavia, who was silent, a phenomenon seldom to be recorded in connection with that vivacious young lady. Giovanni went also, and his cousin, San Giacinto. "If you will permit me, princess, I will go with you," said the latter as they all reached the carriage. "I may be of some use." Just as they rolled out of the deep archway, the explosion of the barracks rent the air, the tremendous crash thundering and echoing through the city. The panes of the carriage-windows rattled as though they would break, and all Rome was silent while one might count a score. Then the horses plunged wildly in the traces and the vehicle struck heavily against one of the stone pillars which stood before the entrance of the palace. The four persons inside could hear the coachman shouting. "Drive on!" cried San Giacinto, thrusting his head out of the window. "Eccellenza--" began the man in a tone of expostulation. "Drive on!" shouted San Giacinto, in a voice that made the fellow obey in spite of his terror. He had never heard such a voice before, so deep, so strong and so savage. They reached the Palazzo Montevarchi without encountering any serious obstacle. In a few minutes they were convinced that Donna Faustina had not been heard of there, and a council was held upon the stairs. Whilst they were deliberating, Prince Montevarchi came out, and with him his eldest son, Bellegra, a handsome man about thirty years old, with blue eyes and a perfectly smooth fair beard. He was more calm than his father, who spoke excitedly, with many gesticulations. "You have lost Faustina!" cried the old man in wild tones. "You have lost Faustina! And in such times as these! Why do you stand there? Oh, my daughter! my daughter! I have so often told you to be careful, Guendalina--move, in the name of God--the child is lost, lost, I tell you! Have you no heart? no feeling? Are you a mother? Signori miei, I am desperate!" And indeed he seemed to be, as he stood wringing his hands, stamping his feet, and vociferating incoherently, while the tears began to flow down his cheeks. "We are going in search of your daughter," said Sant' Ilario. "Pray calm yourself. She will certainly be found." "Perhaps I had better go too," suggested Ascanio Bellegra, rather timidly. But his father threw his arms round him and held him tightly. "Do you think I will lose another child?" he cried. "No, no, no--figlio mio--you shall never go out into the midst of a revolution." Sant' Ilario looked on gravely, though he inwardly despised the poor old man for his weakness. San Giacinto stood against the wall, waiting, with, a grim smile of amusement on his face. He was measuring Ascanio Bellegra with his eye and thought he would not care for his assistance. The princess looked scornfully at her husband and son. "We are losing time," said Sant' Ilario at last to his cousin. "I promise you to bring you your daughter," he added gravely, turning to the princess. Then the two went away together, leaving Prince Montevarchi still lamenting himself to his wife and son. Flavia had taken no part in the conversation, having entered the hall and gone to her room at once. The cousins left the palace together and walked a little way down the street, before either spoke. Then Sant' Ilario stopped short. "Does it strike you that we have undertaken rather a difficult mission?" he asked. "A very difficult one," answered San Giacinto. "Rome is not the largest city in the world, but I have not the slightest idea where to look for that child. She certainly left our house. She certainly has not returned to her own. Between the two, practically, there lies the whole of Rome. I think the best thing to do, will be to go to the police, if any of them can be found." "Or to the Zouaves," said San Giacinto. "Why to the Zouaves? I do not understand you." "You are all so accustomed to being princes that you do not watch each, other. I have done nothing but watch, you all the time. That young lady is in love with Monsieur Gouache." "Really!" exclaimed Sant' Ilario, to whom the idea was as novel and incredible as it could have been to old Montevarchi himself, "really, you must be mistaken. The thing is impossible." "Not at all. That young man took Donna Faustina's hand and held it for some time there by the piano while I was shutting the windows in your drawing-room." San Giacinto did not tell all he had seen. "What?" cried Sant' Ilario. "You are mad--it is impossible!" "On the contrary, I saw it. A moment later Gouache left the room. Donna Faustina must have gone just after him. It is my opinion that she followed him." Before Sant' Ilario could answer, a small patrol of foot-gendarmes came up, and peremptorily ordered the two gentlemen to go home. Sant' Ilario addressed the corporal in charge. He stated his name and that of his cousin. "A lady has been lost," he then said. "She is Donna Faustina Montevarchi--a young lady, very fair and beautiful. She left the Palazzo Saracinesca alone and on foot half an hour ago and has not been heard of. Be good enough to inform the police you meet of this fact and to say that a large reward will be paid to any one who brings her to her father's house--to this palace here." After a few more words the patrol passed on, leaving the two cousins to their own devices. Sant' Ilario was utterly annoyed at the view just presented to him, and could not believe the thing true, though he had no other explanation to offer. "It is of no use to stand here doing nothing," said San Giacinto rather impatiently. "There is another crowd coming, too, and we shall be delayed again. I think we had better separate. I will go one way, and you take the other." "Where will you go?" asked Sant' Ilario. "You do not know your way about---" "As she may be anywhere, we may find her anywhere, so that it is of no importance whether I know the names of the streets or not. You had best think of all the houses to which she might have gone, among her friends. You know them better than I do. I will beat up all the streets between here and your house. When I am tired I will go to your palace." "I am afraid you will not find her," replied Sant' Ilario. "But we must try for the sake of her poor mother." "It is a question of luck," said the other, and they separated at once. San Giacinto turned in the direction of the crowd which was pouring into the street at some distance farther on. As he approached, he heard the name "Serristori" spoken frequently in the hum of voices. "What about the Serristori?" he asked of the first he met. "Have you not heard?" cried the fellow. "It is blown up with gunpowder! There are at least a thousand dead. Half the Borgo Nuovo is destroyed, and they say that the Vatican will go next---" The man would have run on for any length of time, but San Giacinto had heard enough and dived into the first byway he found, intending to escape the throng and make straight for the barracks. He had to ask his way several times, and it was fully a quarter of an hour before he reached the bridge. Thence he easily found the scene of the disaster, and came up to the hospital of Santo Spirito just after the gates had closed behind the bearers of the dead. He mixed with the crowd and asked questions, learning very soon that the first search, made by the people from the hospital, had only brought to light the bodies of two Zouaves and one woman. "And I did not see her," said the man who was speaking, "but they say she was a lady and beautiful as an angel," "Rubbish!" exclaimed another. "She was a little sewing woman who lived in the Borgo Vecchio. And I know it is true because her innamorato was one of the dead Zouaves they picked up." "I don't believe there was any woman at all," said a third. "What should a woman be doing at the barracks?" "She was killed outside," observed the first speaker, a timid old man. "At least, I was told so, but I did not see her." "It was a woman bringing a baby to put into the Rota," [Footnote: The Rota was a revolving box in which foundlings were formerly placed. The box turned round and the infant was taken inside and cared for. It stands at the gate of the Santo Spirito Hospital, and is still visible, though no longer in use.] cried a shrill-voiced washerwoman. "She got the child in and was running away, when the place blew up, and the devil carried her off. And serve her right, for throwing away her baby, poor little thing!" In the light of these various opinions, most of which supported the story that some woman had been carried into the hospital, San Giacinto determined to find out the truth, and boldly rang the bell. A panel was opened in the door, and the porter looked out at the surging crowd. "What do you want?" he inquired roughly, on seeing that admittance had not been asked for a sick or wounded person. "I want to speak with the surgeon in charge," replied San Giacinto. "He is busy," said the man rather doubtfully. "Who are you?" "A friend of one of the persons just killed." "They are dead. You had better wait till morning and come again," suggested the porter. "But I want to be sure that it is my friend who is dead." "Then why do you not give your name? Perhaps you are a Garibaldian. Why should I open?" "I will tell the surgeon my name, if you will call him. There is something for yourself. Tell him I am a Roman prince and must see him for a moment." "I will see if he will come," said the man, shutting the panel in San Giacinto's face. His footsteps echoed along the pavement of the wide hall within. It was long before he came back, and San Giacinto had leisure to reflect upon the situation. He had very little doubt but that the dead woman was no other than Donna Faustina. By a rare chance, or rather in obedience to an irresistible instinct, he had found the object of his search in half an hour, while his cousin was fruitlessly inquiring for the missing girl in the opposite direction. He had been led to the conclusion that she had followed Gouache by what he had seen in the Saracinesca's drawing-room, and by a process of reasoning too simple to suggest itself to an ordinary member of Roman society. What disturbed him most was the thought of the consequences of his discovery, and he resolved to conceal the girl's name and his own if possible. If she were indeed dead, it would be wiser to convey her body to her father's house privately; if she were still alive, secrecy was doubly necessary. In either case it would be utterly impossible to account to the world for the fact that Faustina Montevarchi had been alone in the Borgo Nuovo at such an hour; and San Giacinto had a lively interest in preserving the good reputation of Casa Montevarchi, since he had been meditating for some time past a union with Donna Flavia. At last the panel opened again, and when the porter had satisfied himself that the gentleman was still without, a little door in the heavy gate was cautiously unfastened and San Giacinto went in, bending nearly double to pass under the low entrance. In the great vestibule he was immediately confronted by the surgeon in charge, who was in his shirt sleeves, but had thrown his coat over his shoulders and held it together at the neck to protect himself from the night air. San Giacinto begged him to retire out of hearing of the porter, and the two walked away together. "There was a lady killed just now by the explosion, was there not?" inquired San Giacinto. "She is not dead," replied the surgeon. "Do you know her?" "I think so. Had she anything about her to prove her identity?" "The letter M embroidered on her handkerchief. That is all I know. She has not been here a quarter of an hour. I thought she was dead myself, when we took her up." "She was not under the ruins?" "No. She was struck by some small stone, I fancy. The two Zouaves were half buried, and are quite dead." "May I see them? I know many in the corps. They might be acquaintances." "Certainly. They are close by in the mortuary chamber, unless they have been put in the chapel." The two men entered the grim place, which was dimly lighted by a lantern hanging overhead. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the ghastly details. San Giacinto bent down curiously and looked at the dead men's faces. He knew neither of them, and told the surgeon so. "Will you allow me to see the lady?" he asked. "Pardon me, if I ask a question," said the surgeon, who was a man of middle age, with a red beard and keen grey eyes. "To whom have I the advantage of speaking?" "Signor Professore," replied San Giacinto, "I must tell you that if this is the lady I suppose your patient to be, the honour of one of the greatest families in Rome is concerned, and it is important that strict secrecy should be preserved." "The porter told me that you were a Roman prince," returned the surgeon rather bluntly. "But you speak like a southerner." "I was brought up in Naples. As I was saying, secrecy is very important, and I can assure you that you will earn the gratitude of many by assisting me." "Do you wish to take this lady away at once?" "Heaven forbid! Her mother and sister shall come for her in half an hour." The surgeon thrust his hands into his pockets, and stood staring for a moment or two at the bodies of the Zouaves. "I cannot do it," he said, suddenly looking up at San. Giacinto. "I am master here, and I am responsible. The secret is professional, of course. If I knew you, even by sight, I should not hesitate. As it is, I must ask your name." San Giacinto did not hesitate long, as the surgeon was evidently master of the situation. He took a card from his case and silently handed it to the doctor. The latter took it and read the name, "Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto." His face betrayed no emotion, but the belief flashed through his mind that there was no such person in existence. He was one of the leading men in his profession, and knew Prince Saracinesca and Sant' Ilario, but he had never heard of this other Don Giovanni. He knew also that the city was in a state of revolution and that many suspicious persons were likely to gain access to public buildings on false pretences. "Very well," he said quietly. "You are not afraid of dead men, I see. Be good enough to wait a moment here--no one will see you, and you will not be recognised. I will go and see that there is nobody in the way, and you shall have a sight of the young lady." His companion nodded in assent and the surgeon went out through the narrow door. San Giacinto was surprised to hear the heavy key turned in the lock and withdrawn, but immediately accounted for the fact on the theory that the surgeon wished to prevent any one from finding his visitor lest the secret should be divulged. He was not a nervous man, and had no especial horror of being left alone in a mortuary chamber for a few minutes. He looked about him, and saw that the room was high and vaulted. One window alone gave air, and this was ten feet from the floor and heavily ironed. He reflected with a smile that if it pleased the surgeon to leave him there he could not possibly get out. Neither his size nor his phenomenal strength could assist him in the least. There was no furniture in the place. Half a dozen slabs of slate for the bodies were built against the wall, solid and immovable, and the door was of the heaviest oak, thickly studded with huge iron nails. If the dead men had been living prisoners their place of confinement could not have been more strongly contrived. San Giacinto waited a quarter of an hour, and at last, as the surgeon did not return, he sat down upon one of the marble slabs and, being very hungry, consoled himself by lighting a cigar, while he meditated upon the surest means of conveying Donna Faustina to her father's house. At last he began to wonder how long he was to wait. "I should not wonder," he said to himself, "if that long-eared professor had taken me for a revolutionist." He was not far wrong, indeed. The surgeon had despatched a messenger for a couple of gendarmes and had gone about his business in the hospital, knowing very well that it would take some time to find the police while the riot lasted, and congratulating himself upon having caught a prisoner who, if not a revolutionist, was at all events an impostor, since he had a card printed with a false name. CHAPTER VI. The improvised banquet at the Palazzo Saracinesca was not a merry one, but the probable dangers to the city and the disappearance of Faustina Montevarchi furnished matter for plenty of conversation. The majority inclined to the belief that the girl had lost her head and had run home, but as neither Sant' Ilario nor his cousin returned, there was much speculation. The prince said he believed that they had found Faustina at her father's house and had stayed to dinner, whereupon some malicious person remarked that it needed a revolution in Rome to produce hospitality in such a quarter. Dinner was nearly ended when Pasquale, the butler, whispered to the prince that a gendarme wanted to speak with him on very important business. "Bring him here," answered old Saracinesca, aloud. "There is a gendarme outside," he added, addressing his guests, "he will tell us all the news. Shall we have him here?" Every one assented enthusiastically to the proposition, for most of those present were anxious about their houses, not knowing what had taken place during the last two hours. The man was ushered in, and stood at a distance holding his three-cornered hat in his hand, and looking rather sheepish and uncomfortable. "Well?" asked the prince. "What is the matter? We all wish to hear the news." "Excellency," began the soldier, "I must ask many pardons for appearing thus---" Indeed his uniform was more or less disarranged and he looked pale and fatigued. "Never mind your appearance. Speak up," answered old Saracinesca in encouraging tones. "Excellency," said the man, "I must apologise, but there is a gentleman who calls himself Don Giovanni, of your revered name---" "I know there is. He is my son. What about him?" "He is not the Senior Principe di Sant' Ilario, Excellency--he calls himself by another name--Marchese di--di--here is his card, Excellency." "My cousin, San Giacinto, then. What about him, I say?" "Your Excellency has a cousin---" stammered the gendarme. "Well? Is it against the law to have cousins?" cried the prince. "What is the matter with my cousin?" "Dio mio!" exclaimed the soldier in great agitation. "What a combination! Your Excellency's cousin is in the mortuary chamber at Santo Spirito!" "Is he dead?" asked Saracinesca in a lower voice, but starting from his chair. "No," cried the man, "questo e il male! That is the trouble! He is alive and very well!" "Then what the devil is he doing in the mortuary chamber?" roared the prince. "Excellency, I beseech your pardon, I had nothing to do with locking up the Signor Marchese. It was the surgeon, Excellency, who took him for a Garibaldian. He shall be liberated at once---" "I should think so!" answered Saracinesca, savagely. "And what business have your asses of surgeons with gentlemen? My hat, Pasquale. And how on earth came my cousin to be in Santo Spirito?" "Excellency, I know nothing, but I had to do my duty." "And if you know nothing how the devil do you expect to do your duty! I will have you and the surgeon and the whole of Santo Spirito and all the patients, in the Carceri Nuove, safe in prison before morning! My hat, Pasquale, I say!" Some confusion followed, during which the gendarme, who was anxious to escape all responsibility in the matter of San Giacinto's confinement, left the room and descended the grand staircase three steps at a time. Mounting his horse he galloped back through the now deserted streets to the hospital. Within two minutes after his arrival San Giacinto heard the bolt of the heavy lock run back in the socket and the surgeon entered the mortuary chamber. San Giacinto had nearly finished his cigar and was growing impatient, but the doctor made many apologies for his long absence. "An unexpected relapse in a dangerous case, Signor Marchese," he said in explanation. "What would you have? We doctors are at the mercy of nature! Pray forgive my neglect, but I could send no one, as you did not wish to be seen. I locked the door, so that nobody might find you here. Pray come with me, and you shall see the young lady at once." "By all means," replied San Giacinto. "Dead men are poor company, and I am in a hurry." The surgeon led the way to the accident ward and introduced his companion to a small clean room in which a shaded lamp was burning. A Sister of Mercy stood by the white bed, upon which lay a young girl, stretched out at her full length. "You are too late," said the nun very quietly. "She is dead, poor child." San Giacinto uttered a deep exclamation of horror and was at the bedside even before the surgeon. He lifted the fair young creature in his arms and stared at the cold face, holding it to the light. Then with a loud cry of astonishment he laid down his burden. "It is not she, Signor Professore," he said. "I must apologise for the trouble I have given you. Pray accept my best thanks. There is a resemblance, but it is not she." The doctor was somewhat relieved to find himself freed from the responsibility which, as San Giacinto had told him, involved the honour of one of the greatest families in Rome. Before speaking, he satisfied himself that the young woman was really dead. "Death often makes faces look alike which have no resemblance to each other in life," he remarked as he turned away. Then they both left the room, followed at a little distance by the sister who was going to summon the bearers to carry away her late charge. As the two men descended the steps, the sound of loud voices in altercation reached their ears, and as they emerged into the vestibule, they saw old Prince Saracinesca flourishing his stick in dangerous proximity to the head of the porter. The latter had retreated until he stood with his back against the wall. "I will have none of this lying," shouted the irate nobleman. "The Marchese is here--the gendarme told me he was in the mortuary chamber--if he is not produced at once I will break your rascally neck---" The man was protesting as fast and as loud as his assailant threatened him. "Eh! My good cousin!" cried San Giacinto, whose unmistakable voice at once made the prince desist from his attack and turn round. "Do not kill the fellow! I am alive and well, as you see." A short explanation ensued, during which the surgeon was obliged to admit that as San Giacinto had no means of proving any identity he, the doctor in charge, had thought it best to send for the police, in view of the unquiet state of the city. "But what brought you here?" asked old Saracinesca, who was puzzled to account for his cousin's presence in the hospital. San Giacinto had satisfied his curiosity and did not care a pin for the annoyance to which he had been subjected. He was anxious, too, to get away, and having half guessed the surgeon's suspicions was not at all surprised by the revelation concerning the gendarme. "Allow me to thank you again," he said politely, turning to the doctor. "I have no doubt you acted quite rightly. Let us go," he added, addressing the prince. The porter received a coin as consolation money for the abuse he had sustained, and the two cousins found themselves in the street. Saracinesca again asked for an explanation. "Very simple," replied San Giacinto. "Donna Faustina was not at her father's house, so your son and I separated to continue our search. Chancing to find myself here--for I do not know my way about the city--I learnt the news of the explosion, and was told that two Zouaves had been found dead and had been taken into the hospital. Fearing lest one of them might have been Gouache, I succeeded in getting in, when I was locked up with the dead bodies, as you have heard. Gouache, by the bye, was not one of them." "It is outrageous---" began Saracinesca, but his companion did not allow him to proceed. "It is no matter," he said, quickly. "The important thing is to find Donna Faustina. I suppose you have no news of her." "None. Giovanni had not come home when the gendarme appeared." "Then we must continue the search as best we can," said San Giacinto. Thereupon they both got into the prince's cab and drove away. It was nearly midnight when a small detachment of Zouaves crossed the bridge of Sant' Angelo. There had been some sharp fighting at the Porta San Paolo, at the other extremity of Rome, and the men were weary. But rest was not to be expected that night, and the tired soldiers were led back to do sentry duty in the neighbourhood of their quarters. The officer halted the little body in the broad space beyond. "Monsieur Gouache," said the lieutenant, "you will take a corporal's guard and maintain order in the neighbourhood of the barracks--if there is anything left of them," he added with a mournful laugh. Gouache stepped forward and half a dozen men formed themselves behind him. The officer was a good friend of his. "I suppose you have not dined any more than I, Monsieur Gouache?" "Not I, mon lieutenant. It is no matter." "Pick up something to eat if you can, at such an hour. I will see that you are relieved before morning. Shoulder arms! March!" So Anastase Gouache trudged away down the Borgo Nuovo with his men at his heels. Among the number there was the son of a French duke, an English gentleman whose forefathers had marched with the Conqueror as their descendant now marched behind the Parisian artist, a young Swiss doctor of law, a couple of red-headed Irish peasants, and two or three others. When they reached the scene of the late catastrophe the place was deserted. The men who had been set to work at clearing away the rubbish had soon found what a hopeless task they had undertaken; and the news having soon spread that only the regimental musicians were in the barracks at the time, and that these few had been in all probability in the lower story of the building, where the band-room was situated, all attempts at finding the bodies were abandoned until the next day. Gouache and many others had escaped death almost miraculously, for five minutes had not elapsed after they had started at the double-quick for the Porta San Paolo, when the building was blown up. The news had of course been brought to them while they were repulsing the attack upon the gate, but it was not until many hours afterwards that a small detachment could safely be spared to return to their devastated quarters. Gouache himself had been just in time to join his comrades, and with them had seen most of the fighting. He now placed his men at proper distances along the street, and found leisure to reflect upon what had occurred. He was hungry and thirsty, and grimy with gunpowder, but there was evidently no prospect of getting any refreshment. The night, too, was growing cold, and he found it necessary to walk briskly about to keep himself warm. At first he tramped backwards and forwards, some fifty paces each way, but growing weary of the monotonous exercise, he began to scramble about among the heaps of ruins. His quick imagination called up the scene as it must have looked at the moment of the explosion, and then reverted with a sharp pang to the thought of his poor comrades-in-arms who lay crushed to death many feet below the stones on which he trod. Suddenly, as he leaned against a huge block, absorbed in his thoughts, the low wailing of a woman's voice reached his ears. The sound proceeded apparently from no great distance, but the tone was very soft and low. Gradually, as he listened, he thought he distinguished words, but such words as he had not expected to hear, though they expressed his own feeling well enough. "Requiem eternam dona eis!" It was quite distinct, and the accents sounded strangely familiar. He held his breath and strained every faculty to catch the sounds. "Requiem sempiternam--sempiternam--sempiternam!" The despairing tones trembled at the third repetition, and then the voice broke into passionate sobbing. Anastase did not wait for more. At first he had half believed that what he heard was due to his imagination, but the sudden weeping left no doubt that it was real. Cautiously he made his way amongst the ruins, until he stopped short in amazement not unmingled with horror. In an angle where a part of the walls was still standing, a woman was on her knees, her hands stretched wildly out before her, her darkly-clad figure faintly revealed by the beams of the waning moon. The covering had fallen back from her head upon her shoulders, and the struggling rays fell upon her beautiful features, marking their angelic outline with delicate light. Still Anastase remained motionless, scarcely believing his eyes, and yet knowing that lovely face too well not to believe. It was Donna Faustina Montevarchi who knelt there at midnight, alone, repeating the solemn words from the mass for the dead; it was for him that she wept, and he knew it. Standing there upon the common grave of his comrades, a wild joy filled the young man's heart, a joy such as must be felt to be known, for it passes the power of earthly words to tell it. In that dim and ghastly place the sun seemed suddenly to shine as at noonday in a fair country; the crumbling masonry and blocks of broken stone grew more lovely than the loveliest flowers, and from the dark figure of that lonely heart-broken woman the man who loved her saw a radiance proceeding which overflowed and made bright at once his eyes and his heart. In the intensity of his emotion, the hand which lay upon the fallen stone contracted suddenly and broke off a fragment of the loosened mortar. At the slight noise, Faustina turned her head. Her eyes were wide and wild, and as she started to her feet she uttered a short, sharp cry, and staggered backward against the wall. In a moment Anastase was at her side, supporting her and looking into her face. "Faustina!" During a few seconds she gazed horrorstruck and silent upon him, stiffening herself and holding her face away from his. It was as though his ghost had risen out of the earth and embraced her. Then the wild look shivered like a mask and vanished, her features softened and the colour rose to her cheeks for an instant. Very slowly she drew him towards her, her eyes fixed on his; their lips met in a long, sweet kiss--then her strength forsook her and she swooned away in his arms. Gouache supported her tenderly until she sat leaning against the wall, and then knelt down by her side. He did not know what to do, and had he known, it would have availed him little. His instinct told him that she would presently recover consciousness and his emotions had so wholly overcome him that he could only look at her lovely face as her head rested upon his arm. But while he waited a great fear began to steal into his heart. He asked himself how Faustina had come to such a place, and how her coming was to be accounted for. It was long past midnight, now, and he guessed what trouble and anxiety there would be in her father's house until she was found. He represented to himself in quick succession the scenes which would follow his appearance at the Palazzo Montevarchi with the youngest daughter of the family in his arms--or in a cab, and he confessed to himself that never lover had been in such straits. Faustina opened her eyes and sighed, nestled her head softly on his breast, sighing again, in the happy consciousness that he was safe, and then at last she sat up and looked him in the face. "I was so sure you were killed," said she, in her soft voice. "My darling!" he exclaimed, pressing her to his side. "Are you not glad to be alive?" she asked. "For my sake, at least! You do not know what I have suffered." Again he held her close to him, in silence, forgetting all the unheard-of difficulties of his situation in the happiness of holding her in his arms. His silence, indeed, was more eloquent than any words could have been. "My beloved!" he said at last, "how could you run such risks for me? Do you think I am worthy of so much love? And yet, if loving you can make me worthy of you, I am the most deserving man that ever lived--and I live only for you. But for you I might as well be buried under our feet here with my poor comrades. But tell me, Faustina, were you not afraid to come? How long have you been here? It is very late--it is almost morning." "Is it? What does it matter, since you are safe? You ask how I came? Did I not tell you I would follow you? Why did you run on without me? I ran here very quickly, and just as I saw the gates of the barracks there was a terrible noise and I was thrown down, I cannot tell how. Soon I got to my feet and crept under a doorway. I suppose I must have fainted, for I thought you were killed. I saw a soldier before me, just when it happened, and he must have been struck. I took him for you. When I came to myself there were so many people in the street that I could not move from where I was. Then they went away, and I came here while the workmen tried to move the stones, and I watched them and begged them to go on, but they would not, and I had nothing to give them, so they went away too, and I knew that I should have to wait until to-morrow to find you--for I would have waited--no one should have dragged me away--ah! my darling--my beloved! What does anything matter now that you are safe!" For fully half an hour they sat talking in this wise, both knowing that the situation could not last, but neither willing to speak the word which must end it. Gouache, indeed, was in a twofold difficulty. Not only was he wholly at a loss for a means of introducing Faustina into her father's house unobserved at such an hour; he was in command of the men stationed in the neighbourhood, and to leave his post under any circumstances whatever would be a very grave breach of duty. He could neither allow Faustina to return alone, nor could he accompany her. He could not send one of his men for a friend to help him, since to take any one into his confidence was to ruin the girl's reputation in the eyes of all Rome. To find a cab at that time of night was almost out of the question. The position seemed desperate. Faustina, too, was a mere child, and it was impossible to explain to her the social consequences of her being discovered with him. "I think, perhaps," said she after a happy silence, and in rather a timid voice--"I think, perhaps, you had better take me home now. They will be anxious, you know," she added, as though fearing that he should suspect her of wishing to leave him. "Yes, I must take you home," answered Gouache, somewhat absently. To her his tone sounded cold. "Are you angry, because I want to go?" asked the young girl, looking lovingly into his face. "Angry? No indeed, darling! I ought to have taken you home at once--but I was too happy to think of it. Of course your people must be terribly anxious, and the question is how to manage your entrance. Can you get into the house unseen? Is there any way? Any small door that is open?" "We can wake the porter," said Faustina, simply. "He will let us in." "It would not do. How can I go to your father and tell him that I found you here? Besides, the porter knows me." "Well, if he does, what does it matter?" "He would talk about it to other servants, and all Rome would know it to-morrow. You must go home with a woman, and to do that we must find some one you know. It would be a terrible injury to you to have such a story repeated abroad." "Why?" To this innocent question Gouache did not find a ready answer. He smiled quietly and pressed her to his side more closely. "The world is a very bad place, dearest. I am a man and know it. You must trust me to do what is best. Will you?" "How can you ask? I will always trust you." "Then I will tell you what we will do. You must go home with the Princess Sant' Ilario." "With Corona? But--" "She knows that I love you, and she is the only woman in Rome whom I would trust. Do not be surprised. She asked me if it was true, and I said it was. I am on duty here, and you must wait for me while I make the rounds of my sentries--it will not take five minutes. Then I will take you to the Palazzo Saracinesca. I shall not be missed here for an hour." "I will do whatever you wish," said Faustina. "Perhaps that is best. But I am afraid everybody will be asleep. Is it not very late?" "I will wake them up if they are sleeping." He left her to make his round and soon assured himself that his men were not napping. Then before he returned he stopped at the corner of a street and by the feeble moonlight scratched a few words on a leaf from his notebook. "Madame," he wrote, "I have found Donna Faustina Montevarchi, who had lost her way. It is absolutely necessary that you should accompany her to her father's house. You are the only person whom I can trust. I am at your gate. Bring something in the way of a cloak to disguise her with." He signed his initials and folded the paper, slipping it into his pocket where he could readily find it. Then he went back to the place where Faustina was waiting. He helped her out of the ruins, and passing through a side street so as to avoid the sentinels, they made their way rapidly to the bridge. The sentry challenged Gouache who gave the word at once and was allowed to pass on with his charge. In less than a quarter of an hour they were at the Palazzo Saracinesca. Gouache made Faustina stand in the shadow of a doorway on the opposite side of the street and advanced to the great doors. A ray of light which passed through the crack of a shutter behind the heavy iron grating on one side of the arch showed that the porter was up. Anastase drew his bayonet from his side and tapped with its point against the high window. "Who is there?" asked the porter, thrusting his head out. "Is the Principe di Sant' Ilario still awake?" asked Gouache. "He is not at home. Heaven knows where he is. What do you want? The princess is sitting up to wait for the prince." "That will do as well," replied Anastase. "I am sent with this note from the Vatican. It needs an immediate answer. Be good enough to say that I was ordered to wait." The explanation satisfied the porter, to whom the sight of a Zouave was just then more agreeable than usual. He put his arm out through the grating and took the paper. "It does not look as though it came from the Vatican," he remarked doubtfully, as he turned the scrap to the light of his lamp. "The cardinal is waiting--make haste!" said Gouache. It struck him that even if the man could read a little, which was not improbable, the initials A. G., being those of Cardinal Antonelli in reversed order would be enough to frighten the fellow and make him move quickly. This, indeed was precisely what occurred. In five minutes the small door in the gate was opened and Gouache saw Corona's tall figure step out into the street. She hesitated a moment when she saw the Zouave alone, and then closed the door with a snap behind her. Gouache bowed quickly and gave her his arm. "Let us be quick," he said, "or the porter will see us. Donna Faustina is under that doorway. You know how grateful I am--there is no time to say it." Corona said nothing but hastened to Faustina's side. The latter put her arms about her friend's neck and kissed her. The princess threw a wide cloak over the young girl's shoulders and drew the hood over her head. "Let us be quick," said Corona, repeating Gouache's words. They walked quickly away in silence, and no one spoke until they leached the Palazzo Montevarchi. Explanations were impossible, and every one was too much absorbed by the danger of the situation to speak of anything else. When they were a few steps from the gate Corona stopped. "You may leave us here," she said coldly, addressing Gouache. "But, princess, I will see you home," protested the latter, somewhat surprised by her tone. "No--I will take a servant back with me. Will you be good enough to leave us?" she asked almost haughtily, as Gouache still lingered. He had no choice but to obey her commands, though for some time he could not explain to himself the cause of the princess's behaviour. "Goodnight, Madame. Good-night, Mademoiselle," he said, quietly. Then with a low bow he turned away and disappeared in the darkness. In five minutes he had reached the bridge, running at the top of his speed, and he regained his post without his absence having been observed. When the two women were alone, Corona laid her hand upon Faustina's shoulder and looked down into the girl's face. "Faustina, my child," she said, "how could you be led into such a wild scrape?" "Why did you treat him so unkindly?" asked the young girl with flashing eyes. "It was cruel and unkind--" "Because he deserved it," answered Corona, with rising anger. "How could he dare--from my house--a mere child like you---" "I do not know what you imagine," said Faustina in a tone of deep resentment. "I followed him to the Serristori barracks, and I fainted when they were blown up. He found me and brought me to you, because he said I could not go back to my father's house with him. If I love him what is that to you?" "It is a great deal to me that he should have got you into this trouble." "He did not. If it is trouble, I got myself into it. Do you love him yourself that you are so angry?" "I!" cried Corona in amazement at the girl's audacity. "Poor Gouache!" she added with a half-scornful, half-pitying laugh. "Come, child! Let us go in. We cannot stand here all night talking. I will tell your mother that you lost your way in our house and were found asleep in a distant room. The lock was jammed, and you could not get out." "I think I will simply tell the truth," answered Faustina. "You will do nothing of the kind," said Corona, sternly. "Do you know what would happen? You would be shut up in a convent by your father for several years, and the world would say that I had favoured your meetings with Monsieur Gouache. This is no trifling matter. You need say nothing. I will give the whole explanation myself, and take the responsibility of the falsehood upon my own shoulders." "I promised him to do as he bid me," replied Faustina. "I suppose he would have me follow your advice, and so I will. Are you still angry, Corona?" "I will try not to be, if you will be sensible." They knocked at the gate and were soon admitted. The whole household was on foot, though it was past one o'clock. It is unnecessary to describe the emotions of Faustina's relations, nor their gratitude to Corona, whose explanation they accepted at once, with a delight which may easily be imagined. "But your porter said he had seen her leave your house," said the Princess Montevarchi, recollecting the detail and anxious to have it explained. "He was mistaken, in his fright," returned Corona, calmly. "It was only my maid, who ran out to see what was the matter and returned soon afterwards." There was nothing more to be said. The old prince and Ascanio Bellegra walked home with Corona, who refused to wait until a carriage could be got ready, on the ground that her husband might have returned from the search and might be anxious at her absence. She left her escort at her door and mounted the steps alone. As she was going up the porter came running after her. "Excellency," he said in low tones, "the Signor Principe came back while you were gone, and I told him that you had received a note from the Vatican and had gone away with the Zouave who brought it. I hope I did right---" "Of course you did," replied Corona. She was a calm woman and not easily thrown off her guard, but as she made her answer she was conscious of an unpleasant sensation wholly new to her. She had never done anything concerning which she had reason to ask herself what Giovanni would think of it. For the first time since her marriage with him she knew that she had something to conceal. How, indeed, was it possible to tell him the story of Faustina's wild doings? Giovanni was a man who knew the world, and had no great belief in its virtues. To tell him what had occurred would be to do Faustina an irreparable injury in his eyes. He would believe his wife, no doubt, but he would tell her that Faustina had deceived her. She cared little what he might think of Gouache, for she herself was incensed against him, believing that he must certainly have used some persuasion to induce Faustina to follow him, mad as the idea seemed. Corona had little time for reflection, however. She could not stand upon the stairs, and as soon as she entered the house she must meet her husband. She made up her mind hurriedly to do what in most cases is extremely dangerous. Giovanni was in her boudoir, pale and anxious. He had forgotten that he had not dined that evening and was smoking a cigarette with short sharp puffs. "Thank God!" he cried, as his wife entered the room. "Where have you been, my darling?" "Giovanni," said Corona, gravely, laying her two hands on his shoulders, "you know you can trust me--do you not?" "As I trust Heaven," he answered, tenderly. "You must trust me now, then," said she. "I cannot tell you where I have been. I will tell you some day, you have my solemn promise. Faustina Montevarchi is with her mother. I took her back, and told them she had followed me from the room, had lost her way in the house, and had accidentally fastened a door which she could not open. You must support the story. You need only say that I told you so, because you were out at the time. I will not lie to you, so I tell you that I invented the story." Sant' Ilario was silent for a few minutes, during which he looked steadily into his wife's eyes, which met his without flinching. "You shall do as you please, Corona," he said at last, returning the cigarette to his lips and still looking at her. "Will you answer me one question?" "If I can without explaining." "That Zouave who brought the message from the Vatican--was he Gouache?" Corona turned her eyes away, annoyed at the demand. To refuse to answer was tantamount to admitting the truth, and she would not lie to her husband. "It was Gouache," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "I thought so," answered Sant' Ilario in a low voice. He moved away, throwing his cigarette into the fireplace. "Very well," he continued, "I will remember to tell the story as you told it to me, and I am sure you will tell me the truth some day." "Of course," said Corona. "And I thank you, Giovanni, with my whole heart! There is no one like you, dear." She sat down in a chair beside him as he stood, and taking his hand she pressed it to her lips. She knew well enough what a strange thing she had asked, and she was indeed grateful to him. He stooped down and kissed her forehead. "I will always trust you," he said, softly. "Tell me, dear one, has this matter given you pain? Is it a secret that will trouble you?" "Not now," she answered, frankly. Giovanni was in earnest when he promised to trust his wife. He knew, better than any living man, how well worthy she was of his utmost confidence, and he meant what he said. It must be confessed that the situation was a trying one to a man of his temper, and the depth of his love for Corona can be judged from the readiness with which he consented to her concealing anything from him. Every circumstance connected with what had happened that evening was strange, and the conclusion, instead of elucidating the mystery, only made it more mysterious still. His cousin's point-blank declaration that Faustina and Gouache were in love was startling to all his ideas and prejudices. He had seen Gouache kiss Corona's hand in a corner of the drawing-room, a proceeding which he did not wholly approve, though it was common enough. Then Gouache and Faustina had disappeared. Then Faustina had been found, and to facilitate the finding it had been necessary that Corona and Gouache should leave the palace together at one o'clock in the morning. Finally, Corona had appealed to his confidence in her and had taken advantage of it to refuse any present explanation whatever of her proceedings. Corona was a very noble and true woman, and he had promised to trust her. How far he kept his word will appear hereafter. CHAPTER VII. When San Giacinto heard Corona's explanation of Faustina's disappearance, he said nothing. He did not believe the story in the least, but if every one was satisfied there was no reason why he should not be satisfied also. Though he saw well enough that the tale was a pure invention, and that there was something behind it which was not to be known, the result was, on the whole, exactly what he desired. He received the thanks of the Montevarchi household for his fruitless exertions with a smile of gratification, and congratulated the princess upon the happy issue of the adventure. He made no present attempt to ascertain the real truth by asking questions which would have been hard to answer, for he was delighted that the incident should be explained away and forgotten at once. Donna Faustina's disappearance was of course freely discussed and variously commented, but the general verdict of the world was contrary to San Giacinto's private conclusions. People said that the account given by the family must be true, since it was absurd to suppose that a child just out of the convent could be either so foolish or so courageous as to go out alone at such a moment. No other hypothesis was in the least tenable, and the demonstration offered must be accepted as giving the only solution of the problem. San Giacinto told no one that he thought differently. It was before all things his intention to establish himself firmly in Roman society, and his natural tact told him that the best way to accomplish this was to offend no one, and to endorse without question the opinion of the majority. Moreover, as a part of his plan for assuring his position consisted in marrying Faustina's sister, his interest lay manifestly in protecting the good name of her family by every means in his power. He knew that old Montevarchi passed for being one of the most rigid amongst the stiff company of the strait-laced, and that the prince was as careful of the conduct of his children, as his father had formerly been in regard to his own doings. Ascanio Bellegra was the result of this home education, and already bid fair to follow in his parent's footsteps. Christian virtues are certainly not incompatible with manliness, but the practice of them as maintained by Prince Montevarchi had made his son Ascanio a colourless creature, rather non-bad than good, clothed in a garment of righteousness that fitted him only because his harmless soul had no salient bosses of goodness, any more than it was disfigured by any reprehensible depressions capable of harbouring evil. There is a class of men in certain states of society who are manly, but not masculine. There is nothing paradoxical in the statement, nor is it a mere play upon the meanings of words. There are men of all ages, young, middle-aged, and old, who possess many estimable virtues, who show physical courage wherever it is necessary, who are honourable, strong, industrious, and tenacious of purpose, but who undeniably lack something which belongs to the ideal man, and which, for want of a better word, we call the masculine element. When we shall have microscopes so large and powerful that a human being shall be as transparent under the concentrated light of the lenses as the tiniest insect when placed in one of our modern instruments, then, perhaps, the scientist of the future may discover the causes of this difference. I believe, however, that it does not depend upon the fact of one man having a few ounces more of blood in his veins than another. The fact lies deeper hidden than that, and may puzzle the psychologist as well as the professor of anthropology. For us it exists, and we cannot explain it, but must content ourselves with comparing the phenomena which proceed from these differences of organisation. At the present day the society of the English-speaking races seems to favour the growth of the creature who is only manly but not masculine, whereas outside the pale of that strange little family which calls itself "society" the masculinity of man is more striking than among other races. Not long ago a French journalist said that many of the peculiarities of the English-speaking peoples proceeded from the omnipresence of the young girl, who reads every novel that appears, goes to every theatre, and regulates the tone of conversation and literature by her never-absent innocence. Cynics, if there are still representatives of a school which has grown ridiculous, may believe this if they please; the fact remains that it is precisely the most masculine class of men who show the strongest predilection for the society of the most refined women, and who on the whole show the greatest respect for all women in general. The masculine man prefers the company of the other sex by natural attraction, and would perhaps rather fight with other men, or at least strive to outdo them in the struggle for notoriety, power, or fame, than spend his time in friendly conversation with them, no matter how interesting the topic selected. This point of view may be regarded as uncivilised, but it may be pointed out that it is only in the most civilised countries that the society of women is accessible to all men of their own social position. No one familiar with Eastern countries will pretend that Orientals shut up their women because they enjoy their company so much as to be unwilling to share the privilege with their friends. San Giacinto was pre-eminently a masculine man, as indeed were all the Saracinesca, in a greater or less degree. He understood women instinctively, and, with a very limited experience of the world, knew well enough the strength of their influence. It was characteristic of him that he had determined to marry almost as soon as he had got a footing in Roman society. He saw clearly that if he could unite himself with a powerful family he could exercise a directing power over the women which must ultimately give him all that he needed. Through his cousins he had very soon made the acquaintance of the Montevarchi household, and seeing that there were two marriageable daughters, he profited by the introduction. He would have preferred Faustina, perhaps, but he foresaw that he should find fewer difficulties in obtaining her sister for his wife. The old prince and princess were in despair at seeing her still unmarried, and it was clear that they were not likely to find a better match for her than the Marchese di San Giacinto. He, on his part, knew that his past occupation was a disadvantage to him in the eyes of the world, although he was the undoubted and acknowledged cousin of the Saracinesca, and the only man of the family besides old Leone and his son Sant' Ilario. His two boys, also, were a drawback, since his second wife's children could not inherit the whole of the property he expected to leave. But his position was good, and Flavia was not generally considered to be likely to marry, so that he had good hopes of winning her. It was clear to him from the first that there must be some reason why she had not married, and the somewhat disparaging remarks concerning her which he heard from time to time excited his curiosity. As he had always intended to consult the head of his family upon the matter he now determined to do so at once. He was not willing, indeed, to let matters go any further until he had ascertained the truth concerning her, and he was sure that Prince Saracinesca would tell him everything at the first mention of a proposal to marry her. The old gentleman had too much pride to allow his cousin to make an unfitting match. Accordingly, on the day following the events last narrated San Giacinto called after breakfast and found the prince, as usual, alone in his study. He was not dozing, however, for the accounts of the last night's doings in the Osservatore Romano were very interesting. "I suppose you have heard all about Montevarchi's daughter?" asked Saracinesca, laying his paper aside and giving his hand to San Giacinto. "Yes, and I am delighted at the conclusion of the adventure, especially as I have something to ask you about another member of the family." "I hope Flavia has not disappeared now," remarked the prince. "I trust not," answered San Giacinto with a laugh. "I was going to ask you whether I should have your approval if I proposed to marry her." "This is a very sudden announcement," said Saracinesca with some surprise. "I must think about it. I appreciate your friendly disposition vastly, my dear cousin, in asking my opinion, and I will give the matter my best consideration." "I shall be very grateful," replied the younger man, gravely. "In my position I feel bound to consult you. I should do so in any case for the mere benefit of your advice, which is very needful to one who, like myself, is but a novice in the ways of Rome." Saracinesca looked keenly at his cousin, as though expecting to discover some touch of irony in his tone or expression. He remembered the fierce altercations he had engaged in with Giovanni when he had wished the latter to marry Tullia Mayer, and was astonished to find San Giacinto, over whom he had no real authority at all, so docile and anxious for his counsel. "I suppose you would like to know something about her fortune," he said at last. "Montevarchi is rich, but miserly. He could give her anything he liked." "Of course it is important to know what he would like to give," replied San Giacinto with a smile. "Of course. Very well. There are two daughters already married. They each had a hundred thousand scudi. It is not so bad, after all, when you think what a large family he has--but he could have given more. As for Flavia, he might do something generous for the sake of---" The old gentleman was going to say, for the sake of getting rid of her, and perhaps his cousin thought as much. The prince checked himself, however, and ended his sentence rather awkwardly. "For the sake of getting such a fine fellow for a husband," he said. "Why is she not already married?" inquired San Giacinto with a very slight inclination of his head, as an acknowledgment of the flattering speech whereby the prince had helped himself out of his difficulty. "Who knows!" ejaculated the latter enigmatically. "Is there any story about her? Was she ever engaged to be married? It is rather strange when one thinks of it, for she is a handsome girl. Pray be quite frank--I have taken no steps in the matter." "The fact is that I do not know. She is not like other girls, and as she gives her father and mother some trouble in society, I suppose that young men's fathers have been afraid to ask for her. No. I can assure you that there is no story connected with her. She has a way of stating disagreeable truths that terrifies Montevarchi. She was delicate as a child and was brought up at home, so of course she has no manners." "I should have thought she should have better manners for that," remarked San Giacinto. The prince stared at him in surprise. "We do not think so here," he answered after a moment's pause. "On the whole, I should say that for a hundred and twenty thousand you might marry her, if you are so inclined--and if you can manage her. But that is a matter for you to judge." "The Montevarchi are, I believe, what you call a great family?" "They are not the Savelli, nor the Frangipani--nor the Saracinesca either. But they are a good family--good blood, good fortune, and what Montevarchi calls good principles." "You think I could not do better than marry Donna Flavia, then?" "It would be a good marriage, decidedly. You ought to have married Tullia Mayer. If she had not made a fool of herself and an enemy of me, and if you had turned up two years ago--well, there were a good many objections to her, and stories about her, too. But she was rich--eh! that was a fortune to be snapped up by that scoundrel Del Ferice!" "Del Ferice?" repeated San Giacinto. "The same who tried to prove that your son was married by copying my marriage register?" "The same. I will tell you the rest of the story some day. Then at that time there was Bianca Valdarno--but she married a Neapolitan last year; and the Rocca girl, but Onorato Cantalupo got her and her dowry--Montevarchi's second son--and--well, I see nobody now, except Flavia's sister Faustina. Why not marry her? It is true that her father means to catch young Frangipani, but he will have no such luck, I can tell him, unless he will part with half a million." "Donna Faustina is too young," said San Giacinto, calmly. "Besides, as they are sisters and there is so little choice, I may say that I prefer Donna Flavia, she is more gay, more lively." "Vastly more, I have no doubt, and you will have to look after her, unless you can make her fall in love with you." Saracinesca laughed at the idea. "With me!" exclaimed San Giacinto, joining in his cousin's merriment. "With me, indeed! A sober widower, between thirty and forty! A likely thing! Fortunately there is no question of love in this matter. I think I can answer for her conduct, however." "I would not be the man to raise your jealousy!" remarked Saracinesca, laughing again as he looked admiringly at his cousin's gigantic figure and lean stern face. "You are certainly able to take care of your wife. Besides, I have no doubt that Flavia will change when she is married. She is not a bad girl--only a little too fond of making fun of her father and mother, and after all, as far as the old man is concerned, I do not wonder. There is one point upon which you must satisfy him, though--I am not curious, and do not ask you questions, but I warn you that glad as he will be to marry his daughter, he will want to drive a bargain with you and will inquire about your fortune." San Giacinto was silent for a few moments and seemed to be making a calculation in his head. "Would a fortune equal to what he gives her be sufficient?" he asked at length. "Yes. I fancy so," replied the prince looking rather curiously at his cousin. "You see," he continued, "as you have children by your first marriage, Montevarchi would wish to see Flavia's son provided for, if she has one. That is your affair. I do not want to make suggestions." "I think," said San Giacinto after another short interval of silence, "that I could agree to settle something upon any children which may be born. Do you think some such arrangement would satisfy Prince Montevarchi?" "Certainly, if you can agree about the terms. Such things are often done in these cases." "I am very grateful for your advice. May I count upon your good word with the prince, if he asks your opinion?" "Of course," answered Saracinesca, readily, if not very cordially. He had not at first liked his cousin, and although he had overcome his instinctive aversion to the man, the feeling was momentarily revived with more than its former force by the prospect of being perhaps called upon to guarantee, in a measure, San Giacinto's character as a suitable husband for Flavia. He had gone too far already however, for since he had given his approval to the scheme it would not become him to withhold his cooperation, should his assistance be in any way necessary in order to bring about the marriage. The slight change of tone as he uttered the last words had not escaped San Giacinto, however. His perceptions were naturally quick and were sharpened by the peculiarities of his present position, so that he understood Saracinesca's unwillingness to have a hand in the matter almost better than the prince understood it himself. "I trust that I shall not be obliged to ask your help," remarked San Giacinto. "I was, indeed, more anxious for your goodwill than for any more material aid." "You have it, with all my heart," said Saracinesca warmly, for he was a little ashamed of his coldness. San Giacinto took his leave and went away well satisfied with what he had accomplished, as indeed he had good cause to be. Montevarchi's consent to the marriage was not doubtful, now that San Giacinto was assured that he was able to fulfil the conditions which would be asked, and the knowledge that he was able to do even more than was likely to be required of him gave him additional confidence in the result. To tell the truth, he was strongly attracted by Flavia; and though he would assuredly have fought with his inclination had it appeared to be misplaced, he was pleased with the prospect of marrying a woman who would not only strengthen his position in society, but for whom he knew that he was capable of a sincere attachment. Marriage, according to his light, was before all things a contract entered into for mutual advantage; but he saw no reason why the fulfilment of such a contract should not be made as agreeable as possible. The principal point was yet to be gained, however, and as San Giacinto mounted the steps of the Palazzo Montevarchi he stopped more than once, considering for the last time whether he were doing wisely or not. On the whole he determined to proceed, and made up his mind that he would go straight to the point. Flavia's father was sitting in his study when San Giacinto arrived, and the latter was struck by the contrast between the personalities and the modes of life of his cousin whom he had just left and of the man to whom he was about to propose himself as a son-in-law. The Saracinesca were by no means very luxurious men, but they understood the comforts of existence better than most Romans of that day. If there was massive old-fashioned furniture against the walls and in the corners of the huge rooms, there were on the other hand soft carpets for the feet and cushioned easy-chairs to sit in. There were fires on the hearths when the weather was cold, and modern lamps for the long winter evenings. There were new books on the tables, engravings, photographs, a few objects of value and beauty not jealously locked up in closets, but looking as though they were used, if useful, or at least as if some one derived pleasure from looking at them. The palace itself was a stern old fortress in the midst of the older part of the city, but within there was a genial atmosphere of generous living, and, since Sant' Ilario's marriage with Corona, an air of refinement and good taste such as only a woman can impart to the house in which she dwells. The residence of the Montevarchi was very different. Narrow strips of carpet were stretched in straight lines across cold marble floors, from one door to another. Instead of open fires in the huge chimney-places, pans of lighted charcoal were set in the dim, empty rooms. Half a dozen halls were furnished alike. Each had three marble tables and twelve straight-backed chairs ranged against the walls, the only variety being that some were covered with red damask and some with green. Vast old-fashioned mirrors, set in magnificent frames built into the wall, reflected vistas of emptiness and acres of cold solitude. Nor were the rooms where the family met much better. There were more tables and more straight-backed chairs there than in the outer halls, but that was all. The drawing-room had a carpet, which for many years had been an object of the greatest concern to the prince, who never left Rome for the months of August and September until he had assured himself that this valuable object had been beaten, dusted, peppered, and sewn up in a linen case as old as itself, that is to say, dating from a quarter of a century back. That carpet was an extravagance to which his father had been driven by his English daughter-in-law; it was the only one of which he had ever been guilty, and the present head of the family meant that it should last his lifetime, and longer too, if care could preserve it. The princess herself had been made to remember for five and twenty years that since she had obtained a carpet she must expect nothing else in the way of modern improvements. It was the monument of a stupendous energy which she had expended entirely in that one struggle, and the sight of it reminded her of her youth. Long ago she had submitted once and for ever to the old Roman ways, and though she knew that a very little saved from the expense of maintaining a score of useless servants and a magnificent show equipage would suffice to make at least one room in the house comfortable for her use, she no longer sighed at the reflection, but consoled herself with making her children put up with the inconveniences she herself had borne so long and so patiently. Prince Montevarchi's private room was as comfortless as the rest of the house. Narrow, high, dim, carpetless, insufficiently warmed in winter by a brazier of coals, and at present not warmed at all, though the weather was chilly; furnished shabbily with dusty shelves, a writing-table, and a few chairs with leather seats, musty with an ancient mustiness which seemed to be emitted by the rows of old books and the moth-eaten baize cover of the table--the whole place looked more like the office of a decayed notary than the study of a wealthy nobleman of ancient lineage. The old gentleman himself entered the room a few seconds after San Giacinto had been ushered in, having slipped out to change his coat when his visitor was announced. It was a fixed principle of his life to dress as well as his neighbours when they could see him, but to wear threadbare garments whenever he could do so unobserved. He greeted San Giacinto with a grave dignity which contrasted strangely with the weakness and excitement he had shown on the previous night. "I wish to speak to you upon a delicate subject," began the younger man, after seating himself upon one of the high-backed chairs which cracked ominously under his weight. "I am at your service," replied the old gentleman, inclining his head politely. "I feel," continued San Giacinto, "that although my personal acquaintance with you has unfortunately been of short duration, the familiarity which exists between your family and mine will entitle what I have to say to a share of your consideration. The proposal which I have to make has perhaps been made by others before me and has been rejected. I have the honour to ask of you the hand of your daughter." "Faustina, I suppose?" asked the old prince in an indifferent tone, but looking sharply at his companion out of his small keen eyes. "Pardon me, I refer to Donna Flavia Montevarchi." "Flavia?" repeated the prince, in a tone of unmistakable surprise, which however was instantly moderated to the indifferent key again as he proceeded. "You see, we have been thinking so much about my daughter Faustina since last night that her name came to my lips quite naturally." "Most natural, I am sure," answered San Giacinto; who, however, had understood at once that his suit was to have a hearing. He then remained silent. "You wish to marry Flavia, I understand," remarked the prince after a pause. "I believe you are a widower, Marchese. I have heard that you have children." "Two boys." "Two boys, eh? I congratulate you. Boys, if brought up in Christian principles, are much less troublesome than girls. But, my dear Marchese, these same boys are an obstacle--a very serious obstacle." "Less serious than you may imagine, perhaps. My fortune does not come under the law of primogeniture. There is no fidei commissum. I can dispose of it as I please." "Eh, eh! But there must be a provision," said Montevarchi, growing interested in the subject. "That shall be mutual," replied San Giacinto, gravely. "I suppose you mean to refer to my daughter's portion," returned the other with more indifference. "It is not much, you know--scarcely worth mentioning. I am bound to tell you that, in honour." "We must certainly discuss the matter, if you are inclined to consider my proposal." "Well, you know what young women's dowries are in these days, my dear Marchese. We are none of us very rich." "I will make a proposal," said San Giacinto. "You shall give your daughter a portion. Whatever be the amount, up to a reasonable limit, which you choose to give, I will settle a like sum in such a manner that at my death it shall revert to her, and to her children by me, if she have any." "That amounts merely to settling upon herself the dowry I give her," replied Montevarchi, sharply. "I give you a scudo for your use. You settle my scudo upon your wife, that is all." "Not at all," returned San Giacinto. "I do not wish to have control of her dowry---" "The devil! Oh--I see--how stupid of me--I am indeed so old that I cannot count any more! How could I make such a mistake? Of course, it would be exactly as you say. Of course it would." "It would not be so as a general rule," said San Giacinto, calmly, "because most men would not consent to such an arrangement. That, however, is my proposal." "Oh! For the sake of Flavia, a man would do much, I am sure," answered the prince, who began to think that his visitor was in love with the girl, incredible as such a thing appeared to him. The younger man made no answer to this remark, however, and waited for Montevarchi to state his terms. "How much shall we say?" asked the latter at length. "That shall be for you to decide. Whatever you give I will give, if I am able." "Ah, yes! But how am I to know what you are able to give, dear Marchese?" The prince suspected that San Giacinto's offer, if he could be induced to make one, would not be very large. "Am I to understand," inquired San Giacinto, "that if I name the amount to be settled so that at my death it goes to my wife and her children by me for ever, you will agree to settle a like sum upon Donna Flavia in her own right? If so, I will propose what I think fair." Montevarchi looked keenly at his visitor for some moments, then looked away and hesitated. He was very anxious to marry Flavia at once, and he had many reasons for supposing that San Giacinto was not very rich. "How about the title?" he asked suddenly. "My title, of course, goes to my eldest son by my first marriage. But if you are anxious on that score I think my cousin would willingly confer one of his upon the eldest son of your daughter. It would cost him nothing, and would be a sort of compensation to me for my great-grandfather's folly." "How?" asked Montevarchi. "I do not understand." "I supposed you knew the story. I am the direct descendant of the elder branch. There was an agreement between two brothers of the family, by which the elder resigned the primogeniture in favour of the younger who was then married. The elder, who took the San Giacinto title, married late in life and I am his great-grandson. If he had not acted so foolishly I should be in my cousin's shoes. You see it would be natural for him to let me have some disused title for one of my children in consideration of this fact. He has about a hundred, I believe. You could ask him, if you please." San Giacinto's grave manner assured Montevarchi of the truth of the story. He hesitated a moment longer, and then made up his mind. "I agree to your proposal, my dear Marchese," he said, with unusual blandness of manner. "I will settle one hundred and fifty thousand scudi in the way I stated," said San Giacinto, simply. The prince started from his chair. "One--hundred--and--fifty--thousand!" he repeated slowly. "Why, it is a fortune in itself! Dear me! I had no idea you would name anything so large---" "Seven thousand five hundred scudi a year, at five per cent," remarked the younger man in a businesslike tone. "You give the same. That will insure our children an income of fifteen thousand scudi. It is not colossal, but it should suffice. Besides, I have not said that I would not leave them more, if I chanced to have more to leave." The prince had sunk back into his chair, and sat drumming on the table with his long thin fingers. His face wore an air of mingled surprise and bewilderment. To tell the truth, he had expected that San Giacinto would name about fifty thousand as the sum requisite. He did not know whether to be delighted at the prospect of marrying his daughter so well or angry at the idea of having committed himself to part with so much money. "That is much more than I gave my other daughters," he said at last, in a tone of hesitation. "Did you give the money to them or to their husbands?" inquired San Giacinto. "To their husbands, of course." "Then allow me to point out that you will now be merely settling money in your own family, and that the case is very different. Not only that, but I am settling the same sum upon your family, instead of taking your money for my own use. You are manifestly the gainer by the transaction." "It would be the same, then, if I left Flavia the money at my death, since it remains in the family," suggested the prince, who sought an escape from his bargain. "Not exactly," argued San Giacinto. "First there is the yearly interest until your death, which I trust is yet very distant. And then there is the uncertainty of human affairs. It will be necessary that you invest the money in trust, as I shall do, at the time of signing the contract. Otherwise there would be no fairness in the arrangement." "So you say that you are descended from the elder branch of the Saracinesca. How strange are the ways of Providence, my dear Marchese!" "It was a piece of great folly on the part of my great-grandfather," replied the other, shrugging his shoulders. "You should never say that a man will not marry until he is dead." "Ah no! The ways of heaven are inscrutable! It is not for us poor mortals to attempt to change them. I suppose that agreement of which you speak was made in proper form and quite regular." "I presume so, since no effort was ever made to change the dispositions established by it." "I suppose so--I suppose so, dear Marchese. It would be very interesting to see those papers." "My cousin has them," said San Giacinto. "I daresay he will not object. But, pardon me if I return to a subject which is very near my heart. Do I understand that you consent to the proposal I have made? If so, we might make arrangements for a meeting to take place between our notaries." "One hundred and fifty thousand," said Montevarchi, slowly rubbing his pointed chin with his bony lingers. "Five per cent--seven thousand five hundred--a mint of money, Signor Marchese, a mint of money! And these are hard times. What a rich man you must be, to talk so lightly about such immense sums! Well, well--you are very eloquent, I must consent, and by strict economy I may perhaps succeed in recovering the loss." "You must be aware that it is not really a loss," argued San Giacinto, "since it is to remain with your daughter and her children, and consequently with your family." "Yes, I know. But money is money, my friend," exclaimed the prince, laying his right hand on the old green tablecover and slowly drawing his crooked nails over the cloth, as though he would like to squeeze gold out of the dusty wool. There was something almost fierce in his tone, too, as he uttered the words, and his small eyes glittered unpleasantly. He knew well enough that he was making a good bargain and that San Giacinto was a better match than he had ever hoped to get for Flavia. So anxious was he, indeed, to secure the prize that he entirely abstained from asking any questions concerning San Giacinto's past life, whereby some obstacle might have been raised to the intended marriage. He promised himself that the wedding should take place at once. "It is understood," he continued, after a pause, "that we or our notaries shall appear with the money in cash, and that it shall be immediately invested as we shall jointly decide, the settlements being made at the same time and on the spot." "Precisely so," replied San Giacinto. "No money, no contract." "In that case I will inform my daughter of my decision." "I shall be glad to avail myself of an early opportunity to pay my respects to Donna Flavia." "The wedding might take place on the 30th of November, my dear Marchese. The 1st of December is Advent Sunday, and no marriages are permitted during Advent without a special licence." "An expensive affair, doubtless," remarked San Giacinto, gravely, in spite of his desire to laugh. "Yes. Five scudi at least," answered Montevarchi, impressively. "Let us by all means be economical." "The Holy Church is very strict about these matters, and you may as well keep the money." "I will," replied San Giacinto, rising to go. "Do not let me detain you any longer. Pray accept my warmest thanks, and allow me to say that I shall consider it a very great honour to become your son-in-law." "Ah, indeed, you are very good, my dear Marchese. As for me I need consolation. Consider a father's feelings, when he consigns his beloved daughter--Flavia is an angel upon earth, my friend--when, I say, a father gives his dear child, whom he loves as the apple of his eye, to be carried off by a man--a man even of your worth! When your children are grown up, you will understand what I suffer." "I quite understand," said San Giacinto in serious tones. "It shall be the endeavour of my life to make you forget your loss. May I have the honour of calling to-morrow at this time?" "Yes, my dear Marchese, yes, my dear son--forgive a father's tenderness. To-morrow at this time, and---" he hesitated. "And then--some time before the ceremony, perhaps--you will give us the pleasure of your company at breakfast, I am sure, will you not? We are very simple people, but we are hospitable in our quiet way. Hospitality is a virtue," he sighed a little. "A necessary virtue," he added with some emphasis upon the adjective. "It will give me great pleasure," replied San Giacinto. Therewith he left the room and a few moments later was walking slowly homewards, revolving in his mind the probable results of his union with the Montevarchi family. When Montevarchi was alone, he smiled pleasantly to himself, and took out of a secret drawer a large book of accounts, in the study of which he spent nearly half an hour, with evident satisfaction. Having carefully locked up the volume, and returned the sliding panel to its place, he sent for his wife, who presently appeared. "Sit down, Guendalina," he said. "I will change my coat, and then I have something important to say to you." He had quite forgotten the inevitable change in his satisfaction over the interview with San Giacinto, but the sight of the princess recalled the necessity for economy. It had been a part of the business of his life to set her a good example in this respect. When he came back he seated himself before her. "My dear, I have got a husband for Flavia," were his first words. "At last!" exclaimed the princess. "I hope he is presentable," she added. She knew that she could trust her husband in the matter of fortune. "The new Saracinesca--the Marchese di San Giacinto." Princess Montevarchi's ruddy face expressed the greatest astonishment, and her jaw dropped as she stared at the old gentleman. "A pauper!" she exclaimed when she had recovered herself enough to speak. "Perhaps, Guendalina mia--but he settles a hundred and fifty thousand scudi on Flavia and her heirs for ever, the money to be paid on the signing of the contract. That does not look like pauperism. Of course, under the circumstances I agreed to do the same. It is settled on Flavia, do you understand? He does not want a penny of it, not a penny! Trust your husband for a serious man of business, Guendalina." "Have you spoken to Flavia? It certainly looks like a good match. There is no doubt about his being of the Saracinesca, of course. How could there be? They have taken him to their hearts. But how will Flavia behave?" "What a foolish question, my dear!" exclaimed Montevarchi. "How easily one sees that you are English! She will be delighted, I presume. And if not, what difference does it make?" "I would not have married you against my will, Lotario," observed the princess. "For my part, I had no choice. My dear father said simply, 'My son, you will pay your respects to that young lady, who is to be your wife. If you wish to marry anyone else, I will lock you up.' And so I did. Have I not been a faithful husband to you, Guendalina, through more than thirty years?" The argument was unanswerable, and Montevarchi had employed it each time one of his children was married. In respect of faithfulness, at least, he had been a model husband. "It is sufficient," he added, willing to make a concession to his wife's foreign notions, "that there should be love on the one side, and Christian principles on the other. I can assure you that San Giacinto is full of love, and as for Flavia, my dear, has she not been educated by you?" "As for Flavia's Christian principles, my dear Lotario, I only hope they may suffice for her married life. She is a terrible child to have at home. But San Giacinto looks like a determined man. I shall never forget his kindness in searching for Faustina last night. He was devotion itself, and I should not have been surprised had he wished to marry her instead." "That exquisite creature is reserved for a young friend of ours, Guendalina. Do me the favour never to speak of her marrying anyone else." The princess was silent for a moment, and then began to make a series of inquiries concerning the proposed bridegroom, which it is unnecessary to recount. "And now we will send for Flavia," said Montevarchi, at last. "Would it not be best that I should tell her?" asked his wife. "My dear," he replied sternly, "when matters of grave importance have been decided it is the duty of the head of the house to communicate the decision to the persons concerned." So Flavia was sent for, and appeared shortly, her pretty face and wicked black eyes expressing both surprise and anticipation. She was almost as dark as San Giacinto himself, though of a very different type. Her small nose had an upward turn which disturbed her mother's ideas of the fitness of things, and her thick black hair waved naturally over her forehead. Her figure was graceful and her movements quick and spontaneous. The redness of her lips showed a strong vitality, which was further confirmed by the singular brightness of her eyes. She was no beauty, especially in a land where the dark complexion predominates, but she was very pretty and possessed something of that mysterious quality which charms without exciting direct admiration. "Flavia," said her father, addressing her in solemn tones, "you are to be married, my dear child. I have sent for you at once, because there was no time to be lost, seeing that the wedding must take place before the beginning of Advent. The news will probably give you pleasure, but I trust you will reflect upon the solemnity of such engagements and lay aside---" "Would you mind telling me the name of my husband?" inquired Flavia, interrupting the paternal lecture. "The man I have selected for my son-in-law is one whom all women would justly envy you, were it not that envy is an atrocious sin, and one which I trust you will henceforth endeavour---" "To drown, crush out and stamp upon in the pursuit of true Christian principles," said Flavia with a laugh. "I know all about envy. It is one of the seven deadlies. I can tell you them all, if you like." "Flavia, I am amazed!" cried the princess, severely. "I had not expected this conduct of my daughter," said Montevarchi. "And though I am at present obliged to overlook it, I can certainly not consider it pardonable. You will listen with becoming modesty and respect to what I have to say." "I am all modesty, respect and attention--but I would like to know his name, papa--please consider that pardonable!" "I do not know why I should not tell you that, and I shall certainly give you all such information concerning him as it is proper that you should receive. The fact that he is a widower need not surprise you, for in the inscrutable ways of Providence some men are deprived of their wives sooner than others. Nor should his age appear to you in the light of an obstacle--indeed there are no obstacles---" "A widower--old--probably bald--I can see him already. Is he fat, papa?" "He approaches the gigantic; but as I have often told you, Flavia, the qualities a wise father should seek in choosing a husband for his child are not dependent upon outward---" "For heaven's sake, mamma," cried Flavia, "tell me the creature's name!" "The Marchese di San Giacinto--let your father speak, and do not interrupt him." "While you both insist on interrupting me," said Montevarchi, "it is impossible for me to express myself." "I wish it were!" observed Flavia, under her breath. "You are speaking of the Saracinesca cousin, San Giacinto? Not so bad after all." "It is very unbecoming in a young girl to speak of men by their last names---" "Giovanni, then. Shall I call him Giovanni?" "Flavia!" exclaimed the princess. "How can you be so undutiful! You should speak of him as the Marchese di San Giacinto." "Silence!" cried the prince. "I will not be interrupted! The Marchese di San Giacinto will call to-morrow, after breakfast, and will pay his respects to you. You will receive him in a proper spirit." "Yes, papa," replied Flavia, suddenly growing meek, and folding her hands submissively. "He has behaved with unexampled liberality," continued Montevarchi, "and I need hardly say that as the honour of our house was concerned I have not allowed myself to be outdone. Since you refuse to listen to the words of fatherly instruction which it is natural I should speak on this occasion, you will at least remember that your future husband is entirely such a man as I would have chosen, that he is a Saracinesca, as well as a rich man, and that he has been accustomed in the women of his family to a greater refinement of manner than you generally think fit to exhibit in the presence of your father." "Yes, papa. May I go, now?" "If your conscience will permit you to retire without a word of gratitude to your parents, who in spite of the extreme singularities of your behaviour have at last provided you with a suitable husband; if, I say, you are capable of such ingratitude, then, Flavia, you may certainly go." "I was going to say, papa, that I thank you very much for my husband, and mamma, too." Thereupon she kissed her father's and her mother's hands with great reverence and turned to leave the room. Her gravity forsook her, however, before she reached the door. "Evviva! Hurrah!" she cried, suddenly skipping across the intervening space and snapping her small fingers like a pair of castanets. "Evviva! Married at last! Hurrah!" And with this parting salute she disappeared. When she was gone, her father and mother looked at each other, as they had looked many times before in the course of Flavia's life. They had found little difficulty in bringing up their other children, but Flavia was a mystery to them both. The princess would have understood well enough a thorough English girl, full of life and animal spirits, though shy and timid in the world, as the elderly lady had herself been in her youth. But Flavia's character was incomprehensible to her northern soul. Montevarchi understood the girl better, but loved her even less. What seemed odd in her to his wife, to him seemed vulgar and ill-bred, for he would have had her like the rest, silent and respectful in his presence, and in awe of him as the head of the house, if not in fact, at least in manner. But Flavia's behaviour was in the eyes of Romans a very serious objection to her as a wife for any of their sons, for in their view moral worth was necessarily accompanied by outward gravity and decorum, and a light manner could only be the visible sign of a giddy heart. "If only he does not find out what she is like!" exclaimed the princess at last. "I devoutly trust that heaven in its mercy may avert such a catastrophe from our house," replied Montevarchi, who, however, seemed to be occupied in adding together certain sums upon his fingers. San Giacinto understood Flavia better than either of her parents; and although his marriage with her was before all things a part of his plan for furthering his worldly interests, it must be confessed that he had a stronger liking for the girl than her father would have considered indispensable in such affairs. The matter was decided at once, and in a few days the preliminaries were settled between the lawyers, while Flavia exerted the utmost pressure possible upon the parental purse in the question of the trousseau. It may seem strange that at the time when all Rome was convulsed by an internal revolution, and when the temporal power appeared to be in very great danger, Montevarchi and San Giacinto should have been able to discuss so coolly the conditions of the marriage, and even to fix the wedding day. The only possible explanation of this fact is that neither of them believed in the revolution at all. It is a noticeable characteristic of people who are fond of money that they do not readily believe in any great changes. They are indeed the most conservative of men, and will count their profits at moments of peril with a coolness which would do honour to veteran soldiers. Those who possess money put their faith in money and give no credence to rumours of revolution which are not backed by cash. Once or twice in history they have been wrong, but it must be confessed that they have very generally been right. As for San Giacinto, his own interests were infinitely more absorbing to his attention than those of the world at large, and being a man of uncommonly steady nerves, it seems probable that he would have calmly pursued his course in the midst of much greater disturbances than those which affected Rome at that time. CHAPTER VIII. When Anastase Gouache was at last relieved from duty and went home in the gray dawn of the twenty-third, he lay down to rest expecting to reflect upon the events of the night. The last twelve hours had been the most eventful of his life; indeed less than that time had elapsed since he had bid farewell to Faustina in the drawing-room of the Palazzo Saracinesca, and yet the events which had occurred in that short space had done much towards making him another man. The change had begun two years earlier, and had progressed slowly until it was completed all at once by a chain of unforeseen circumstances. He realised the fact, and as this change was not disagreeable to him he set himself to think about it. Instead of reviewing what had happened, however, he did what was much more natural in his case, he turned upon his pillow and fell fast asleep. He was younger than his years, though he counted less than thirty, and his happy nature had not yet formed that horrible habit of wakefulness which will not yield even to bodily fatigue. He lay down and slept like a boy, disturbed by no dreams and troubled by no shadowy revival of dangers or emotions past. He had placed a gulf between himself and his former life. What had passed between him and Faustina, might under other circumstances have become but a romantic episode in the past, to be thought of with a certain tender regret, half fatuous, half genuine, whenever the moonlight chanced to cast the right shadow and the artist's mind was in the contemplative mood. The peculiar smell of broken masonry, when it is a little damp, would recall the impression, perhaps; an old wall knocked to pieces by builders would, through his nostrils, bring vividly before him that midnight meeting amid the ruins of the barracks, just as the savour of a certain truffle might bring back the memory of a supper at Voisin's, or as, twenty years hence, the pasty grittiness of rough maize bread would make him remember the days when he was chasing brigands in the Samnite hills. But this was not to be the case this time. There was more matter for reminiscence than a ray of moonlight on a fair face, or the smell of crumbling mortar. There was a deep and sincere devotion on both sides, in two persons both singularly capable of sincerity, and both foresaw that the result of this love could never be indifference. The end could only be exceeding happiness, or mortal sorrow. Anastase and Faustina were not only themselves in earnest; each knew instinctively that the other would be faithful, a condition extremely rare in ordinary cases. Each recognised that the obstacles were enormous, but neither doubted for a moment that means would be found to overcome them. In some countries the marriage of these two would have been a simple matter enough. A man of the world, honourable, successful, beginning to be famous, possessed of some fortune, might aspire to marry any one he pleased in lands where it is not a disgrace to have acquired the means of subsistence by one's own talent and industry. Artists and poets have sometimes made what are called great marriages. But in Rome, twenty years ago, things were very different. It is enough to consider the way in which Montevarchi arranged to dispose of his daughter Flavia to understand the light in which he would have regarded Faustina's marriage with Anastase Gouache. The very name of Gouache would have raised a laugh in the Montevarchi household had any one suggested that a woman of that traditionally correct race could ever make it her own. There were persons in Rome, indeed, who might have considered the matter more leniently. Corona Sant' Ilario was one of these; but her husband and father-in-law would have opened their eyes as wide as old Lotario Montevarchi himself, had the match been discussed before them. Their patriarchally exclusive souls would have been shocked and the dear fabric of their inborn prejudices shaken to its deepest foundations. It was bad enough, from the point of view of potential matrimony, to earn money, even if one had the right to prefix "Don" to one's baptismal name. But to be no Don and to receive coin for one's labour was a far more insurmountable barrier against intermarriage with the patriarchs than hereditary madness, toothless old age, leprosy, or lack of money. Gouache had acquired enough knowledge of Roman life to understand this, and nothing short of physical exhaustion would have prevented his spending his leisure in considering the means of overcoming such stupendous difficulties. When he awoke his situation presented itself clearly enough to his mind, however, and occupied his thoughts throughout the remainder of the day. Owing to the insurrection his departure was delayed for twenty-four hours, and his duty was likely to keep him busily engaged during the short time that remained to him. The city was in a state of siege and there would be a perpetual service of patrols, sentries and general maintenance of order. The performance of labours almost mechanical left him plenty of time for reflection, though he found it hard to spare a moment in which to see any of his friends. He was very anxious to meet the Princess Sant' Ilario, whose conduct on the previous night had seriously alarmed him. It was to her that he looked for assistance in his troubles and the consciousness that she was angry with him was a chief source of distress. In the course of the few words he had exchanged with her, she had made it sufficiently clear to him that although she disapproved in principle of his attachment to Faustina, she would do nothing to hinder his marriage if he should be able to overcome the obstinacy of the girl's parents. He was at first at a loss to explain her severity to him when she had left her house to take Faustina home. Being wholly innocent of any share in the latter's mad course, it did not at first enter his mind that Corona could attribute to him any blame in the matter. On the contrary, he knew that if the girl's visit to the ruined barracks remained a secret, this would be owing quite as much to his own discretion and presence of mind as to the princess's willingness to help him. Not a little, too, was due to good luck, since the least difference in the course of events must have led to immediate discovery. A little thought led him to a conclusion which wounded his pride while it explained Corona's behaviour. It was evident that she had believed in a clandestine meeting, prearranged between the lovers at the instigation of Gouache himself, and she had probably supposed this meeting to be only the preliminary to a runaway match. How, indeed, could Faustina have expected to escape observation, even had there been no revolution in Rome, that night? Corona clearly thought that the girl had never intended to come back, that Gouache had devised means for their departure, and that Faustina had believed the elopement possible in the face of the insurrection. Anastase, on finding himself in the small hours of the morning with Faustina on his hands and knowing that discovery must follow soon after day-break, had boldly brought her to the Palazzo Saracinesca and had demanded Corona's assistance. As the artist thought the matter over, he became more and more convinced that he had understood the princess's conduct, and the reflection made him redden with shame and anger. He determined to seize the first moment that presented itself for an explanation with the woman who had wronged him. He unexpectedly found himself at liberty towards five o'clock in the afternoon and made haste at once to reach the Palazzo Saracinesca. Knowing that no one would be allowed to be in the streets after dark, he felt sure of finding Corona without visitors, and expected the most favourable opportunity for talking over the subject which distressed him. After waiting several minutes in one of the outer halls he was ushered in, and to his extreme annoyance found himself in the midst of a family party. He had not counted upon the presence of the men of the household, and the fact that the baby was also present did not facilitate matters. Old Saracinesca greeted him warmly; Sant' Ilario looked grave; Corona herself looked up from her game with little Orsino, nodded and uttered a word of recognition, and then returned to her occupation. Conversation under these circumstances was manifestly impossible, and Gouache wished he had not had the unlucky idea of calling. There was nothing to be done, however, but to put on a brave face and make the best of it. "Well, Monsieur Gouache," inquired the old prince, "and how did you spend the night?" He could scarcely have asked a question better calculated to disturb the composure of everyone present except the baby. Anastase could not help looking at Corona, who looked instinctively at her husband, while the latter gazed at Gouache, wondering what he would say. All three turned a shade paler, and during a very few seconds there was an awkward silence. "I spent the night very uncomfortably," replied Anastase, after hesitating a little. "We were driven from pillar to post, repelling attacks, doing sentry duty, clearing the streets, marching and countermarching. It was daylight when I was relieved." "Indeed!" exclaimed Sant' Ilario. "I had supposed that you had remained all night at the Porta San Paolo. But there are many contradictory accounts. I was in some anxiety until I was assured that you had not been blown up in that infernal plot." Gouache was on the point of asking who had told Giovanni that he had escaped, but fortunately checked himself, and endeavoured to turn the conversation to the disaster at the barracks. Thereupon old Saracinesca, whose blood was roused by the atrocity, delivered a terrible anathema against the murderous wretches who had ruined the building, and expressed himself in favour of burning them alive, a fate, indeed, far too good for them. Anastase profited by the old gentleman's eloquence to make advances to the baby. Little Orsino, however, struck him a vigorous blow in the face with his tiny fist and yelled lustily. "He does not like strangers," remarked Corona, coldly. She rose with the child in her arms and moved towards the door, Gouache following her with the intention of opening it for her to go out. The prince was still thundering out curses against the conspirators, and Anastase attempted to say a word unobserved as Corona passed him. "Will you not give me a hearing?" he asked in a low tone, accompanying his words with an imploring look. Corona raised her eyebrows slightly as though surprised, but his expression of genuine contrition softened her heart a little and rendered her answer perhaps a trifle less unkind than she had meant it to be. "You should be satisfied--since I keep your secret," she said, and passed quickly out. When Gouache turned after closing the door he was aware that Sant' Ilario had been watching him, by the fixed way in which he was now looking in another direction. The Zouave wished more and more fervently that he had not come to the house, but resolved to prolong his visit in the hope that Corona might return. Sant' Ilario was unaccountably silent, but his father kept up a lively conversation, needing only an occasional remark from Gouache to give a fillip to his eloquence. This situation continued during nearly half an hour, at the end of which time Anastase gave up all hope of seeing Corona again. The two men evidently did not expect her to return, for they had made themselves comfortable and had lighted their cigarettes. "Good-bye, Monsieur Gouache," said the old prince, cordially shaking him by the hand. "I hope we shall see you back again alive and well in a few days." While he was speaking Giovanni had rung the bell for the servant to show the visitor out, an insignificant action, destined to produce a rather singular result. Sant' Ilario himself, feeling that after all he might never see Gouache alive again, repented a little of his coldness, and while the latter stood ready to go, detained him with a question as to his destination on leaving the city. This resulted in a lively discussion of Garibaldi's probable movements, which lasted several minutes. Corona in the meantime had taken Orsino back to his nurse, and had bidden her maid let her know when the visitor in the drawing-room was gone. The woman went to the hall, and when Giovanni rang the bell, returned to inform her mistress of the fact, supposing that Gouache would go at once. Corona waited a few minutes, and then went back to the sitting-room, which was at the end of the long suite of apartments. The result was that she met Anastase in one of the rooms on his way out, preceded by the footman, who went on towards the hall after his mistress had passed. Corona and Gouache were left face to face and quite alone in the huge dim drawing-room. Gouache had found his opportunity and did not hesitate. "Madame," he said, "I beg your pardon for trespassing on your time, but I have a serious word to say. I am going to the frontier and am as likely to be killed as any one else. On the faith of a man who may be dead to-morrow, I am wholly innocent of what happened last night. If I come back I will prove it to you some day. If not, will you believe me, and not think of me unkindly?" Corona hesitated and stood leaning against the heavy curtain of a window for a moment. Though the room was very dim, she could see the honest look in the young man's eyes and she hesitated before she answered. She had heard that day that two of her acquaintances had fallen fighting against the Garibaldians and she knew that Anastase was speaking of a very near possibility when he talked of being killed. There were many chances that he was telling the truth, and she felt how deeply she should regret her unbelief if he should indeed meet his fate before they met again. "You tell me a strange thing," she said at last. "You ask me to believe that this poor girl, of her own free will and out of love for you, followed you out of this room last night into the midst of a revolution. It is a hard thing to believe---" "And yet I implore you to believe it, princess. A man who should love her less than I, would be the basest of men to speak thus of her love. God knows, if things had been otherwise, I would not have let you know. But was there any other way of taking her home? Did I not do the only thing that was at all possible to keep last night's doings a secret? I love her to such a point that I glory in her love for me. If I could have shielded her last night by giving up my life, you know that I would have ended my existence that very moment. It would have done no good. I had to confide in some one, and you, who knew half my secret, since I had told you I loved her, were the only person who could be allowed to guess the remainder. If it could profit her that you should think me a villain, you might think me so--even you, whom I reverence beyond all women save her. But to let you think so would be to degrade her, and that you shall not do. You shall not think that she has been so foolish as to pin her faith on a man who would lead her to destruction--ah! if I loved her less I could tell you better what I mean." Corona was moved by his sincerity, if not by his arguments. She saw all the strangeness of the situation; how he had been forced to confide in some one, and how it seemed better in his eyes that she should know how Faustina had really behaved, than think that the young girl had agreed to a premeditated meeting. She was touched and her heart relented. "I believe you," she said. "Forgive me if I have wronged you." "Thank you, thank you, dear princess!" cried Gouache, taking her hand and touching it with his lips. "I can never thank you as I would. And now, good-bye--I am going. Will you give me your blessing, as my mother would?" He smiled, as he recalled the conversation of the previous evening. "Good-bye," answered Corona. "May all blessings go with you." He turned away and she stood a moment looking after him as he disappeared in the gloom. She was sorry for him in her heart and repented a little of having treated him so harshly. And yet, as soon as he was gone she began to doubt again, wondering vaguely whether she had not been deceived. There was an odd fascination about the soldier-artist which somehow influenced her in his favour when he was present, and of which she was not conscious until he was out of her sight. Now that she was alone, she found herself considering how this peculiar charm which he possessed would be likely to affect a young girl like Faustina, and she was obliged to acknowledge that it would account well enough for the latter's foolish doings. She could not look into Gouache's eyes and doubt what he said, but she found it hard afterwards to explain the faith she put in him. She was roused from her short reflection by her husband who, without being observed by her, had come to her side. Seeing that she did not return to the sitting-room when Gouache was gone he had come in search of her, and by the merest chance had overheard the last words which had passed between her and Anastase, and had seen how the latter fervently kissed her hand. The phrase in which she had wished him good luck rang unpleasantly in his ears and startled the inmost sensibilities of his nature. He remembered how she had blessed him once, in her calm, gentle way, on that memorable night of the Frangipani ball nearly three years before, and there was a similarity between the words she had used then and the simple expression which had now fallen from her lips. Giovanni stood beside her now and laid his hand upon her arm. It was not his nature to break out suddenly as his father did, when anything occurred to disturb his peace of mind. The Spanish blood he had inherited from his mother had imparted a profound reserve to his character, which gave it depth rather than coldness. It was hard for him to speak out violently when under the influence of emotion, but this very difficulty of finding words and his aversion to using them made him more sincere, more enduring and less forgiving than other men. He could wait long before he gave vent to his feelings, but they neither grew cool nor dull for the waiting. He detested concealment and secrecy more than most people, but his disinclination to speak of any matter until he was sure of it had given him the reputation of being both reticent and calculating. Giovanni now no longer concealed from himself the fact that he was annoyed by what was passing, but he denied, even in his heart, that he was jealous. To doubt Corona would be to upset the whole fabric of his existence, which he had founded upon her love and which had been built up to such great proportions during the past three years. His first impulse was to ask an explanation, and it carried him just far enough to lay his hand on his wife's arm, when it was checked by a multitude of reflections and unconscious arguments which altogether changed his determination. "I thought he was gone," he said, quietly enough. "So did I," replied Corona, in a cooler tone than she generally used in speaking to her husband. She, too, was annoyed, for she suspected that Giovanni had been watching her; and since, on the previous evening he had promised to trust her altogether in this affair, she looked upon his coming almost in the light of an infringement upon the treaty, and resented it accordingly. She did not reflect that it was unlikely that Giovanni should expect her to try to meet Gouache on his way out, and would therefore not think of lying in wait for her. His accidental coming seemed premeditated. He, on his side, had noticed her marked coldness to Anastase in the sitting-room and thought it contrasted very strangely with the over-friendly parting of which he had chanced to be a witness. Corona, too, knew very well that the last words spoken were capable of misinterpretation, and as she had no intention of telling her husband Faustina's story at present she saw no way of clearing up the situation, and therefore prepared to ignore it altogether. They turned together and walked slowly back in the direction of the sitting-room, neither speaking a word until they had almost reached the door. Then Giovanni stopped and looked at his wife. "Is it part of last night's secret?" he asked, almost indifferently. "Yes," answered Corona. "What could you suppose it was? I met him by accident and we exchanged a few words." "I know. I heard you say good-bye. I confess I was surprised. I thought you meant to be rude to him when we were all together, but I was mistaken. I hope your blessing will profit him, my dear!" He spoke quite naturally and without effort. "I hope so too," returned Corona. "You might have added yours, since you were present." "To tell the truth," said Giovanni, with a short laugh, "I fancy it might not have been so acceptable." "You talk very strangely, Giovanni!" "Do I? It seems to me quite natural. Shall we go into the sitting-room?" "Giovanni--you promised to trust me last night, and I promised to explain everything to you some day. You must keep your promise wholly or not at all." "Certainly," answered Sant' Ilario, opening the door for his wife and thus forcing the conversation to end suddenly, since old Saracinesca must now hear whatever was said. He would not allow the situation to last, for fear lest he should say something of which he might repent, for in spite of his words he did not wish to seem suspicious. Unfortunately, Corona's evident annoyance at having been overheard did more to strengthen the feeling of resentment which was growing in him than what he had heard and seen a few moments earlier. The way in which she had reproached him with not adding his blessing to hers showed plainly enough, he thought, that she was angry at what had occurred. They both entered the room, but before they had been long together Giovanni left his wife and father and retired to his own room under pretext of writing letters until dinner-time. When he was alone, the situation presented itself to his mind in a very disagreeable light. Corona's assurance that the mystery was a harmless one seemed wholly inadequate to account for her meeting with Gouache and for her kind treatment of him, especially after she had shown herself so evidently cold to him in the presence of the others. Either Giovanni was a very silly fellow, or he was being deceived as no man was ever deceived before. Either conclusion was exasperating. He asked himself whether he were such a fool as to invent a misconstruction upon occurrences which to any one else would have seemed void of any importance whatsoever; and his heart answered that if he were indeed so senseless he must have lost his intelligence very recently. On the other hand to suspect Corona of actually entertaining a secret passion for Gouache was an hypothesis which seemed too monstrous to be discussed. He sat down to think about it, and was suddenly startled by the host of little circumstances which all at once detached themselves from the hazy past and stood out in condemnation of his wife. Gouache, as he himself had acknowledged, had long worshipped the princess in a respectful, almost reverential way. He had taken every occasion of talking with her, and had expressed even by his outward manner a degree of devotion he never manifested to other women. Giovanni was now aware that for some time past, even as far back as the previous winter, he had almost unconsciously watched Corona and Anastase when they were together. Nothing in her conduct had excited his suspicions in the least, but he had certainly suspected that Gouache was a little inclined to idolise her, and had laughed to himself more than once at the idea of the French artist's hopeless passion, with something of that careless satisfaction a man feels who sees a less favoured mortal in dangerous proximity to a flame which burns only for himself. It was rather a contemptible amusement, and Giovanni had never indulged in it very long. He liked Gouache, and, if anything, pitied him for his hopeless passion. Corona treated the Zouave in her grand, quiet way, which had an air of protection with it, and Giovanni would have scoffed at the thought that she cared for the man. Nevertheless, now that matters had taken such a strange turn, he recollected with surprise that Gouache was undeniably the one of all their acquaintance who most consistently followed Corona wherever they met. The young man was a favourite in society. His great talent, his modesty, and above all what people were pleased to describe as his harmlessness, made everybody like him. He went everywhere, and his opportunities of meeting the princess were almost numberless. Giovanni had certainly watched him very often, though he was hardly conscious of having bestowed so much attention on the French artist-soldier, that he never failed to glance at his wife when Anastase was mentioned. Now, and all at once, a hundred details rushed to his recollection, and he was staggered by the vista of incidents that rose before his mind. Within the last twenty-four hours, especially, the evidence had assumed terrible proportions. In the first place there had been that scene in the drawing-room, enacted quietly enough and in a corner, while there were twenty persons present, but with the coolness of two people of the world who know what surprising things may be done unobserved in a room full of people. If Anastase had kissed Corona's hand a little differently, and with the evident intention of being seen, the action would have been natural. But there was a look in Gouache's face which Giovanni remembered, and an expression of kindness in Corona's eyes that he had not forgotten; above all they had both seemed as though they were sure that no one was watching them. Indeed, Sant' Ilario now asked himself how he had chanced to see what passed, and the only answer was that he generally watched them when they were together. This was a revelation to himself, and told much. Then there was her midnight expedition with Gouache, a far more serious matter. After all, he had only Corona's own assurance that Faustina Montevarchi had been in any way concerned in that extraordinary piece of rashness. He must indeed have had faith in his wife to pass over such conduct without a word of explanation. Next came the events of that very afternoon. Corona had been rude to Gouache, had then suddenly left the room, and in passing out had exchanged a few words with him in a low tone. She had met him again by accident, if it had been an accident, and fancying herself unseen had behaved very differently to the young man. There had been a parting which savoured unpleasantly of the affectionate, and which was certainly something more than merely friendly. Lastly, Corona had evidently been annoyed at Giovanni's appearance, a fact which seemed to conclude the whole argument with a terrible certainty. Finding himself face to face with a conclusion which threatened to destroy his happiness altogether, Giovanni started up from his chair and began to walk backwards and forwards in the room, pausing a moment each time he turned, as though to gather strength, or to shake off an evil thought. In the light of his present reflections an explanation seemed inevitable, but when he thought of that he saw too clearly that any explanation must begin by his accusing his wife, and he knew that if he accused her justly, it would only end in a denial from her. What woman, however guilty, would not deny her guilt when charged with it. What man either, where love was concerned? Giovanni laughed bitterly, then turned pale and sat down again. To accuse Corona of loving Gouache! It was too monstrous to be believed. And yet--what did all those doings mean? There must be a reason for them. If he called her and told her what he felt, and if she were innocent, she would tell him all, everything would be explained, and he would doubtless see that all this damning evidence was no more than the natural outward appearance of perfectly harmless circumstances of which he knew nothing. Ay, but if they were harmless, why should she implore him to ask no questions? Because the honour of some one else was concerned, of course. But was he, Giovanni Saracinesca, not to be trusted with the keeping of that other person's honour as well as Corona herself? Had they ever had secrets from each other? Would it not have been simpler for her to trust him with the story, if she was innocent, than to be silent and ask him to trust her motives? Far simpler, of course. And then, if only a third person's feelings were at stake, what necessity had there been for such a sentimental parting? She had given Gouache a blessing very like the one she had given Giovanni. Worst of all, were not the circumstances the same, the very same? Giovanni remembered the Frangipani ball. At that time Corona was married to Astrardente, who had died a few days afterwards. Giovanni had that night told Corona that he loved her, in very passionate terms. She had silenced him, and he had behaved like a gentleman, for he had asked her pardon for what he had done. She had forgiven him, and to show that she bore no malice had spoken a kind of benediction--a prayer that all might be well with him. He knew now that she had loved him even then when she repelled him. And now that she was married to Giovanni, another had come, and had talked with her, and exchanged words in a low tone even as he himself had once done. And she had treated this man roughly before her husband, and presently afterwards had allowed him to kiss her hand and had sent him away saying that she forgave him--just as she had formerly forgiven Giovanni--and praying that all blessings might go with him. Why was it not possible that she loved this man, too? Because she was so grandly beautiful, and dark and calm, and had such a noble fearlessness in her eyes? Other women had been beautiful and had deceived wiser men than Giovanni, and had fallen. Beauty was no argument for the defence, nor brave eyes, nor the magnificent dignity of movement and speech--nor words either, for that matter. Suspense was agony, and yet a twofold horror seemed the only issue, the one inevitable, the other possible. First, to accuse this woman whom he loved so dearly, and then, perhaps, to hear her deny the charge boldly and yet refuse all explanation. Once more Giovanni rose from his deep chair and paced his room with regular strides, though he scarcely saw the carpet under his feet, nor realised any longer where he was. At last he stopped and laughed. The sound was strange and false, as when a man tries to be merry who feels no mirth. He was making a desperate effort to shake off this nightmare that beset him, to say to himself that he was but a fool, and that there was no cause for all this suffering which he was inflicting on his heart, nor for all these questions he had been asking of his intelligence. It was surely not true! He would laugh now, would laugh heartily within the next half hour with Corona herself, at the mere thought of supposing that she could love Gouache, Gouache, a painter! Gouache, a Zouave! Gouache, a contemptibly good-natured, harmless little foreigner!--and Corona del Carmine, Duchessa d'Astrardente, Principessa di Sant' Ilario, mother of all the Saracinesca yet to come! It was better to laugh, truly, at such an absurd juxtaposition of ideas, of personalities, of high and low. And Giovanni laughed, but the sound, was very harsh and died away without rousing one honest echo in the vaulted room. Had Corona seen his face at that moment, or had she guessed what was passing in his mind, she would have sacrificed Faustina's secret ten times over rather than let Giovanni suffer a moment longer as he was suffering now. But Corona had no idea that he could put such a construction upon her doings. He had shown her nothing of what he felt, except perhaps a slight annoyance at not being put in possession of the secret. It was natural, she thought, that he should be a little out of temper, but as she saw no way of remedying the trouble except by exposing to him the innocent girl whom she had undertaken to protect, she held her peace and trusted that her husband's displeasure would soon be past. Had there been more time for reflection on the previous evening, in the interval between her learning from the porter that Giovanni knew of her absence, and her being confronted with Giovanni himself, she might have resolved to act differently; but having once made up her mind that he ought not to know the truth for the present, opposition only strengthened her determination. There was nothing wrong in the course she was pursuing, or her conscience would have spoken and bidden her speak out. Her nature was too like Giovanni's own, proud, reserved, and outwardly cold, to yield any point easily. It was her instinct, like his, to be silent rather than to speak, and to weigh considerations before acting upon them. This very similarity of temper in the two rendered it certain that if they were ever opposed to each other the struggle would be a serious one. They were both too strong to lead a life of petty quarrelling; if they ceased to live in perfect harmony they were only too sure to come to open hostility. There is nothing which will wound pride and raise anger so inevitably as finding unexpected but determined opposition in those who very closely resemble ourselves. In such a case a man cannot fall back upon the comfortable alternative of despising his enemy, since he has an intimate conviction that it would be paramount to despising himself; and if he is led into a pitched battle he will find his foe possessed of weapons which are exactly like his own. Giovanni and Corona were very evenly matched, as nearly resembling each other as is possible for a man and a woman. Corona was outwardly a little the colder, Giovanni a little the more resentful of the two. Corona had learned during the years of her marriage with Astrardente to wear a mask of serene indifference, and the assumed habit had at last become in some degree a part of her nature. Giovanni, whose first impulses had originally been quicker than they now were, had learned the power of waiting by constant intercourse with his father, whose fiery temper seemed to snatch at trifles for the mere pleasure of tearing them to pieces, and did injustice to the generous heart he concealed under his rough exterior. Under these circumstances it was not probable that Sant' Ilario would make any exhibition of his jealousy for some time to come. As he paced the floor of his room, the bitterness of his situation slowly sank from the surface, leaving his face calm and almost serene. He forced himself to look at the facts again and again, trying bravely to be impartial and to survey them as though he were the judge and not the plaintiff. He admitted at last that there was undoubtedly abundant matter for jealousy, but Corona still stood protected as it were by the love he bore her, a love which even her guilt would be unable to destroy. His love indeed, must outlast everything, all evil, all disgrace, and he knew it. He thought of that Latin poet who, writing to his mistress, said in the bitterness of his heart that though she were to become the best woman in the world he could never again respect her, but that he could not cease to love her, were she guilty of all crimes. He knew that if the worst turned out true that must be his case, and perhaps for the first time in his life he understood all the humanity of Catullus, and saw how a man might love even what he despised. Happily matters had not yet come to that. He knew that he might be deceived, and that circumstantial evidence was not always to be trusted. Even while his heart grew cold with the strongest and most deadly passion of which man is capable, with jealousy which is cruel as the grave, the nobility of his nature rose up and made him see that his duty was to believe Corona innocent until she were proved unfaithful. The effort to quench the flame was great, though fruitless, but the determination to cover it and hide it from every one, even from Corona herself, appealed to all that was brave and manly in his strong character. When at last he once more sat down, his face betrayed no emotion, his eyes were quiet, his hands did not tremble. He took up a book and forced his attention upon the pages for nearly an hour without interruption. Then he dressed himself, and went and sat at table with his father and his wife as though nothing had occurred to disturb his equanimity. Corona supposed that he had recovered from his annoyance at not being admitted to share the secret for which she was unconsciously sacrificing so much. She had expected this result and was more than usually cheerful. Once old Saracinesca mentioned Gouache, but both Corona and Giovanni hastened to change the subject. This time, however, Giovanni did not look at his wife when the name was pronounced. Those days were over now. CHAPTER IX. The excitement which had reigned in Rome for weeks past was destined to end almost as suddenly as it had begun. The events which followed the 22d of October have been frequently and accurately described; indeed, if we consider the small number of the troops engaged and the promptness with which a very limited body of men succeeded in quelling what at first appeared to be a formidable revolution, we are surprised at the amount of attention which has been accorded to the little campaign. The fact is that although the armies employed on both sides were insignificant, the questions at stake were enormous, and the real powers which found themselves confronted at Monte Rotondo and Mentana were the Kingdom of Italy and the French Empire. Until the ultimatum was presented to Italy by the French Minister on the 19th of October, Italy hoped to take possession of Rome on the pretext of restoring order after allowing it to be subverted by Garibaldi's guerillas. The military cordon formed by the Italian army to prevent Garibaldi's crossing the frontier was a mere show. The arrest of the leader himself, however it was intended by those who ordered it, turned out in effect to be a mere comedy, as he soon found himself at liberty and no one again attempted to seize him. When France interfered the scale turned. She asserted her determination to maintain the Convention of 1864 by force of arms, and Italy was obliged to allow Garibaldi to be defeated, since she was unable to face the perils of a war with her powerful neighbour. If a small body of French troops had not entered Rome on the 30th of the month, the events of 1870 would have occurred three years earlier, though probably with different results. It being the object of the general commanding the Pope's forces to concentrate a body of men with whom to meet Garibaldi, who was now advancing boldly, the small detachments, of which many had already been sent to the front, were kept back in Rome in the hope of getting together something like an army. Gouache's departure was accordingly delayed from day to day, and it was not until the early morning of the 3d of November that he actually quitted Rome with the whole available corps of Zouaves. Ten days elapsed, therefore, after the events last described, during which time he was hourly in expectation of orders to march. The service had become so arduous within the city that he could scarcely call a moment his own. It was no time to think of social duties, and he spent the leisure he had in trying to see Faustina Montevarchi as often as possible. This, however, was no easy matter. It was a provoking fact that his duties kept him busily occupied in the afternoon and evening, and that the hours he could command fell almost always in the morning. To visit the Palazzo Montevarchi on any pretext whatever before one o'clock in the day was out of the question. He had not even the satisfaction of seeing Faustina drive past him in the Corso when she was out with her mother and Flavia, since they drove just at the time when he was occupied. Gouache told himself again and again that the display of ingenuity was in a measure the natural duty of a man in love, but the declaration did not help him very much. He was utterly at a loss for an expedient, and suffered keenly in being deprived of the possibility of seeing Faustina after having seen her so often and so intimately. A week earlier he could have borne it better, but now the separation was intolerable. In time of peace he would have disobeyed orders and thrown up his service for the day, no matter what the consequences turned out to be for himself; but at the present moment, when every man was expected to be at his post, such conduct seemed dishonourable and cowardly. He submitted in silence, growing daily more careworn, and losing much of the inexhaustible gaiety which made him a general favourite with his comrades. There was but one chance of seeing Faustina, and even that one offered little probability of an interview. He knew that on Sunday mornings she sometimes went to church at an early hour with no one but her maid for a companion. Her mother and Flavia preferred to rise later and attended another mass. Now it chanced that in the year 1867, the 22d of October, the date of the insurrection, fell on Tuesday. Five days, therefore, must elapse before he could see Faustina on a Sunday, and if he failed to see her then he would have to wait another week. Unfortunately, Faustina's early expeditions to church were by no means certain or regular, and it would be necessary to convey a message to her before the day arrived. This was no easy matter. To send anything through the post was out of the question, and Gouache knew how hard it would be to find the means of putting a note into her hands through a servant. Hour after hour he cudgelled his brains for an expedient without success, until the idea pursued him and made him nervous. The time approached rapidly and he had as yet accomplished nothing. The wildest schemes suggested themselves to him and were rejected as soon as he thought of them. He met some of his acquaintances during the idle hours of the morning, and it almost drove him mad to think that almost any one of them could see Faustina any day he pleased. He did what he could to obtain leave in the afternoon or evening, but his exertions were fruitless. He was a man who was trusted, and knew it, and the disturbed state of affairs made it necessary that every man should do precisely what was allotted to him, at the risk of causing useless complications in the effort to concentrate and organise the troops which was now going forward. At last he actually went to the Palazzo Montevarchi in the morning and inquired if he could see the princess. The porter replied that she was not visible, and that the prince had gone out. There was nothing to be done, and he turned to go away. Suddenly he stopped as he stood under the deep arch, facing the blank wall on the opposite side of the street. That same wall was broad and smooth and dark in colour. He only looked at it a moment, and then to excuse his hesitation in the eyes of the porter, he took out a cigarette, and lit it before going out. As he passed through the Piazza Colonna a few minutes later he went into a shop and bought two large tubes of paint with a broad brush. That night, when he was relieved from duty, he went back to the Palazzo Montevarchi. It was very late, and the streets were deserted. He stood before the great closed doors of the palace and then walked straight across the street to the blank wall with his paint and brush in his hands. On the following morning when the Montevarchi porter opened the gates his eyes were rejoiced by some most extraordinary specimens of calligraphy executed upon the dark stones with red paint of a glaringly vivid hue. The letters A. G. were drawn at least four feet high in the centre, and were repeated in every size at irregular intervals for some distance above, below, and on each side. The words "Domenica," Sunday, and "Messa," mass, were scrawled everywhere in capitals, in roundhand, large and small. Then to give the whole the air of having been designed by a street-boy, there were other words, such as "Viva Pio IX.," "Viva il Papa Re," and across these, in a different manner, and in green paint, "Viva Garibaldi," "Morte a Antonelli," and similar revolutionary sentiments. The whole, however, was so disposed that Gouache's initials and the two important words stood out in bold relief from the rest, and could not fail to attract the eye. Of the many people who came and went that day through the great gate of the Palazzo Montevarchi two only attached any importance to the glaring scrawls on the opposite wall. One of these was Faustina herself, who saw and understood. The other was San Giacinto, who stared at the letters for several seconds, and then smiled faintly as he entered the palace. He, too, knew what the signs meant, and remarked to himself that Gouache was an enterprising youth, but that, in the interest of the whole tribe of Montevarchi, it would be well to put a stop to his love-making as soon as possible. It was now Saturday afternoon and there was no time to be lost. San Giacinto made a short visit, and, on leaving, went immediately to the Palazzo Saracinesca. He knew that at four o'clock Corona would probably not yet be at home. This turned out to be the case, and having announced his intention of waiting for her return he was ushered into the sitting-room. As soon as the servant was gone he went to Corona's writing-table and took from it a couple of sheets of her paper and two of her envelopes. These latter were stamped with a coronet and her initials. He folded the paper carefully and put the four bits into his pocket-book. He waited ten minutes, but no one came. Then he left the house, telling the servant to say that he had called and would return presently. In a few minutes he was at his lodgings, where he proceeded to write the following note. He had taken two sheets in case the first proved a failure:-- "I have understood, but alas! I cannot come. Oh, my beloved! when shall we meet again? It seems years since Tuesday night--and yet I am so watched that I can do nothing. Some one suspects something. I am sure of it. A TRUSTY PERSON will bring you this. I love you always--do not doubt it, though I cannot meet you to-morrow." San Giacinto, who had received a tolerable education and had conscientiously made the best of it, prided himself upon his handwriting. It was small, clear, and delicate, like that of many strong, quiet men, whose nerves do not run away with their fingers. On the present occasion he took pains to make it even more careful than usual, and the result was that it looked not unlike the "copperplate" handwriting a girl would learn at the convent, though an expert would probably have declared it disguised. It had been necessary, in order to deceive Gouache, to write the note on the paper generally used by women of society. As he could not get any of Faustina's own, it seemed the next best thing to take Corona's, since Corona was her most intimate friend. Gouache had told San Giacinto that he was engaged every afternoon, in hopes that he would in turn chance to mention the fact to Faustina. It was therefore pretty certain that Anastase would not be at home between four and five o'clock. San Giacinto drove to the Zouave's lodgings and asked for him. If he chanced to be in, the note could be given to his old landlady. He was out, however, and San Giacinto asked to be allowed to enter the room on the pretext of writing a word for his friend. The landlady was a dull old creature, who had been warming herself with a pot of coals when San Giacinto rang. In answer to his request she resumed her occupation and pointed to the door of the Zouave's apartment. San Giacinto entered, and looked about him for a conspicuous place in which to put the letter he had prepared. He preferred not to trust to the memory of the woman, who might forget to deliver it until the next day, especially if Gouache came home late that night, as was very likely. The table of the small sitting-room was littered with letters and papers, books and drawings, so that an object placed in the midst of such disorder would not be likely to attract Gouache's attention. The door beyond was open, and showed a toilet-table in the adjoining chamber, which was indeed the bedroom. San Giacinto went in, and taking the note from his pocket, laid it on an old-fashioned pincushion before the glass. The thing slipped, however, and in order to fasten it firmly he thrust a gold pin that lay on the table through the letter and pinned it to the cushion in a conspicuous position. Then he went out and returned to the Palazzo Saracinesca as he had promised to do. In doing all this he had no intention of injuring either Gouache or Faustina. He perceived clearly enough that their love affair could not come to any good termination, and as his interests were now very closely bound up with those of the Montevarchi, it seemed wisest to break off the affair by any means in his power, without complicating matters by speaking to Gouache or to Faustina's father or mother. He knew enough of human nature to understand that Gouache would be annoyed at losing the chance of a meeting, and he promised himself to watch the two so carefully as to be able to prevent other clandestine interviews during the next few days. If he could once sow the seeds of a quarrel between the two, he fancied it would be easy to break up the relations. Nothing makes a woman so angry as to wait for a man who has promised to meet her, and if he fails to come altogether her anger will probably be very serious. In the present case he supposed that Faustina would go to the church, but that Gouache, being warned that he was not to come, would not think of keeping the tryst. The scheme, if not profound, was at least likely to produce a good deal of trouble between the lovers. San Giacinto returned to the Palazzo Saracinesca, but he found only the old prince at home, though he prolonged his visit in the hope of seeing Corona or Sant' Ilario. "By the bye," he said, as he and his companion sat together in the prince's study, "I remember that you were so good as to say that you would let me see those family papers some day. They must be very interesting and I would be glad to avail myself of your offer." "Certainly," replied Saracinesca "They are in the Archives in a room of the library. It is rather late now. Do you mind waiting till to-morrow?" "Not in the least, or as long as you like. To tell the truth, I would like to show them to my future father-in-law, who loves archaeology. I was talking about them with him yesterday. After all, however, I suppose the duplicates are at the Cancelleria, and we can see them there." "I do not know," said the prince, carelessly, "I never took the trouble to inquire. There is probably some register of them, or something to prove that they are in existence." "There must be, of course. Things of that importance would not be allowed to go unregistered, unless people were very indifferent in those days." "It is possible that there are no duplicates. It may be that there is only an official notice of the deed giving the heads of the agreement. You see it was a friendly arrangement, and there was supposed to be no probability whatever that your great-grandfather would ever marry. The papers I have are all in order and legally valid, but there may have been some carelessness about registering them. I cannot be sure. Indeed it is thirty years at least since I looked at the originals." "If you would have them taken out some time before I am married, I should be glad to see them, but there is no hurry. So all this riot and revolution has meant something after all," added San Giacinto to change the subject "Garibaldi has taken Monte Rotondo, I hear to-day." "Yes, and if the French are not quick, we shall have the diversion of a siege," replied Saracinesca rather scornfully. "That same taking of Monte Rotondo was one of those gallant deeds for which Garibaldi is so justly famous. He has six thousand men, and there were only three hundred and fifty soldiers inside. Twenty to one, or thereabouts." It is unnecessary to detail the remainder of the conversation. Saracinesca went off into loud abuse of Garibaldi, confounding the whole Italian Government with him and devoting all to one common destination, while San Giacinto reserved his judgment, believing that there was probably a wide difference between the real intentions of the guerilla general and of his lawful sovereign, Victor Emmanuel the Second, King of Italy. At last the two men were informed that Corona had returned. They left the study and found her in the sitting-room. "Where is Giovanni?" she asked as soon as they entered. She was standing before the fireplace dressed as she had come in. "I have no idea where he is," replied Saracinesca. "I suppose he is at the club, or making visits somewhere. He has turned into a very orderly boy since you married him." The old man laughed a little. "I have missed him," said Corona, taking no notice of her father-in-law's remark. "I was to have picked him up on the Pincio, and when I got there he was gone. I am so afraid he will think I forgot all about it, for I must have been late. You see, I was delayed by a crowd in the Tritone--there is always a crowd there." Corona seemed less calm than usual. The fact was, that since the affair which had caused her husband so much annoyance, some small part of which she had perceived, she had been trying to make up to him for his disappointment in not knowing her secret, by being with him more than usual, and by exerting herself to please him in every way. They did not usually meet during the afternoon, as he generally went out on foot, while she drove, but to-day they had agreed that she should come to the Pincio and take him for a short drive and bring him home. The plan was part of her fixed intention to be more than usually thoughtful where he was concerned, and the idea that she had kept him waiting and that he had gone away caused her more regret than would have been natural in the ordinary course of events. In order to explain what now took place, it is necessary to return to Giovanni himself who, as Corona had said, had waited for his wife near the band-stand on the Pincio for some time, until growing weary, he had walked away and left the gardens. Though he manfully concealed what he felt, the passion that had been sown in his heart had grown apace and in a few days had assumed dominating proportions. He suspected everything and everybody while determined to appear indifferent. Even Corona's efforts to please him, which of late had grown so apparent, caused him suspicion. He asked himself why her manner should have changed, as it undoubtedly had during the last few days. She had always been a good and loving wife to him, and he was well pleased with her gravity and her dignified way of showing her affection. Why should she suddenly think it needful to become so very solicitous for his welfare and happiness during every moment of his life? It was not like her to come into his study early in the morning and to ask what he meant to do during the day. It was a new thing that she should constantly propose to walk with him, to drive with him, to read aloud to him, to make herself not only a part of his heart but a part of his occupations. Had the change come gradually, he would not have distrusted her motives. He liked his wife's company and conversation, but as they each had things to do which could not conveniently be done together, he had made up his mind to the existence which was good enough for his companions in society. Other men did not think of spending the afternoon in their wives' carriages, leaving cards or making visits, or driving round and round the Villa Borghese and the Pincio. To do so was to be ridiculous in the extreme, and besides, though he liked to be with Corona, he detested visiting, and hated of all things to stop a dozen times in the course of a drive in order to send a footman upstairs with cards. He preferred to walk or to lounge in the club or to stay at home and study the problems of his improvements for Saracinesca. Corona's manner irritated him therefore, and made him think more than ever of the subject which he would have done better to abandon from the first. Nevertheless, he would not show that he was wearied by his wife's attention, still less that he believed her behaviour to be prompted by a desire to deceive him. He was uniformly courteous and gentle, acquiescing in her little plans whenever he could do so, and expressing a suitable degree of regret when he was prevented from joining her by some previous engagement. But the image of the French Zouave was ever present with him. He could not get rid of Gouache's dark, delicate features, even in his dreams; the sound of the man's pleasant voice and of his fluent conversation was constantly in his ears, and he could not look at Corona without fancying how she would look if Anastase were beside her whispering tender speeches. All the time, he submitted with a good grace to do whatever she proposed, and on this afternoon he found himself waiting for her beside the band-stand. At first he watched the passing carriages indifferently enough, supposing that his own liveries would presently loom up in the long line of high-seated coachmen and lacqueys, and having no especial desire to see them. His position when in Corona's company grew every day more difficult, and he thought as he stood by the stone pillar at the corner that he would on the whole be glad if she did not come. He was egregiously mistaken in himself, however. As the minutes passed he grew uneasy, and watched the advancing carriages with a feverish anxiety, saying to himself that every one must bring Corona, and actually growing pale with emotion as each vehicle turned the distant corner and came into view. The time seemed interminable after he had once yielded to the excitement, and before another quarter of an hour had elapsed, Sant' Ilario turned angrily away and left the Pincio by the stairs that descend near the band-stand towards the winding drive by which the Piazza del Popolo is reached. It is not easy for a person who is calm to comprehend the workings of a brain over excited with a strong passion. To a man who has lost the sober use of his faculties in the belief that he has been foully betrayed, every circumstance, every insignificant accident, seems a link in the chain of evidence. A week earlier Giovanni would have thought himself mad if the mere idea had suggested itself to him that Corona loved Gouache. To-day he believed that she had purposely sent him to wait upon the Pincio, in order that she might be sure of seeing Gouache without fear of interruption. The conviction thrust itself upon him with overwhelming force. He fancied himself the dupe of a common imposition, he saw his magnificent love and trust made the sport of a vulgar trick. The blood mounted to his dark face and as he descended the steps a red mist seemed to be spread between his eyes and all surrounding objects. Though he walked firmly and mechanically, saluting his acquaintances as he passed, he was unconscious of his actions, and moved like a man under the influence of a superior force. Jealousy is that one of all the passions which is most sure to break out suddenly into deeds of violence when long restrained. Giovanni scarcely knew how he reached the Corso nor how it was that he found himself ascending the dusky staircase which led to Gouache's lodgings. It was less than a quarter of an hour since San Giacinto had been there, and the old woman still held her pot of coals in her hand as she opened the door. As she had pointed to the door when San Giacinto had come, so she now directed Giovanni in the same way. But Giovanni, on hearing that Anastase was out, began to ask questions. "Has any one been here?" he inquired. "Eh! There was a gentleman a quarter of an hour ago," replied the woman. "Has any lady been here?" "A lady? Macche!" The old creature laughed. "What should ladies do here?" Giovanni thought he detected some hesitation in the tone. He was in the mood to fancy himself deceived by every one. "Are you fond of money?" he asked, brutally. "Eh! I am an old woman. What would you have? Am I crazy that I should not like money? But Signor Gouache is a very good gentleman. He pays well, thank Heaven!" "What does he pay you for?" "What for? For his lodging--for his coffee. Bacchus! What should he pay me for? Strange question in truth. Do I keep a shop? I keep lodgings. But perhaps you like the place? It is a fine situation--just in the Corso and only one flight of stairs, a beautiful position for the Carnival. Of course, if you are inclined to pay more than Signor Gouache, I do not say but what---" "I do not want your lodgings, my good woman," returned Giovanni in gentler tones. "I want to know who comes to see your lodger." "Who should come? His friends of course. Who else?" "A lady, perhaps," said Giovanni in a thick voice. It hurt him to say it, and the words almost stuck in his throat. "Perhaps a lady comes sometimes," he repeated, pulling out some loose bank notes. The old woman's filmy eyes suddenly twinkled in the gloom. The sound of the crisp pieces of paper was delightful to her ear. "Well," she said after a moment's hesitation, "if a beautiful lady does come here, that is the Signore's affair. It is none of my business." Giovanni thrust the notes into her palm, which was already wide open to receive them. His heart beat wildly. "She is beautiful, you say?" "Oh! As beautiful as you please!" chuckled the hag. "Is she dark?" "Of course," replied the woman. There was no mistaking the tone in which the question was asked, for Giovanni was no longer able to conceal anything that he felt. "And tall, I suppose? Yes. And she was here a quarter of an hour ago, you say? Speak out!" he cried, advancing a step towards the old creature. "If you lie to me, I will kill you! She was here--do not deny it." "Yes--yes," answered the woman, cowering back in some terror. "Per carita! Don't murder me--I tell you the truth." With a sudden movement Giovanni turned on his heel and entered Gouache's sitting-room. It was now almost dark in the house and he struck a match and lighted a candle that stood on the stable. The glare illuminated his swarthy features and fiery eyes, and the veins stood out on his forehead and temples like strained and twisted cords. He looked about him in every direction, examining the table, strewn with papers and books, the floor, the furniture, expecting every moment to find something which should prove that Corona had been there. Seeing nothing, he entered the bedroom beyond. It was a small chamber and he had scarcely passed through the door when he found himself before the toilet-table. The note San Giacinto had left was there pinned upon the little cushion with the gold pin, as he had placed it. Giovanni stared wildly at the thing for several seconds and his face grew deadly white. There was no evidence lacking now, for the pin was Corona's own. It was a simple enough object, made of plain gold, the head being twisted into the shape of the letter C, but there was no mistaking its identity, for Giovanni had designed it himself. Corona used it for fastening her veil. As the blood sank from his head to his heart Giovanni grew very calm. He set the candle upon the toilet-table and took the note, after putting the pin in his pocket. The handwriting seemed to be feigned, and his lip curled scornfully as he looked at it and then, turning it over, saw that the envelope was one of Corona's own. It seemed to him a pitiable piece of folly in her to distort her writing when there was such abundant proof on all sides to convict her. Without the slightest hesitation he opened the letter and read it, bending down and holding it near the candle. One perusal was enough. He smiled curiously as he read the words, "I am so watched that I can do nothing. Some one suspects something." His attention was arrested by the statement that a trusty person--the words were underlined--would bring the note. The meaning of the emphasis was explained by the pin; the trusty person was herself, who, perhaps by an afterthought, had left the bit of gold as a parting gift in case Gouache marched before they met again. Giovanni glanced once more round the room, half expecting to find some other convicting piece of evidence. Then he hesitated, holding the candle in one hand and the note in the other. He thought of staying where he was and waiting for Gouache, but the idea did not seem feasible. Nothing which implied waiting could have satisfied him at that moment, and after a few seconds he thrust the note into his pocket and went out. His hand was on the outer door, when he remembered the old woman who sat crouching over her pan of coals, scarcely able to believe her good luck, and longing for Giovanni's departure in order that she might count the crisp notes again. She dared not indulge herself in that pleasure while he was present, lest he should repent of his generosity and take back a part of them, for she had seen how he had taken them from his pocket and saw that he had no idea how much he had given. "You will say nothing of my coming," said Giovanni, fixing his eyes upon her. "I, Signore? Do not be afraid! Money is better than words." "Very good," he answered. "Perhaps you will get twice as much the next time I want to know the truth." "God bless you!" chuckled the wrinkled creature. He went out, and the little bell that was fastened to the door tinkled as the latch sprang back into its place. Then the woman counted the price of blood, which had so unexpectedly fallen into her hands. The bank-notes were many and broad, and crisp and new, for Giovanni had not reckoned the cost. It was long since old Caterina Ranucci had seen so much money, and she had certainly never had so much of her own. "Qualche innamorato!" she muttered to herself as she smoothed the notes one by one and gloated over them and built castles in the air under the light of her little oil lamp. "It is some fellow in love. Heaven pardon me if I have done wrong! He seemed so anxious to know that the woman had been here--why should I not content him? Poveretto! He must be rich. I will always tell him what he wants to know. Heaven bring him often and bless him." Then she rocked herself backwards and forwards, hugging her pot of coals and crooning the words of an ancient Roman ditty-- "Io vorrei che nella luna Ci s'andasse in carrettella Per vedere la piu bella Delle donne di la su!" What does the old song mean? Who knows whether it ever meant anything? "I wish one might drive in a little cart to the moon, to see the most beautiful of the women up there!" Caterina Ranucci somehow felt as though she could express her feelings in no better way than by singing the queer words to herself in her cracked old voice. Possibly she thought that the neighbours would not suspect her good fortune if they heard her favourite song. CHAPTER X. Sant' Ilario walked home from Gouache's lodgings. The cool evening air refreshed him and helped him to think over what he had before him in the near future. Indeed the position was terrible enough, and doubly so to a man of his temperament. He would have faced anything rather than this, for there was no point in which he was more vulnerable than in his love for Corona. As he walked her figure rose before him, and her beauty almost dazzled him when he thought of it. But he could no longer think of her without bringing up that other being upon whom his thoughts of vengeance concentrated themselves, until it seemed as though the mere intention must do its object some bodily harm. The fall was tremendous in itself and in its effects. It must have been a great passion indeed which could make such a man demean himself to bribe an inferior for information against his wife. He himself was so little able to measure the force by which he was swayed as to believe that he had extracted the confession from a reluctant accomplice. He would never have allowed that the sight of the money and the prompting of his own words could have caused the old woman to invent the perfectly imaginary story which he had seemed so fully determined to hear. He did not see that Caterina Ranucci had merely confirmed each statement he had made himself and had taken his bribe while laughing to herself at his folly. He was blinded by something which destroys the mental vision more surely than anger or hatred, or pride, or love itself. To some extent he was to be pardoned. The chain of circumstantial evidence was consecutive and so convincing that many a just person would have accepted Corona's guilt as the only possible explanation of what had happened. The discoveries he had just made would alone have sufficed to set up a case against her, and many an innocent reputation has been shattered by less substantial proofs. Had he not found a letter, evidently written in a feigned hand and penned upon his wife's own writing-paper, fastened upon Gouache's table with her own pin? Had not the old woman confessed--before he had found the note, too,--that a lady had been there but a short time before? Did not these facts agree singularly with Corona's having left him to wait for her during that interval in the public gardens? Above all, did not this conclusion explain at once all those things in her conduct which had so much disturbed him during the past week? What was this story of Faustina Montevarchi's disappearance? The girl was probably Corona's innocent accomplice. Corona had left the house at one o'clock in the morning with Gouache. The porter had not seen any other woman. The fact that she had entered the Palazzo Montevarchi with Faustina and without Anastase proved nothing, except that she had met the young girl somewhere else, it mattered little where. The story that Faustina had accidentally shut herself into a room in the palace was an invention, for even Corona admitted the fact. That Faustina's flight, however, and the other events of the night of the 22d had been arranged merely in order that Corona and Gouache might walk in the moonlight for a quarter of an hour, Giovanni did not believe. There was some other mystery here which was yet unsolved. Meanwhile the facts he had collected were enough--enough to destroy his happiness at a single blow. And yet he loved Corona even now, and though his mind was made up clearly enough concerning Gouache, he knew that he could not part from the woman he adored. He thought of the grim old fortress at Saracinesca with its lofty towers and impregnable walls, and when he reflected that there was but one possible exit from the huge mass of buildings, he said to himself that Corona would be safe there for ever. He had the instincts of a fierce and unforgiving race of men, who for centuries had held the law in their own hands, and were accustomed to wield it as it seemed good in their own eyes. It was not very long since the lords of Saracinesca had possessed the right of life and death over their vassals, [Footnote: Until 1870 the right of life and death was still held, so far as actual legality was concerned, by the Dukes of Bracciano, and was attached to the possession of the title, which had been sold and subsequently bought back by the original holders of it.] and the hereditary traits of character which had been fostered by ages of power had not disappeared with the decay of feudalism. Under the circumstances which seemed imminent, it would not have been thought unnatural if Giovanni had confined his wife during the remainder of her days in his castle among the mountains. The idea may excite surprise among civilised Europeans when it is considered that the events of which I write occurred as recently as 1867, but it would certainly have evoked few expressions of astonishment among the friends of the persons concerned. To Giovanni himself it seemed the only possible conclusion to what was happening, and the determination to kill Gouache and imprison Corona for life appeared in his eyes neither barbarous nor impracticable. He did not hasten his pace as he went towards his home. There was something fateful in his regular step and marble face as he moved steadily to the accomplishment of his purpose. The fury which had at first possessed him, and which, if he had then encountered Gouache, would certainly have produced a violent outbreak, had subsided and was lost in the certainty of his dishonour, and in the immensity of the pain he suffered. Nothing remained to be done but to tell Corona that he knew all, and to inflict upon her the consequences of her crime without delay. There was absolutely no hope left that she might prove herself innocent, and in Giovanni's own breast there was no hope either, no hope of ever finding again his lost happiness, or of ever again setting one stone upon another of all that splendid fabric of his life which he had built up so confidently upon the faith of the woman he loved. As he reached the gates of his home he grew if possible paler than before, till his face was positively ghastly to see, and his eyes seemed to sink deeper beneath his brows, while their concentrated light gleamed more fiercely. No one saw him enter, for the porter was in his lodge, and on reaching the landing of the stairs Giovanni let himself into the apartments with a latch-key. Corona was in her dressing-room, a high vaulted chamber, somewhat sombrely furnished, but made cheerful by a fire that blazed brightly in the deep old-fashioned chimney-piece. Candles were lighted upon the dressing-table, and a shaded lamp stood upon a low stand near a lounge beside the hearth. The princess was clad in a loose wrapper of some soft cream-coloured material, whose folds fell gracefully to the ground as she lay upon the couch. She was resting before dressing for dinner, and the masses of her blue-black hair were loosely coiled upon her head and held together by a great Spanish comb thrust among the tresses with a careless grace. She held a book in her slender, olive-tinted hand, but she was not reading; her head lay back upon the cushions and the firelight threw her features into strong relief, while her velvet eyes reflected the flashes of the dancing flames as she watched them. Her expression was serene and calm. She had forgotten for the moment the little annoyances of the last few days and was thinking of her happiness, contrasting the peace of her present life with what she had suffered during the five years of her marriage with poor old Astrardente. Could Giovanni have seen her thus his heart might have been softened. He would have asked himself how it was possible that any woman guilty of such enormous misdeeds could lie there watching the fire with a look of such calm innocence upon her face. But Giovanni did not see her as she was. Even in the extremity of his anger and suffering his courtesy did not forsake him, and he knocked at his wife's door before entering the room. Corona moved from her position, and turned her head to see who was about to enter. "Come in," she said. She started when she saw Giovanni's face. Dazzled as she was by the fire, he looked to her like a dead man. She laid one hand upon the arm of the couch as though she would rise to meet him. He shut the door behind him and advanced towards her till only a couple of paces separated them. She was so much amazed by his looks that she sat quite still while he fixed his eyes upon her and began to speak. "You have wrecked my life," he said in a strange, low voice. "I have come to tell you my decision." She thought he was raving mad, and, brave as she was, she shrank back a little upon her seat and turned pale. "You need not be afraid of me," he continued, as he noticed the movement. "I am not going to kill you. I am sorry to say I am fool enough to love you still." "Giovanni!" cried Corona in an agonised tone. She could find no words, but sprang to her feet and threw her arms about him, gazing imploringly into his face. His features did not relax, for he was prepared for any sort of acting on her part. Without hurting her, but with a strength few men could have resisted, he forced her back to her seat, and then retreated a step before he spoke again. She submitted blindly, feeling that any attempt to thwart him must be utterly useless. "I know what you have done," he said. "You can have nothing to say. Be silent and listen to me. You have destroyed the greatest happiness the world ever knew. You have dishonoured me and mine. You have dragged my faith in you--God knows how great--into the mire of your infamous life. And worse than that--I could almost have forgiven that, I am so base--you have destroyed yourself--" Corona uttered a wild cry and sank back upon the cushions, pressing her hands over her ears so that she might not hear the fearful words. "I will not listen!" she gasped. "You are mad--mad!" Then springing up once more she again clasped him to her breast, so suddenly that he could not escape her. "Oh, my poor Giovanni!" she moaned. "What has happened to you? Have you been hurt? Are you dying? For Heaven's sake speak like yourself!" He seized her wrists and held her before him so that she was forced to hear what he said. Even then his grasp did not hurt her. His hands were like manacles of steel in which hers could turn though she could not withdraw them. "I am hurt to death," he said, between his teeth. "I have been to Gouache's rooms and have brought away your letter--and your pin--the pin I gave you, Corona. Do you understand now, or must I say more?" "My letter?" cried Corona in the utmost bewilderment. "Yes," he answered, releasing her and instantly producing the note and the gold ornament. "Is that your paper? Is this your pin? Answer me--or no! they answer for themselves. You need say nothing, for you can have nothing to say. They are yours and you know it. If they are not enough there is the woman who let you in, who saw you bring them. What more do you want?" As long as Giovanni's accusations had been vague and general, Corona had remained horrorstruck, believing that some awful and incomprehensible calamity had befallen her husband and had destroyed his reason. The moment he produced the proof of what he said, her presence of mind returned, and she saw at a glance the true horror of the situation. She never doubted for a moment that she was the victim of some atrocious plot, but having something to face which she could understand her great natural courage asserted itself. She was not a woman to moan and weep helplessly when there was an open danger to be met. She took the letter and the pin and examined them by the light, with a calmness that contrasted oddly with her previous conduct. Giovanni watched her. He supposed that she had acted surprise until he had brought forward something more conclusive than words, and that she was now exercising her ingenuity in order to explain the situation. His lip curled scornfully, as he fancied he saw the meaning of her actions. After a few seconds she looked up and held out the two objects towards him. "The paper is mine," she said, "but I did not write the letter. The pin is mine too. I lost it more than a month ago." "Of course," replied Giovanni, coldly. "I expected that you would say that. It is very natural. But I do not ask you for any explanations. I have them already. I will take you to Saracinesca to-morrow morning and you will have time to explain everything. You will have your whole life to use, until you die, for no other object. I told you I would not kill you." "Is it possible that you are in earnest?" asked Corona, her voice trembling slightly. "I am in earnest. Do you think I am a man to jest over such deeds?" "And do you think I am a woman to do such deeds?" "Since you have done them--what answer can there be? Not only are you capable of them. You are the woman who has done them. Do lifeless things, like these, lie?" "No. But men do. I believe you, Giovanni. You found these things in Monsieur Gouache's rooms. You were told I put them there. Whoever told you so uttered the most infamous falsehood that ever was spoken on earth. The person who placed them where they were did so in the hope of ruining me. Can you look back into the past and tell me that you have any other reason for believing in this foul plot?" "Reasons?" cried Giovanni, fiercely. "Do you want more reasons? We have time. I will give you enough to satisfy you that I know all you have done. Was not this man for ever near you last year, wherever you met, talking with you in low tones, showing by every movement and gesture that he distinguished you with his base love? Were you not together in a corner last Tuesday night just as the insurrection broke out? Did he not kiss your hand when you both thought no one was looking?" "He kissed my hand before every one," replied Corona, whose wrath was slowly gathering as she saw her husband's determination to prove her guilty. "There were people in the room," continued Giovanni in a tone of concentrated anger, "but you thought no one was watching you--I could see it in your manner and in your eyes. That same night I came home at one o'clock and you were out. You had gone out alone with that man, expecting that I would not return so soon--though it was late enough, too. You were forced to admit that you were with him, because the porter had seen you and had told me the man was a Zouave." "I will tell you the story, since you no longer trust me," said Corona, proudly. "I have no doubt you will tell me some very ingenious tale which will explain why, although you left my house alone, with Gouache, you reached the Palazzo Montevarchi alone with Faustina. But I have not done. He came here the next day. You treated him with unexampled rudeness before me. Half an hour later I found you together in the drawing-room. He was kissing your hand again. You were saying you forgave him and giving him that favourite benediction of yours, which you once bestowed upon me under very similar circumstances. Astrardente was alive and present at that dance in Casa Frangipani. You have me for a husband now and you have found another man whose heart will beat when you bless him. It would be almost better to kill you after all." "Have you finished?" asked Corona, white with anger. "Yes. That letter and that pin--left while I, poor fool, was waiting for you this afternoon on the Pincio--those things are my last words. They close the tale very appropriately. I wish I did not love you so--I would not wait for your answer." "Do you dare to say you love me?" "Yes--though there is no other man alive who would dare so much, who would dare to love such a woman as you are--for very shame." "And I tell you," answered Corona in ringing tones, "that, although I can prove to you that every word you say against me is an abominable calumny, so that you shall see how basely you have insulted an innocent woman, yet I shall never love you again--never, never. A man who can believe such things, who can speak such things, is worthy of no woman's love and shall not have mine. And yet you shall hear me tell the truth, that you may know what you have done. You say I have wrecked your life and destroyed your happiness. You have done it for yourself. As there is a God in Heaven--" "Do not blaspheme," said Giovanni, contemptuously. "I will hear your story." "Before God, this thing is a lie!" cried Corona, standing at her full height, her eyes flashing with just indignation. Then lowering her voice, she continued speaking rapidly but distinctly. "Gouache loves Faustina, and she loves him. When he left this house that night she followed him out into the street. She reached the Serristori barracks and was stunned by the explosion. Gouache found her there many hours later. When you saw us together a little earlier he was telling me he loved her. He is a man of honour. He saw that the only way to save her good name was to bring her here and let me take her home. He sent me a word by the porter, while she waited in the shadow. I ran down and found her there. We purposely prevented the porter from seeing her. I took her to her father's house, and sent Gouache away, for I was angry with him. I believed he had led an innocent girl into following him--that it was a pre-arranged meeting and that she had gone not realising that there was a revolution. I invented the story of her having lost herself here, in order to shield her. The next day Gouache came. I would not speak to him and went to my room. The servants told me he was gone, but as I was coming back to you I met him. He stopped me and made me believe what is quite true, for Faustina has acknowledged it. She followed him of her own accord, and he had no idea that she was not safe at home. I forgave him. He said he was going to the frontier and asked me to give him a blessing. It was a foolish idea, perhaps, but I did as he wished. If you had come forward like a man instead of listening we would have told you all. But you suspected me even then. I do not know who told you that I had been to his lodging to-day. The carriage was stopped by a crowd in the Tritone, and I reached the Pincio after you had gone. As for the pin, I lost it a month ago. Gouache may have found it, or it may have been picked up and sold, and he may have chanced to buy it. I never wrote the letter. The paper was either taken from this house or was got from the stationer who stamps it for us. Faustina may have taken it--she may have been here when I was out--it is not her handwriting. I believe it is an abominable plot. But it is as transparent as water. Take the pin and wear it. See Gouache when you have it. He will ask you where you got it, for he has not the slightest idea that it is mine. Are you satisfied? I have told you all. Do you see what you have done, in suspecting me, in accusing me, in treating me like the last of women? I have done. What have you to say?" "That you have told a very improbable story," replied Giovanni. "You have sunk lower than before, for you have cast a slur upon an innocent girl in order to shield yourself. I would not have believed you capable of that. You can no more prove your innocence than you can prove that this poor child was mad enough to follow Gouache into the street last Tuesday night. I have listened to you patiently. I have but one thing more to do and then there will be nothing left for me but patience. You will send for your servants, and order your effects to be packed for the journey to Saracinesca. If it suits your convenience we will start at eleven o'clock, as I shall be occupied until then. I advise you not to see my father." Corona stood quite still while he spoke. She could not realise that he paid no attention whatever to her story, save to despise her the more for having implicated Faustina. It was inconceivable to her that all the circumstances should not now be as clear to him as they were to herself. From the state of absolute innocence she could not transfer herself in a moment to the comprehension of all he had suffered, all he had thought, and all he had recalled before accusing her. Even had that been possible, her story seemed to her to give a perfectly satisfactory explanation of all his suspicions. She was wounded, indeed, so deeply that she knew she could never recover herself entirely, but it did not strike her as possible that all she had said should produce no effect at all. And yet she knew his look and his ways, and recognised in the tone of his voice the expression of a determination which it would be hard indeed to change. He still believed her guilty, and he was going to take her away to the dismal loneliness of the mountains for an indefinite time, perhaps for ever. She had not a relation in the world to whom she could appeal. Her mother had died in her infancy; her father, for whom she sacrificed herself in marrying the rich old Duke of Astrardente, was dead long ago. She could turn to no one, unless it were to Prince Saracinesca himself--and Giovanni warned her not to go to his father. She stood for some moments looking fixedly at him as though trying to read his thoughts, and he returned her gaze with unflinching sternness. The position was desperate. In a few hours she would be where there would be no possibility of defence or argument, and she knew the man's character well enough to be sure that where proof failed entreaty would be worse than useless. At last she came near to him and almost gently laid her hand upon his arm. "Giovanni," she said, quietly, "I have loved you very tenderly and very truly. I swear to you upon our child that I am wholly innocent. Will you not believe me?" "No," he answered, and the little word fell from his lips like the blow of a steel hammer. His eyes did not flinch; his features did not change. "Will you not ask some one who knows whether I have not spoken the truth? Will you not let me write--or write yourself to those two, and ask them to come here and tell you their story? It is much to ask of them, but it is life or death to me and they will not refuse. Will you not do it?" "No, I will not." "Then do what you will with me, and may God forgive you, for I cannot." Corona turned from him and crossed the room. There was a cushioned stool there, over which hung a beautiful crucifix. Corona knelt down, as though not heeding her husband's presence, and buried her face in her hands. Giovanni stood motionless in the middle of the room. His eyes had followed his wife's movements and he watched her in silence for a short time. Convinced, as he was, of her guilt, he believed she was acting a part, and that her kneeling down was merely intended to produce a theatrical effect. The accent of truth in her words made no impression whatever upon him, and her actions seemed to him too graceful to be natural, too dignified for a woman who was not trying all the time to make the best of her appearance. The story she had told coincided too precisely, if possible, with the doings of which he had accused her, while it failed in his judgment to explain the motives of what she had done. He said to himself that he, in her place, would have told everything on that first occasion when she had come home and had found him waiting for her. He forgot, or did not realise, that she had been taken unawares, when she expected to find time to consider her course, and had been forced to make up her mind suddenly. Almost any other woman would have told the whole adventure at once; any woman less wholly innocent of harm would have seen the risk she incurred by asking her husband's indulgence for her silence. He was persuaded that she had played upon his confidence in her and had reckoned upon his belief in her sincerity in order to be bold with half the truth. Suspicion and jealousy had made him so ingenious that he imputed to her a tortuous policy of deception, of which she was altogether incapable. Corona did not kneel long. She had no intention of making use of the appearance of prayer in order to affect Giovanni's decision, nor in order to induce him to leave her alone. He would, indeed, have quitted the room had she remained upon her knees a few moments longer, but when she rose and faced him once more he was still standing as she had left him, his eyes fixed upon her and his arms folded upon his breast. He thought she was going to renew her defence, but he was mistaken. She came and stood before him, so that a little distance separated him from her, and she spoke calmly, in her deep, musical voice. "You have made up your mind, then. Is that your last word?" "It is." "Then I will say what I have to say. It shall not be much, but we shall not often talk together in future. You will remember some day what I tell you. I am an innocent and defenceless woman. I have no relation to whom I can appeal. You have forbidden me to write to those who could prove me guiltless. For the sake of our child--for the sake of the love I have borne you--I will make no attempt at resistance. The world shall not know that you have even doubted me, the mother of your son, the woman who has loved you. The time will come when you will ask my forgiveness for your deeds. I tell you frankly that I shall never be capable of forgiving you, nor of speaking a kind word to you again. This is neither a threat nor a warning, though it may perhaps be the means of sparing you some disappointment. I only ask two things of your courtesy--that you will inform me of what you mean to do with our child, and that you will then be good enough to leave me alone for a little while." An evil thought crossed Giovanni's mind. He knew how Corona would suffer if she were not allowed either to see little Orsino or to know what became of him while she was living her solitary life of confinement in the mountains. The diabolical cruelty of the idea fascinated him for a moment, and he looked coldly into her eyes as though he did not mean to answer her. In spite of his new jealousy, however, he was not capable of inflicting this last blow. As he looked at her beautiful white face and serious eyes, he wavered. He loved her still and would have loved her, had the proofs against her been tenfold more convincing than they were. With him his love was a passion apart and by itself. It had been strengthened and made beautiful by the devotion and tenderness and faith which had grown up with it, and had surrounded it as with a wall. But though all these things were swept away the passion itself remained, fierce, indomitable and soul-stirring in its power. It stood alone, like the impregnable keep of a war-worn fortress, beneath whose shadow the outworks and ramparts have been razed to the ground, and whose own lofty walls are battered and dinted by engines of war, shorn of all beauty and of all its stately surroundings, but stern and unshaken yet, grim, massive and solitary. For an instant Giovanni wavered, unable to struggle against that mysterious power which still governed him and forced him to acknowledge its influence. The effort of resisting the temptation to be abominably cruel carried him back from his main purpose, and produced a sudden revulsion of feeling wholly incomprehensible to himself. "Corona!" he cried, in a voice breaking with emotion. He threw out his arms wildly and sprang towards her. She thrust him back with a strength of which he would not have believed her capable. Bitter words rose to her lips, but she forced them back and was silent, though her eyes blazed with an anger she had never felt before. For some time neither spoke. Corona stood erect and watchful, one hand resting upon the back of a chair. Giovanni walked to the end of the room, and then came back and looked steadily into her face. Several seconds elapsed before he could speak, and his face was very white. "You may keep the child," he said at last, in an unsteady tone. Then without another word he left the room and softly closed the door behind him. When Corona was alone she remained standing as he had last seen her, her gaze fixed on the heavy curtains through which he had disappeared. Gradually her face grew rigid, and the expression vanished from her deep eyes, till they looked dull and glassy. She tottered, lost her hold upon the chair and fell to the floor with an inarticulate groan. There she lay, white, beautiful and motionless as a marble statue, mercifully unconscious, for a space, of all she had to suffer. Giovanni went from his wife's presence to his father's study. The prince sat at his writing-table, a heap of dusty parchments and papers piled before him. He was untying the rotten strings with which they were fastened, peering through his glasses at the headings written across the various documents. He did not unfold them, but laid them carefully in order upon the table. When San Giacinto had gone away, the old gentleman had nothing to do for an hour or more before dinner. He had accordingly opened a solid old closet in the library which served as a sort of muniment room for the family archives, and had withdrawn a certain box in which he knew that the deeds concerning the cession of title were to be found. He did not intend to look them over this evening, but was merely arranging them for examination on the morrow. He looked up as Giovanni entered, and started from his chair when he saw his son's face. "Good heavens! Giovannino! what has happened?" he cried, in great anxiety. "I came to tell you that Corona and I are going to Saracinesca to-morrow," answered Sant' Ilario, in a low voice. "What? At this time of year? Besides, you cannot get there. The road is full of Garibaldians and soldiers. It is not safe to leave the city! Are you ill? What is the matter?" "Oh--nothing especial," replied Giovanni with an attempt to assume an indifferent tone "We think the mountain air will be good for my wife, that is all. I do not think we shall really have much difficulty in getting there. Half of this war is mere talk." "And the other half consists largely of stray bullets," observed the prince, eyeing his son suspiciously from under his shaggy brows. "You will allow me to say, Giovanni, that for thoughtless folly you have rarely had your equal in the world." "I believe you are right," returned the younger man bitterly. "Nevertheless I mean to undertake this journey." "And does Corona consent to it? Why are you so pale? I believe you are ill?" "Yes--she consents. We shall take the child." "Orsino? You are certainly out of your mind. It is bad enough to take a delicate woman--" "Corona is far from delicate. She is very strong and able to bear anything." "Don't interrupt me. I tell you she is a woman, and so of course she must be delicate. Can you not understand common sense? As for the boy, he is my grandson, and if you are not old enough to know how to take care of him, I am. He shall not go. I will not permit it. You are talking nonsense. Go and dress for dinner, or send for the doctor--in short, behave like a human being! I will go and see Corona myself." The old gentleman's hasty temper was already up, and he strode to the door. Giovanni laid his hand somewhat heavily upon his father's arm. "Excuse me," he said, "Corona cannot see you now. She is dressing." "I will talk to her through the door. I will wait in her boudoir till she can see me." "I do not think she will see you this evening. She will be busy in getting ready for the journey." "She will dine with us, I suppose?" "I scarcely know--I am not sure." Old Saracinesca suddenly turned upon his son. His gray hair bristled on his head, and his black eyes flashed. With a quick movement he seized Giovanni's arms and held him before him as in a vice. "Look here!" he cried savagely. "I will not be made a fool of by a boy. Something has happened which you are afraid to tell me. Answer me. I mean to know!" "You will not know from me," replied Sant' Ilario, keeping his temper as he generally did in the face of a struggle. "You will know nothing, because there is nothing to know." Saracinesca laughed. "Then there can be no possible objection to my seeing Corona," he said, dropping his hold and again going towards the door. Once more Giovanni stopped him. "You cannot see her now," he said in determined tones. "Then tell me what all this trouble is about," retorted his father. But Giovanni did not speak. Had he been cooler he would not have sought the interview so soon, but he had forgotten that the old prince would certainly want to know the reason of the sudden journey. "Do you mean to tell me or not?" "The fact is," replied Giovanni desperately, "we have consulted the doctor--Corona is not really well--he advises us to go to the mountains--" "Giovanni," broke in the old man roughly, "you never lied to me, but you are lying now. There has been trouble between you two, though I cannot imagine what has caused it." "Pray do not ask me, then. I am doing what I think best--what you would think best if you knew all. I came to tell you that we were going, and I did not suppose you would have anything to say. Since you do not like the idea--well, I am sorry--but I entreat you not to ask questions. Let us go in peace." Saracinesca looked fixedly at his son for some minutes. Then the anger faded from his face, and his expression grew very grave. He loved Giovanni exceedingly, and he loved Corona for his sake more than for her own, though he admired her and delighted in her conversation. It was certain that if there were a quarrel between husband and wife, and if Giovanni had the smallest show of right on his side, the old man's sympathies would be with him. Giovanni's sense of honour, on the other hand, prevented him from telling his father what had happened. He did not choose that even his nearest relation should think of Corona as he thought himself, and he would have taken any step to conceal her guilt. Unfortunately for his purpose he was a very truthful man, and had no experience of lying, so that his father detected him at once. Moreover, his pale face and agitated manner told plainly enough that something very serious had occurred, and so soon as the old prince had convinced himself of this his goodwill was enlisted on the side of his son. "Giovannino," he said at last very gently, "I do not want to pry into your secrets nor to ask you questions which you do not care to answer. I do not believe you are capable of having committed any serious folly which your wife could really resent. If you should be unfaithful to her, I would disown you. If, on the other hand, she has deceived you, I will do all in my power to help you." Perhaps Giovanni's face betrayed something of the truth at these words. He turned away and leaned against the chimney-piece. "I cannot tell you--I cannot tell you," he repeated. "I think I am doing what is best. That is all I can say. You may know some day, though I trust not. Let us go away without explanations." "My dear boy," replied the old man, coming up to him and laying his hand on his shoulder, "you must do as you think best. Go to Saracinesca if you will, and if you can. If not, go somewhere else. Take heart. Things are not always as black as they look." Giovanni straightened himself as though by an effort, and grasped his father's broad, brown hand. "Thank you," he said. "Good-bye. I will come down and see you in a few days. Good-bye!" His voice trembled and he hurriedly left the room. The prince stood still a moment and then threw himself into a deep chair, staring at the lamp and biting his gray moustache savagely, as though to hide some almost uncontrollable emotion. There was a slight moisture in his eyes as they looked steadily at the bright lamp. The papers and parchments lay unheeded on the table, and he did not touch them again that night. He was thinking, not of his lonely old age nor of the dishonour brought upon his house, but of the boy he had loved as his own soul for more than thirty years, and of a swarthy little child that lay asleep in a distant room, the warm blood tinging its olive cheeks and its little clinched hands thrown back above its head. For Corona he had no thought but hatred. He had guessed Giovanni's secret too well, and his heart was hardened against the woman who had brought shame and suffering upon his son. CHAPTER XI. San Giacinto had signally failed in his attempt to prevent the meeting between Gouache and Faustina Montevarchi, and had unintentionally caused trouble of a much more serious nature in another quarter. The Zouave returned to his lodging late at night, and of course found no note upon his dressing-table. He did not miss the pin, for he of course never wore it, and attached no particular value to a thing of such small worth which he had picked up in the street and which consequently had no associations for him. He lacked the sense of order in his belongings, and the pin had lain neglected for weeks among a heap of useless little trifles, dingy cotillon favours that had been there since the previous year, stray copper coins, broken pencils, uniform buttons and such trash, accumulated during many months and totally unheeded. Had he seen the pin anywhere else he would have recognised it, but he did not notice its absence. The old woman, Caterina Ranucci, hugged her money and said nothing about either of the visitors who had entered the room during the afternoon. The consequence was that Gouache rose early on the following morning and went towards the church with a light heart. He did not know certainly that Faustina would come there, and indeed there were many probabilities against her doing so, but in the hopefulness of a man thoroughly in love, Gouache looked forward to seeing her with as much assurance as though the matter had been arranged and settled between them. The parish church of Sant' Agostino is a very large building. The masses succeed each other in rapid succession from seven o'clock in the morning until midday, and a great crowd of parishioners pass in and out in an almost constant stream. It was therefore Gouache's intention to arrive so early as to be sure that Faustina had not yet come, and he trusted to luck to be there at the right time, for he was obliged to visit the temporary barrack of his corps before going to the church, and was also obliged to attend mass at a later hour with his battalion. On presenting himself at quarters he learned to his surprise that Monte Rotondo had not surrendered yet, though news of the catastrophe was expected every moment. The Zouaves were ordered to remain under arms all day in case of emergency, and it was only through the friendly assistance of one of his officers that Anastase obtained leave to absent himself for a couple of hours. He hailed a cab and drove to the church as fast as he could. In less than twenty minutes after he had stationed himself at the entrance, Faustina ascended the steps accompanied by a servant. The latter was a middle-aged woman with hard features, clad in black, and wearing a handkerchief thrown loosely over her head after the manner of maids in those days. She evidently expected nothing, for she looked straight before her, peering into the church in order to see beforehand at which chapel there was likely to be a mass immediately. Faustina was a lovely figure in the midst of the crowd of common people who thronged the doorway, and whose coarse dark faces threw her ethereal features into strong relief while she advanced. Gouache felt his heart beat hard, for he had not seen her for five days since they had parted on that memorable Tuesday night at the gate of her father's house. Her eyes met his in a long and loving look, and the colour rose faintly in her delicate pale cheek. In the press she managed to pass close to him, and for a moment he succeeded in clasping her small hand in his, her maid being on the other side. He was about to ask a question when she whispered a few words and passed on. "Follow me through the crowd, I will manage it," was what she said. Gouache obeyed, and kept close behind her. The church was very full and there was difficulty in getting seats. "I will wait here," said the young girl to her servant. "Get us chairs and find out where there is to be a mass. It is of no use for me to go through the crowd if I may have to come back again." The hard-featured woman nodded and went away. Several minutes must elapse before she returned, and Faustina with Gouache behind her moved across the stream of persons who were going out through the door in the other aisle. In a moment they found themselves in a comparatively quiet corner, separated from the main body of the church by the moving people. Faustina fixed her eyes in the direction whence her woman would probably return, ready to enter the throng instantly, if necessary. Even where they now were, so many others were standing and kneeling that the presence of the Zouave beside Faustina would create no surprise. "It is very wrong to meet you in church," said the girl, a little shy, at first, with that timidity a woman always feels on meeting a man whom she has last seen on unexpectedly intimate terms. "I could not go away without seeing you," replied Gouache, his eyes intent on her face. "And I knew you would understand my signs, though no one else would. You have made me very happy, Faustina. It would have been agony to march away without seeing your face again--you do not know what these days have been without you! Do you realise that we used to meet almost every afternoon? Did they tell you why I could not come? I told every one I met, in hopes you might hear. Did you? Do you understand?" Faustina nodded her graceful head, and glanced quickly at his face. Then she looked down, tapping the pavement gently with her parasol. The colour came and went in her cheeks. "Do you really love me?" she asked in a low voice. "I think, my darling, that no one ever loved as I love. I would that I might be given time to tell you what my love is, and that you might have patience to hear. What are words, unless one can say all one would? What is it, if I tell you that I love you with all my heart, and soul and thoughts? Do not other men say as much and forget that they have spoken? I would find a way of saying it that should make you believe in spite of yourself--" "In spite of myself?" interrupted Faustina, with a bright smile while her brown eyes rested lovingly on his for an instant. "You need not that," she added simply, "for I love you, too." Nothing but the sanctity of the place prevented Anastase from taking her in his arms then and there. There was something so exquisite in her simplicity and earnestness that he found himself speechless before her for a moment. It was something that intoxicated his spirit more than his senses, for it was utterly new to him and appealed to his own loyal and innocent nature as it could not have appealed to a baser man. "Ah Faustina!" he said at last, "God made you when he made the violets, on a spring morning in Paradise!" Faustina blushed again, faintly as the sea at dawn. "Must you go away?" she asked. "You would not have me desert at such a moment?" "Would it be deserting--quite? Would it be dishonourable?" "It would be cowardly. I should never dare to look you in the face again." "I suppose it would be wrong," she answered with a bitter little sigh. "I will come back very soon, dearest. The time will be short." "So long--so long! How can you say it will be short? If you do not come soon you will find me dead--I cannot bear it many days more." "I will write to you." "How can you write? Your letters would be seen. Oh no! It is impossible!" "I will write to your friend--to the Princess Sant' Ilario. She will give you the letters. She is safe, is she not?" "Oh, how happy I shall be! It will be almost like seeing you--no, not that! But so much better than nothing. But you do not go at once?" "It may be to-day, to-morrow, at any time. But you shall know of it. Ah Faustina! my own one--" "Hush! There is my maid. Quick, behind the pillar. I will meet her. Good-bye--good-bye--Oh! not good-bye--some other word--" "God keep you, my beloved, and make it not 'good-bye'!" With one furtive touch of the hand, one long last look, they separated, Faustina to mingle in the crowd, Gouache to follow at a long distance until he saw her kneeling at her chair before one of the side altars of the church. Then he stationed himself where he could see her, and watched through the half hour during which the low mass lasted. He did not know when he should see her again, and indeed it was as likely as not that they should not meet on this side of eternity. Many a gallant young fellow marched out in those days and was picked off by a bullet from a red-shirted volunteer. Gouache, indeed, did not believe that his life was to be cut short so suddenly, and built castles in the air with that careless delight in the future which a man feels who is not at all afraid. But such accidents happened often, and though he might be more lucky than another, it was just as possible that an ounce of lead should put an end to his soldiering, his painting and his courtship within another week. The mere thought was so horrible that his bright nature refused to harbour it, and he gazed on Faustina Montevarchi as she knelt at her devotions, wondering, indeed, what strange chances fate had in store for them both, but never once doubting that she should one day be his. He waited until she passed him in the crowd, and gave him one more look before going away. Then, when he had seen her disappear at the turning of the street, he sprang into his cab and was driven back to the barracks where he must remain on duty all day. As he descended he was surprised to see Sant' Ilario standing upon the pavement, very pale, and apparently in a bad humour, his overcoat buttoned to his throat, and his hands thrust in the pockets. There was no one in the street, but the sentinel at the doorway, and Giovanni walked quickly up to Gouache as the latter fumbled for the change to pay his driver. Anastase smiled and made a short military salute. Sant' Ilario bowed stiffly and did not extend his hand. "I tried to find you last night," he said coldly. "You were out. Will you favour me with five minutes' conversation?" "Willingly," answered the other, looking instinctively at his watch, to be sure that he had time to spare. Sant' Ilario walked a few yards up the street, before speaking, Gouache keeping close to his side. Then both stopped, and Giovanni turned sharply round and faced his enemy. "It is unnecessary to enter into any explanations, Monsieur Gouache," he said. "This is a matter which can only end in one way. I presume you will see the propriety of inventing a pretext which may explain our meeting before the world." Gouache stared at Sant' Ilario in the utmost amazement. When they had last met they had parted on the most friendly terms. He did not understand a word of what his companion was saying. "Excuse me, prince," he said at length. "I have not the least idea what you mean. As far as I am concerned this meeting is quite accidental. I came here on duty." Sant' Ilario was somewhat taken aback by the Zouave's polite astonishment. He seemed even more angry than surprised, however; and his black eyebrows bent together fiercely. "Let us waste no words," he said imperiously. "If I had found you last night, the affair might have been over by this time." "What affair?" asked Gouache, more and more mystified. "You are amazingly slow of comprehension, Monsieur Gouache," observed Giovanni. "To be plain, I desire to have an opportunity of killing you. Do you understand me now?" "Perfectly," returned the soldier, raising his brows, and then breaking into a laugh of genuine amusement. "You are quite welcome to as many opportunities as you like, though I confess it would interest me to know the reason of your good intentions towards me." If Gouache had behaved as Giovanni had expected he would, the latter would have repeated his request that a pretext should be found which should explain the duel to the world. But there was such extraordinary assurance in the Zouave's manner that Sant' Ilario suddenly became exasperated with him and lost his temper, a misfortune which very rarely happened to him. "Monsieur Gouache," he said angrily, "I took the liberty of visiting your lodgings yesterday afternoon, and I found this letter, fastened with this pin upon your table. I presume you will not think any further explanation necessary." Gouache stared at the objects which Sant' Ilario held out to him and drew back stiffly. It was his turn to be outraged at the insult. "Sir," he said, "I understand that you acted in the most impertinent manner in entering my room and taking what did not belong to you. I understand nothing else. I found that pin on the Ponte Sant' Angelo a month ago, and it was, I believe, upon my table yesterday. As for the letter I know nothing about it. Yes, if you insist, I will read it." There was a pause during which Gouache ran his eyes over the few lines written on the notepaper, while Giovanni watched him very pale and wrathful. "The pin is my wife's, and the note is written on her paper and addressed to you, though in a feigned hand. Do you deny that both came from her, were brought by her in person, for yourself?" "I deny it utterly and categorically," answered Gouache. "Though I will assuredly demand satisfaction of you for entering my rooms without my permission, I give you my word of honour that I could receive no such letter from the princess, your wife. The thing is monstrously iniquitous, and you have been grossly deceived into injuring the good name of a woman as innocent as an angel. Since the pin is the property of the princess, pray return it to her with my compliments, and say that I found it on the bridge of Sant' Angelo. I can remember the very date. It was a quarter of an hour before I was run over by Prince Montevarchi's carriage. It was therefore on the 23d of September. As for the rest, do me the favour to tell me where my friends can find yours in an hour." "At my house. But allow me to add that I do not believe a word of what you say." "Is it a Roman custom to insult a man who has agreed to fight with you?" inquired Gouache. "We are more polite in France. We salute our adversaries before beginning the combat." Therewith the Zouave saluted Giovanni courteously and turned on his heel, leaving the latter in an even worse humour than he had found him. Gouache was too much surprised at the interview to reason connectedly about the causes which had led to it, and accepted the duel with Sant' Ilario blindly, because he could not avoid it, and because whatever offence he himself had unwittingly given he had in turn been insulted by Giovanni in a way which left him no alternative but that of a resort to arms. His adversary had admitted, had indeed boasted, of having entered Gouache's rooms, and of having taken thence the letter and the pin. This alone constituted an injury for which reparation was necessary, but not content with this, Sant' Ilario had given him the lie direct. Matters were so confused that it was hard to tell which was the injured party; but since the prince had undoubtedly furnished a pretext more than sufficient, the soldier had seized the opportunity of proposing to send his friends to demand satisfaction. It was clear, however, that the duel could not take place at once, since Gouache was under arms, and it was imperatively necessary that he should have permission to risk his life in a private quarrel at such a time. It was also certain that his superiors would not allow anything of the kind at present, and Gouache for his part was glad of the fact. He preferred to be killed before the enemy rather than in a duel for which there was no adequate explanation, except that a man who had been outrageously deceived by a person or persons unknown had chosen to attack him for a thing he had never done. He had not the slightest intention of avoiding the encounter, but he preferred to see some active service in a cause to which he was devoted before being run through the body by one who was his enemy only by mistake. Giovanni's reputation as a swordsman made it probable that the issue would be unfavourable to Gouache, and the latter, with the simple fearlessness that belonged to his character, meant if possible to have a chance of distinguishing himself before being killed. Half an hour later, a couple of officers of Zouaves called upon Sant' Ilario, and found his representatives waiting for them. Giovanni had had the good fortune to find Count Spicca at home. That melancholy gentleman had been his second in an affair with Ugo del Ferice nearly three years earlier and had subsequently killed one of the latter's seconds in consequence of his dishonourable behaviour in the field. He had been absent in consequence until a few weeks before the present time, when matters had been arranged, and he had found himself free to return unmolested. It had been remarked at the club that something would happen before he had been in Rome many days. He was a very tall and cadaverous man, exceedingly prone to take offence, and exceedingly skilful in exacting the precise amount of blood which he considered a fair return for an injury. He had never been known to kill a man by accident, but had rarely failed to take his adversary's life when he had determined to do so. Spicca had brought another friend, whom it is unnecessary to describe. The interview was short and conclusive. The two officers had instructions to demand a serious duel, and Spicca and his companion had been told to make the conditions even more dangerous if they could do so. On the other hand, the officers explained that as Rome was in a state of siege, and Garibaldi almost at the gates, the encounter could not take place until the crisis was past. They undertook to appear for Gouache in case he chanced to be shot in an engagement. Spicca, who did not know the real cause of the duel, and was indeed somewhat surprised to learn that Giovanni had quarrelled with a Zouave, made no attempt to force an immediate meeting, but begged leave to retire and consult with his principal, an informality which was of course agreed to by the other side. In five minutes he returned, stating that he accepted the provisions proposed, and that he should expect twenty-four hours' notice when Gouache should be ready. The four gentlemen drew up the necessary "protocol," and parted on friendly terms after a few minutes' conversation, in which various proposals were made in regard to the ground. Spicca alone remained behind, and he immediately went to Giovanni, carrying a copy of the protocol, on which the ink was still wet. "Here it is," he said sadly, as he entered the room, holding up the paper in his hand. "These revolutions are very annoying! There is no end to the inconvenience they cause." "I suppose it could not be helped," answered Giovanni, gloomily. "No. I believe I have not the reputation of wasting time in these matters. You must try and amuse yourself as best you can until the day comes. It is a pity you have not some other affair in the meanwhile, just to make the time pass pleasantly. It would keep your hand in, too. But then you have the pleasures of anticipation." Giovanni laughed hoarsely, Spicca took a foil from the wall and played with it, looking along the thin blade, then setting the point on the carpet and bending the weapon to see whether it would spring back properly. Giovanni's eyes followed his movements, watching the slender steel, and then glancing at Spicca's long arms, his nervous fingers and peculiar grip. "How do you manage to kill your man whenever you choose?" asked Sant' Ilario, half idly, half in curiosity. "It is perfectly simple, at least with foils," replied the other, making passes in the air. "Now, if you will take a foil, I will promise to run you through any part of your body within three minutes. You may make a chalked mark on the precise spot. If I miss by a hair's-breadth I will let you lunge at me without guarding." "Thank you," said Giovanni; "I do not care to be run through this morning, but I confess I would like to know how you do it. Could not you touch the spot without thrusting home?" "Certainly, if you do not mind a scratch on the shoulder or the arm. I will try and not draw blood. Come on--so--in guard--wait a minute! Where will you be hit? That is rather important." Giovanni, who was in a desperate humour and cared little what he did, rather relished the idea of a bout which savoured of reality. There was a billiard-table in the adjoining room, and he fetched a piece of chalk at once. "Here," said he, making a small white spot upon his coat on the outside of his right shoulder. "Very well," observed Spicca. "Now, do not rush in or I may hurt you." "Am I to thrust, too?" asked Giovanni. "If you like. You cannot touch me if you do." "We shall see," answered Sant' Ilario, nettled at Spicca's poor opinion of his skill. "In guard!" They fell into position and began play. Giovanni immediately tried his special method of disarming his adversary, which he had scarcely ever known to fail. He forgot, however, that Spicca had seen him practise this piece of strategy with success upon Del Ferice. The melancholy duellist had spent weeks in studying the trick, and had completely mastered it. To Giovanni's surprise the Count's hand turned as easily as a ball in a socket, avoiding the pressure, while his point scarcely deviated from the straight line. Giovanni, angry at his failure, made a quick feint and a thrust, lunging to his full reach. Spicca parried as easily and carelessly as though the prince had been a mere beginner, and allowed the latter to recover himself before he replied. A full two seconds after Sant' Ilario had resumed his guard, Spicca's foil ran over his with a speed that defied parrying, and he felt a short sharp prick in his right shoulder. Spicca sprang back and lowered his weapon. "I think that is the spot," he said coolly, and then came forward and examined Giovanni's coat. The point had penetrated the chalked mark in the centre, inflicting a wound not more than a quarter of an inch deep in the muscle of the shoulder. "Observe," he continued, "that it was a simple tierce, without a feint or any trick whatever." On realising his absolute inferiority to such a master of the art, Giovanni broke into a hearty laugh at his own discomfiture. So long as he had supposed that some sort of equality existed between them he had been angry at being outdone; but when he saw with what ease Spicca had accomplished his purpose, his admiration for the skill displayed made him forget his annoyance. "How in the world did you do it?" he said. "I thought I could parry a simple tierce, even though I might not be a match for you!" "Many people have thought the same, my friend. There are two or three elements in my process, one of which is my long reach. Another is the knack of thrusting very quickly, which is partly natural, and partly the result of practice. My trick consists in the way I hold my foil. Look here. I do not grasp the hilt with all my fingers as you do. The whole art of fencing lies in the use of the thumb and forefinger. I lay my forefinger straight in the direction of the blade. Of course I cannot do it with a basket or a bell hilt, but no one ever objects to common foils. It is dangerous--yes--I might hurt my finger, but then, I am too quick. You ask the advantage? It is very simple. You and I and every one are accustomed from childhood to point with the forefinger at things we see. The accuracy with which we point is much more surprising than you imagine. We instinctively aim the forefinger at the object to a hair's-breadth of exactness. I only make my point follow my forefinger. The important thing, then, is to grasp the hilt very firmly, and yet leave the wrist limber. I shoot in the same way with a revolver, and pull the trigger with my middle finger. I scarcely ever miss. You might amuse yourself by trying these things while you are waiting for Gouache. They will make the time pass pleasantly." Spicca, whose main pleasure in life was in the use of weapons, could not conceive of any more thoroughly delightful occupation. "I will try it," said Giovanni, rubbing his shoulder a little, for the scratch irritated him. "It is very interesting. I hope that fellow will not go and have himself killed by the Garibaldians before I get a chance at him." "You are absolutely determined to kill him, then?" Spicca's voice, which had grown animated during his exposition of his method, now sank again to its habitually melancholy tone. Giovanni only shrugged his shoulders at the question, as though any answer were needless. He hung the foil he had used in its place on the wall, and began to smoke. "You will not have another bout?" inquired the Count, putting away his weapon also, and taking his hat to go. "Thanks--not to-day. We shall meet soon, I hope. I am very grateful for your good offices, Spicca. I would ask you to stay to breakfast, but I do not want my father to know of this affair. He would suspect something if he saw you here." "Yes," returned the other quietly, "people generally do. I am rather like a public executioner in that respect. My visits often precede a catastrophe. What would you have? I am a lonely man." "You, who have so many friends!" exclaimed Giovanni. "Bah! It is time to be off," said Spicca, and shaking his friend's hand hastily he left the room. Giovanni stood for several minutes after he had gone, wondering with a vague curiosity what this man's history had been, as many had wondered before. There was a fatal savour of death about Spicca which everybody felt who came near him. He was dreaded, as one of the worst-tempered men and one of the most remarkable swordsmen in Europe. He was always consulted in affairs of honour, and his intimate acquaintance with the code, his austere integrity, and his vast experience, made him invaluable in such matters. But he was not known to have any intimate friends among men or women. He neither gambled nor made love to other men's wives, nor did any of those things which too easily lead to encounters of arms; and yet, in his cold and melancholy way he was constantly quarrelling and fighting and killing his man, till it was a wonder that the police would tolerate him in any European capital. It was rumoured that he had a strange history, and that his life had been embittered in his early youth by some tragic circumstance, but no one could say what that occurrence had been nor where it had taken place. He felt an odd sympathy for Giovanni, and his reference to his loneliness in his parting speech was unique, and set his friend to wondering about him. Giovanni's mind was now as much at rest as was possible, under conditions which obliged him to postpone his vengeance for an indefinite period. He had passed a sleepless night after his efforts to find Gouache and had risen early in the morning to be sure of catching him. He had not seen his father since their interview of the previous evening, and had hoped not to see him again till the moment of leaving for Saracinesca. The old man had understood him, and that was all that was necessary for the present. He suspected that his father would not seek an interview any more than he did himself. But an obstacle had presented itself in the way of his departure which he had not expected, and which irritated him beyond measure. Corona was ill. He did not know whether her ailment were serious or not, but it was evident that he could not force her to leave her bed and accompany him to the country, so long as the doctor declared that she could not be moved. When Spicca was gone, he did not know what to do with himself. He would not go and see his wife, for any meeting must be most unpleasant. He had nerved himself to conduct her to the mountains, and had expected that the long drive would be passed in a disagreeable silence. So long as Corona was well and strong, he could have succeeded well enough in treating her as he believed that she deserved. Now that she was ill, he felt how impossible it would be for him to take good care of her without seeming to relent, even if he did not relent in earnest; and on the other hand his really noble nature would have prevented him from being harsh in his manner to her while she was suffering. Until he had been convinced that a duel with Gouache was for the present impossible, his anger had supported him, and had made the time pass quickly throughout the sleepless night and through the events of the morning. Now that he was alone, with nothing to do but to meditate upon the situation, his savage humour forsook him and the magnitude of his misfortune oppressed him and nearly drove him mad. He went over the whole train of evidence again and again, and as often as he reviewed what had occurred, his conviction grew deeper and stronger, and he acknowledged that he had been deceived as man was never deceived before. He realised the boundless faith he had given to this woman who had betrayed him; he recollected the many proofs she had given him of her love; he drew upon the store of his past happiness and tortured himself with visions of what could never be again; he called up in fancy Corona's face when he had led her to the altar and the very look in her eyes was again upon him; he remembered that day more than two years ago when, upon the highest tower of Saracinesca, he had asked her to be his wife, and he knew not whether he desired to burn the memory of that first embrace from his heart, or to dwell upon the sweet recollection of that moment and suffer the wound of to-day to rankle more hotly by the horror of the comparison. When he thought of what she had been, it seemed impossible that she could have fallen; when he saw what she had become he could not believe that she had ever been innocent. A baser man than Giovanni would have suffered more in his personal vanity, seeing that his idol had been degraded for a mere soldier of fortune--or for a clever artist--whichever Gouache called himself, and such a husband would have forgiven her more easily had she forsaken him for one of his own standing and rank. But Giovanni was far above and beyond the thought of comparing his enemy with himself. He was wounded in what he had held most sacred, which was his heart, and in what had grown to be the mainspring of his existence, his trust in the woman he loved. Those who readily believe are little troubled if one of their many little faiths be shaken; but men who believe in a few things, with the whole strength of their being, are hurt mortally when that on which they build their loyalty is shattered and overturned. Giovanni was a just man, and was rarely carried away by appearances; least of all could he have shown any such weakness when the yielding to it involved the destruction of all that he cared for in life. But the evidence was overwhelming, and no man could be blamed for accepting it. There was no link wanting in the chain, and the denials made by Corona and Anastase could not have influenced any man in his senses. What could a woman do but deny all? What was there for Gouache but to swear that the accusation was untrue? Would not any other man or woman have done as much? There was no denying it. The only person who remained unquestioned was Faustina Montevarchi. Either she was the innocent girl she appeared to be or not. If she were, how could Giovanni explain to her that she had been duped, and made an instrument in the hands of Gouache and Corona? She would not know what he meant. Even if she admitted that she loved Gouache, was it not clear that he had deceived her too, for the sake of making an accomplice of one who was constantly with Corona? Her love for the soldier could not explain the things that had passed between Anastase and Giovanni's wife, which Giovanni had seen with his own eyes. It could not account for the whisperings, the furtive meeting and tender words of which he had been a witness in his own house. It could not do away with the letter and the pin. But if Faustina were not innocent of assisting the two, she would deny everything, even as they had done. As he thought of all these matters and followed the cruelly logical train of reasoning forced upon him by the facts, a great darkness descended upon Giovanni's heart, and he knew that his happiness was gone from him for ever. Henceforth nothing remained but to watch his wife jealously, and suffer his ills with the best heart he could. The very fact that he loved her still, with a passion that defied all things, added a terrible bitterness to what he had to bear, for it made him despise himself as none would have dared to despise him. CHAPTER XII. As Giovanni sat in solitude in his room he was not aware that his father had received a visit from no less a personage than Prince Montevarchi. The latter found Saracinesca very much preoccupied, and in no mood for conversation, and consequently did not stay very long. When he went away, however, he carried under his arm a bundle of deeds and documents which he had long desired to see and in the perusal of which he promised himself to spend a very interesting day. He had come with the avowed object of getting them, and he neither anticipated nor met with any difficulty in obtaining what he wanted. He spoke of his daughter's approaching marriage with San Giacinto, and after expressing his satisfaction at the alliance with the Saracinesca, remarked that his son-in-law had told him the story of the ancient deed, and begged permission to see it for himself. The request was natural, and Saracinesca was not suspicious at any time; at present, he was too much occupied with his own most unpleasant reflections to attach any importance to the incident. Montevarchi thought there was something wrong with his friend, but inasmuch as he had received the papers, he asked no questions and presently departed with them, hastening homewards in order to lose no time in satisfying his curiosity. Two hours later he was still sitting in his dismal study with the manuscripts before him. He had ascertained what he wanted to know, namely, that the papers really existed and were drawn up in a legal form. He had hoped to find a rambling agreement, made out principally by the parties concerned, and copied with some improvements by the family notary of the time, for he had made up his mind that if any flaw could be discovered in the deed San Giacinto should become Prince Saracinesca, and should have possession of all the immense wealth that belonged to the family. San Giacinto was the heir in the direct line, and although his great-grand-father had relinquished his birthright in the firm expectation of having no children, the existence of his descendants might greatly modify the provisions of the agreement. Montevarchi's face fell when he had finished deciphering the principal document. The provisions and conditions were short and concise, and were contained upon one large sheet of parchment, signed, witnessed and bearing the official seal and signature which proved that it had been ratified. It was set forth therein that Don Leone Saracinesca, being the eldest son of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, deceased, Prince of Saracinesca, of Sant' Ilario and of Torleone, Duke of Barda, and possessor of many other titles, Grandee of Spain of the first class and Count of the Holy Roman Empire, did of his own free will, by his own motion and will, make over and convey to, and bestow upon, Don Orsino Saracinesca, his younger and only brother, the principalities of Saracinesca--here followed a complete list of the various titles and estates--including the titles, revenues, seigneurial rights, appanages, holdings, powers and sovereignty attached to and belonging to each and every one, to him, the aforesaid Don Orsino Saracinesca and to the heirs of his body in the male line direct for ever. Here there was a stop, and the manuscript began again at the top of the other side of the sheet. The next clause contained the solitary provision to the effect that Don Leone reserved to himself the estate and title of San Giacinto in the kingdom of Naples, which at his death, he having no children, should revert to the aforesaid Don Orsino Saracinesca and his heirs for ever. It was further stated that the agreement was wholly of a friendly character, and that Don Leone bound himself to take no steps whatever to reinstate himself in the titles and possessions which, of his own free will, he relinquished, the said agreement being, in the opinion of both parties, for the advantage of the whole house of Saracinesca. "He bound himself, not his descendants," remarked Montevarchi at last, as he again bent his head over the document and examined the last clause. "And he says 'having no children'--in Latin the words may mean in case he had none, being in the ablative absolute. Having no children, to Orsino and his heirs for ever--but since he had a son, the case is altered. Ay, but that clause in the first part says to Orsino and his heirs for ever, and says nothing about Leone having no children. It is more absolute than the ablative. That is bad." For a long time he pondered over the writing. The remaining documents were merely transfers of the individual estates, in each of which it was briefly stated that the property in question was conveyed in accordance with the conditions of the main deed. There was no difficulty there. The Saracinesca inheritance depended solely on the existence of this one piece of parchment, and of the copy or registration of it in the government offices. Montevarchi glanced at the candle that stood before him in a battered brass candlestick, and his old heart beat a little faster than usual. To burn the sheet of parchment, and then deny on oath that he had ever seen it--it was very simple. Saracinesca would find it hard to prove the existence of the thing. Montevarchi hesitated, and then laughed at himself for his folly. It would be necessary first to ascertain what there was at the Chancery office, otherwise he would be ruining himself for nothing. That was certainly the most important step at present. He pondered over the matter for some time and then rose from his chair. As he stood before the table he glanced once more at the sheet. As though the greater distance made it more clear to his old sight, he noticed that there was a blank space, capable of containing three lines of writing like what was above, while still leaving a reasonable margin at the bottom of the page. As the second clause was the shorter, the scribe had doubtless thought it better to begin afresh on the other side. Montevarchi sat down again, and took a large sheet of paper and a pen. He rapidly copied the first clause to the end, but after the words "in the male line direct for ever" his pen still ran on. The deed then read as follows:-- "... In the male line direct for ever, provided that the aforesaid Don Leone Saracinesca shall have no son born to him in wedlock, in which case, and if such a son be born, this present deed is wholly null, void and ineffectual." Montevarchi did not stop here. He carefully copied the remainder as it stood, to the last word. Then he put away the original and read what he had written very slowly and carefully. With the addition it was perfectly clear that San Giacinto must be considered to be the lawful and only Prince Saracinesca. "How well those few words would look at the bottom of the page!" exclaimed the old man half aloud. He sat still and gloated in imagination over the immense wealth which would thus be brought into his family. "They shall be there--they must be there!" he muttered at last. "Millions! millions! After all it is only common justice. The old reprobate would never have disinherited his son if he had expected to have one." His long thin fingers crooked themselves and scratched the shabby green baize that covered the table, as though heaping together little piles of money, and then hiding them under the palm of his hand. "Even if there is a copy," he said again under his breath, "the little work will look as prettily upon it as on this--if only the sheets are the same size and there is the same space," he added, his face falling again at the disagreeable reflection that the duplicate might differ in some respect from the original. The plan was simple enough in appearance, and provided that the handwriting could be successfully forged, there was no reason why it should not succeed. The man who could do it, if he would, was in the house at that moment, and Montevarchi knew it. Arnoldo Meschini, the shrivelled little secretary and librarian, who had a profound knowledge of the law and spent his days as well as most of his nights in poring over crabbed manuscripts, was the very person for such a piece of work. He understood the smallest variations in handwriting which belonged to different periods, and the minutest details of old-fashioned penmanship were as familiar to him as the common alphabet. But would he do it? Would he undertake the responsibility of a forgery of which the success would produce such tremendous responsibilities, of which the failure would involve such awful disgrace? Montevarchi had reasons of his own for believing that Arnoldo Meschini would do anything he was ordered to do, and would moreover keep the secret faithfully. Indeed, as far as discretion was concerned, he would, in case of exposure, have to bear the penalty. Montevarchi would arrange that. If discovered it would be easy for him to pretend that being unable to read the manuscript he had employed his secretary to do so, and that the latter, in the hope of reward, had gratuitously imposed upon the prince and the courts of law before whom the case would be tried. One thing was necessary. San Giacinto must never see the documents until they were produced as evidence. In the first place it was important that he, who was the person nearest concerned, should be in reality perfectly innocent, and should be himself as much deceived as any one. Nothing impresses judges like real and unaffected innocence. Secondly, if he were consulted, it was impossible to say what view he might take of the matter. Montevarchi suspected him of possessing some of the hereditary boldness of the Saracinesca. He might refuse to be a party in a deception, even though he himself was to benefit by it, a consideration which chilled the old man's blood and determined him at once to confide the secret to no one but Arnoldo Meschini, who was completely in his power. The early history of this remarkable individual was uncertain. He had received an excellent education and it is no exaggeration to call him learned, for he possessed a surprising knowledge of ancient manuscripts and a great experience in everything connected with this branch of archaeology. It was generally believed that he had been bred to enter the church, but he himself never admitted that he had been anything more than a scholar in a religious seminary. He had subsequently studied law and had practised for some time, when he had suddenly abandoned his profession in order to accept the ill-paid post of librarian and secretary to the father of the present Prince Montevarchi. Probably his love of mediaeval lore had got the better of his desire for money, and during the five and twenty years he had spent in the palace he had never been heard to complain of his condition. He lived in a small chamber in the attic and passed his days in the library, winter and summer alike, perpetually poring over the manuscripts and making endless extracts in his odd, old-fashioned handwriting. The result of his labours was never published, and at first sight it would have been hard to account for his enormous industry and for the evident satisfaction he derived from his work. The nature of the man, however, was peculiar, and his occupation was undoubtedly congenial to him, and far more profitable than it appeared to be. Arnoldo Meschini was a forger. He was one of that band of manufacturers of antiquities who have played such a part in the dealings of foreign collectors during the last century, and whose occupation, though slow and laborious, occasionally produces immense profits. He had not given up his calling with the deliberate intention of resorting to this method of earning a subsistence, but had drifted into his evil practices by degrees. In the first instance he had quitted the bar in consequence of having been connected with a scandalous case of extortion and blackmailing, in which he had been suspected of constructing forged documents for his client, though the crime had not been proved against him. His reputation, however, had been ruined, and he had been forced to seek his bread elsewhere. It chanced that the former librarian of the Montevarchi died at that time and that the prince was in search of a learned man ready to give his services for a stipend about equal to the wages of a footman. Meschini presented himself and got the place. The old prince was delighted with him and agreed to forget the aforesaid disgrace he had incurred, in consideration of his exceptional qualities. He set himself systematically to study the contents of the ancient library, with the intention of publishing the contents of the more precious manuscripts, and for two or three years he pursued his object with this laudable purpose, and with the full consent of his employer. One day a foreign newspaper fell into his hands containing an account of a recent sale in which sundry old manuscripts had brought large prices. A new idea crossed his mind, and the prospect of unexpected wealth unfolded itself to his imagination. For several months he studied even more industriously than before, until, having made up his mind, he began to attempt the reproduction of a certain valuable writing dating from the fourteenth century. He worked in his own room during the evening and allowed no one to see what he was doing, for although it was rarely that the old prince honoured the library with a visit, yet Meschini was inclined to run no risks, and proceeded in his task with the utmost secrecy. Nothing could exceed the care he showed in the preparation and use of his materials. One of his few acquaintances was a starving, but clever chemist, who kept a dingy shop in the neighbourhood of the Ponte Quattro Capi. To this poor man he applied in order to obtain a knowledge of the ink used in the old writings. He professed himself anxious to get all possible details on the subject for a work he was preparing upon mediaeval calligraphy, and his friend soon set his mind at rest by informing him that if the ink contained any metallic parts he would easily detect them, but that if it was composed of animal and vegetable matter it would be almost impossible to give a satisfactory analysis. At the end of a few days Meschini was in possession of a recipe for concocting what he wanted, and after numerous experiments, in the course of which he himself acquired great practical knowledge of the subject, he succeeded in producing an ink apparently in all respects similar to that used by the scribe whose work he proposed to copy. He had meanwhile busied himself with the preparation of parchment, which is by no means an easy matter when it is necessary to give it the colour and consistency of very ancient skin. He learned that the ligneous acids contained in the smoke of wood could be easily detected, and it was only through the assistance of the chemist that he finally hit upon the method of staining the sheets with a thin broth of untanned leather, of which the analysis would give a result closely approaching that of the parchment itself. Moreover, he made all sorts of trials of quill pens, until he had found a method of cutting which produced the exact thickness of stroke required, and during the whole time he exercised himself in copying and recopying many pages of the manuscript upon common paper, in order to familiarise himself with the method of forming the letters. It was nearly two years before he felt himself able to begin his first imitation, but the time and study he had expended were not lost, and the result surpassed his expectations. So ingeniously perfect was the facsimile when finished that Meschini himself would have found it hard to swear to the identity of the original if he had not been allowed to see either of the two for some time. The minutest stains were reproduced with scrupulous fidelity. The slightest erasure was copied minutely. He examined every sheet to ascertain exactly how it had been worn by the fingers rubbing on the corners and spent days in turning a page thousands of times, till the oft-repeated touch of his thumb had deepened the colour to the exact tint. When the work was finished he hesitated. It seemed to him very perfect, but he feared lest he should be deceiving himself from having seen the thing daily for so many months. He took his copy one day to a famous collector, and submitted it to him for examination, asking at the same time what it was worth. The specialist spent several hours in examining the writing, and pronounced it very valuable, naming a large sum, while admitting that he was unable to buy it himself. Arnoldo Meschini took his work home with him, and spent a day in considering what he should do. Then he deliberately placed the facsimile in his employer's library, and sold the original to a learned man who was collecting for a great public institution in a foreign country. His train of reasoning was simple, for he said to himself that the forgery was less likely to be detected in the shelves of the Montevarchi's palace than if put into the hands of a body of famous scientists who naturally distrusted what was brought to them. Collectors do not ask questions as to whence a valuable thing has been taken; they only examine whether it be genuine and worth the money. Emboldened by his success, the forger had continued to manufacture facsimiles and sell originals for nearly twenty years, during which he succeeded in producing nearly as many copies, and realised a sum which to him appeared enormous and which was certainly not to be despised by any one. Some of the works he sold were published and annotated by great scholars, some were jealously guarded in the libraries of rich amateurs, who treasured them with all the selfish vigilance of the bibliomaniac. In the meanwhile Meschini's learning and skill constantly increased, till he possessed an almost diabolical skill in the art of imitating ancient writings, and a familiarity with the subject which amazed the men of learning who occasionally obtained permission to enter the library and study there. Upon these, too, Meschini now and then experimented with his forgeries, not one of which was ever detected. Prince Montevarchi saw in his librarian only a poor wretch whose passion for ancient literature seemed to dominate his life and whose untiring industry had made him master of the very secret necessary in the present instance. He knew that such things as he contemplated had been done before and he supposed that they had been done by just such men as Arnoldo Meschini. He knew the history of the man's early disgrace and calculated wisely enough that the fear of losing his situation on the one hand, and the hope of a large reward on the other, would induce him to undertake the job. To all appearances he was as poor as when he had entered the service of the prince's father five and twenty years earlier. The promise of a few hundred scudi, thought Montevarchi, would have immense weight with such a man. In his eagerness to accomplish his purpose, the nobleman never suspected that the offer would be refused by a fellow who had narrowly escaped being convicted of forgery in his youth, and whose poverty was a matter concerning which no doubt could exist. Montevarchi scarcely hesitated before going to the library. If he paused at all, it was more to consider the words he intended to use than to weigh in his mind the propriety of using them. The library was a vast old hall, surrounded on all sides, and nearly to the ceiling, with carved bookcases of walnut blackened with age to the colour of old mahogany. There were a number of massive tables in the room, upon which the light fell agreeably from high clerestory windows at each end of the apartment. Meschini himself was shuffling along in a pair of ancient leather slippers with a large volume under his arm, clad in very threadbare black clothes and wearing a dingy skullcap on his head. He was a man somewhat under the middle size, badly made, though possessing considerable physical strength. His complexion was of a muddy yellow, disagreeable to see, but his features rendered him interesting if not sympathetic. The brow was heavy and the gray eyebrows irregular and bushy, but his gray eyes were singularly clear and bright, betraying a hidden vitality which would not have been suspected from the whole impression he made. A high forehead, very prominent in the upper and middle part, contracted below, so that there was very little breadth at the temples, but considerable expanse above. The eyes were near together and separated by the knifelike bridge of the nose, the latter descending in a fine curve of wonderfully delicate outline. The chin was pointed, and the compressed mouth showed little or nothing of the lips. On each side of his head the coarsely-shaped and prominent ears contrasted disagreeably with the fine keenness of the face. He stooped a little from the neck, and his shoulders sloped in a way that made them look narrower than they really were. As the prince closed the door behind him and advanced, Meschini lifted his cap a little and laid down the book he was carrying, wondering inwardly what had brought his employer to see him at that hour of the morning. "Sit down," said Montevarchi, with more than usual affability, and setting the example by seating himself upon one of the high-backed chairs which were ranged along the tables. "Sit down, Meschini, and let us have a little conversation." "Willingly, Signor Principe," returned the librarian, obeying the command and placing himself opposite to the prince. "I have been thinking about you this morning," continued the latter. "You have been with us a very long time. Let me see. How many years? Eighteen? Twenty?" "Twenty-five years, Excellency. It is a long time, indeed!" "Twenty-five years! Dear me! How the thought takes me back to my poor father! Heaven bless him, he was a good man. But, as I was saying, Meschini, you have been with us many years, and we have not done much for you. No. Do not protest! I know your modesty, but one must be just before all things. I think you draw fifteen scudi a month? Yes. I have a good memory, you see. I occupy myself with the cares of my household. But you are not so young as you were once, my friend, and your faithful services deserve to be rewarded. Shall we say thirty scudi a month in future? To continue all your life, even if--heaven avert it--you should ever become disabled from superintending the library--yes, all your life." Meschini bowed as he sat in acknowledgment of so much generosity, and assumed a grateful expression suitable to the occasion. In reality, his salary was of very little importance to him, as compared with what he realised from his illicit traffic in manuscripts. But, like his employer, he was avaricious, and the prospect of three hundred and sixty scudi a year was pleasant to contemplate. He bowed and smiled. "I do not deserve so much liberality, Signor Principe," he said. "My poor services--" "Very far from poor, my dear friend, very far from poor," interrupted Montevarchi. "Moreover, if you will have confidence in me, you can do me a very great service indeed. But it is indeed a very private matter. You are a discreet man, however, and have few friends. You are not given to talking idly of what concerns no one but yourself." "No, Excellency," replied Meschini, laughing inwardly as he thought of the deceptions he had been practising with success during a quarter of a century. "Well, well, this is a matter between ourselves, and one which, as you will see, will bring its own reward. For although it might not pass muster in a court of law--the courts you know, Meschini, are very sensitive about little things--" he looked keenly at his companion, whose eyes were cast down. "Foolishly sensitive," echoed the librarian. "Yes. I may say that in the present instance, although the law might think differently of the matter, we shall be doing a good deed, redressing a great injustice, restoring to the fatherless his birthright, in a word fulfilling the will of Heaven, while perhaps paying little attention to the laws of man. Man, my friend, is often very unjust in his wisdom." "Very. I can only applaud your Excellency's sentiments, which do justice to a man of heart." "No, no, I want no praise," replied the prince in a tone of deprecation. "What I need in order to accomplish this good action is your assistance and friendly help. To whom should I turn, but to the old and confidential friend of the family? To a man whose knowledge of the matter on hand is only equalled by his fidelity to those who have so long employed him?" "You are very good, Signor Principe. I will do my best to serve you, as I have served you and his departed Excellency, the Signor Principe, your father." "Very well, Meschini. Now I need only repeat that the reward for your services will be great, as I trust that hereafter your recompense may be adequate for having had a share in so good a deed. But, to be short, the best way to acquaint you with the matter is to show you this document which I have brought for the purpose." Montevarchi produced the famous deed and carefully unfolded it upon the table. Then, after glancing over it once more, he handed it to the librarian. The latter bent his keen eyes upon the page and rapidly deciphered the contents. Then he read it through a second time and at last laid it down upon the table and looked up at the prince with an air of inquiry. "You see, my dear Meschini," said Montevarchi in suave tones, "this agreement was made by Don Leone Saracinesca because he expected to have no children. Had he foreseen what was to happen--for he has legitimate descendants alive, he would have added a clause here, at the foot of the first page--do you see? The clause he would have added would have been very short--something like this, 'Provided that the aforesaid Don Leone Saracinesca shall have no son born to him in wedlock, in which case, and if such a son be born, this present deed is wholly null, void and ineffectual.' Do you follow me?" "Perfectly," replied Meschini, with a strange look in his eyes. He again took the parchment and looked it over, mentally inserting the words suggested by his employer. "If those words were inserted, there could be no question about the view the tribunals would take. But there must be a duplicate of the deed at the Cancellaria." "Perhaps. I leave that to your industry to discover. Meanwhile, I am sure you agree with me that a piece of horrible injustice has been caused by this document; a piece of injustice, I repeat, which it is our sacred duty to remedy and set right." "You propose to me to introduce this clause, as I understand, in this document and in the original," said the librarian, as though he wished to be quite certain of the nature of the scheme. Montevarchi turned his eyes away and slowly scratched the table with his long nails. "I mean to say," he answered in a lower voice, "that if it could be made out in law that it was the intention of the person, of Don Leone--" "Let us speak plainly," interrupted Meschini. "We are alone. It is of no use to mince matters here. The only way to accomplish what you desire is to forge the words in both parchments. The thing can be done, and I can do it. It will be successful, without a shadow of a doubt. But I must have my price. There must be no misunderstanding. I do not think much of your considerations of justice, but I will do what you require, for money." "How much?" asked Montevarchi in a thick voice. His heart misgave him, for he had placed himself in the man's power, and Meschini's authoritative tone showed that the latter knew it, and meant to use his advantage. "I will be moderate, for I am a poor man. You shall give me twenty thousand scudi in cash, on the day the verdict is given in favour of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto. That is your friend's name, I believe." Montevarchi started as the librarian named the sum, and he turned very pale, passing his bony hand upon the edge of the table. "I would not have expected this of you!" he exclaimed. "You have your choice," returned the other, bringing his yellow face nearer to his employer's and speaking very distinctly. "You know what it all means. Saracinesca, Sant' Ilario, and Barda to your son-in-law, besides all the rest, amounting perhaps to several millions. To me, who get you all this, a paltry twenty thousand. Or else--" he paused and his bright eyes seemed to penetrate into Montevarchi's soul. The latter's face exhibited a sudden terror, which Meschini understood. "Or else?" said the prince. "Or else, I suppose you will try and intimidate me by threatening to expose what I have told you?" "Not at all, Excellency," replied the old scholar with sudden humility. "If you do not care for the bargain let us leave it alone. I am only your faithful servant, Signor Principe. Do not suspect me of such ingratitude! I only say that if we undertake it, the plan will be successful. It is for you to decide. Millions or no millions, it is the same to me. I am but a poor student. But if I help to get them for you--or for your son-in-law--I must have what I asked. It is not one per cent--scarcely a broker's commission! And you will have so much. Not but what your Excellency deserves it all, and is the best judge." "One per cent?" muttered Montevarchi. "Perhaps not more than half per cent. But is it safe?" he asked suddenly, his fears all at once asserting themselves with a force that bewildered him. "Leave all that to me," answered Meschini confidently. "The insertion shall be made, unknown to any one, in this parchment and in the one in the Chancery. The documents shall be returned to their places with no observation, and a month or two later the Marchese di San Giacinto can institute proceedings for the recovery of his birthright. I would only advise you not to mention the matter to him. It is essential that he should be quite innocent in order that the tribunal may suspect nothing. You and I, Signor Principe, can stay at home while the case is proceeding. We shall not even see the Signor Marchese's lawyers, for what have we to do with it all? But the Signor Marchese himself must be really free from all blame, or he will show a weak point. Now, when all is ready, he should go to the Cancellaria and examine the papers there for himself. He himself will suspect nothing. He will be agreeably surprised." "And how long will it take you to do the--the work?" asked Montevarchi in hesitating tones. "Let me see," Meschini began to make a calculation under his breath. "Ink, two days--preparing parchment for experiments, a week--writing, twice over, two days--giving age, drying and rubbing, three days, at least. Two, nine, eleven, fourteen. A fortnight," he said aloud. "I cannot do it in less time than that. If the copy in the Chancery is by another hand it will take longer." "But how can you work at the Chancery?" asked the prince, as though a new objection had presented itself. "Have no fear, Excellency. I will manage it so that no one shall find it out. Two visits will suffice. Shall I begin at once? Is it agreed?" Montevarchi was silent for several minutes, and his hands moved uneasily. "Begin at once," he said at last, as though forcing himself to make a determination. He rose to go as he spoke. "Twenty thousand scudi on the day the verdict is given in favour of the Signor Marchese. Is that it?" "Yes, yes. That is it. I leave it all to you." "I will serve your Excellency faithfully, never fear." "Do, Meschini. Yes. Be faithful as you have always been. Remember, I am not avaricious. It is in the cause of sound justice that I stoop to assume the appearance of dishonesty. Can a man do more? Can one go farther than to lose one's self-esteem by appearing to transgress the laws of honour in order to accomplish a good object; for the sake of restoring the birthright to the fatherless and the portion to the widow, or indeed to the widower, in this case? No, my dear friend. The means are more than justified by the righteousness of our purpose. Believe me, my good Meschini--yes, you are good in the best sense of the word--believe me, the justice of this world is not always the same as the justice of Heaven. The dispensations of providence are mysterious." "And must remain so, in this case," observed the librarian with an evil smile. "Yes, unfortunately, in this case we shall not reap the worldly praise which so kind an action undoubtedly deserves. But we must have patience under these trials. Good-bye, Meschini, good-bye, my friend. I must busy myself with the affairs of my household. Every man must do his duty in this world, you know." The scholar bowed his employer to the door, and then went back to the parchment, which he studied attentively for more than an hour, keeping a huge folio volume open before him, into which he might slip the precious deed in case he were interrupted in his occupation. CHAPTER XIII. Sant' Ilario could not realise that the course of events had been brought to a standstill at the very moment when his passions were roused to fury. He could not fight Gouache for the present and Corona was so ill that he could not see her. Had he wished to visit her, the old-fashioned physician would probably have forbidden him to do so, but in reality he was glad to be spared the emotions of a meeting which must necessarily be inconclusive. His first impulse had been to take her away from Rome and force her to live alone with him in the mountains. He felt that no other course was open to him, for he knew that in spite of all that had happened he could not bear to live without her, and yet he felt that he could no longer suffer her to come and go in the midst of society, where she must necessarily often meet the man she had chosen to love. Nor could he keep her in Rome and at the same time isolate her as he desired to do. If the world must talk, he would rather not be where he could hear what it said. The idea of a sudden journey, terminating in the gloomy fortress of Saracinesca, was pleasant to his humour. The old place was ten times more grim and dismal in winter than in summer, and in his savage mood he fancied himself alone with his wife in the silent halls, making her feel the enormity of what she had done, while jealously keeping her a prisoner at his mercy. But her illness had put a stop to his plans for her safety, while the revolution had effectually interfered with the execution of his vengeance upon Gouache. He could find no occupation which might distract his mind from the thoughts that beset him, and no outlet for the restless temper that craved some sort of action, no matter what, as the expression of what he suffered. He and his father met in silence at their meals, and though Giovanni felt that he had the old man's full sympathy, he could not bring himself to speak of what was nearest to his heart. He remembered that his marriage had been of his own seeking, and his pride kept him from all mention of the catastrophe by which his happiness had been destroyed. Old Saracinesca suffered in his own way almost as much as his son, and it was fortunate that he was prevented from seeing Corona at that time, for it is not probable that he would have controlled himself had he been able to talk with her alone. When little Orsino was brought in to them, the two men looked at each other, and while the younger bit his lip and suppressed all outward signs of his agony, the tears more than once stole into the old prince's eyes so that he would turn away and leave the room. Then Giovanni would take the child upon his knee and look at it earnestly until the little thing was frightened and held out its arms to its nurse, crying to be taken away. Thereupon Sant' Ilario's mood grew more bitter than before, for he was foolish enough to believe that the child had a natural antipathy for him, and would grow up to hate the sight of its father. Those were miserable days, never to be forgotten, and each morning and evening brought worse news of Corona's state, until it was clear, even to Giovanni, that she was dangerously ill. The sound of voices grew rare in the Palazzo Saracinesca and the servants moved noiselessly about at their work, oppressed by the sense of coming disaster, and scarcely speaking to each other. San Giacinto came daily to make inquiries and spent some time with the two unhappy men without wholly understanding what was passing. He was an astute man, but not possessed of the delicacy of feeling whereby real sympathy sometimes reaches the truth by its own intuitive reasoning. Moreover, he was wholly ignorant of having played a very important part in bringing about the troubles which now beset Casa Saracinesca. No one but himself knew how he had written the note that had caused such disastrous results, and he had no intention of confiding his exploit to any one of his acquaintance. He had of course not been able to ascertain whether the desired effect had been produced, for he did not know at what church the meeting between Faustina and Gouache was to take place, and he was too cunning to follow her as a spy when he had struck so bold a blow at her affection for the artist-soldier. His intellect was keen, but his experience had not been of a high order, and he naturally thought that she would reason as he had reasoned himself, if she chanced to see him while she was waiting for the man she loved. She knew that he was to marry her sister, and that he might therefore be supposed to disapprove of an affair which could only lead to a derogatory match for herself, and he had therefore carefully abstained from following her on that Sunday morning when she had met Anastase. Nevertheless he could see that something had occurred in his cousin's household which was beyond his comprehension, for Corona's illness was not alone enough to account for the manner of the Saracinesca. It is a social rule in Italy that a person suffering from any calamity must be amused, and San Giacinto used what talents he possessed in that direction, doing all he could to make the time hang less heavily on Giovanni's hands. He made a point of gathering all the news of the little war in order to repeat it in minute detail to his cousins. He even prevailed upon Giovanni to walk with him sometimes in the middle of the day, and Sant' Ilario seemed to take a languid interest in the barricades erected at the gates of the city, and in the arrangements for maintaining quiet within the walls. Rome presented a strange aspect in those days. All who were not Romans kept their national flags permanently hung from their windows, as a sort of protection in case the mob should rise, or in the event of the Garibaldians suddenly seizing the capital. Patrols marched everywhere about the streets and mounted gendarmes were stationed at the corners of the principal squares and at intervals along the main thoroughfares. Strange to say, the numerous flags and uniforms that were to be seen produced an air of festivity strongly at variance with the actual state of things, and belied by the anxious expressions visible in the faces of the inhabitants. All these sights interested San Giacinto, whose active temperament made him very much alive to what went on around him, and even Giovanni thought less of his great sorrow when he suffered himself to be led out of the house by his cousin. When at last it was known that the French troops were on their way from Civita Vecchia, the city seemed to breathe more freely. General Kanzler, the commander-in-chief of the Pontifical forces, had done all that was humanly possible to concentrate his little army, and the arrival of even a small body of Frenchmen made it certain that Garibaldi could be met with a fair chance of success. Of all who rejoiced at the prospect of a decisive action, there was no one more sincerely delighted than Anastase Gouache. So long as the state of siege lasted and he was obliged to follow the regular round of his almost mechanical duty, he was unable to take any step in the direction whither all his hopes tended, and he lived in a state of perpetual suspense. It was a small consolation that he found time to reflect upon the difficulties of his situation and to revolve in his mind the language he should use when he went to ask the hand of Montevarchi's daughter. He was fully determined to take this bold step, and though he realised the many objections which the old prince would certainly raise against the match, he had not the slightest doubt of his power to overcome them all. He could not imagine what it would be like to fail, and he cherished and reared what should have been but a slender hope until it seemed to be a certainty. The unexpected quarrel thrust upon him by Sant' Ilario troubled him very little, for he was too hopeful by nature to expect any serious catastrophe, and he more than once laughed to himself when he thought Giovanni was really jealous of him. The feeling of reverence and respectful admiration which he had long entertained for Corona was so far removed from love as to make Giovanni's wrath appear ridiculous. He would far sooner have expected a challenge from one of Faustina's brothers than from Corona's husband, but, since Sant' Ilario had determined to quarrel, there was no help for it, and he must give him all satisfaction as soon as possible. That Giovanni had insulted him by entering his lodgings unbidden, and by taking certain objects away which were practically the artist's property, was a minor consideration, since it was clear that Giovanni had acted all along under an egregious misapprehension. One thing alone puzzled Anastase, and that was the letter itself. It seemed to refer to his meeting with Faustina, but she had made no mention of it when he had seen her in the church. Gouache did not suspect Giovanni of having concocted the note for any purposes of his own, and quite believed that he had found it as he had stated, but the more the artist tried to explain the existence of the letter, the further he found himself from any satisfactory solution of the question. He interrogated his landlady, but she would say nothing about it, for the temptation of Giovanni's money sealed her lips. The week passed somehow, unpleasantly enough for most of the persons concerned in this veracious history, but Saturday night came at last, and brought with it a series of events which modified the existing situation. Gouache was on duty at the barracks when orders were received to the effect that the whole available force in Rome was to march soon after midnight. His face brightened when he heard the news, although he realised that in a few hours he was to leave behind him all that he held most dear and to face death in a manner new to him, and by no means pleasant to most men. Between two and three o'clock on Sunday morning Gouache found himself standing in the midst of a corps of fifteen hundred Zouaves, in almost total darkness and under a cold, drizzling November rain. His teeth chattered and his wet hands seemed to freeze to the polished fittings of his rifle, and he had not the slightest doubt that every one of his comrades experienced the same unenviable sensations. From time to time the clear voice of an officer was heard giving an order, and then the ranks closed up nearer, or executed a sidelong movement by which greater space was afforded to the other troops that constantly came up towards the Porta Pia. There was little talking during an hour or more while the last preparations for the march were being made, though the men exchanged a few words from time to time in an undertone. The splashing tramp of feet on the wet road was heard rapidly approaching every now and then, followed by a dead silence when the officers' voices gave the order to halt. Then a shuffling sound followed as the ranks moved into the exact places assigned to them. Here and there a huge torch was blazing and spluttering in the fine rain, making the darkness around it seem only thicker by the contrast, but lighting up fragments of ancient masonry and gleaming upon little pools of water in the open spaces between the ranks. It was a dismal night, and it was fortunate that the men who were to march were in good spirits and encouraged by the arrival of the French, who made the circuit of the city and were to join them upon the road in order to strike the final blow against Garibaldi and his volunteers. The Zouaves were fifteen hundred, and there were about as many more of the native troops, making three thousand in all. The French were two thousand. The Garibaldians were, according to all accounts, not less than twelve thousand, and were known to be securely entrenched at Monte Rotondo and further protected by the strong outpost of Mentana, which lies nearly on the direct road from Rome to the former place. Considering the relative positions of the two armies, the odds were enormously in favour of Garibaldi, and had he possessed a skill in generalship at all equal to his undoubted personal courage, he should have been able to drive the Pope's forces back to the very gates of Rome. He was, however, under a twofold disadvantage which more than counterbalanced the numerical superiority of the body he commanded. He possessed little or no military science, and his men were neither confident nor determined. His plan had been to create a revolution in Rome and to draw out the papal army at the same time, in order that the latter might find itself between two fires. His men had expected that the country would rise and welcome them as liberators, whereas they were received as brigands and opposed with desperate energy at every point by the peasants themselves, a turn of affairs for which they were by no means prepared. Monte Rotondo, defended by only three hundred and fifty soldiers, resisted Garibaldi's attacking force of six thousand during twenty-seven hours, a feat which must have been quite impracticable had the inhabitants themselves not joined in the defence. The revolution in Rome was a total failure, the mass of the people looking on with satisfaction, while the troops shot down the insurgents, and at times even demanding arms that they might join in suppressing the disturbance. The Rome of 1867 was not the Rome of 1870, as will perhaps be understood hereafter. With the exception of a few turbulent spirits, the city contained no revolutionary element, and very few who sympathised with the ideas of Italian Unification. But without going any further into political considerations for the present, let us follow Anastase Gouache and his fifteen hundred comrades who marched out of the Porta Pia before dawn on the third of November. The battle that followed merits some attention as having been the turning-point of a stirring time, and also as having produced certain important results in the life of the French artist, which again reacted in some measure upon the family history of the Saracinesca. Monte Rotondo itself is sixteen miles from Rome, but Mentana, which on that day was the outpost of the Garibaldians and became the scene of their defeat, is two miles nearer to the city. Most people who have ridden much in the Campagna know the road which branches to the left about five miles beyond the Ponte Nomentano. There is perhaps no more desolate and bleak part of the undulating waste of land that surrounds the city on all sides. The way is good as far as the turning, but after that it is little better than a country lane, and in rainy weather is heavy and sometimes almost impassable. As the rider approaches Mentana the road sinks between low hills and wooded knolls that dominate it on both sides, affording excellent positions from which an enemy might harass and even destroy an advancing force. Gradually the country becomes more broken until Mentana itself appears in view, a formidable barrier rising upon the direct line to Monte Rotondo. On all sides are irregular hillocks, groups of trees growing upon little elevations, solid stone walls surrounding scattered farmhouses and cattle-yards, every one of which could be made a strong defensive post. Mentana, too, possesses an ancient castle of some strength, and has walls of its own like most of the old towns in the Campagna, insignificant perhaps, if compared with modern fortifications, but well able to resist for many hours the fire of light field-guns. It was past midday when Gouache's column first came in view of the enemy, and made out the bright red shirts of the Garibaldians, which peeped out from among the trees and from behind the walls, and were visible in some places massed in considerable numbers. The intention of the commanding officers, which was carried out with amazing ease, was to throw the Zouaves and native troops in the face of the enemy, while the French chasseurs, on foot and mounted, made a flanking movement and cut off Garibaldi's communication with Monte Rotondo, attacking Mentana at the same time from the opposite side. Gouache experienced an odd sensation when the first orders were given to fire. His experience had hitherto been limited to a few skirmishes with the outlaws of the Samnite hills, and the idea of standing up and deliberately taking aim at men who stood still to be shot at, so far as he could see, was not altogether pleasant. He confessed to himself that though he wholly approved of the cause for which he was about to fire his musket, he felt not the slightest hatred for the Garibaldians, individually or collectively. They were extremely picturesque in the landscape, with their flaming shirts and theatrical hats. They looked very much as though they had come out of a scene in a comic opera, and it seemed a pity to destroy anything that relieved the dismal grayness of the November day. As he stood there he felt much more like the artist he was, than like a soldier, and he felt a ludicrously strong desire to step aside and seat himself upon a stone wall in order to get a better view of the whole scene. Presently as he looked at a patch of red three or four hundred yards distant, the vivid colour was obscured by a little row of puffs of smoke. A rattling report followed, which reminded him of the discharges of the tiny mortars the Italian peasants love to fire at their village festivals. Then almost simultaneously he heard the curious swinging whistle of a dozen bullets flying over his head. This latter sound roused him to an understanding of the situation, as he realised that any one of those small missiles might have ended its song by coming into contact with his own body. The next time he heard the order to fire he aimed as well as he could, and pulled the trigger with the best possible intention of killing an enemy. For the most part, the Garibaldians retired after each round, reappearing again to discharge their rifles from behind the shelter of walls and trees, while the Zouaves slowly advanced along the road, and began to deploy to the right and left wherever the ground permitted such a movement. The firing continued uninterruptedly for nearly half an hour, but though the rifles of the papal troops did good execution upon the enemy, the bullets of the latter seldom produced any effect. Suddenly the order was given to fix bayonets, and immediately afterwards came the command to charge. Gouache was all at once aware that he was rushing up hill at the top of his speed towards a small grove of trees that crowned the eminence. The bright red shirts of the enemy were visible before him amongst the dry underbrush, and before he knew what he was about he saw that he had run a Garibaldian through the calf of the leg. The man tumbled down, and Gouache stood over him, looking at him in some surprise. While he was staring at his fellow-foe the latter pulled out a pistol and fired at him, but the weapon only snapped harmlessly. "As the thing won't go off," said the man coolly, "perhaps you will be good enough to take your bayonet out of my leg." He spoke in Italian, with a foreign accent, but in a tone of voice and with a manner which proclaimed him a gentleman. There was a look of half comic discomfiture in his face that amused Gouache, who carefully extracted the steel from the wound, and offered to help his prisoner to his feet. The latter, however, found it hard to stand. "Circumstances point to the sitting posture," he said, sinking down again. "I suppose I am your prisoner. If you have anything to do, pray do not let me detain you. I cannot get away and you will probably find me here when you come back to dinner. I will occupy myself in cursing you while you are gone." "You are very kind," said Gouache, with a laugh. "May I offer you a cigarette and a little brandy?" The stranger looked up in some astonishment as he heard Gouache's voice, and took the proffered flask in silence, as well as a couple of cigarettes from the case. "Thank you," he said after a pause. "I will not curse you quite as heartily as I meant to do. You are very civil." "Do not mention it," replied Gouache. "I wish you a very good-morning, and I hope to have the pleasure of your company at dinner to-night." Thereupon the Zouave shouldered his rifle and trotted off down the hill. The whole incident had not occupied more than three minutes and his comrades were not far off, pursuing the Garibaldians in the direction of a large farmhouse, which afforded the prospect of shelter and the means of defence. Half a dozen killed and wounded remained upon the hill besides Gouache's prisoner. The Vigna di Santucci, as the farmhouse was called, was a strong building surrounded by walls and fences. A large number of the enemy had fallen back upon this point and it now became evident that they meant to make a determined resistance. As the Zouaves came up, led by Charette in person, the Reds opened a heavy fire upon their advancing ranks. The shots rattled from the walls and windows in rapid succession, and took deadly effect at the short range. The Zouaves blazed away in reply with their chassepots, but the deep embrasures and high parapets offered an excellent shelter for the riflemen, and it was no easy matter to find an aim. The colonel's magnificent figure and great fair beard were conspicuous as he moved about the ranks, encouraging the men and searching for some means of scaling the high walls. Though anxious for the safety of his troops, he seemed as much at home as though he were in a drawing-room, and paid no more attention to the whistling bullets than if they had been mere favours showered upon him in an afternoon's carnival. The firing grew hotter every moment and it was evident that unless the place could be carried by assault at once, the Zouaves must suffer terrible losses. The difficulty was to find a point where the attempt might be made with a good chance of success. "It seems to me," said Gouache, to a big man who stood next to him, "that if we were in Paris, and if that were a barricade instead of an Italian farmhouse, we should get over it." "I think so, too," replied his comrade, with a laugh. "Let us try," suggested the artist quietly. "We may as well have made the attempt, instead of standing here to catch cold in this horrible mud. Come along," he added quickly, "or we shall be too late. The colonel is going to order the assault--do you see?" It was true. A loud voice gave a word of command which was echoed and repeated by a number of officers. The men closed in and made a rush for the farmhouse, trying to scramble upon each other's shoulders to reach the top of the wall and the windows of the low first story. The attempt lasted several minutes, during which the enemies' rifles poured down a murderous fire upon the struggling soldiers. The latter fell back at last, leaving one man alone clinging to the top of the wall. "It is Gouache!" cried a hundred voices at once. He was a favourite with officers and men and was recognised immediately. He was in imminent peril of his life. Standing upon the shoulders of the sturdy comrade to whom he had been speaking a few minutes before he had made a spring, and had succeeded in getting hold of the topmost stones. Taking advantage of the slight foothold afforded by the crevices in the masonry, he drew himself up with catlike agility till he was able to kneel upon the narrow summit. He had chosen a spot for his attempt where he had previously observed that no enemy appeared, rightly judging that there must be some reason for this peculiarity, of which he might be able to take advantage. This proved to be the case, for he found himself immediately over a horse pond, which was sunk between two banks of earth that followed the wall on the inside up to the water, and upon which the riflemen stood in safety behind the parapet. The men so stationed had discharged their pieces during the assault, and were busily employed in reloading when they noticed the Zouave perched upon the top of the wall. One or two who had pistols fired them at him, but without effect. One or two threw stones from the interior of the vineyard. Gouache threw himself on his face along the wall and began quickly to throw down the topmost stones. The mortar was scarcely more solid than dry mud, and in a few seconds he had made a perceptible impression upon the masonry. But the riflemen had meanwhile finished reloading and one of them, taking careful aim, fired upon the Zouave. The bullet hit him in the fleshy part of the shoulder, causing a stinging pain and, what was worse, a shock that nearly sent him rolling over the edge. Still he clung on desperately, loosening the stones with a strength one would not have expected in his spare frame. A minute longer, during which half a dozen more balls whizzed over him or flattened themselves against the stones, and then his comrades made another rush, concentrating their force this time at the spot where he had succeeded in lowering the barrier. His left arm was almost powerless from the flesh-wound in his shoulder, but with his right he helped the first man to a footing beside him. In a moment more the Zouaves were swarming over the wall and dropping down by scores into the shallow pool on the other side. The fight was short but desperate. The enemy, driven to bay in the corners of the yard and within the farmhouse, defended themselves manfully, many of them being killed and many more wounded. But the place was carried and the great majority fled precipitately through the exits at the back and made the best of their way towards Mentana. An hour later Gouache was still on his legs, but exhausted by his efforts in scaling the wall and by loss of blood from his wound, he felt that he could not hold out much longer. The position at that time was precarious. It was nearly four o'clock and the days were short. The artillery was playing against the little town, but the guns were light field-pieces of small calibre, and though their position was frequently changed they made but little impression upon the earthworks thrown up by the enemy. The Garibaldians massed themselves in large numbers as they retreated from various points upon Mentana, and though their weapons were inferior to those of their opponents their numbers made them still formidable. The Zouaves, gendarmes, and legionaries, however, pressed steadily though slowly onward. The only question was whether the daylight would last long enough. Should the enemy have the advantage of the long night in which to bring up reinforcements from Monte Rotondo and repair the breaches in their defences the attack might last through all the next day. The fortunes of the little battle were decided by the French chasseurs, who had gradually worked out a flanking movement under cover of the trees and the broken country. Just as Gouache felt that he could stand no longer, a loud shout upon the right announced the charge of the allies, and a few minutes later the day was practically won. The Zouaves rushed forward, cheered and encouraged by the prospect of immediate success, but Anastase staggered from the ranks and sank down under a tree unable to go any farther. He had scarcely settled himself in a comfortable position when he lost consciousness and fainted away. Mentana was not taken, but it surrendered on the following morning, and as Monte Rotondo had been evacuated during the night and most of the Garibaldians had escaped over the frontier, the fighting was at an end, and the campaign of twenty-four hours terminated in a complete victory for the Roman forces. When Gouache came to himself his first sensation was that of a fiery stream of liquid gurgling in his mouth and running down his throat. He swallowed the liquor half unconsciously, and opening his eyes for a moment was aware that two men were standing beside him, one of them holding a lantern in his hand, the rays from which dazzled the wounded Zouave and prevented him from recognising the persons. "Where is he hurt?" asked a voice that sounded strangely familiar in his ears. "I cannot tell yet," replied the other man, kneeling down again beside him and examining him attentively. "It is only my shoulder," gasped Gouache. "But I am very weak. Let me sleep, please." Thereupon he fainted again, and was conscious of nothing more for some time. The two men took him up and carried him to a place near, where others were waiting for him. The night was intensely dark, and no one spoke a word, as the little party picked its way over the battle-field, occasionally stopping to avoid treading upon one of the numerous prostrate bodies that lay upon the ground. The man who had examined Gouache generally stooped down and turned the light of his lantern upon the faces of the dead men, expecting that some one of them might show signs of life. But it was very late, and the wounded had already been carried away. Gouache alone seemed to have escaped observation, an accident probably due to the fact that he had been able to drag himself to a sheltered spot before losing his senses. During nearly an hour the men trudged along the road with their burden, when at last they saw in the distance the bright lamps of a carriage shining through the darkness. The injured soldier was carefully placed among the cushions, and the two gentlemen who had found him got in and closed the door. Gouache awoke in consequence of the pain caused by the jolting of the vehicle. The lantern was placed upon one of the vacant seats and illuminated the faces of his companions, one of whom sat behind him and supported his weight by holding one arm around his body. Anastase stared at this man's face for some time in silence and in evident surprise. He thought he was in a dream, and he spoke rather to assure himself that he was awake than for any other reason. "You were anxious lest I should escape you after all," he said. "You need not be afraid. I shall be able to keep my engagement." "I trust you will do nothing of the kind, my dear Gouache," answered Giovanni Saracinesca. CHAPTER XIV. On the Saturday afternoon preceding the battle of Mentana, Sant' Ilario was alone in his own room, trying to pass the weary hours in the calculation of certain improvements he meditated at Saracinesca. He had grown very thin and careworn during the week, and he found it hard to distract his mind even for a moment from the thought of his misfortunes. Nothing but a strong mental effort in another direction could any longer fix his attention, and though any kind of work was for the present distasteful to him, it was at least a temporary relief from the contemplation of his misfortunes. He could not bring himself to see Corona, though she grew daily worse, and both the physicians and the attendants who were about her looked grave. His action in this respect did not proceed from heartlessness, still less from any wish to add to her sufferings; on the contrary, he knew very well that, since he could not speak to her with words of forgiveness, the sight of him would very likely aggravate her state. He had no reason to forgive her, for nothing had happened to make her guilt seem more pardonable than before. Had she been well and strong as usual he would have seen her often and would very likely have reproached her again and again most bitterly with what she had done. But she was ill and wholly unable to defend herself; to inflict fresh pain at such a time would have been mean and cowardly. He kept away and did his best not to go mad, though he felt that he could not bear the strain much longer. As the afternoon light faded from his chamber he dropped the pencil and paper with which he had been working and leaned back in his chair. His face was haggard and drawn, and sleepless nights had made dark circles about his deep-set eyes, while his face, which was naturally lean, had grown suddenly thin and hollow. He was indeed one of the most unhappy men in Rome that day, and so far as he could see his misery had fallen upon him through no fault of his own. It would have been a blessed relief, could he have accused himself of injustice, or of any misdeed which might throw the weight and responsibility of Corona's actions back upon his own soul. He loved her still so well that he could have imagined nothing sweeter than to throw himself at her feet and cry aloud that it was he who had sinned and not she. He tortured his imagination for a means of proving that she might be innocent. But it was in vain. The chain of circumstantial evidence was complete and not a link was missing, not one point uncertain. He would have given her the advantage of any doubt which could be thought to exist, but the longer he thought of it all, the more sure he grew that there was no doubt whatever. He sat quite still until it was nearly dark, and then with a sudden and angry movement quite unlike him, he sprang to his feet and left the room. Solitude was growing unbearable to him, and though he cared little to see any of his associates, the mere presence of other living beings would, he thought, be better than nothing. He was about to go out of the house when he met the doctor coming from Corona's apartments. "I do not wish to cause you unnecessary pain," said the physician, "but I think it would be better that you should see the princess." "Has she asked for me?" inquired Giovanni, gloomily. "No. But I think you ought to see her." "Is she dying?" Sant' Ilario spoke under his breath, and laid his hand on the doctor's arm. "Pray be calm, Signor Principe. I did not say that. But I repeat--" "Be good enough to say what you mean without repetition," answered Giovanni almost savagely. The physician's face flushed with annoyance, but as Giovanni was such a very high and mighty personage he controlled his anger and replied as calmly as he could. "The princess is not dying. But she is very ill. She may be worse before morning. You had better see her now, for she will know you. Later she may not." Without waiting for more Giovanni turned on his heel and strode towards his wife's room. Passing through an outer chamber he saw one of her women sitting in a corner and shedding copious tears. She looked up and pointed to the door in a helpless fashion. In another moment Giovanni was at Corona's bedside. He would not have recognised her. Her face was wasted and white, and looked ghastly by contrast with the masses of her black hair which were spread over the broad pillow. Her colourless lips were parted and a little drawn, and her breath came faintly. Only her eyes retained the expression of life, seeming larger and more brilliant than he had ever seen them before. Giovanni gazed on her in horror for several seconds. In his imagination he had supposed that she would look as when he had seen her last, and the shock of seeing her as she was, unstrung his nerves. For an instant he forgot everything that was past in the one strong passion that dominated him in spite of himself. His arms went round her and amidst his blinding tears he showered hot kisses on her death-like face. With a supreme effort, for she was so weak as to be almost powerless, she clasped her hands about his neck and pressed her to him, or he pressed her. The embrace lasted but a moment and her arms fell again like lead. "You know the truth at last, Giovanni," she said, feebly. "You know that I am innocent or you would not--" He did not know whether her voice failed her from weakness, or whether she was hesitating. He felt as though she had driven a sharp weapon into his breast by recalling all that separated them. He drew back a little, and his face darkened. What could he do? She was dying and it would be diabolically cruel to undeceive her. In that moment he would have given his soul to be able to lie, to put on again the expression that was in his face when he had kissed her a moment before. But the suffering of which she reminded him was too great, the sin too enormous, and though he tried bravely he could not succeed. But he made the effort. He tried to smile, and the attempt was horrible. He spoke, but there was no life in his words. "Yes, dear," he said, though the words choked him like hot dust, "I know it was all a mistake. How can I ever ask your forgiveness?" Corona saw that it was not the truth, and with a despairing cry she turned away and hid her face in the pillow. Giovanni felt an icy chill of horror descending to his heart. A more terrible moment could scarcely be imagined. There he stood beside his dying wife, the conviction of her sin burnt in upon his heart, but loving her fiercely still, willing in that supreme crisis to make her think she was forgiven, striving to tell the kind lie that nevertheless would not be told, powerless to deceive her who had so horribly betrayed him. Once more he bent over her and laid his hand on hers. The touch of her wasted fingers brought the tears to his eyes again, but the moment of passion was past. He bent down and would have comforted her had he known how, but not a word would form itself upon his lips. Her face was turned away and he could see that she was determined not to look at him. Only now and then a passionate sob shook her and made her tremble, like a thing of little weight shaken by the wind. Giovanni could bear it no longer. Once more he kissed her heavy hair and then quickly went out, he knew not whither. When he realised what he was doing he found himself leaning against a damp wall in the street. He pulled himself together and walked away at a brisk pace, trying to find some relief in rapid motion. He never knew how far he walked that night, haunted by the presence of Corona's deathly face and by the sound of that despairing cry which he had no power to check. He went on and on, challenged from time to time by the sentinels to whom he mechanically showed his pass. Striding up hill and down through the highways and through the least frequented streets of the city, it was all the same to him in his misery, and he had no consciousness of what he saw or heard. At eight o'clock in the evening he was opposite Saint Peter's; at midnight he was standing alone at the desolate cross-roads before Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, beyond the Lateran, and only just within the walls. From place to place he wandered, feeling no fatigue, but only a burning fever in his head and an icy chill in his heart. Sometimes he would walk up and down some broad square twenty or thirty times; then again he followed a long thoroughfare throughout its whole length, and retraced his steps without seeing that he passed twice through the same street. At last he found himself in a great crowd of people. Had he realised that it was nearly three o'clock in the morning the presence of such a concourse would have astonished him. But if he was not actually ill and out of his mind, he was at all events in such a confused state that he did not even ask himself what was the meaning of the demonstration. The tramp of marching troops recalled the thought of Gouache, and suddenly he understood what was happening. The soldiers were leaving Rome to attack the Garibaldians, and he was near one of the gates. By the light of flaring torches he recognised at some distance the hideous architecture of the Porta Pia. He caught sight of the Zouave uniform under the glare and pressed forward instinctively, trying to see the faces of the men. But the crowd was closely packed and he could not obtain a view, try as he might, and the darkness was so thick that the torches only made the air darker around them. He listened to the tramp of feet and the ring of steel arms and accoutrements like a man in an evil dream. Instead of passing quickly, the time now seemed interminable, for he was unable to move, and the feeling that among those thousands of moving soldiers there was perhaps that one man for whose blood he thirsted, was intolerable. At last the tramping died away in the distance and the crowd loosened itself and began to break up. Giovanni was carried with the stream, and once more it became indifferent to him whither he went. All at once he was aware of a very tall man who walked beside him, a man so large that he looked up, sure that the giant could be none but his cousin San Giacinto. "Are you here, too?" asked the latter in a friendly voice, as he recognised Giovanni by the light of a lamp, under which they were passing. "I came to see them off," replied Sant' Ilario, coldly. It seemed to him as though his companion must have followed him. "So did I," said San Giacinto. "I heard the news late last night, and only lay down for an hour or two." "What time is it?" asked Giovanni, who supposed it was about midnight. "Five o'clock. It will be daylight, or dawn at least, in an hour." Giovanni was silent, wondering absently where he had been all night. For some time the two walked on without speaking. "You had better come and have coffee with me," said San Giacinto as they passed through the Piazza Barbarini. "I made my man get up so that I might have some as soon as I got home." Giovanni assented. The presence of some one with whom he could speak made him realise that he was almost exhausted for want of food. It was morning, and he had eaten nothing since the preceding midday, and little enough then. In a few minutes they reached San Giacinto's lodging. There was a lamp burning brightly on the table of the sitting-room, and a little fire was smouldering on the hearth. Giovanni sank into a chair, worn out with hunger and fatigue, while the servant brought the coffee and set it on the table. "You look tired," remarked San Giacinto. "One lump or two?" Giovanni drank the beverage without tasting it, but it revived him, and the warmth of the room comforted his chilled and tired limbs. He did not notice that San Giacinto was looking hard at him, wondering indeed what could have produced so strange an alteration in his appearance and manner. "How is the princess?" asked the big man in a tone of sympathy as he slowly stirred the sugar in his coffee. "Thank you--she is very well," answered Giovanni, mechanically. In his mind the secret which he must conceal was so closely connected with Corona's illness that he almost unconsciously included her state among the things of which he would not speak. But San Giacinto looked sharply at him, wondering what he meant. "Indeed? I thought she was very ill." "So she is," replied Sant' Ilario, bluntly. "I forgot--I do not know what I was thinking of. I fear she is in a very dangerous condition." He was silent again, and sat leaning upon the table absently looking at the objects that lay before him, an open portfolio and writing materials, a bit of sealingwax, a small dictionary, neatly laid in order upon the dark red cloth. He did not know why he had allowed himself to be led to the place, but he felt a sense of rest in sitting there quietly in silence. San Giacinto saw that there was something wrong and said nothing, but lighted a black cigar and smoked thoughtfully. "You look as though you had been up all night," he remarked after a long pause. Giovanni did not answer. His eyes did not look up from the red blotting-paper in the open portfolio before him. As he looked down San Giacinto almost believed he was asleep, and shook the table a little to see whether his cousin would notice it. Instantly Giovanni laid his hand upon the writing book, to steady it before him. But still he did not look up. "You seem to be interested," said San Giacinto, with a smile, and he blew a cloud of smoke into the air. Giovanni was indeed completely absorbed in his studies, and only nodded his head in answer. After a few minutes more he rose and took the portfolio to a dingy mirror that stood over the chimney-piece of the lodging, and held up the sheet of red blotting-paper before the reflecting surface. Apparently not satisfied with this, he brought the lamp and set it upon the shelf, and then repeated the process. "You are an infernal scoundrel," he said in a low voice, that trembled with wrath, as he turned and faced San Giacinto. "What do you mean?" inquired the latter with a calmness that would have staggered a less angry man. Giovanni drew from his pocket-book the note he had found in Gouache's room. For a week he had kept it about him. Without paying any further attention to San Giacinto he held it in one hand and again placed the blotting-paper in front of the mirror. The impression of the writing corresponded exactly with the original. As it consisted of but a very few words and had been written quickly, almost every stroke had been reproduced upon the red paper in a reversed facsimile. Giovanni brought the two and held them before San Giacinto's eyes. The latter looked surprised but did not betray the slightest fear. "Do you mean to tell me that you did not write this note?" asked Giovanni, savagely. "Of course I wrote it," replied the other coolly. Giovanni's teeth chattered with rage. He dropped the portfolio and the letter and seized his cousin by the throat, burying his fingers in the tough flesh with the ferocity of a wild animal. He was very strong and active and had fallen upon his adversary unawares, so that he had an additional advantage. But for all that he was no match for his cousin's giant strength. San Giacinto sprang to his feet and his great hands took hold of Giovanni's arms above the elbow, lifting him from the ground and shaking him in the air as easily as a cat worries a mouse. Then he thrust him into his chair again and stood holding him so that he could not move. "I do not want to hurt you," he said, "but I do not like to be attacked in this way. If you try it again I will break some of your bones." Giovanni was so much astonished at finding himself so easily overmatched that he was silent for a moment. The ex-innkeeper relinquished his hold and picked up his cigar, which had fallen in the struggle. "I do not propose to wrestle with you for a match," said Giovanni at last. "You are stronger than I, but there are other weapons than those of brute strength. I repeat that you are an infernal scoundrel." "You may repeat it as often as you please," replied San Giacinto, who had recovered his composure with, marvellous rapidity. "It does not hurt me at all." "Then you are a contemptible coward," cried Giovanni, hotly. "That is not true," said the other. "I never ran away in my life. Perhaps I have not much reason to avoid a fight," he added, looking down at his huge limbs with a smile. Giovanni did not know what to do. He had never had a quarrel with a man who was able to break his neck, but who would not fight like a gentleman. He grew calmer, and could have laughed at the situation had it been brought about by any other cause. "Look here, cousin," said San Giacinto, suddenly and in a familiar tone, "I am as good a gentleman as you, though I have kept an inn. If it is the custom here to play with swords and such toys I will take a few lessons and we will have it out. But I confess that I would like to know why you are so outrageously angry. How did you come by that letter? It was never meant for you, nor for any of yours. I pinned it upon Gouache's dressing-table with a pin I found there. I took the paper from your wife's table a week ago yesterday. If you want to know all about it I will tell you." "And whom did you intend for the author of the letter? Whom but my wife?" "Your wife!" cried San Giacinto in genuine astonishment. "You are out of your mind. Gouache was to meet Faustina Montevarchi on Sunday morning at a church, and I invented the note to prevent the meeting, and put it on his table during the previous afternoon. I am going to marry Donna Flavia, and I do not mean to allow a beggarly Zouave to make love to my future sister-in-law. Since you took the note they must have met after all. I wish you had left it alone." Giovanni sank into a chair before the table and buried his face in his hands. San Giacinto stood looking at him in silence, beginning to comprehend what had happened, and really distressed that his comparatively harmless stratagem should have caused so much trouble. He looked at things from a lower point of view than Giovanni, but he was a very human man, after all. It was hard for him to believe that his cousin could have really suspected Corona of loving Gouache; but Giovanni's behaviour left no other explanation. On the other hand, he felt that whatever might be thought of his own part in the affair, it was Giovanni's own fault that things had turned out as they had, seeing that he had been guilty of a very serious indiscretion in entering Gouache's rooms unbidden and in reading what was meant for the Zouave. Giovanni rose and his face was pale again, but the expression had utterly changed in the course of a few seconds. He suffered horribly, but with a pain more easy to bear than that which had tortured him during the past week. Corona was innocent, and he knew it. Every word she had spoken a week ago, when he had accused her, rang again in his ears, and as though by magic the truth of her statement was now as clear as the day. He could never forgive himself for having doubted her. He did not know whether he could ever atone for the agony he must have caused her. But it was a thousand times better that he should live long years of bitter self-reproach, than that the woman he so loved should have fallen. He forgot San Giacinto and the petty scheme which had brought about such dire consequences. He forgot his anger of a moment ago in the supreme joy of knowing that Corona had not sinned, and in the bitter contrition for having so terribly wronged her. If he felt anything towards San Giacinto it was gratitude, but he stood speechless under his great emotion, not even thinking what he should say. "If you doubt the truth of my explanation," said San Giacinto, "go to the Palazzo Montevarchi. Opposite the entrance you will see some queer things painted on the wall. There are Gouache's initials scrawled a hundred times, and the words 'Sunday' and 'Mass' very conspicuous. A simple way, too, would be to ask him whether he did not actually meet Faustina last Sunday morning. When a man advertises his meetings with his lady-love on the walls of the city, no one can be blamed for reading the advertisement." He laughed at the conceit and at his own astuteness; but Giovanni scarcely heeded him or his words. "Good-bye," said the latter, holding out his hand. "You do not want to fight any more, then?" asked San Giacinto. "Not unless you do. Good-bye." Without another word he left the room and descended into the street. The cold gray dawn was over everything and the air was raw and chilly. There is nothing more dismal than early dawn in a drizzling rain when a man has been up all night, but Giovanni was unconscious of any discomfort, and there were wings under his feet as he hastened homeward along the slippery pavements. The pallor in his face had given way to a slight flush that gave colour and animation to his cheeks, and though his eyes were bright their expression was more natural than it had been for many days. He was in one of the strangest humours which can have sway over that unconsciously humorous animal, man. In the midst of the deepest self-abasement his heart was overflowing with joy. The combination of sorrow and happiness is a rare one, not found every day, but the condition of experiencing both at the same time and in the highest degree is very possible. Giovanni, indeed, could not feel otherwise than he did. Had he suspected Corona and accused her on grounds wholly frivolous and untenable, in the unreasoning outbreak of a foolish jealousy, he could not have been so persuaded of her guilt as to feel the keenest joy on finding her innocent. In that case his remorse would have outweighed his satisfaction. Had he, on the other hand, suspected her without making the accusation, he would have been happy on discovering his mistake, but could have felt little or no remorse. As it was, he had accused her upon evidence which most tribunals would have thought sufficient for a conviction, and on seeing all doubt cleared away he realised with terrible force the extent of the pain he had inflicted. While he had still believed that she had fallen, he had still so loved her as to wish that he could take the burden of her guilt upon his own shoulders. Now that her innocence was proved beyond all doubt, he had no thought but to ask her forgiveness. He let himself in with a latch-key and ran up the dim stairs. A second key opened the polished door into the dark vestibule, and in a moment more he was in the ante-chamber of Corona's apartment. Two or three women, pale with watching, were standing round a table, upon which something was heating over a spirit lamp. Giovanni stopped and spoke to them. "How is she?" he asked, his voice unsteady with anxiety. The women shook their heads, and one of them began to cry. They loved their mistress dearly and had little hope of her recovery. They had been amazed, too, at Giovanni's apparent indifference during the whole week, and seemed surprised when he went towards the door. One motioned to him to make no noise. He turned the latch very gently and advanced into the darkened chamber. Corona was lying as he had seen her on the previous evening, and there seemed to be little or no change in her state. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was scarcely perceptible. A nurse was nodding in a chair near the night light and looked up as Giovanni entered. He pointed to the door and she went out. All was so exactly as it had been twelve hours earlier that he could hardly realise the immense change that had taken place in his own heart during the interval. He stood looking at his wife, scarcely breathing for fear of disturbing her and yet wishing that she might wake to hear what he had to say. But she did not move nor show any signs of consciousness. Her delicate, thin hand lay upon the coverlet. He stooped down very slowly and cautiously, and kissed the wasted fingers. Then he drew back quickly and noiselessly as though he had done something wrong. He thought she must be asleep, and sat down in the chair the nurse had vacated. The stillness was profound. The little night light burned steadily without flickering and cast queer long shadows from the floor upwards over the huge tapestries upon the wall. The quaint figures of heroes and saints, that had seen many a Saracinesca born and many a one die in the ancient vaulted room, seemed to take the expressions of old friends watching over the suffering woman. A faint odour like that of ether pervaded the still air, an odour Giovanni never forgot during his life. Everything was so intensely quiet that he almost thought he could hear the ticking of his watch in his pocket. Corona stirred at last, and slowly opening her eyes, turned them gradually till they met her husband's gaze. At the first movement she made he had risen to his feet and now stood close beside her. "Did you kiss my hand--or did I dream it?" she asked faintly. "Yes, darling." He could not at once find words to say what he wanted. "Why did you?" Giovanni fell on his knees by the bedside and took her hand in both his own. "Corona, Corona--forgive me!" The cry came from his heart, and was uttered with an accent of despair that there was no mistaking. She knew, faint and scarcely conscious though she was, that he was not attempting to deceive her this time. But he could say no more. Many a strong man would in that moment have sobbed aloud and shed tears, but Giovanni was not as other men. Under great emotion all expression was hard for him, and the spontaneity of tears would have contradicted his nature. Corona wondered what had happened, and lay quite still, looking at his bent head and feeling the trembling touch of his hands on hers. For several seconds the stillness was almost as profound as it had been before. Then Giovanni spoke out slowly and earnestly. "My beloved wife," he said, looking up into her face, "I know all the truth now. I know what I have done. I know what you have suffered. Forgive me if you can. I will give my whole life to deserve your pardon." For an instant all Corona's beauty returned to her face as she heard his words. Her eyes shone softly, the colour mounted to her pale cheeks, and she breathed one happy sigh of relief and gladness. Her fingers contracted and closed round his with a tender pressure. "It is true," she said, scarcely audibly. "You are not trying to deceive me in order to keep me alive?" "It is true, darling," he answered. "San Giacinto wrote the letter. It was not even meant to seem to come from you. Oh, Corona--can you ever forgive me?" She turned so as to see him better, and looked long into his eyes. The colour slowly faded again from her face, and her expression changed, growing suddenly sad. "I will forgive you. I will try to forget it all, Giovanni. You should have believed me, for I have never lied to you. It will be long before I am strong again, and I shall have much time to think of it." Giovanni rose to his feet, still clasping her hand. Something told him that she was not a woman who could either forgive or forget such an injury, and her tone was colder than he had hoped. The expiation had begun and he was already suffering the punishment of his unbelief. He bore the pain bravely. What right had he to expect that she would suddenly become as she had been before? She had been, and still was, dangerously ill, and her illness had been caused by his treatment of her. It would be long before their relations could be again what they had once been, and it was not for him to complain. She might have sent him away in anger; he would not have thought her too unkind. But when he remembered her love, he trembled at the thought of living without it. His voice was very gentle as he answered her, after a short pause. "You shall live to forget it all, Corona. I will make you forget it. I will undo what I have done." "Can you, Giovanni? Is there no blood upon your hands?" She knew her husband well, and could hardly believe that he had refrained from taking vengeance upon Gouache. "There is none, thank God," replied Giovanni. "But for a happy accident I should have killed the man a week ago. It was all arranged." "You must tell him that you have been mistaken," said Corona simply. "Yes, I will." "Thank you. That is right." "It is the least I can do." Giovanni felt that words were of very little use, and even had he wished to say more he would not have known how to speak. There was that between them which was too deep for all expression, and he knew that henceforth he could only hope to bring back Corona's love by his own actions. Besides, in her present state, he guessed that it would be wiser to leave her, than to prolong the interview. "I will go now," he said. "You must rest, darling, and be quite well to-morrow." "Yes. I can rest now." She said nothing about seeing him again. With a humility almost pathetic in such a man, he bent down and touched her hand with his lips. Then he would have gone away, but she held his fingers and looked long into his eyes. "I am sorry for you, dear," she said, and paused, not taking her eyes from his. "Kiss me," she added at last, with a faint smile. A moment later, he was gone. She gazed long at the door through which he had left the room, and her expression changed more than once, softening and hardening again as the thoughts chased each other through her tired brain. At last she closed her eyes, and presently fell into a peaceful sleep. Giovanni waited in his room until his father was awake and then went to tell him what had happened. The old gentleman looked weary and sad, but his keen sight noticed the change in his son's manner. "You look better," he said. "I have been undeceived," answered Giovanni. "I have been mistaken, misled by the most extraordinary set of circumstances I have ever heard of." Saracinesca's eyes suddenly gleamed angrily and his white beard bristled round his face. "You have made a fool of yourself," he growled. "You have made your wife ill and yourself miserable in a fit of vulgar jealousy. And now you have been telling her so." "Exactly. I have been telling her so." "You are an idiot, Giovanni. I always knew it." "I have only just found it out," answered the younger man. "Then you are amazingly slow at discovery. Why do you stand there staring at me? Do you expect any sympathy? You will not get it. Go and say a litany outside your wife's door. You have made me spend the most horrible week I ever remember, just because you are not good enough for her. How could you ever dare to suspect that woman? Go away. I shall strangle you if you stay here!" "That consideration would not have much weight," replied Giovanni. "I know how mad I have been, much better than you can tell me. And yet, I doubt whether any one was ever so strangely mistaken before." "With your intelligence the wonder is that you are not always mistaken. Upon my soul, the more I think of it, the more I am amazed at your folly. You acted like a creature in the theatre. With your long face and your mystery and your stage despair, you even made a fool of me. At all events, I shall know what to expect the next time it happens. I hope Corona will have the sense to make you do penance." To tell the truth Giovanni had not expected any better treatment from his father than he actually received, and he was not in a humour to resent reproaches which he knew to be well deserved. He had only intended to tell the prince the result of what had occurred, and he relaxed nothing of his determination, even though he might have persuaded the old gentleman that the accumulated evidence had undoubtedly justified his doubts. With a short salutation he left the room and went out, hoping that Gouache had not accompanied the expedition to Mentana, improbable as that seemed. He was, of course, disappointed, for while he was making inquiries Gouache was actually on the way to the battle with his corps, as has been already seen. Giovanni spent most of the day in the house, constantly inquiring after Corona, and trying to occupy his mind in reading, though with little success. The idea that Gouache might be killed without having learned the truth began to take possession of him and caused him an annoyance he could not explain. It was not that he felt any very profound remorse for having wronged the man. His nature was not so sensitive as that. It was rather, perhaps, because he regarded the explanation with Anastase as a part of what he owed Corona, that he was so anxious to meet him alive. Partly, too, his anxiety arose from his restlessness and from the desire for action of some sort in which to forget all he had suffered, and all he was still suffering. Towards evening he went out and heard news of the engagement. It was already known that the enemy had fallen back upon Mentana, and no one doubted the ultimate result of the day's fighting. People were already beginning to talk of going out to take assistance to the wounded. The idea struck Giovanni as plausible and he determined to act upon it at once. He took a surgeon and several men with him, and drove out across the Campagna to the scene of the battle. As has been told, he found Gouache at last, after a long and difficult search. The ground was so broken and divided by ditches, walls and trees, that some of the wounded were not found until the middle of the next day. Unless Giovanni had undertaken the search Anastase might have escaped notice for a long time, and it was no wonder if he expressed astonishment on waking up to find himself comfortably installed in Saracinesca's carriage, tended by the man who a few days earlier had wanted to take his life. CHAPTER XV. Gouache's wound was by no means dangerous, and when he had somewhat recovered from the combined effects of loss of blood and excessive fatigue he did not feel much the worse for having a ball in his shoulder. Giovanni and the doctor gave him food and a little wine in the carriage, and long before they reached the gates of the city the Zouave was well enough to have heard Sant' Ilario's explanation. The presence of the surgeon, however, made any intimate conversation difficult. "I came to find you," said Giovanni in a low voice, "because everything has been set right in your absence, and I was afraid you might be killed at Mentana without receiving my apology." Gouache looked at his companion in some surprise. He knew very well that Sant' Ilario was not a man to make excuses without some very extraordinary reasons for such a step. It is a prime law of the code of honour, however, that an apology duly made must be duly accepted as putting an end to any quarrel, and Anastase saw at once that Giovanni had relinquished all intention of fighting. "I am very glad that everything is explained," answered Gouache. "I confess that I was surprised beyond measure by the whole affair." "I regret having entered your rooms without your permission," continued Giovanni who intended to go to the end of what he had undertaken. "The pin was my wife's, but the letter was written by another person with a view to influencing your conduct. I cannot explain here, but you shall know whatever is necessary when we are alone. Of course, if you still desire any satisfaction, I am at your service." "Pray do not suggest such a thing. I have no further feeling of annoyance in the matter." Gouache insisted on being taken to his own lodgings, though Sant' Ilario offered him the hospitality of the Palazzo Saracinesca. By four o'clock in the morning the ball was extracted and the surgeon took his leave, recommending sleep and quiet for his patient. Gouache, however, would not let Giovanni go without hearing the end of the story. "The facts are very few," said the latter after a moment's hesitation. "It appears that you had arranged to meet a lady on Sunday morning. A certain person whom I will not name discovered your intention, and conceived the idea of preventing the meeting by sending you a note purporting to come from the lady. As he could get none of her note-paper he possessed himself of some of my wife's. He pinned the note on your table with the pin you had chanced to find. I was foolish enough to enter your room and I recognised the pin and the paper. You understand the rest." Gouache laughed merrily. "I understand that you did me a great service. I met the lady after all, but if I had received the note I would not have gone, and she would have waited for me. Do you mind telling me the name of the individual who tried to play me the trick?" "If you will excuse my discretion, I would rather not. He knows that his plan failed. I should not feel justified in telling you his name, from other motives." "As you please," said Gouache. "I daresay I shall find him out." So the interview ended and Giovanni went home to rest at last, almost as much worn out as Gouache himself. He was surprised at the ease with which everything had been arranged, but he was satisfied with the result and felt that a weight had been taken from his mind. He slept long and soundly and awoke the next morning to hear that Corona was much better. The events of Saturday and Sunday had to all appearances smoothed many difficulties from the lives of those with whom my history is concerned. Corona and Giovanni were once more united, though the circumstances that had produced so terrible a breach between them had left a shadow on their happiness. Gouache had fought his battle and had returned with a slight wound so that as soon as he could go out he would be able to renew his visits at the Palazzo Montevarchi and see Faustina without resorting to any more ingenious stratagems. San Giacinto had failed to produce the trouble he had planned, but his own prospects were brilliant enough. His marriage with Flavia was to take place on the last of the month and the preliminaries were being arranged as quickly as possible. Flavia herself was delighted with the new dignity she assumed in the family, and if she was not positively in love with San Giacinto, was enough attracted by him to look forward with pleasure upon the prospect of becoming his wife. Old Montevarchi alone seemed preoccupied and silent, but his melancholy mood was relieved by occasional moments of anticipated triumph, while he made frequent visits to the library and seemed to find solace in the conversation of the librarian, Arnoldo Meschini. In the future of each of these persons there was an element of uncertainty which most of them disregarded. As Corona recovered, Giovanni began to think that she would really forget as well as forgive all he had made her suffer. Gouache on his part entertained the most sanguine hopes of marrying Faustina. Montevarchi looked forward with assurance to the success of his plot against the Saracinesca. San Giacinto and Flavia were engaged, indeed, but were not yet married. And yet the issue of none of these events was absolutely sure. The first matter with which we are concerned is the forgery of the clauses in the documents, which Meschini had undertaken to accomplish and actually finished in less than three weeks. It was indeed an easy task for a man so highly skilled in the manufacture of chirograhic antiquities, but he had found himself unexpectedly balked at the outset, and the ingenuity he displayed in overcoming the difficulties he met with is worth recording. It was necessary in the first place to ascertain whether there was a copy of the principal deed at the Chancery. He had no trouble in finding that such a copy existed, and was indeed fully prepared for the contingency. But when the parchment was produced, his face fell. It was a smaller sheet than the first and the writing was a little wider, so that the space at the foot of the first page was considerably less than in the original. He saw at once that it would be impossible to make the insertion, even if he could get possession of the document for a time long enough to execute the work. Moreover, though he was not actually watched while he read it, he could see that it would be almost impracticable to use writing materials in the office of the Chancery without being observed. He was able, however, to take out the original which he carried with him and to compare it with the copy. Both were by one hand, and the copy was only distinguished by the seal of the government office. It was kept, like all such documents, in a dusty case upon which were written the number and letter of the alphabet by which it was classified. Meschini hesitated only a moment, and then decided to substitute the original for the copy. Should the keeper of the archives chance to look at the parchment and discover the absence of the seal, Meschini could easily excuse himself by saying that he had mistaken the two, and indeed with that one exception they were very much alike. The keeper, however, noticed nothing and Arnoldo had the satisfaction of seeing him unsuspiciously return the cardboard case to its place on the shelves. He went back to his room and set to work. The longer he looked at the sheet the more clearly he saw that it would be impossible to make the insertion. There was nothing to be done but to forge a new document with the added words. He did not like the idea, though he believed himself fully able to carry it out. There was a risk, he thought, which he had not meant to undertake; but on the other hand the reward was great. He put forth all his skill to produce the imitation and completed it in ten days to his entire satisfaction. He understood the preparation of seals as well as the rest of his art, and had no difficulty in making a die which corresponded precisely with the wax. In the first place he took off the impression carefully with kneaded bread. From this with a little plaster of Paris he reproduced the seal, which he very carefully retouched with a fine steel instrument until it was quite perfect. Over this again he poured melted lead, thus making a hard die with which he could stamp the wax without danger of breaking the instrument. Once more he retouched the lead with a graving tool, using a lens for the work and ultimately turning out an absolutely accurate copy of the seal used in the Chancery office. He made experiments as he proceeded, and when he was at last satisfied he turned to the actual forgery, which was a longer matter and required greater skill and patience. Nothing was omitted which could make the fraud complete. The parchment assumed the exact shade under his marvellous manipulation. The smallest roughness was copied with faultless precision, and then by many hours of handling and the use of a little dust collected among the books in the library, he imparted to the whole the appearance of age which was indispensable. When he had finished he showed his work to old Montevarchi, but by an inherent love of duplicity did not tell him that the whole document was forged, merely pointing to the inserted clause as a masterpiece of imitation. First, however, he pretended that the copy had actually contained the inserted words, and the prince found it hard to believe that this was not the case. Meschini was triumphant. Again he returned to the Chancery and substituted what he had written for the first original upon which he had now to make the insertion. There was no difficulty here, and yet he hesitated before beginning. It seemed to him safer after all to forge the whole of the second as he had done the first. A slip of the pen, an unlucky drop of ink might mar the work and excite suspicion, whereas if he made a mistake upon a fresh sheet of parchment he could always begin again. There was only one danger. The Saracinesca might have made some private mark upon the original which should elude even his microscopic examination. He spent nearly a day in examining the sheet with a lens but could discover nothing. Being satisfied of the safety of the proceeding he executed the forgery with the same care he had bestowed upon the first, and showed it to his employer. The latter could scarcely believe his eyes, and was very far from imagining that the two originals were intact and carefully locked up in Meschini's room. The prince took the document and studied its contents again during many hours before he finally decided to return it to old Saracinesca. It was a moment of intense excitement. He hesitated whether he should take the manuscripts back himself or send them by a messenger. Had he been sure of controlling himself, he would have gone in person, but he knew that if Saracinesca should chance to look over the writing when they were together, it would be almost impossible to conceal emotion under such a trial of nerve. What he really hoped was that the prince would think no more of the matter, and put away the parcel without examining the contents. Montevarchi pondered long over the course he should pursue, his eyes gleaming now and then with a wild triumph, and then growing dull and glassy at the horrible thought of discovery. Then again the consciousness that he was committing a great crime overcame him, and he twisted his fingers nervously. He had embarked upon the undertaking, however, and he fully believed that it would be impossible to draw back even had he wished to do so. The insertions were made and could not be erased. It is possible that at one moment, had Montevarchi known the truth, he would have drawn back; but it is equally sure that if he had done so he would sooner or later have regretted it, and would have done all in his power to recover lost ground and to perpetrate the fraud. The dominant passion for money, when it is on the point of being satisfied, is one of the strongest incentives to evil deeds, and in the present case the stake was enormous. He would not let it slip through his fingers. He rejoiced that the thing was done and that the millions of the Saracinesca were already foredoomed to be his. It is doubtful whether he was able to form a clear conception of what would take place after the trial was over and the property awarded to his son-in-law. It was perhaps enough for his ambition that his daughter should be Princess Saracinesca, and he did not doubt his power to control some part of the fortune. San Giacinto, who was wholly innocent in the matter, would, he thought, be deeply grateful for having been told of his position, and would show his gratitude in a befitting manner. Moreover, Montevarchi's avarice was on a grand scale, and it was not so much the possession of more money for himself that he coveted, as the aggrandisement of his children and grandchildren. The patriarchal system often produces this result. He would scarcely have known what to do with a greater fortune than he possessed, but he looked forward with a wild delight to seeing his descendants masters of so much wealth. The fact that he could not hope to enjoy his satisfaction very long did not detract from its reality or magnitude. The miser is generally long-lived, and does not begin to anticipate death until the catastrophe is near at hand. Even then it is a compensation to him to feel that the heirs of his body are to be made glorious by what he has accumulated, and his only fear is that they will squander what he has spent his strength in amassing. He educates his children to be thrifty and rejoices when they spend no money, readily believing them to be as careful as himself, and seldom reflecting that, if he furnished them with the means, their true disposition might turn out to be very different. It is so intensely painful to him to think of wealth being wasted that he cultivates the belief in the thriftiness of those who must profit by his death. If he has been born to worldly state as well as to a great inheritance, he extends the desire of accumulation to the fortunes of his relations and descendants, and shows a laudable anxiety that they should possess all that he can get for them, provided it is quite impossible that he should get it for himself. The powers of the world have been to a great extent built up on this principle, and it is a maxim in many a great family that there is no economy like enriching one's relatives to the third and fourth generation. The struggle in Montevarchi's mind was so insignificant and lasted so short a time, that it might be disregarded altogether, were it not almost universally true that the human mind hesitates at the moment of committing a crime. That moment of hesitation has prevented millions of frightful deeds, and has betrayed thousands of carefully plotted conspiracies whose success seemed assured, and it is amazing to think what an influence has been exerted upon the destinies of the human race by the instinctive fear of crossing the narrow boundary between right and wrong. The time occupied in such reflection is often only infinitesimal. It has been called the psychological moment, and if the definition means that it is the instant during which the soul suggests, it is a true one. It is then that our natural repulsion for evil asserts itself; it is then that the consequences of what we are about to do rise clearly before us as in a mirror; it is then that our courage is suddenly strengthened to do the right, or deserts us and leaves us mere instruments for the accomplishment of the wrong. If humanity had not an element of good in it, there would be no hesitation in the perpetration of crime, any more than a wild beast pauses before destroying a weaker creature. Perhaps there is no clearer proof of the existence of a divine soul in man, than his intuitive reluctance to do what in the lower animals would be most natural. Circumstances, education, the accidents of life, all tend to make this psychologic moment habitually shorter or longer. The suspense created in the conscience, during which the intelligence is uncertain how to act, may last a week or a second, a year or a quarter of an hour; but it is a stage through which all must pass, both the professional criminal and the just man who is perhaps tempted to commit a crime but once during his life. Old Lotario Montevarchi had never been guilty of any misdeed subject to the provisions of the penal code; but he had done most things in his love of money which were not criminal only because the law had not foreseen the tortuous peculiarities of his mind. Even now he persuaded himself that the end was a righteous one, and that his course was morally justifiable. He had that power of deceiving himself which characterises the accomplished hypocrite, and he easily built up for San Giacinto a whole edifice of sympathy which seemed in his own view very real and moral. He reflected with satisfaction upon the probable feelings of the old Leone Saracinesca, when, after relinquishing his birthright, he found himself married and the father of a son. How the poor man must have cursed his folly and longed for some means of undoing the deed! It was but common justice after all--it was but common justice, and it was a mere accident of fate that Leone's great-grandson, who was now to be reinstated in all the glories of his princely possessions, was also to marry Flavia Montevarchi. The prospect was too alluring and the suspense lasted but a moment, though he believed that he spent much time in considering the situation. The thoughts that really occupied him were not of a nature to hinder the accomplishment of his plan, and he was not at all surprised with himself when he finally tied up the packet and rang for a messenger. Detection was impossible, for by Meschini's skilful management, the original and the official copy corresponded exactly and were such marvellous forgeries as to defy discovery. When it is considered that the greatest scientists and specialists in Europe have recently disagreed concerning documents which are undoubtedly of modern manufacture, and which were produced by just such men as Arnoldo Meschini, it need not appear surprising that the latter should successfully impose upon a court of law. The circumstances of the Saracinesca family history, too, lent an air of probability to the alleged facts. The poverty and temporary disappearance of Leone's descendants explained why they had not attempted to recover their rights. Nay, more, since Leone had died when his son was an infant, and since there was no copy of the document among his papers, it was more than probable that the child on growing up had never known the nature of the deed, and would not have been likely to suspect what was now put forward as the truth, unless his attention were called to it by some person possessed of the necessary knowledge. The papers were returned to Prince Saracinesca in the afternoon with a polite note of thanks. It will be remembered that the prince had not read the documents, as he had meant to do, in consequence of the trouble between Giovanni and Corona which had made him forget his intention. He had not looked over them since he had been a young man and the recollection of their contents was far from clear. Having always supposed the collateral branch of his family to be extinct, it was only natural that he should have bestowed very little thought upon the ancient deeds which he believed to have been drawn up in due form and made perfectly legal. When he came home towards evening, he found the sealed packet upon his table, and having opened it, was about to return the papers to their place in the archives. It chanced that he had a letter to write, however, and he pushed the documents aside before taking them to the library. While he was writing, Giovanni entered the room. As has been seen, the prince had been very angry with his son for having allowed himself to doubt Corona, and though several days had elapsed since the matter had been explained, the old man's wrath had not wholly subsided. He still felt considerable resentment against Giovanni, and his intercourse with the latter had not yet regained its former cordiality. As Sant' Ilario entered the room, Saracinesca looked up with an expression which showed clearly that the interruption was unwelcome. "Do I disturb you?" asked Giovanni, noticing the look. "Do you want anything?" "No--nothing especial." Saracinesca's eye fell upon the pile of manuscripts that lay on the table. It struck him that Giovanni might occupy himself by looking them over, while he himself finished the letter he had begun. "There are those deeds relating to San Giacinto," he said, "you might look through them before they are put away. Montevarchi borrowed them for a day or two and has just sent them back." Giovanni took the bundle and established himself in a comfortable chair beside a low stand, where the light of a lamp fell upon the pages as he turned them. He made no remark, but began to examine the documents, one by one, running his eye rapidly along the lines, as he read on mechanically, not half comprehending the sense of the words. He was preoccupied by thoughts of Corona and of what had lately happened, so that he found it hard to fix his attention. The prince's pen scratched and spattered on the paper, and irritated Giovanni, for the old gentleman wrote a heavy, nervous handwriting, and lost his temper twenty times in five minutes, mentally cursing the ink, the paper and the pen, and wishing he could write like a shopman or a clerk. Giovanni's attention was arrested by the parchment on which the principal deed was executed, and he began to read the agreement with more care than he had bestowed upon the other papers. He understood Latin well enough, but the crabbed characters puzzled him from time to time. He read the last words on the first page without thinking very much of what they meant. ".... Eo tamen pacto, quod si praedicto Domino Leoni ex legitimo matrimonio heres nasceretur, instrumentum hoc nullum, vanum atque plane invalidum fiat." Giovanni smiled at the quaint law Latin, and then read the sentence over again. His face grew grave as he realised the tremendous import of those few words. Again and again he translated the phrase, trying to extract from it some other meaning than that which was so unpleasantly clear. No other construction, however, could be put upon what was written, and for some minutes Giovanni sat staring at the fire, bewildered and almost terrified by his discovery. "Have you ever read those papers?" he asked at last, in a voice that made his father drop his pen and look up. "Not for thirty years." "Then you had better read them at once. San Giacinto is Prince Saracinesca and you and I are nobody." Saracinesca uttered a fierce oath and sprang from his chair. "What do you mean?" he asked, seizing Giovanni's arm violently with one hand and taking the parchment with the other. "Read for yourself. There--at the foot of the page, from 'eo tamen pacto.' It is plain enough. It says, 'On the understanding that if an heir be born to the aforesaid Don Leone, in lawful wedlock, the present instrument shall be wholly null, void and inefficacious.' An heir was born, and San Giacinto is that heir's grandson. You may tear up the document. It is not worth the parchment it is written upon, nor are we either." "You are mad, Giovannino!" exclaimed the prince, hoarsely, "that is not the meaning of the words. You have forgotten your Latin." "I will get you a dictionary--or a lawyer--whichever you prefer." "You are not in earnest, my boy. Look here--eo tamen pacto--that means 'by this agreement'--does it not? I am not so rusty as you seem to think." "It means 'on this understanding, however.' Go on. Quod si, that if--praedicto Domino Leoni, to the aforesaid Don Leone--ex legitimo matrimonio, from a lawful marriage--heres nasceretur, an heir should be born--hoc instrumentum, this deed--shall be null, worthless and invalid. You cannot get any other sense out of it. I have tried for a quarter of an hour. You and I are beggars. Saracinesca, Torleone, Barda, and all the rest belong to San Giacinto, the direct descendant of your great-grandfather's elder brother. You are simple Don Leone, and I am plain Don Giovanni. That is what it means." "Good God!" cried the old man in extreme horror. "If you should be right--" "I am right," replied Giovanni, very pale. With wild eyes and trembling hands the prince spread the document upon the table and read it over again. He turned it and went on to the end, his excitement bringing back in the moment such scholarship as he had once possessed and making every sentence as clear as the day. "Not even San Giacinto--not even a title!" he exclaimed desperately. He fell back in his chair, crushed by the tremendous blow that had fallen so unexpectedly upon him in his old age. "Not even San Giacinto," repeated Giovanni, stupidly. His presence of mind began to forsake him, too, and he sank down, burying his face in his hands. As in a dream he saw his cousin installed in the very chair where his father now sat, master of the house in which he, Giovanni, had been born, like his father before him, master of the fortresses and castles, the fair villas and the broad lands, the palaces and the millions to which Giovanni had thought himself heir, lord over the wealth and inheritances of his race, dignified by countless titles and by all the consideration that falls to the lot of the great in this world. For a long time neither spoke, for both were equally overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster that hung over their heads. They looked furtively at each other, and each saw that his companion was white to the lips. The old man was the first to break the silence. "At all events, San Giacinto does not know how the deed stands," he said. "It will make it all the harder to tell him," replied Giovanni. "To tell him? You would not be so mad--" "Do you think it would be honourable," asked the younger man, "for us to remain in possession of what clearly does not belong to us? I will not do it." "We have been in possession for more than a century." "That is no reason why we should continue to steal another man's money," said Giovanni. "We are men. Let us act like men. It is bitter. It is horrible. But we have no other course. After all, Corona has Astrardente. She will give you a home. She is rich." "Me? Why do you say me? Us both." "I will work for my living," said Giovanni, quietly. "I am young. I will not live on my wife." "It is absurd!" exclaimed the prince. "It is Quixotic. San Giacinto has plenty of money without ruining us. Even if he finds it out I will fight the case to the end. I am master here, as my father and my father's father were before me, and I will not give up what is mine without a struggle. Besides, who assures us that he is really what he represents himself to be? What proves that he is really the descendant of that same Leone?" "For that matter," answered Giovanni, "he will have to produce very positive proofs, valid in law, to show that he is really the man. I will give up everything to the lawful heir, but I will certainly not turn beggar to please an adventurer. But I say that, if San Giacinto represents the elder branch of our house, we have no right here. If I were sure of it I would not sleep another night under this roof." The old man could not withhold his admiration. There was something supremely noble and generous about Giovanni's readiness to sacrifice everything for justice which made his old heart beat with a strange pride. If he was reluctant to renounce his rights it was after all more on Giovanni's account, and for the sake of Corona and little Orsino. He himself was an old man and had lived most of his life out already. "You have your mother's heart, Giovannino," he said simply, but there was a slight moisture in his eyes, which few emotions had ever had the power to bring there. "It is not a question of heart," replied Giovanni. "We cannot keep what does not belong to us." "We will let the law decide what we can keep. Do you realise what it would be like, what a position we should occupy if we were suddenly declared beggars? We should be absolute paupers. We do not own a foot of land, a handful of money that does not come under the provisions of that accursed clause." "Wait a minute," exclaimed Giovanni, suddenly recollecting that he possessed something of his own, a fact he had wholly forgotten in the excitement of his discovery. "We shall not be wholly without resources. It does not follow from this deed that we must give to San Giacinto any of the property our branch of the family has acquired by marriage, from your great grandfather's time to this. It must be very considerable. To begin with me, my fortune came from my mother. Then there was your mother, and your father's mother, and so on. San Giacinto has no claim to anything not originally the property of the old Leone who made this deed." "That is true," replied the prince, more hopefully. "It is not so bad as it looked. You must be right about that point." "Unless the courts decide that San Giacinto is entitled to compensation and interest, because four generations have been kept out of the property." Both men looked grave. The suggestion was unpleasant. Such judgments had been given before and might be given again. "We had better send for our lawyer," said the prince, at last. "The sooner we know the real value of that bit of parchment the better it will be for us. I cannot bear the suspense of waiting a day to know the truth. Imagine that the very chair I am sitting upon may belong to San Giacinto. I never liked the fellow, from the day when I first found him in his inn at Aquila." "It is not his fault," answered Giovanni, quietly. "This is a perfectly simple matter. We did not know what these papers were. Even if we had known, we should have laughed at them until we discovered that we had a cousin. After all we shall not starve, and what is a title? The Pope will give you another when he knows what has happened. I would as soon be plain Don Giovanni as Prince of Sant' Ilario." "For that matter, you can call yourself Astrardente." "I would rather not," said Giovanni, with something like a laugh. "But I must tell Corona this news." "Wait till she is herself again. It might disturb her too much." "You do not know her!" Giovanni laughed heartily this time. "If you think she cares for such things, you are very much mistaken in her character. She will bear the misfortune better than any of us. Courage, padre mio! Things are never so black as they look at first." "I hope not, my boy, I hope not! Go and tell your wife, if you think it best. I would rather be alone." Giovanni left the room, and Saracinesca was alone. He sank back once more in his chair and folded his strong brown hands together upon the edge of the table before him. In spite of all Giovanni could say, the old man felt keenly the horror of his position. Only those who, having been brought up in immense wealth and accustomed from childhood to the pomp and circumstance of a very great position, are suddenly deprived of everything, can understand what he felt. He was neither avaricious nor given to vanity. He had not wasted his fortune, though he had spent magnificently a princely income. He had not that small affection for greatness which, strange to say, is often found in the very great. But his position was part of himself, so that he could no more imagine himself plain Don Leone Saracinesca, than he could conceive himself boasting of his ancient titles. And yet it was quite plain to him that he must either cease to be a prince altogether, or accept a new title as a charity from his sovereign. As for his fortune, it was only too plain that the greater part of it had never been his. To a man of his temperament the sensation of finding himself a mere impostor was intolerable. His first impulse had of course been to fight the case, and had the attack upon his position come from San Giacinto, he would probably have done so. But his own son had discovered the truth and had put the matter clearly before him, in such a light as to make an appeal to his honour. He had no choice but to submit. He could not allow himself to be outdone in common honesty by the boy he loved, nor could he have been guilty of deliberate injustice, for his own advantage, after he had been convinced that he had no right to his possessions. He belonged to a race of men who had frequently committed great crimes and done atrocious deeds, notorious in history, from motives of personal ambition, for the love of women or out of hatred for men, but who had never had the reputation of loving money or of stooping to dishonour for its sake. As soon as he was persuaded that everything belonged to San Giacinto, he felt that he must resign all in favour of the latter. One doubt alone remained to be solved. It was not absolutely certain that San Giacinto was the man he represented himself to be. It was quite possible that he should have gained possession of the papers he held, by some means known only to himself; such things are often sold as curiosities, and as the last of the older branch of whom there was any record preserved in Rome had died in obscurity, it was conceivable that the ex-innkeeper might have found or bought the documents he had left, in order to call himself Marchese di San Giacinto. Saracinesca did not go so far as to believe that the latter had any knowledge whatsoever of the main deed which was about to cause so much trouble, unless he had seen it in the hands of Montevarchi, in which case he could not be blamed if he brought a suit for the recovery of so much wealth. CHAPTER XVI. Giovanni was quite right in his prediction concerning Corona's conduct. He found her in her dressing-room, lying upon the couch near the fire, as he had found her on that fatal evening three weeks earlier. He sat down beside her and took her hand in his. She had not wholly recovered her strength yet, but her beauty had returned and seemed perfected by the suffering through which she had passed. In a few words he told her the whole story, to which she listened without showing any great surprise. Once or twice, while he was speaking, her dark eyes sought his with an expression he did not fully understand, but which was at least kind and full of sympathy. "Are you quite sure of all the facts?" she asked when he had finished. "Are you certain that San Giacinto is the man? I cannot tell why, but I have always distrusted him since he first came to us." "That is the only point that remains to be cleared up," answered Giovanni. "If he is not the man he will not venture to take any steps in the matter, lest he should be exposed and lose what he has." "What will you do?" "I hardly know. If he is really our cousin, we must give up everything without a struggle. We are impostors, or little better. I think I ought to tell him plainly how the deed is made out, in order that he may judge whether or not he is in a position to prove his identity." "Do you imagine that he does not know all about it as well as we ourselves?" "Probably not--otherwise he would have spoken." "The papers came back from Montevarchi to-day," said Corona. "It is gratuitous to suppose that the old man has not told his future son-in-law what they contain. Yes--you see it yourself. Therefore San Giacinto knows. Therefore, also, if he is the man he pretends to be, he will let you know his intentions soon enough. I fancy you forgot that in your excitement. If he says nothing, it is because he cannot prove his rights." "It is true," replied Giovanni, "I did not think of that. Nevertheless I would like to be beforehand. I wish him to know that we shall make no opposition. It is a point of honour." "Which a woman cannot understand, of course," added Corona, calmly. "I did not say that. I do not mean it." "Well--do you want my advice?" "Always." The single word was uttered with an accent implying more than mere trust, and was accompanied by a look full of strong feeling. But Corona's expression did not change. Her eyes returned the glance quietly, without affectation, neither lovingly nor unlovingly, but indifferently. Giovanni felt a sharp little pain in his heart as he realised the change that had taken place in his wife. "My advice is to do nothing in the matter. San Giacinto may be an impostor; indeed, it is not at all unlikely. If he is, he will take advantage of your desire to act generously. He will be forewarned and forearmed and will have time to procure all the proofs he wants. What could you say to him? 'If you can prove your birth, I give you all I possess.' He will at once see that nothing else is necessary, and if he is a rogue he will succeed. Besides, as I tell you, he knows what that deed contains as well as you do, and if he is the man he will bring an action against your father in a week. If he does not, you gain the advantage of having discovered that he is an impostor without exposing yourself to be robbed." "It goes against the grain," said Giovanni. "But I suppose you are right." "You will do as you think best. I have no power to make you follow my advice." "No power? Ah, Corona, do not say that!" A short silence followed, during which Corona looked placidly at the fire, while Giovanni gazed at her dark face and tried to read the thoughts that were passing in her mind. She did not speak, however, and his guesswork was inconclusive. What hurt him most was her indifference, and he longed to discover by some sign that it was only assumed. "I would rather do as you think best," he said at last. She glanced at him and then looked back at the blazing logs. "I have told you what I think," she answered. "It is for you to judge and to decide. The whole matter affects you more than it does me." "Is it not the same?" "No. If you lose the Saracinesca titles and property we shall still be rich enough. You have a fortune of your own, and so have I. The name is, after all, an affair which concerns you personally. I should have married you as readily had you been called anything else." The reference to the past made Giovanni's heart leap, and the colour came quickly to his face. It was almost as though she had said that she would have loved him as well had he borne another name, and that might mean that she loved him still. But her calmness belied the hasty conclusion he drew from her words. He thought she looked like a statue, as she lay there in her magnificent rest, her hands folded upon her knees before her, her eyes so turned that he could see only the drooping lids. "A personal affair!" he exclaimed suddenly, in a bitter tone. "It was different once, Corona." For the first time since they had been talking her face betrayed some emotion. There was the slightest possible quiver of the lip as she answered. "Your titles were never anything but a personal affair." "What concerns me concerns you, dear," said Giovanni, tenderly. "In so much that I am very sorry--sincerely sorry, when anything troubles you." Her voice was kind and gentle, but there was no love in the words. "Believe me, Giovanni, I would give all I possess to spare you this." "All you possess--is there not a little love left in your all?" The cry came from his heart. He took her hand in both of his, and leaned forward towards her. Her fingers lay passively in his grasp, and the colour did not change in her dark cheeks. A moment ago there had been in her heart a passionate longing for the past, which had almost betrayed itself, but when he spoke of present love his words had no power to rouse a responsive echo. And yet she could not answer him roughly, for he was evidently in earnest. She said nothing, therefore, but left her hand in his. His love, which had been as fierce and strong as ever, even while he had doubted her faith, began to take new proportions of which he had never dreamt. He felt like a man struggling with death in some visible and tangible shape. "Is it all over? Will you never love me again?" he asked hoarsely. Her averted face told no tale, and still her fingers lay inert between his broad hands. She knew how he suffered, and yet she would not soothe him with the delusive hope for which he longed so intensely. "For God's sake, Corona, speak to me! Is there never to be any love again? Can you never forgive me?" "Ah, dear, I have forgiven you wholly--there is not an unkind thought left in my heart for you!" She turned and laid the hand that was free upon his shoulder, looking into his face with an expression that was almost imploring. "Do not think it is that, oh, not that! I would forgive you again, a thousand times--" "And love me?" he cried, throwing his arms round her neck, and kissing her passionately again and again. But suddenly he drew back, for there was no response to his caresses. He turned very pale as he saw the look in her eyes. There were tears there, for the love that had been, for his present pain, perhaps, but there was not one faint spark of the fire that had burned in other days. "I cannot say it!" she answered at last. "Oh, do not make me say it, for the sake of all that was once!" In his emotion Giovanni slipped from the low chair and knelt beside his wife, one arm still around her. The shock of disappointment, in the very moment when he thought she was yielding, was almost more than he could bear. Had not her heart grown wholly cold, the sight of his agonised face would have softened her. She was profoundly moved and pitied him exceedingly, but she could not do more. "Giovanni--do not look at me so! If I could! If I only could--" "Are you made of stone?" he asked, in a voice choking with pain. "What can I do!" she cried in despair, sinking back and hiding her face in her hands. She was in almost as great distress as he himself. "Love me, Corona! Only love me, ever so little! Remember that you loved me once--" "God knows how dearly! Could I forget it, I might love you now--" "Oh, forget it then, beloved! Let it be undone. Let the past be unlived. Say that you never loved me before, and let the new life begin to-day--can you not? Will you not? It is so little I ask, only the beginning. I will make it grow till it shall fill your heart. Sweet love, dear love! love me but enough to say it--" "Do you think I would not, if I could? Ah, I would give my whole life to bring back what is gone, but I cannot. It is dead. You--no, not you--some evil thing has killed it. Say it? Yes, dear, I would say it--I will say it if you bid me. Giovanni, I love you--yes, those are the words. Do they mean anything? Can I make them sound true? Can I make the dead alive again? Is it anything but the breath of my lips? Oh, Giovanni, my lost love, why are you not Giovanni still?" Again his arms went round her and he pressed her passionately to his heart. She turned pale, and though she tried to hide it, she shrank from his embrace, while her lips quivered and the tears of pain started in her eyes. She suffered horribly, in a way she had never dreamed of as possible. He saw what she felt and let her fall back upon the cushions, while he still knelt beside her. He saw that his mere touch was repugnant to her, and yet he could not leave her. He saw how bravely she struggled to bear his kisses, and how revolting they were to her, and yet the magic of her beauty held his passionate nature under a spell, while the lofty dignity of her spirit enthralled his soul. She was able to forgive, though he had so injured her, she was willing to love him, if she could, though he had wounded her so cruelly; it was torture to think that she could go no further, that he should never again hear the thrill of passion in her voice, nor see the whole strength of her soul rise in her eyes when his lips met hers. There was something grand and tragic in her suffering, in her realisation of all that he had taken from her by his distrust. She sank back on her couch, clasping her hands together so tightly that the veins showed clearly beneath the olive skin. As she tried to overcome her emotion, the magnificent outline of her face was ennobled by her pain, the lids closed over her dark eyes, and the beautiful lips set themselves sternly together, as though resolved that no syllable should pass them which could hurt him, even though they could not formulate the words he would have given his soul to hear. Giovanni knelt beside her, and gazed into her face. He knew she had not fainted, and he was almost glad that for a moment he could not see her eyes. Tenderly, timidly, he put out his hand and laid it on her clasped fingers, then drew it back again very quickly, as though suddenly remembering that the action might pain her. Her heavy hair was plaited into a thick black coil that fell upon the arm of the couch. He bent lower and pressed his lips upon the silken tress, noiselessly, fearing to disturb her, fearing lest she should even notice it. He had lost all his pride and strength and dominating power of character and he felt himself unworthy to touch her. But he was too strong a man to continue long in such a state. Before Corona opened her eyes, he had risen to his feet and stood at some distance from her, resting his arm upon the chimney-piece, watching her still, but with an expression which showed that a change had taken place in him, and that his resolute will had once more asserted itself. "Corona!" he said at last, in a voice that was almost calm. Without changing her position she looked up at him. She had been conscious that he had left her side, and she experienced a physical sensation of relief. "Corona," he repeated, when he saw that she heard him, "I do not complain. It is all my fault and my doing. Only, let it not be hate, dear. I will not touch you, I will not molest you. I will pray that you may love me again. I will try and do such things as may make you love me as you did once. Forgive me, if my kisses hurt you. I did not know they would, but I have seen it. I am not a brute. If I were, you would put something of the human into my heart. It shall never happen again, that I forget. Our life must begin again. The old Giovanni was your husband, and is dead. It is for me to win another love from you. Shall it be so, dear? Is it not to be all different--even to my very name?" "All, all different," repeated Corona in a low voice. "Oh, how could I be so unkind! How could I show you what I felt?" Suddenly, and without the least warning, she sprang to her feet and made two steps towards him. The impulse was there, but the reality was gone. Her arms were stretched out, and there was a look of supreme anguish in her eyes. She stopped short, then turned away once more, and as she sank upon the couch, burying her face in the cushions, the long restrained tears broke forth, and she sobbed as though her heart must break. Giovanni wished that his own suffering could find such an outlet, but there was no such relief possible for his hardy masculine nature. He could not bear the sight of her grief, and yet he knew that he could not comfort her, that to lay his hand upon her forehead would only add a new sting to the galling wound. He turned his face away and leaned against the heavy chimney-piece, longing to shut out the sound of her sobs from his ears, submitting to a torture that might well have expiated a greater misdeed than his. The time was past when he could feel that an unbroken chain of evidence had justified him in doubting and accusing Corona. He knew the woman he had injured better now than he had known her then, for he understood the whole depth and breadth of the love he had so ruthlessly destroyed. It was incredible to him, now, that he should ever have mistrusted a creature so noble, so infinitely grander than himself. Every tear she shed fell like molten fire upon his heart, every sob that echoed through the quiet room was a reproach that racked his heart-strings and penetrated to the secret depths of his soul. He could neither undo what he had done nor soothe the pain inflicted by his actions. He could only stand there, and submit patiently to the suffering of his expiation. The passionate outburst subsided at last, and Corona lay pale and silent upon her cushions. She knew what he felt, and pitied him more than herself. "It is foolish of me to cry," she said presently. "It cannot help you." "Help me?" exclaimed Giovanni, turning suddenly. "It is not I, it is you. I would have died to save you those tears." "I know it--would I not give my life to spare you this? And I will. Come and sit beside me. Take my hand. Kiss me--be your own self. It is not true that your kisses hurt me--it shall not be true---" "You do not mean it, dear," replied Giovanni, sadly. "I know how true it is." "It shall not be true. Am I a devil to hurt you so? Was it all your fault? Was I not wrong too? Indeed--" "No, my beloved. There is nothing wrong in you. If you do not love me--" "I do. I will, in spite of myself." "You mean it, darling--I know. You are good enough, even for that. But you cannot. It must be all my doing, now." "I must," cried Corona, passionately. "Unless I love you, I shall die. I was wrong, too, you shall let me say it. Was I not mad to do the things I did? What man would not have suspected? Would a man be a man at all, if he did not watch the woman he loves? Would love be love without jealousy when there seems to be cause for it? Should I have married you, had I thought that you would be so careless as to let me do such things without interfering? Was it not my fault when I came back that night and would not tell you what had happened? Was it not madness to ask you to trust me, instead of telling you all? And yet," she turned her face away, "and yet, it hurt me so!" "You shall not blame yourself, Corona. It was all my fault." "Come and sit here, beside me. There--take my hand. Does it tremble? Do I draw it away? Am I not glad that it should rest in yours? Look at me--am I not glad? Giovanni--dear husband--true love! Look into my eyes. Do you not see that I love you? Why do you shake your head and tremble? It is true, I tell you." Suddenly the forced smile faded from her face, the artificial expression she tried so pathetically to make real, disappeared, and gave place to a look of horror and fear. She drew back her hand and turned desperately away. "I am lying, lying--and to you!" she moaned. "Oh God! have mercy, for I am the most miserable woman in the world!" Giovanni sat still, resting his chin upon his hand and staring at the fire. His hopes had risen for a moment, and had fallen again, if possible more completely than before. Every line of his strongly-marked face betrayed the despair that overwhelmed him. And yet he was no longer weak, as he had been the first time. He was wondering at the hidden depths of Corona's nature which had so suddenly become visible. He comprehended the magnitude of a passion which in being extinguished could leave such emotions behind, and he saw with awful distinctness the beauty of what he had lost and the depth of the abyss by which he was separated from it. Only a woman who had loved to distraction could make such desperate efforts to revive an affection that was dead; only a woman capable of the most lofty devotion could sink her pride and her own agony, in the attempt to make the man she had loved forgive himself. He could have borne her reproaches more easily than the sight of her anguish, but she would not reproach him. He could have borne her hatred almost better than such unselfish forgiveness, and yet she had forgiven him. For the first time in his life he wished that he might die--he, who loved life so dearly. Perhaps it would be easier for her to see him dead at her feet than to feel that he must always be near her and that she could not love him. "It is of no use, dear," he said, at last. "I was right. The old Giovanni is dead. We must begin our life again. Will you let me try? Will you let me do my best to live for you and to raise up a new love in your heart?" "Can you? Can we go back to the old times when we first met? Can you? Can I?" "If you will--" "If I will? Is there anything I would not do to gain that?" "Our lives may become so different from what they now are, as to make it more easy," said Giovanni. "Do you realise how everything will be changed when we have given up this house? Perhaps it is better that it should be so, after all." "Yes--far better. Oh, I am so sorry for you!" "Who pities, may yet love," he said in low tones. Corona did not make any answer, but for many minutes lay watching the dancing flames. Giovanni knew that it would be wiser to say nothing more which could recall the past, and when he spoke again it was to ask her opinion once more concerning the best course to pursue in regard to the property. "I still think," answered Corona, "that you had better do nothing for the present. You will soon know what San Giacinto means to do. You may be sure that if he has any rights he will not forget to press them. If it comes to the worst and you are quite sure that he is the man you--that is to say, your father--can give up everything without a suit. It is useless to undertake the consequences of a misfortune which may never occur. It would be reckless to resign your inheritance without a struggle, when San Giacinto, if he is an honest man, would insist upon the case being tried in law." "That is true. I will take your advice. I am so much disturbed about other things that I am inclined to go to all extremes at once. Will you dine with us this evening?" "I think not. Give me one more day. I shall be stronger to-morrow." "I have tired you," exclaimed Giovanni in a tone of self-reproach. Corona did not answer the remark, but held out her hand with a gentle smile. "Good-night, dear," she said. An almost imperceptible expression of pain passed quickly over Giovanni's face as he touched her fingers with his lips. Then he left the room without speaking again. In some respects he was glad that he had induced Corona to express herself. He had no illusions left, for he knew the worst and understood that if his wife was ever to love him again there must be a new wooing. It is not necessary to dwell upon what he felt, for in the course of the conversation he had not been able to conceal his feelings. Disappointment had come upon him very suddenly, and might have been followed by terrible consequences, had he not foreseen, as in a dream of the future, a possibility of winning back Corona's love. The position in which they stood with regard to each other was only possible because they were exceptional people and had both loved so well that they were willing to do anything rather than forego the hope of loving again. Another man would have found it hard to own himself wholly in the wrong; a woman less generous would have either pretended successfully that she still loved, or would not have acknowledged that she suffered so keenly in finding her affection dead. Perhaps, too, if there had been less frankness there might have been less difficulty in reviving the old passion, for love has strange ways of hiding himself, and sometimes shows himself in ways even more unexpected. A profound student of human nature would have seen that a mere return to the habit of pleasant intercourse could not suffice to forge afresh such a bond as had been broken, where two such persons were concerned. Something more was necessary. It was indispensable that some new force should come into play, to soften Corona's strong nature and to show Giovanni in his true light. Unfortunately for them such a happy conclusion was scarcely to be expected. Even if the question of the Saracinesca property were decided against them, an issue which, at such a time, was far from certain, they would still be rich. Poverty might have drawn them together again, but they could not be financially ruined. Corona would have all her own fortune, while Giovanni was more than well provided for by what his mother had left him. The blow would tell far more heavily upon Giovanni's pride than upon his worldly wealth, severe as the loss must be in respect of the latter. It is impossible to say whether Corona might not have suffered as much as Giovanni himself, had the prospect of such a catastrophe presented itself a few weeks earlier. At present it affected her very little. The very name of Saracinesca was disagreeable to her hearing, and the house she lived in had lost all its old charm for her. She would willingly have left Rome to travel for a year or two rather than continue to inhabit a place so full of painful recollections; she would gladly have seen another name upon the cards she left at her friends' houses--even the once detested name of Astrardente. When she had married Giovanni she had not been conscious that she became richer than before. When one had everything, what difference could a few millions more bring into life? It was almost a pity that they could not become poor and be obliged to bear together the struggles and privations of poverty. CHAPTER XVII. San Giacinto and Flavia were married on Saturday the thirtieth of November, thereby avoiding the necessity of paying a fee for being united during Advent, much to the satisfaction of Prince Montevarchi. The wedding was a brilliant affair, and if the old prince's hospitality left something to be desired, the display of liveries, coaches and family silver was altogether worthy of so auspicious an occasion. Everybody was asked, and almost everybody went, from the Saracinesca to Anastase Gouache, from Valdarno to Arnoldo Meschini. Even Spicca was there, as melancholy as usual, but evidently interested in the proceedings. He chanced to find himself next to Gouache in the crowd. "I did not expect to see you here," he remarked. "I have been preserved from a variety of dangers in order to assist at the ceremony," answered the Zouave, with a laugh. "At one time I thought it more likely that I should be the person of importance at a funeral." "So did I. However, it could not be helped." Spicca did not smile. "You seem to regret it," observed Gouache, who knew his companion's eccentric nature. "Only on general principles. For the rest, I am delighted to see you. Come and breakfast with me when this affair is over. We will drink to the happiness of two people who will certainly be very unhappy before long." "Ourselves?" "No. The bride and bridegroom. 'Ye, who enter, leave all hope behind!' How can people be so foolish as to enter into an engagement from which there is no issue? The fools are not all dead yet." "I am one of them," replied Gouache. "You will probably have your wish. Providence has evidently preserved you from sudden death in order to destroy you by lingering torture. Is the wedding day fixed?" "I wish it were." "And the bride?" "How can I tell?" "Do you mean to say that, as an opinion, you would rather be married than not? The only excuse for the folly of marrying is the still greater folly of loving a woman enough to marry her. Of course, a man who is capable of that, is capable of anything. Here comes the bride with her father. Think of being tied to her until a merciful death part you. Think of being son-in-law to that old man, until heaven shall be pleased to remove him. Think of calling that stout English lady, mother-in-law, until she is at last overtaken by apoplexy. Think of calling all those relations brothers and sisters, Ascanio, Onorato, Andrea, Isabella, Bianca, Faustina! It is a day's work to learn their names and titles. She wears a veil--to hide her satisfaction--a wreath of orange flowers, artificial, too, made of paper and paste and wire, symbols of innocence, of course, pliable and easily patched together. She looks down, lest the priest should see that her eyes are laughing. Her father is whispering words of comfort and encouragement into her ear. 'Mind your expression,' he is saying, no doubt--'you must not look as though you were being sacrificed, nor as though you were too glad to be married, for everybody is watching you. Do not say, I will, too loudly nor inaudibly either, and remember that you are my daughter.' Very good advice. Now she kneels down and he crosses to the other side. She bends her head very low. She is looking under her elbow to see the folds of her train. You see--she moves her heel to make the gown fall better--I told you so. A pretty figure, all in white, before the great altar with the lights, and the priest in his robes, and the organ playing, and that Hercules in a black coat for a husband. Now she looks up. The rings are there on the gold salver upon the altar. She has not seen hers, and is wondering whether it is of plain gold, or a band of diamonds, like the Princess Valdarno's. Now then--ego conjungo vos--the devil, my friend, it is an awful sight!" "Cynic!" muttered Gouache, with a suppressed laugh. "There--it is done now, and she is already thinking what it will be like to dine alone with him this evening, and several thousand evenings hereafter. Cynic, you say? There are no more cynics. They are all married, and must turn stoics if they can. Let us be off. No--there is mass. Well then, go down on your knees and pray for their souls, for they are in a bad case. Marriage is Satan's hot-house for poisonous weeds. If anything can make a devil of an innocent girl it is marriage. If anything can turn an honest man into a fiend it is matrimony. Pray for them, poor creatures, if there is any available praying power left in you, after attending to the wants of your own soul, which, considering your matrimonial intentions, I should think very improbable." Gouache looked at his companion curiously, for Spicca's virulence astonished him. He was not at all intimate with the man and had never heard him express his views so clearly upon any subject. Unlike most people, he was not in the least afraid of the melancholy Italian. "From the way you talk," he remarked, "one might almost imagine that you had been married yourself." Spicca looked at him with an odd expression, in which there was surprise as well as annoyance, and instead of making any answer, crossed himself and knelt down upon the marble pavement. Gouache followed his example instinctively. Half an hour later the crowd moved slowly out of the church, and those who had carriages waited in the huge vestibule while the long line of equipages moved up to the gates. Gouache escaped from Spicca in the hope of getting a sight of Faustina before she drove away with her mother in one of the numerous Montevarchi coaches. Sant' Ilario and Corona were standing by one of the pillars, conversing in low tones. "Montevarchi looked as though he knew it," said Giovanni. "What?" asked Corona, quietly. "That his daughter is the future Princess Saracinesca." "It remains to be seen whether he is right." Gouache had been pushed by the crowd into one of the angles of the pilaster while the two speakers stood before one of the four pillars of which it was built up. The words astonished him so much that he forced his way out until he could see the Princess of Sant' Ilario's beautiful profile dark against the bright light of the street. She was still speaking, but he could no longer hear her voice, some acoustic peculiarity of the columns had in all probability been the means of conveying to him the fragment of conversation he had overheard. Avoiding recognition, he slipped away through an opening in the throng and just succeeded in reaching the gate as the first of the Montevarchi carriages drew up. The numerous members of the family were gathered on the edge of the crowd, and Gouache managed to speak a few words with Faustina. The girl's delicate face lighted up when she was conscious of his presence, and she turned her eyes lovingly to his. They met often now in public, though San Giacinto did his best to keep them apart. "Here is a secret," said Gouache in a quick whisper. "I have just heard Sant' Ilario telling his wife that your sister is the future Princess Saracinesca. What does it mean?" Faustina looked at him in the utmost astonishment. It was clear that she knew nothing of the matter at present. "You must have heard wrong," she answered. "Will you come to early mass to-morrow?" he asked hurriedly, for he had no time to lose. "I will try--if it is possible. It will be easier now that San Giacinto is to be away. He knows everything, I am sure." "San Giacinto?" It was Gouache's turn to be astonished. But explanations were impossible in such a crowd, and Faustina was already moving away. "Say nothing about what I have told you," Anastase whispered as she left him. She bowed her lovely head in silence and passed on. And so the Marchese di San Giacinto took Flavia Montevarchi for his wife, and all Rome looked on and smiled, and told imaginary stories of his former life, acknowledging, nevertheless, that Flavia had done very well--the stock phrase--since there was no doubt whatever but that the gigantic bridegroom was the cousin of the Saracinesca, and rich into the bargain. Amidst all the gossip and small talk no one, however, was found who possessed enough imagination to foretell what in reality was very imminent, namely, that the Marchese might turn out to be the prince. The last person to suspect such a revelation was San Giacinto himself. He had indeed at one time entertained some hopes of pushing forward a claim which was certainly founded upon justice if not upon good law, but since Montevarchi had kept the documents relating to the case for many days, and had then returned them without mentioning the subject to his future son-in-law, the latter had thought it wiser to let the matter rest for the present, shrewdly suspecting that such a man as Montevarchi would not readily let such an opportunity of enriching his own daughter slip through his fingers. It has been already seen that Montevarchi purposely prevented San Giacinto from seeing the papers in order that he might be in reality quite innocent of any complicity in the matter when the proceedings were instituted, a point very important for the success of the suit. Half an hour afterwards San Giacinto was closeted with the old prince in the latter's study, which looked more than usually dismal by contrast with the brilliant assemblage in the drawing-rooms. "Now that we are alone, my dear son," began Montevarchi, who for a wonder had not changed his coat since the ceremony, "now that you are really my son, I have an important communication to make." San Giacinto sat down and any one might have seen from the expression of his square jaw and determined mouth that he was prepared for battle. He did not trust his father-in-law in the least, and would not have been surprised if he had made an attempt to get back the money he had paid into the lawyer's hands as Flavia's dowry. But San Giacinto had taken all precautions and knew very well that he could not be cheated. Montevarchi continued in a bland voice. "I have kept the matter as a surprise for you," he said. "You have of course been very busy during these last weeks in making your preparations for the solemn ceremony at which we have just assisted. It was therefore impossible for you to attend to the multifarious details which it has been my care, my privilege, to sift and examine. For it is a privilege we should value highly to labour for those we love, for those with whom we share our dearest affections. I am now about to communicate to you an affair of the highest importance, which, when brought to a successful termination will exercise a tremendous influence over all your life. Let me say beforehand, however, and lest you should suspect me of any unworthy motives, that I expect no thanks, nor any share in the immense triumph in store for you. Do not be surprised if I use somewhat strong language on such an occasion. I have examined everything, preserved everything, taken the best legal advice, and consulted those without whose spiritual counsel I enter upon no weighty undertaking. My dear son, you, and none other, are the real and rightful Prince Saracinesca." The climax to the long preamble was so unexpected that San Giacinto uttered a loud exclamation of surprise. "Do not be amazed at what I have told you," said Montevarchi. "The documents upon which the claims of the Saracinesca rest were drawn up by a wise man. Although he had not at that time any intention of marrying, he was aware that with heaven all things are possible, and introduced a clause to the effect that if he should marry and leave heirs direct of his body, the whole deed was to be null, void and ineffectual. I do not know enough of your family history to understand why neither he nor his son nor his grandson ever made any attempt to recover their birthright, but I know enough of law to affirm that the clause is still good. It is identical"--the prince smiled pleasantly--"it is identical in the original and in the copy preserved in the Chancery archives. In my opinion you have only to present the two documents before a competent court, in order to obtain a unanimous verdict in your favour." San Giacinto looked hard from under his overhanging brows at the old man's keen face. Then, suddenly, he stuck his heavy fist into the palm of his left hand, and rose from his chair, a gleam of savage triumph in his eyes. For some time he paced the room in silence. "I wish Giovanni no ill, nor his father either," he said at last. "Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Montevarchi, crossing himself. "And besides, as the property is all yours, that would be of no use." San Giacinto stared a minute, and then his deep voice rang out in a hearty laugh. He had an intimate conviction that his devout father-in-law was quite capable, not only of wishing evil to his neighbour, but of putting his wishes into execution if his interests could be advanced thereby. "No," he said, when his merriment had subsided, "I wish them no evil. But, after all, they must know what is contained in the papers they have in their possession, and they must know that I am the prince, and that they have kept me out of my inheritance. I will go and tell them so. Since there is no doubt about the case, I do not see why I should wait." "Nor I," answered Montevarchi, with the air of a man who has done his part and expects others to finish what he has begun. "It is fortunate that we have decided to go to Frascati instead of making a journey to the end of Europe. Not but that, as I have never seen Paris, I would have liked the trip well enough." "You will find Paris pleasanter when you are Prince Saracinesca." "That is true," replied San Giacinto, thoughtfully. There was the deep light of anticipated triumph in his eyes. "Will you see that the proper preliminary steps are taken?" he asked presently. "I will engage lawyers for you. But you will have to do the rest yourself. The lawyers might go out and talk it over with you in Frascati. After all, you are a young man of good sense, and will not have any sentiment about being alone with your wife." "For the matter of that, I anticipate much pleasure in the society of my wife, but when there is so much meat boiling, somebody must watch the pot, as we used to say in Naples. I am a practical man, you know." "Ah, that is a great quality, one of the very greatest! If I had spent my life in a perpetual honeymoon with the princess, Casa Montevarchi would not be what it is, my son. I have always given my best attention to the affairs of my household, and I expect that you will continue the tradition." "Never fear! If, by continuing the tradition, you mean that I should get what is mine, I will not disappoint you. Can you tell me when the case can be tried, and in what court it will be heard?" "With my influence," replied Montevarchi, "the case may be put through at once. A month will suffice for the preliminaries, a day for the hearing. Everything is settled at once by the exhibition of the documents which provide for you in the most explicit terms. You can come in from the country and see them for yourself if you please. But I consider that quite unnecessary. The lawyers will settle everything." "Pardon my curiosity, but I would like to know why you thought it best not to tell me anything of the matter until now." "My dear son, you were so busy with the preparations for your marriage, and the questions involved seemed at first so doubtful that I thought it best not to trouble you with them. Then, when I knew the whole truth the time was so near that I preferred to give you the information as a sort of wedding present." "A magnificent one indeed, for which I cannot find words to express my gratitude." "No, no! Do not talk of gratitude. I feel that I am fulfilling a sacred duty in restoring to the fatherless his birthright. It is an act of divine justice for the execution of which I have been chosen as the humble instrument. Do your duty by my dear daughter, and render your gratitude to heaven--quoe sunt Coesaris, Coesari, et quoe sunt Dei, Deo! Would that we could all live by that rule!" "To Saracinesca what is his, and to San Giacinto that which belongs to him--that is what you mean?" "Yes, my good son. I am glad to see that you understand Latin. It does you credit that amidst the misfortunes of your early life you should have so improved yourself as to possess the education necessary to the high rank you are about to assume. I tell you frankly that, in spite of your personal qualities, in spite of the great name and possessions which will soon be yours, if I had not distinguished in you that refinement and instruction without which no gentleman is worthy of the name, I would not have bestowed upon you the hand of that sweet creature whom I have cherished as a flower in the house of my old age." San Giacinto had made a study of old Montevarchi during a month past, and was not in the least deceived by his rounded periods and well expressed moral sentiments. But he smiled and bowed, enjoying the idea of attributing such flattery to himself in proportion as he felt that he was unworthy of it. He had indeed done his best to acquire a certain amount of instruction, as his father-in-law called it, and his tastes were certainly not so coarse as might have been expected, but he was too strong a man to be easily deceived concerning his own powers, and he knew well enough that he owed his success to his fortune. He saw, too, that Montevarchi, in giving him Flavia, had foreseen the possibility of his claiming the rights of his cousins, and if he had not been thoroughly satisfied with his choice he would have now felt that he had been deceived. He had no regrets, however, for he felt that even had he already enjoyed the titles and wealth he was so soon to claim, he would nevertheless have chosen Flavia for his wife. Of all the young girls he had seen in Rome she was the only one who really attracted him; a fact due, perhaps, to her being more natural than the rest, or at least more like what he thought a woman should naturally be. His rough nature would not have harmonised with Faustina's character; still less could he have understood and appreciated a woman like Corona, who was indeed almost beyond the comprehension of Giovanni, her own husband. San Giacinto was almost a savage, compared with the young men of the class to which he now belonged, and there was something wild and half-tamed in Flavia Montevarchi which, had fascinated him from the first, and held him by that side of his temperament by which alone savages are governed. Had the bringing of the suit been somewhat hastened it is not impossible that San Giacinto and his wife might have driven up to the ancient towers of Saracinesca on that Saturday afternoon, as Giovanni and Corona had done on their wedding day two years and a half earlier. As it was, they were to go out to Frascati to spend a week in Montevarchi's villa, as the prince and princess and all their married children had done before them. "Eh! what a satisfaction!" exclaimed Flavia, with a sigh of relief as the carriage rolled out of the deep archway under the palace. Then she laughed a little and looked up at her husband out of the corners of her bright black eyes, after which she produced a very pretty silver scent-bottle which her mother had put into her hand as a parting gift. She looked at it, turned it round, opened it and at last smelled the contents. "Ugh!" she cried, shutting it up quickly and making a wry face. "It is full of salts--horrible! I thought it was something good to smell! Did she think I was going to faint on the way?" "You do not look like fainting," remarked San Giacinto, who looked gigantic in a wide fur pelisse. He put out his great hand, which closed with a sort of rough tenderness over hers, completely hiding it as well as the smelling-bottle she held. "So it is a satisfaction, is it?" he asked, with a gleam of pleasure in his deep-set eyes. "If you had been educated under the supervision of the eccellentissima casa Montevarchi, you would understand what a blessed institution marriage is! You--what shall I call you--your name is Giovanni, is it not?" "Yes--Giovanni. Do you like the name?" "No--it reminds me of the head of John the Baptist. I will call you--let me see--Nino. Yes--that sounds so small, and you are so immensely big. You are Nino, in future. I am glad you are big. I do not like little men." She nestled close to the giant, with a laugh that pleased him. San Giacinto suddenly found that he was very much more in love than he had supposed. His life had been very full of contrasts, but this was the greatest which had yet presented itself. He remembered a bright summer's morning a few years earlier, when he had walked back from the church in Aquila with Felice Baldi by his side. Poor Felice! She had worn a very pretty black silk frock with a fine gold chain around her neck, and a veil upon her head, for she was not of the class "that wear hats," as they say in Rome. But she had forced her stout hands into gloves, and Giovanni the innkeeper had been somewhat proud of her ladylike appearance. Her face was very red and there were tears of pleasure and timidity in her eyes, which he remembered very well. It was strange that she, too, should have been proud of her husband's size and strength. Perhaps all women were very much alike. How well he remembered the wedding collation, the little yellow cakes with a drop of hard pink sugar in the middle of each, the bottles of sweet cordial of various flavours, cinnamon, clove, aniseseed and the like, the bright red japanned tray, and the cheaply gaudy plates whereon were painted all manner of impossible flowers. Felice was dead, buried in the campo santo of Aquila, with its whitewashed walls of enclosure and its appalling monuments and mortuary emblems. Poor Felice! She had been a good wife, and he had been a good husband to her. She was such a simple creature that he could almost fancy her spirit shedding tears of satisfied pride at seeing her Giovanni married to a princess, rich and about to be metamorphosed into a prince himself. She had known that he was a Marchese of a great family, and had often begged him to let her be called the Signora Marchesa. But he had always told her that for people in their position it was absurd. They were not poor for their station; indeed, they were among the wealthiest of their class in Aquila. He had promised to assert his title when they should be rich enough, but poor Felice had died too soon. Then had come that great day when Giovanni had won in the lottery--Giovanni who had never played before and had all his life called it a waste of money and a public robbery. But, playing once, he had played high, and all his numbers had appeared on the following Saturday. Two hundred thousand francs in a day! Such luck only falls to the lot of men who are born under destiny. Giovanni had long known what he should do if he only possessed the capital. The winnings were paid in cash, and in a fortnight he had taken up a government contract in the province of Aquila. Then came another and another. Everything turned to gold in his hands, and in two years he was a rich man. Alone in the world, with his two little boys, and possessed of considerable wealth, the longing had come over him to take the position to which he had a legitimate right, a position which, he supposed, would not interfere with his increasing his fortune if he wished to do so. He had left the children under the supervision of old Don Paolo, the curate, and had come to Rome, where he had lodged in an obscure hotel until he had fitted himself to appear before his cousins as a gentleman. His grave temper, indomitable energy, and natural astuteness had done the rest, and fortune had crowned all his efforts. The old blood of the Saracinesca had grown somewhat coarse by the admixture of a stream very far from blue; but if it had lost in some respects it had gained in others, and the type was not wholly low. The broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned giant was not altogether unworthy of the ancient name, and he knew it as his wife nestled to his side. He loved the wild element in her, but most of all he loved the thoroughbred stamp of her face, the delicacy of her small hands, the aristocratic ring of her laughter, for these all told him that, after three generations of obscurity he had risen again to the level whence his fathers had fallen. The change in his life became very dear to him, as all these things passed quickly through his mind; and with the consciousness of vivid contrast came the certainty that he loved Flavia far better than he had believed possible. "And what shall I call you?" he asked, rather bluntly. He did not quite know whether it would be wise to use any term of endearment or not. Indeed, this was the weak point in his experience, but he supplemented the deficiency by a rough tenderness which was far from disagreeable to Flavia. "Anything you like, dear," she answered. San Giacinto felt the blood rush to his head with pleasure as he heard the epithet. "Anything?" he asked, with a very unwonted tremour in his voice. "Anything--provided you will love me," she replied. He thought he had never seen such wicked, fascinating eyes. He drew her face to his and looked into them a moment, his own blazing suddenly with a passion wholly new to him. "I will not call you anything--instead of calling you, I will kiss you--so--is it not better than any name?" A deep blush spread over Flavia's face and then subsided suddenly, leaving her very pale. For a long time neither spoke again. "Did your father tell you the news before we left?" asked San Giacinto at last, when they were rolling over the Campagna along the Via Latina. "No--what?" "It is somewhat remarkable news. If you are afraid of fainting," he added, with rough humour, "hold your bottle of salts ready." Flavia looked up uneasily, wondering whether there were anything wrong about San Giacinto. She knew very well that her father had been glad to get rid of her. "I am not San Giacinto after all," he said quietly. Flavia started and drew back. "Who are you then?" she asked quickly. "I am Prince Saracinesca, and you are the princess." He spoke very calmly, and watched her face to see the effect of the news. "I wish you were!" she exclaimed nervously. She wondered whether he was going mad. "There seems to be no doubt about it," he answered, "your father informed me of the fact as a wedding present. He has examined all the papers and will send the lawyers out to Frascati to prepare the case with me." He told her the whole story in detail. As he proceeded, a singular expression came into Flavia's face, and when he had finished she broke out into voluble expressions of joy. "I always knew that I was born to be a princess--I mean a real one! How could I be anything else? Oh! I am so happy, and you are such a darling to be a prince! And to think that if papa had not discovered the papers, those horrid Sant' Ilario people would have had everything. Princess Saracinesca! Eh, but how it sounds! Almost as good as Orsini, and much nicer with you, you great big, splendid lion! Why did they not call you Leone? It is too good to be true! And I always hated Corona, ever since I was a little girl and she was the Astrardente, because she used to say I did not behave well and that Faustina was much prettier--I heard her say so when I was behind the curtains. Why did you not find it out ever so long ago? Think what a wedding we should have had, just like Sant' Ilario's! But it was very fine after all, and of course there is nothing to complain of. Evviva! Evviva! Do give me one of those cigarettes--I never smoked in my life, and I am so happy that I know it will not hurt me!" San Giacinto had his case in his hand, and laughed as he presented it to her. Quiet as he was in his manner he was far the happier of the two, as he was far more capable of profound feeling than the wild girl who was now his wife. He was glad, too, to see that she was so thoroughly delighted, for he knew well enough that even after he had gained the suit he would need the support of an ambitious woman to strengthen his position. He did not believe that the Saracinesca would submit tamely to such a tremendous shock of fortune, and he foresaw that their resentment would probably be shared by a great number of their friends. Flavia looked prettier than ever as she put the bit of rolled paper between her red lips and puffed away with an energy altogether unnecessary. He would not have believed that, being already so brilliant and good to see, a piece of unexpected good news could have lent her expression so much more brightness. She was positively radiant, as she looked from his eyes at her little cigarette, and then, looking back to him again, laughed and snapped her small gloved fingers. "Do you know," she said presently, with a glance that completed the conquest of San Giacinto's heart, "I thought I should be dreadfully shy with you--at first--and I am not in the least! I confess, at the very moment when you were putting the ring on my finger I was wondering what we should talk about during the drive." "You did not think we should have such an agreeable subject of conversation, did you?" "No--and it is such a pretty ring! I always wanted a band of diamonds--plain gold is so common. Did you think of it yourself or did some one else suggest the idea?" "Castellani said it was old-fashioned," answered San Giacinto, "but I preferred it." "Would you have liked one, too?" "No. It would be ridiculous for a man." "You have very good taste," remarked Flavia, eyeing him critically. "Where did you get it? You used to keep a hotel in Aquila, did you not?" San Giacinto had long been prepared for the question and did not wince nor show the slightest embarrassment. He smiled calmly as he answered her. "You would hardly have called it a hotel, it was a country inn. I daresay I shall manage Saracinesca all the better for having kept a hostelry." "Of course. Oh, I have such a delightful idea! Let us go to Aquila and keep the hotel together. It would be such fun! You could say you had married a little shop-keeper's daughter in Rome, you know. Just for a month, Nino--do let us do it! It would be such a change after society, and then we would go back for the Carnival. Oh, do!" "But you forget the lawsuit--" "That is true. Besides, it will be just as much of a change to be Princess Saracinesca. But we can do it another time. I would like so much to go about in an apron with a red cotton handkerchief on my head and see all the queer people! When are the lawyers coming?" "During the week, I suppose." "There will be a fight," said Flavia, her face growing more grave. "What will Sant' Ilario and his father say and do? I cannot believe that it will all go so smoothly as you think. They do not look like people who would give up easily what they have had so long. I suppose they will be quite ruined." "I do not know. Corona is rich in her own right, and Sant' Ilario has his mother's fortune. Of course, they will be poor compared with their present wealth. I am sorry for them--" "Sorry?" Flavia looked at her husband in some astonishment. "It is their own fault. Why should you be sorry?" "It is not exactly their fault. I could hardly have expected them to come to me and inform me that a mistake had been made in the last century, and that all they possessed was mine." "All they possessed!" echoed Flavia, thoughtfully. "What a wonderful idea it is!" "Very wonderful," assented San Giacinto, who was thinking once more of his former poverty. The carriage rolled on and both were silent for some time, absorbed in dreaming of the greatness which was before them in the near future, San Giacinto enumerating in his mind the titles and estates which were soon to be his, while Flavia imagined herself in Corona's place in Rome, grown suddenly to be a central figure in society, leading and organising the brilliant amusements of her world, and above all, rejoicing in that lavish use of abundant money which had always seemed to her the most desirable of all enjoyments. CHAPTER XVIII. Faustina Montevarchi was delighted when her sister was at last married and out of the house. The two had always been very good friends, but Faustina felt that she had an enemy in San Giacinto and was relieved when he was gone. She had no especial reason for her suspicions, since he treated her with the same quiet and amicable politeness which he showed to the rest of the household; but her perceptions were extraordinarily true and keen, and she had noticed that he watched her whenever Gouache was in the room, in a way that made her very uncomfortable. Moreover, he had succeeded of late in making Flavia accompany her to early mass on Sunday mornings on pretence of his wishing to see Flavia without the inevitable supervision of the old princess. The plan was ingenious; for Faustina, instead of meeting Gouache, was thus obliged to play chaperon while her sister and San Giacinto talked to their hearts' content. He was a discreet man, however, and Flavia was ignorant of the fact that Faustina and Anastase had sometimes met in the same way, and would have met frequently had they not been prevented. The young girl was clever enough to see why San Giacinto acted as he did; she understood that he was an ambitious man, and that, as he was about to ally himself with her family, he would naturally disapprove of her attachment to Gouache. Now that he was gone, she wondered whether he had devised any steps which would take effect after his departure. Faustina was quite as much in love as Gouache himself, and spent much time in calculating the chances of a favourable issue from the situation in which she found herself. Life without Anastase was impossible, but the probabilities of her becoming his wife in the ordinary course of events were very few, as far as she was able to judge, and she had moments of extreme depression, during which she despaired of everything. The love of a very young girl may in itself be both strong and enduring, but it generally has the effect of making her prone to extremes of hope and fear, uncertain of herself, vacillating in her ideas, and unsteady in the pursuit of the smaller ends of life. Throw two equal weights into the scales of a perfectly adjusted balance, the arm will swing and move erratically many times before it returns to its normal position, although there is a potential equilibrium in the machine which will shortly assert itself in absolute tranquillity. Love in a very young person is rarely interesting, unless it is attended by heroic or tragic circumstances. Human life is very like the game of chess, of which the openings are so limited in number that a practised player knows them all by heart, whereas the subsequent moves are susceptible of infinite variation. Almost all young people pass through the early stages of existence by some known gambit, which, has always a definite influence upon their later lives, but never determines the latter entirely. The game is played between humanity on the one side and the unforeseen on the other; but that which can really not be foretold in some measure rarely presents itself until the first effects of love have been felt, a period which, to continue the simile, may be compared in chess to the operation of castling. Then comes the first crisis, and the merest tyro knows how much may depend upon whether he castles on the king's side or on the queen's. Now the nature of Faustina's first love was such as to make it probable that it would end in some uncommon way. There was something fatal in the suddenness with which her affection had grown and had upset the balance of her judgment. It is safe to say that not one young girl in a million would have behaved as she had done on the night of the insurrection in Rome; not one in a hundred thousand would, in her position, have fallen in love with Gouache. The position of the professional artist and of the professional man of letters in modern European society is ill defined. As a man who has been brought up in a palace would undoubtedly betray his breeding sooner or later if transported to live amongst a gang of thieves, so a man who has grown to years of discretion in the atmosphere of studios or in the queer company from which most literary men have sprung, will inevitably, at one time or another, offend the susceptibilities of that portion of humanity which calls itself society. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. Among a set of people whose profession it is to do always, and in all things, precisely what their neighbours do, the man who makes his living by doing what other people cannot do, must always be a marked figure. Look at modern society. It cannot toil nor spin; it can hardly put together ten words in a grammatical sequence. But it can clothe itself. The man of letters can both toil and write good English, but his taste in tailoring frequently leaves much to be desired. If he would put himself in the hands of Poole, and hold his tongue, he might almost pass for a member of society. But he must needs talk, and his speech bewrayeth him for a Galilean. There are wits in society, both many and keen, who can say something original, cutting and neatly turned, upon almost any subject, with an easy superiority which makes the hair of the learned man stand erect upon his head. The chief characteristic of him who lives by his brains is, that he is not only able to talk consecutively upon some subject, but that he actually does so, which, in society, is accounted a monstrous crime against manners. Let him write what he wants to say, and print it; society will either not understand him at all, or will read his works with a dictionary in the secrecy of its own chamber. But if he will hold his tongue in public, society will give him a cup of tea and treat him almost like a human being for the sake of being said to patronise letters. Any one who likes society's tea may drink his fill of it in consideration of wearing a good coat and keeping his wits to himself, but he will not succeed in marrying any of society's sisters, cousins or aunts without a severe struggle. Anastase Gouache did not quite understand this. He sometimes found himself amidst a group of people who were freely discussing some person unknown to him. On such occasions he held his peace, innocently supposing that his ignorance was without any importance whatsoever, among a set of men and women with whom not to know every detail concerning every one else is to be little better than an outcast. "Now do tell me all about the Snooks and Montmorency divorce," says Lady Smyth-Tompkins with a sweetly engaging smile, as she holds out her hand. "I did not know there was such a case--I don't know the people," you answer. "Oh! I thought, of course, you knew all about it," Lady Smyth-Tompkins replies, and her features turn to stone as she realises that you do not know everybody, and leaves you to your own reflections. O Thackeray, snobissme maxime! How well you knew them! There are no snobs among the Latin races, but there is a worse animal, the sycophant, descended directly from the dinner-tables of ancient Rome. In old-fashioned houses there are often several of them, headed invariably by the "giornale ambulante," the walking newspaper, whose business it is to pick up items of news during the day in order to detail them to the family in the evening. There is a certain old princess who sits every evening with her needlework at the head of a long table in the dismal drawing-room of a gigantic palace. On each side of the board are seated the old parasites, the family doctor, the family chaplain, the family lawyer, the family librarian, the peripatetic news-sheet and the rest. "I have been out to-day," says her excellency. "Oh! Ah! Dear me! In this weather! Hear what the princess says! The princess has been out!" The chorus comes up the table, all the answers reaching her ears at once. "And I saw, as I drove by, the new monument! What a ridiculous thing it is." "Ho! ho! ho! Hah! hah! hah! Dear me! What a monument! What fine taste the princess has! Hear what the princess thinks of the monument!" "If you will believe it, the bronze horse has a crooked leg." "He! he! he! Hi! hi! hi! Dear me! A crooked leg! How the princess understands horses! The princess saw that he had a crooked leg!" And so on, for a couple of hours, in the cold, dimly-lighted room until her excellency has had enough of it and rises to go to bed, when the parasites all scuttle away and quarrel with each other in the street as they walk home. Night after night, to decades of years, the old lady recounts the little journal of her day to the admiring listeners, whose chorus of approval is performed daily with the same unvarying regularity. The times are changing now; the prince is not so easily amused, and the sycophant has accordingly acquired the art of amusing, but there still survive some wonderful monuments of the old school. Anastase Gouache was a man of great talent and of rising fame, but like other men of his stamp he preferred to believe that he was received on a friendly footing for his own sake rather than on account of his reputation. In his own eyes, he was, as a man, as good as those with whom he associated, and had as much right to make love to Faustina Montevarchi as the young Frangipani, for whom her father destined her. Faustina, on her part, was too young to appreciate the real strength of the prejudices by which she was surrounded. She could not understand that, although the man she loved was a gentleman, young, good-looking, successful, and not without prospects of acquiring a fortune, he was yet wholly ineligible as a husband. Had she seen this ever so clearly it might have made but little difference in her feelings; but she did not see it, and the disparaging remarks about Anastase, which she occasionally heard in her own family, seemed to her utterly unjust as well as quite unfounded. The result was that the two young people were preparing for themselves one of those terrible disappointments of which the consequences are sometimes felt during a score of years. Both, however, were too much in love to bear suspense very long without doing something to precipitate the course of events, and whenever they had the chance they talked the matter over and built wonderful castles in the air. About a fortnight after the marriage of San Giacinto they were seated together in a room full of people, late in the afternoon. They had been talking for some time upon indifferent subjects. When two persons meet who are very much in love with each other, and waste their time in discussing topics of little importance, it may be safely predicted that something unusual is about to occur. "I cannot endure this suspense any longer," said Gouache at last. "Nor I," answered Faustina. "It is of no use to wait any more. Either your father will consent or he will not. I will ask him and know the worst." "And if it is the worst--what then?" The young girl turned her eyes towards Anastase with a frightened look. "Then we must manage without his consent." "How is that possible?" "It must be possible," replied Gouache. "If you love me it shall be possible. It is only a question of a little courage and good-will. But, after all, your father may consent. Why should he not?" "Because--" she hesitated a little. "Because I am not a Roman prince, you mean." Anastase glanced quickly at her. "No. He wants me to marry Frangipani." "Why did you never tell me that?" "I did not know it when we last met. My mother told me of it last night." "Is the match settled?" asked Gouache. He was very pale. "I think it has been spoken of," answered Faustina in a low voice. She shivered a little and pressed her hands together. There was a short silence, during which Anastase did not take his eyes from her, while she looked down, avoiding his look. "Then there is no time to be lost," said Gouache at last. "I will go to your father to-morrow morning." "Oh--don't, don't!" cried Faustina, suddenly, with an expression of intense anxiety. "Why not?" The artist seemed very much surprised. "You do not know him! You do not know what he will say to you! You will be angry and lose your temper--he will be cruel and will insult you, and you will resent it--then I shall never see you again. You do not know--" "This is something new," said Gouache. "How can you be sure that he will receive me so badly? Have your people talked about me? After all, I am an honest man, and though I live by my profession I am not poor. It is true, I am not such a match for you as Frangipani. Tell me, do they abuse me at your house?" "No--what can they say, except that you are an artist? That is not abuse, nor calumny." "It depends upon how it is said. I suppose it is San Giacinto who says it." Gouache's face darkened. "San Giacinto has guessed the truth," answered Faustina, shaking her head. "He knows that we love each other, and just now he is very powerful with my father. It will be worse if he wins the suit and is Prince Saracinesca." "Then that is another reason for acting at once. Faustina--you followed me once--will you not go with me, away, out of this cursed city? I will ask for you first. I will behave honourably. But if he will not consent, what is there left for us to do? Can we live apart? Can you marry Frangipani? Have not many people done before what we think of doing? Is it wrong? Heaven knows, I make no pretence to sanctity. But I would not have you do anything--what shall I say? Anything against your conscience." There was a shade of bitterness in the laugh that accompanied the last words. "You do not know what things he will say," repeated Faustina, in despairing tones. "This is absurd," said Gouache. "I can bear anything he can say well enough. He is an old man and I am a young one, and have no intention of taking offence. He may say what he pleases, call me a villain, a brigand--that is your favourite Italian expression--a thief, a liar, anything he pleases. I will not be angry. There shall be no violence. But I cannot endure this state of things any longer. I must try my luck." "Wait a little longer," answered Faustina, in an imploring tone. "Wait until the suit is decided." "In order to let San Giacinto get even more influence than he has now? It would be a mistake--you almost said so yourself a moment ago. Besides, the suit may for years." "It will not last a fortnight." "Poor Sant' Ilario!" exclaimed Gouache. "Does everybody know about it?" "I suppose so. But nobody speaks of it. We all feel dreadfully about it, except my father and San Giacinto and Flavia." "If he is in a good humour this is the very time to go to him." "Please, please do not insist!" Faustina was evidently very much in earnest. With the instinct of a very young woman, she clung to the half happiness of the present which was so much greater than anything she had known before in her life. But Gouache would not be satisfied. "I must know the worst," he said again, as they parted. "But this is so much, better than the worst," answered Faustina, sadly. "Who risks nothing, wins nothing," retorted the young man with a bright smile. In spite of his hopefulness, however, he had received a severe shock on hearing the news of the intended match with young Frangipani. He had certainly never expected to find himself the rival of such a suitor, and his sense of possibility, if man may be said to possess such a faculty, was staggered by the idea. He suddenly awakened to a true understanding of his position in Roman society, and when he contemplated his discovery in all its bearings, his nerve almost forsook him. When he remembered his childhood, his youth, and the circumstances in which he had lived up to a recent time, he found it hard to realise that he was trying to marry such a girl, in spite of her family and in opposition to such a man as was now brought forward as a match for her. It was not in his nature, however, to be discouraged in the face of difficulties. He was like a brave man who has received a stunning blow, but who continues to fight until he has gradually regained his position. Gouache could no more have relinquished Faustina than he could have abandoned a half-finished picture in which he believed, any more than he had given up the attempt to break away the stones at the Vigna Santucci after he had received the bullet in his shoulder. He had acquired his position in life by indomitable perseverance and hopefulness, and those qualities would not now fail him, in one of the most critical situations through which he had ever passed. In spite of Faustina's warning and, to some extent, in spite of his own better judgment, he determined to face the old prince at once and to ask him boldly for his daughter. He had spoken confidently to Faustina of being married against the will of her father, but when he thought over this alternative he recollected a fact he had almost completely forgotten in considering his matrimonial projects. He was a soldier and had enlisted in the Zouaves for a term of years. It was true that by using the influence he possessed he might hope to be released from his engagement, but such a course was most repugnant to him. Before Mentana it would have been wholly impossible, for it would have seemed cowardly. Now that he had distinguished himself and had been wounded in the cause, the thing might be done without dishonour, but it would involve a species of self-abasement to which he was not prepared to submit. On the other hand, to wait until his term of service should have expired was to risk losing Faustina altogether. He knew that she loved him, but he was experienced enough to know that a young girl is not always able to bear the pressure exercised upon her when marriage is concerned. In Rome, and especially at that time, it was in the power of parents to use the most despotic means for subduing the will of their children. There was even a law by which a disobedient son or daughter could be imprisoned for a considerable length of time, provided that the father could prove that his child had rebelled against his just will. Though Gouache was not aware of this, the fact that a similar institution existed in his own country made him suspect that it was to be found in Rome also. Supposing that Montevarchi refused to accept him for a son-in-law, and that Faustina, on the other hand, refused to marry young Frangipani, it was only too probable that she might be locked up--in a luxuriously furnished cell of course--to reflect upon the error of her ways. It was by no means certain that in the face of such humiliation and suffering Faustina would continue her resistance; indeed, she could hardly be blamed if she yielded in the end. Gouache believed in the sincerity of her love because the case was his own; had he heard of it in the life of another man he would have laughed at the idea that a girl of eighteen could be capable of a serious passion. It is not necessary, however, to enter into an analysis of the motives and feelings of either Faustina or Anastase. Their connection with the history of the Saracinesca arose from what they did, and not from the thoughts which prompted their actions. It is sufficient to say that Gouache conceived the mad idea of asking Montevarchi's consent to his marriage and to explain the immediate consequences of the step he took. Matters were rapidly approaching a climax. San Giacinto had seen the lawyers at Frascati, and he had brought his wife back to Rome very soon in order to be on the spot while the case was being prepared. The men of the law declared that the matter was a very simple one and that no court could withhold its decision a single day after seeing the documents which constituted the claim. The only point about which any argument could arise related to the identity of San Giacinto himself, and no difficulty was found in establishing substantial proof that he was Giovanni Saracinesca and not an impostor. His father and grandfather had jealously kept all the records of themselves which were necessary, from the marriage certificate of the original Don Leone, who had signed the deed, to the register of San Giacinto's own birth. Copies were obtained, properly drawn up and certified, of the parish books and of the few government documents which were officially preserved in the kingdom of Naples before 1860, and the lawyers declared themselves ready to open the case. Up to this time the strictest secrecy was preserved, at the request of San Giacinto himself. He said that in such an important matter he wished nothing to transpire until he was ready to act; more especially as the Saracinesca themselves could not be ignorant of the true state of the case and had no right to receive notice of the action beforehand. As Corona had foreseen, San Giacinto intended to obtain the decision by means of a perfectly legal trial, and was honestly ready to court enquiry into the rights he was about to assert. When the moment came and all was ready, he went to the Palazzo Saracinesca and asked for the prince, who received him in the same room in which the two had met when the ex-innkeeper had made his appearance in Rome nearly three months earlier. As San Giacinto entered he felt that he had not wasted his time during that short interval. "I have come to talk with you upon a business which must be unpleasant to you," he began. "Unfortunately it cannot be avoided. I beg you to believe that it is my wish to act loyally and fairly." "I hope so," said Saracinesca, bending his bushy gray eyebrows and fixing his keen old eyes upon his visitor. "You need not doubt it," replied San Giacinto rather proudly. "You are doubtless acquainted with the nature of the deed by which our great-grandfathers agreed to transfer the titles and property to the younger of the two. When we first spoke of the matter I was not aware of the existence of a saving clause. I cannot suppose you ignorant of it. That clause provided that if Leone Saracinesca married and had a lawful heir, the deed should be null and void. He did marry, as you know. I am his direct descendant, and have children of my own by my first marriage. I cannot therefore allow the clause in question to remain in abeyance any longer. With all due respect to you, I am obliged to tell you quite frankly that, in law, I am Prince Saracinesca." Having thus stated his position as plainly as possible, San Giacinto folded his great hands upon his knee and leaned against the back of his chair. Saracinesca looked as though he were about to make some hasty answer, but he controlled his intention and rose to his feet. After walking twice up and down the room, he came and stood in front of his cousin. "Let us be plain in what we say," he began. "I give you my word that, until Montevarchi sent back those papers the other day, I did not know what they contained. I had not read them for thirty years, and at that time the clause escaped me. I do not remember to have noticed it. This may have been due to the fact that I had never heard that Leone had any living descendants, and should therefore have attached no importance to the words if I had seen them." "I believe you," said San Giacinto, calmly. The old man's eyes flashed. "I always take it for granted that I am believed," he answered. "Will you give me your word that you are what you assert yourself to be, Giovanni Saracinesca, the great-grandson and lawful heir of Leone?" "Certainly. I pledge my honour that I am; and I, too, expect to be believed by you." There was something in the tone of the answer that struck a sympathetic chord in Saracinesca's nature. San Giacinto had risen to his feet, and there was something in the huge, lean strength of him, in the bold look of his eyes, in the ring of his deep voice, that inspired respect. Rough he was, and not over refined or carefully trained in the ways of the world, cruel perhaps, and overbearing too; but he was every inch a Saracinesca, and the old man felt it. "I believe you," answered the prince. "You may take possession when you please. I am Don Leone, and you are the head of the house." He made a gesture full of dignity, as though resigning then and there his name and the house in which he lived, to him who was lawfully entitled to both. The action was magnificent and worthy of the man. There was a superb disregard of consequences in his readiness to give up everything rather than keep for a moment what was not his, which affected San Giacinto strangely. In justice to the latter it must be remembered that he had not the faintest idea that he was the instrument of a gigantic fraud from which he was to derive the chief advantage. He instinctively bowed in acknowledgment of his cousin's generous conduct. "I shall not take advantage of your magnanimity," he said, "until the law has sanctioned my doing so." "As you please," answered the other. "I have nothing to conceal from the law, but I am prejudiced against lawyers. Do as you think best. A family council can settle the matter as well as the courts." "Your confidence in me is generous and noble. I prefer, however, that the tribunal should examine the matter." "As you please," repeated Saracinesca. There was no reason for prolonging an interview which could not be agreeable to either party. The old man remained standing. "No opposition will be made to the suit," he said. "You will simply produce your papers in proper form, and I will declare myself satisfied." He held out his hand. "I trust you will bear me no ill-will," said San Giacinto rather awkwardly. "For taking what is yours and not mine? Not in the least. Good-evening." San Giacinto left the room. When he was gone, Saracinesca stood still for a moment, and then sank into a chair. His strong nature had sustained him through the meeting and would sustain him to the end, but he was terribly shaken, and felt a strange sensation of numbness in the back of his head, which was quite new to him. For some minutes he sat still as though dazed and only half conscious. Then he rose again, shook himself as though to get rid of a bad dream and rang the bell. He sent for Giovanni, who appeared immediately. "San Giacinto has been here," he said quickly. "He is the man. You had better tell your wife, as she will want to collect her things before we leave the house." Giovanni was staggered by his father's impetuosity. He had realised that the danger existed, but it had always seemed indefinitely far removed. "I suppose there will be some legal proceedings before everything is settled," he said with more calmness than he felt. "What is that to us? We must go, sooner or later." "And if the courts do not decide in his favour, what then?" "There is no doubt about it," answered the prince, pacing the room as his excitement returned. "You and I are nobody. We had better go and live in an inn. That man is honest. I hate him, but he is honest. Why do you stand there staring at me? Were you not the first to say that if we are impostors we should give up everything of our own free-will? And now you seem to think that I will fight the suit! That is your logic! That is all the consistency you have acquired in your travels! Go and tell your wife that you are nobody, that I am nobody! Go and tell her to give you a title, a name for men to call you by! Go into the market and see whether you can find a name for your father! Go and hire a house for us to live in, when that Neapolitan devil has brought Flavia Montevarchi to live in the palace where your mother died, where you were born--poor Giovanni! Not that I pity you any more than I pity myself. Why should I? You are young and have done this house the honour to spend most of your life out of it. But after all--poor Giovanni!" Saracinesca seized his son's hand and looked into his eyes. The young man's face was perfectly calm, almost serene in its expression of indifference to misfortune. His whole soul was preoccupied by greater and nobler emotions than any which could be caused by worldly loss. He had been with Corona again, had talked with her and had seen that look in her face which he had learned to dread more than he had ever dreaded anything in his life. What was life itself without that which her eyes refused? CHAPTER XIX. Prince Montevarchi was very much surprised when he was told that Anastase Gouache wished to see him, and as he was very much occupied with the details of the suit his first impulse was to decline the visit. Although he had no idea that matters had already gone so far between the Zouave and Faustina, he was not, however, so blind as the young girl had supposed him to be. He was naturally observant, like most men who devote their lives to the pursuit of their own interests, and it had not escaped him that Faustina and Gouache were very often to be seen talking together in the world. Had he possessed a sense of humour he might possibly have thought that it would be inexpressibly comical if Gouache should take it into his head to fall in love with the girl; but the Italians are not a humorous people, and the idea did not suggest itself to the old gentleman. He consented to receive Gouache because he thought the opportunity would be a good one for reading the young man a lecture upon the humility of his station, and upon the arrogance he displayed in devoting himself thus openly to the daughter of Casa Montevarchi. "Good-day, Monsieur Gouache," he said solemnly, as Anastase entered. "Pray be seated. To what do I owe the honour of your visit?" Anastase had put on a perfectly new uniform for the interview, and his movements were more than usually alert and his manners a shade more elaborate and formal than on ordinary occasions. He felt and behaved as young men of good birth do who are serving their year in the army, and who, having put on their smartest tunic, hope that in a half light they may be taken for officers. "Will you allow me to explain my position in the first place?" he asked, seating himself and twisting his cap slowly in his hands. "Your position? By all means, if you desire to do so. It is an excellent rule in all discourses to put the definition before the argument. Nevertheless, if you would inform me of the nature of the affair, it might help me to understand you better." "It is very delicate--but I will try to be plain. What I am, I think you know already. I am a painter and I have been successful. For the present, I am a Zouave, but my military service does not greatly interfere with my profession. We have a good deal of time upon our hands. My pictures bring me a larger income than I can spend." "I congratulate you," observed Montevarchi, opening his small eyes in some astonishment. "The pursuit of the fine arts is not generally very lucrative. For myself, I confess that I am satisfied with those treasures which my father has left me. I am very fond of pictures, it is true; but you will understand that, when a gallery is filled, it is full. You comprehend, I am sure? Much as I might wish to own some of the works of the modern French school, the double disadvantage of possessing already so many canvases, and the still stronger consideration of my limited fortune--yes, limited, I assure you---" "Pardon me," interrupted Gouache, whose face reddened suddenly, "I had no intention of proposing to sell you a picture. I am not in the habit of advertising myself nor of soliciting orders for my work." "My dear sir!" exclaimed the prince, seeing that he was on a wrong tack, "have I suggested such a thing? If my words conveyed the idea, pray accept all my excuses. Since you had mentioned the subject of art, my thoughts naturally were directed to my gallery of pictures. I am delighted to hear of your success, for you know how much interest we all feel in him who was the victim of such an unfortunate accident, due doubtless to the carelessness of my men." "Pray do not recall that! Your hospitality more than repaid me for the little I suffered. The matter concerning which I wish to speak to you is a very serious one, and I hope you will believe that I have considered it well before taking a step which may at first surprise you. To be plain, I come to ask you to confer upon me the honour of Donna Faustina Montevarchi's hand." Montevarchi leaned back in his chair, speechless with amazement. He seemed to gasp for breath as his long fingers pressed the green table-cover before him. His small eyes were wide open, and his toothless jaw dropped. Gouache feared that he was going to be taken ill. "You!" cried the old man in a cracked voice, when he had recovered himself enough to be able to speak. "Yes," answered Anastase, who was beginning to feel very nervous as he observed the first results of his proposal. He had never before quite realised how utterly absurd the match would seem to Montevarchi. "Yes," he repeated. "Is the idea so surprising? Is it inconceivable to you that I should love your daughter? Can you not understand--" "I understand that you are wholly mad!" exclaimed the prince, still staring at his visitor in blank astonishment. "No, I am not mad. I love Donna Faustina--" "You! You dare to love Faustina! You, a painter, a man with a profession and with nothing but what you earn! You, a Zouave, a man without a name, without--" "You are an old man, prince, but the fact of my having made you an honourable proposition does not give you the right to insult me." The words were spoken in a sharp, determined voice, and brought Montevarchi to his senses. He was a terrible coward and would rather go to a considerable expense than face an angry man. "Insult you, my dear sir? I would not think of it!" he answered in a very different tone. "But my dear Monsieur Gouache, I fear that this is quite impossible! In the first place, my daughter's marriage is already arranged. The negotiations have been proceeding for some time--she is to marry Frangipani--you must have heard it. And, moreover, with all due respect for the position you have gained by your immense talent--immense, my dear friend, I am the first to say it--the instability of human affairs obliges me to seek for her a fortune, which depends upon the vulgar possession of wealth rather than upon those divine gifts of genius with which you are so richly endowed." The change from anger to flattery was so sudden that Gouache was confounded and could not find words in which to answer what was said to him. Montevarchi's eyes had lost their expression of astonishment, and a bland smile played about the corners of his sour mouth, while he rubbed his bony hands slowly together, nodding his head at every comma of his elaborate speech. Anastase saw, however, that there was not the slightest hope that his proposal would ever be entertained, and by his own sensations he knew that he had always expected this result. He felt no disappointment, and it seemed to him that he was in the same position in which he had been before he had spoken. On the other hand he was outraged by the words that had fallen from Montevarchi's lips in the first moments of anger and astonishment. A painter, a man with a profession, without a name! Gouache was too human not to feel the sting of each truth as it was uttered. He would have defined himself in very much the same way without the least false pride, but to hear his own estimate of himself, given by another person as the true one, was hard to bear. A painter, yes--he was proud of it. A man with a profession, yes--was it not far nobler to earn money by good work than to inherit what others had stolen in former times? A man without a name--was not his own beginning to be famous, and was it not better to make the name Gouache glorious by his own efforts than to be called Orsini because one's ancestors had been fierce and lawless as bears, or Sciarra because one's progenitor had slapped the face of a pope? Doubtless it was a finer thing to be great by one's own efforts in the pursuit of a noble art than to inherit a greatness originally founded upon a superior rapacity, and a greater physical strength than had characterised the ordinary men of the period. Nevertheless, Gouache knew with shame that at that moment he wished that his name could be changed to Frangipani, and the fabric of his independence, of which he had so long been proud, was shaken to its foundations as he realised that in spite of all fame, all glory, all genius, he could never be what the miserly, cowardly, lying old man before him was by birth--a Roman prince. The conclusion was at once inexpressibly humiliating and supremely ludicrous. He felt himself laughable in his own eyes, and was conscious that a smile was on his face, which Montevarchi would not understand. The old gentleman was still talking. "I cannot tell you," he was saying, "how much I regret my total inability to comply with a request which evidently proceeds from the best motives, I might almost say from the heart itself. Alas! my dear friend, we are not all masters of our actions. The cares of a household like mine require a foresight, an hourly attention, an unselfish devotion which we can only hope to obtain by constant--" He was going to say "by constant recourse to prayer," but he reflected that Gouache was probably not of a religious turn of mind, and he changed the sentence. "--by constant study of the subject. Situated as I am, a Roman in the midst of Romans, I am obliged to consider the traditions of my own people in respect of all the great affairs of life. Believe me, I entreat you, that, far from having any prejudice against yourself, I should rejoice sincerely could I take you by the hand and call you my son. But how can I act? What can I do? Go to your own country, dear Monsieur Gouache, think no more of us, or of our daughters, marry a woman of your own nation, and you will not be disappointed in your dreams of matrimonial felicity!" "In other words, you refuse altogether to listen to my proposal?" By this time Gouache was able to put the question calmly. "Alas, yes!" replied the prince with an air of mock regret that exasperated the young man beyond measure. "I cannot think of it, though you are indeed a most sympathetic young man." "In that case I will not trespass upon your time any longer," said Gouache, who was beginning to fear lest his coolness should forsake him. As he descended the broad marble stairs his detestation of the old hypocrite overcame him, and his wrath broke out. "You shall pay me for this some day, you old scoundrel!" he said aloud, very savagely. Montevarchi remained in his study after Gouache had gone. A sour smile distorted his thin lips, and the expression became more and more accented until the old man broke into a laugh that rang drily against the vaulted ceiling. Some one knocked at the door, and his merriment disappeared instantly. Arnoldo Meschini entered the room. There was something unusual about his appearance which attracted the prince's attention at once. "Has anything happened?" "Everything. The case is won. Your Excellency's son-in-law is Prince Saracinesca." The librarian's bright eyes gleamed with exultation and there was a slight flush in his cheeks that contrasted oddly with his yellow skin. A disagreeable smile made his intelligent face more ugly than usual. He stood half-way between the door and his employer, his long arms hanging awkwardly by his sides, his head thrust forward, his knees a little bent, assuming by habit a servile attitude of attention, but betraying in his look that he felt himself his master's master. Montevarchi started as he heard the news. Then he leaned eagerly across the table, his fingers as usual slowly scratching the green cloth. "Are you quite sure of it?" he asked in a trembling voice. "Have you got the verdict?" Meschini produced a tattered pocket-book, and drew from it a piece of stamped paper, which he carefully unfolded and handed to the prince. "There is an attested note of it. See for yourself." Montevarchi hastily looked over the small document, and his face flushed slowly till it was almost purple, while the paper quivered in his hold. It was clear that everything had succeeded as he had hoped, and that his most sanguine expectations were fully realised. His thoughts suddenly recurred to Gouache, and he laughed again at the young man's assurance. "Was Saracinesca in the court?" he asked presently. "No. There was no one connected with the case except the lawyers on each side. It did not amount to a trial. The Signor Marchese's side produced the papers proving his identity, and the original deed was submitted. The prince's side stated that his Excellency was convinced of the justice of the claim and would make no opposition. Thereupon the court granted an order to the effect that the Signor Marchese was the heir provided for in the clause and was entitled to enjoy all the advantages arising from the inheritance; but that, as there was no opposition made by the defendants, the subsequent transactions would be left in the hands of the family, the court reserving the power to enforce the transfer in case any difficulty should arise hereafter. Of course, it will take several months to make the division, as the Signor Marchese will only receive the direct inheritance of his great-grandfather, while the Saracinesca retain all that has come to them by their marriages during the last four generations." "Of course. Who will be employed to make the division?" "Half Rome, I fancy. It will be an endless business." "But San Giacinto is prince. He will do homage for his titles next Epiphany." "Yes. He must present his ten pounds of wax and a silver bowl--cheap!" observed Meschini with a grin. It may be explained here that the families of the Roman nobility were all subject to a yearly tribute of merely nominal value, which they presented to the Pope at the Feast of the Epiphany. The custom was feudal, the Pope having been the feudal lord of all the nobles until 1870. The tribute generally consisted of a certain weight of pure wax, or of a piece of silver of a specified value, or sometimes of both. As an instance of the survival of such customs in other countries, I may mention the case of one great Irish family which to this day receives from another a yearly tribute, paid alternately in the shape of a golden rose and a golden spur. "So we have won everything!" exclaimed Montevarchi after a pause, looking hard at the librarian, as though trying to read his thoughts. "We have won everything, and the thanks are due to you, my good friend, to you, the faithful and devoted companion who has helped me to accomplish this act of true justice. Ah, how can I ever express to you my gratitude!" "The means of expression were mentioned in our agreement," answered Meschini with a servile inclination. "I agreed to do the work for your Excellency at a certain fixed price, as your Excellency may remember. Beyond that I ask nothing. I am too humble an individual to enjoy the honour of Prince Montevarchi's personal gratitude." "Yes, of course, but that is mere money!" said the old gentleman somewhat hastily, but contemptuously withal. "Gratitude proceeds from the heart, not from the purse. When I think of all the work you have done, of the unselfish way in which you have devoted yourself to this object, I feel that money can never repay you. Money is sordid trash, Meschini, sordid trash! Let us not talk about it. Are we not friends? The most delicate sensibilities of my soul rejoice when I consider what we have accomplished together. There is not another man in Rome whom I would trust as I trust you, most faithful of men!" "The Signor Principe is too kind," replied Meschini. "Nevertheless, I repeat that I am quite unworthy of such gratitude for having merely performed my part in a business transaction, especially in one wherein my own interests were so deeply concerned." "My only regret is that my son-in-law can never know the share you have had in his success. But that, alas, is quite impossible. How, indeed, would it be practicable to inform him! And my daughter, too! She would remember you in all her innocent prayers, even as I shall do henceforth! No, Meschini, it is ordained that I, and I alone, should be the means of expressing to you the heartfelt thanks of those whom you have so highly benefited, but who unfortunately can never know the name of their benefactor. Tell me now, did the men of the law look long at the documents? Did they show any hesitation? Have you any reason to believe that their attention was roused, arrested by--by the writing?" "No, indeed! I should be a poor workman if a parcel of lawyers could detect my handwriting!" "It is a miracle!" exclaimed Montevarchi, devoutly. "I consider that heaven has interposed directly to accomplish the ends of justice. An angel guided your hand, my dear friend, to make you the instrument of good!" "I am quite ready to believe it. The transaction has been as providential for me as for the Signor Marchese." "Yes," answered the prince rather drily. "And now, my dear Meschini, will you leave me for a time? I have appointed this hour to see my last remaining daughter concerning her marriage. She is the last of those fair flowers! Ah me! How sad a thing it is to part with those we love so well! But we have the consolation of knowing that it is for their good, that consolation, that satisfaction which only come to us when we have faithfully done our duty. Return to your library, therefore, Meschini, for the present. The consciousness of good well done is yours also to-day, and will soothe the hours of solitude and make your new labours sweet. The reward of righteousness is in itself and of itself. Good-bye, my friend, good-bye! Thank you, thank you--" "Would it be agreeable to your Excellency to let me have the money now?" asked the librarian. There was a firmness in the tone that startled Montevarchi. "What money?" he inquired with a well-feigned surprise. "I do not understand." "Twenty thousand scudi, the price of the work," replied Meschini with alarming bluntness. "Twenty thousand scudi!" cried the prince. "I remember that there was some mention of a sum--two thousand, I think I said. Even that is enormous, but I was carried away in the excitement of the moment. We are all liable to such weakness--" "You agreed to pay me twenty thousand scudi in cash on the day that the verdict was given in favour of your son-in-law." "I never agreed to anything of the kind. My dear friend, success has quite turned your head! I have not so much money at my disposal in the whole world." "You cannot afford to make a fool of me," cried Meschini, making a step forward. His face was red with anger, and his long arms made odd gestures. "Will you pay me the money or not?" "If you take this tone with me I will pay you nothing whatever. I shall even cease to feel any sense of gratitude--" "To hell with your gratitude!" exclaimed the other fiercely. "Either you pay me the money now, or I go at once to the authorities and denounce the whole treachery." "You will only go to the galleys if you do." "You will go with me." "Not at all. Have you any proof that I have had anything to do with the matter? I tell you that you are quite mad. If you wanted to play this trick on me you should have made me sign an agreement. Even then I would have argued that since you had forged the documents you had, of course, forged the agreement also. But you have nothing, not so much as a scrap of paper to show against me. Be reasonable and I will be magnanimous. I will give you the two thousand I spoke of in the heat of anticipation--" "You will give me the twenty thousand you solemnly promised me," said Meschini, with concentrated anger. Montevarchi rose slowly from his chair and rang the bell. He knew that Meschini would not be so foolish as to expose himself, and would continue to hope that he might ultimately get what he asked. "I cannot argue with a madman," he said calmly. He was not in the least afraid of the librarian. The idea never entered his mind that the middle-aged, round-shouldered scholar could be dangerous. A single word from Gouache, a glance of the artist's eye had cowed him less than an hour ago; but Meschini's fury left him indifferent. The latter saw that for the present there was nothing to be done. To continue such a scene before a servant would be the worst kind of folly. "We will talk the matter over at another time," he said sullenly, as he left the study by a small door which opened upon a corridor in communication with the library. Montevarchi sent the servant who answered the bell with a message begging Donna Faustina to come to the study at once. Since it was to be a day of interviews he determined to state the case plainly to his daughter, and bid her make ready to comply with his will in case the match with Frangipani turned out to be possible. He seemed no more disturbed by Meschini's anger than if the affair had not concerned him in the least. He had, indeed, long foreseen what would occur, and even at the moment when he had promised the bribe he was fully determined never to pay it. The librarian had taken the bait greedily, and it was his own fault if the result did not suit him. He had no redress, as Montevarchi had told him; there was not so much as a note to serve as a record of the bargain. Meschini had executed the forgery, and he would have to ruin himself in order to bring any pressure to bear upon his employer. This the latter felt sure that he would not do, even if driven to extremities. Meschini's nature was avaricious and there was no reason to suppose that he was tired of life, or ready to go to the galleys for a bit of personal vengeance, when, by exercising a little patience, he might ultimately hope to get some advantage out of the crime he had committed. Montevarchi meant to pay him what he considered a fair price for the work, and he did not see that Meschini had any means of compelling him to pay more. Now that the thing was done, he began to regret that he himself had not made some agreement with San Giacinto, but a moment's reflection sufficed to banish the thought as unworthy of his superior astuteness. His avarice was on a large scale and was merging into ambition. It might have been foreseen that, after having married one of his two remaining daughters to a man who had turned out to be Prince Saracinesca, his determination to match Faustina with Frangipani would be even stronger than it had been before. Hence his sudden wish to see Faustina and to prepare her mind for what was about to take place. All at once it seemed as though he could not act quickly enough to satisfy his desire of accomplishment. He felt as an old man may feel who, at the end of a busy life, sees countless things before him which he would still do, and hates the thought of dying before all are done. A feverish haste to complete this last step in the aggrandisement of his family, overcame the old prince. He could not understand why he had submitted to wasting his time with Gouache and Meschini instead of busying himself actively in the accomplishment of his purpose. There was no reason for waiting any longer. Frangipani's father had already half-agreed to the match, and what remained to be done involved only a question of financial details. As he sat waiting for Faustina a great horror of death rose suddenly and clearly before him. He was not a very old man and he would have found it hard to account for the sensation. It is a notable fact, too, that he feared death rather because it might prevent him from carrying out his intentions, than because his conscience was burdened with the recollection of many misdeeds. His whole existence had been passed in such an intricate labyrinth of duplicity towards others and towards himself that he no longer distinguished between the true and the untrue. Even in this last great fraud he had so consistently deceived his own sense of veracity that he almost felt himself to be the instrument of justice he assumed to be. The case was a delicate one, too, for the most unprejudiced person could hardly have escaped feeling sympathy for San Giacinto, the victim of his ancestor's imprudence. Montevarchi found it very easy to believe that it was permissible to employ any means in order to gain such an end, and although he might have regarded the actual work of the forgery in the light of a crime, venial indeed, though contrary to the law, his own share in the transaction, as instigator of the deed itself, appeared to be defensible by a whole multitude of reasons. San Giacinto, by all the traditions of primogeniture dear to the heart of the Roman noble, was the head of the family of Saracinesca. But for a piece of folly, hardly to be equalled in Montevarchi's experience, San Giacinto would have been in possession of the estates and titles without opposition or contradiction since the day of his father's death. The mere fact that the Saracinesca had not defended the case proved that they admitted the justice of their cousin's claims. Had old Leone foreseen the contingency of a marriage in his old age, he would either never have signed the deed at all, or else he would have introduced just such a conditional clause as had been forged by Meschini. When a great injustice has been committed, through folly or carelessness, when those who have been most benefited by it admit that injustice, when to redress it is merely to act in accordance with the spirit of the laws, is it a crime then to bring about so much good by merely sacrificing a scruple of conscience, by employing some one to restore an inheritance to its rightful possessor with a few clever strokes of the pen? The answer seemed so clear to Montevarchi that he did not even ask himself the question. Indeed it would have been superfluous to do so, for he had so often satisfied all objections to doubtful courses by a similar sophistry that he knew beforehand what reply would present itself to his self-inquiry. He did not even experience a sense of relief as he turned from the contemplation of what he had just done to the question of Faustina's marriage, in which there was nothing that could torment his conscience. He was not even aware that he ought to recognise a difference between the two affairs. He was in great haste to settle the preliminaries, and that was all. If he should die, he thought, the princess would have her own way in everything, and would doubtless let Faustina throw herself away upon some such man as Gouache. The thought roused him from his reverie, and at the same time brought a sour smile to his face. Gouache, of all people! He looked up and saw that Faustina had entered and was standing before him, as though expecting him to speak. Her delicate, angelic features were pale, and she held her small hands folded before her. She had discovered by some means that Gouache had been with her father and she feared that something unpleasant had happened and that she was about to be called to account. The vision of Frangipani, too, was present in her mind, and she anticipated a stormy interview. But her mind was made up; she would have Anastase or she would have nobody. The two exchanged a preliminary glance before either spoke. CHAPTER XX. Montevarchi made his daughter sit beside him and took her hand affectionately in his, assuming at the same time the expression of sanctimonious superiority he always wore when he mentioned the cares of his household or was engaged in regulating any matter of importance in his family. Flavia used to imitate the look admirably, to the delight of her brothers and sisters. He smiled meaningly, pressed the girl's fingers, and smiled again, attempting in vain to elicit some response. But Faustina remained cold and indifferent, for she was used to her father's ways and did not like them. "You know what I am going to say, I am sure," he began. "It concerns what must be very near your heart, my dear child." "I do not know what it can be," answered Faustina, gravely. She was too well brought up to show any of the dislike she felt for her father's way of doing things, but she was willing to make it as hard as possible for him to express himself. "Cannot you guess what it is?" asked the old man, with a ludicrous attempt at banter. "What is it that is nearest to every girl's heart? Is not that little heart of yours already a resort of the juvenile deity?" "I do not understand you, papa." "Well, well, my dear--I see that your education has not included a course of mythology. It is quite as well, perhaps, as those heathens are poor company for the young. I refer to marriage, Faustina, to that all-important step which you are soon to take." "Have you quite decided to marry me to Frangipani?" asked the young girl with a calmness that somewhat disconcerted her father. "How boldly you speak of it!" he exclaimed with a sigh of disapproval. "I will not, however, conceal from you that I hope--" "Pray talk plainly with me, papa!" cried Faustina suddenly looking up. "I cannot bear this suspense." "Ah! Is it so, little one?" Montevarchi shook his finger playfully at her. "I thought I should find you ready! So you are anxious to become a princess at once? Well, well, all women are alike!" Faustina drew herself up a little and fixed her deep brown eyes upon her father's face, very quietly and solemnly. "You misunderstand me," she said. "I only wish to know your decision in order that I may give you my answer." "And what can that answer be? Have I not chosen, wisely, a husband fit for you in every way?" "From your point of view, I have no doubt of it." "I trust you are not about to commit the unpardonable folly of differing from me, my daughter," answered Montevarchi, with a sudden change of tone indicative of rising displeasure. "It is for me to decide, for you to accept my decision." "Upon other points, yes. In the question of marriage I think I have something to say." "Is it possible that you can have any objections to the match I have found for you? Is it possible that you are so foolish as to fancy that at your age you can understand these things better than I? Faustina, I would not have believed it!" "How can you understand what I feel?" "It is not a question of feeling, it is a question of wisdom, of foresight, of prudence, of twenty qualities which you are far too young to possess. If marriage were a matter of feeling, of vulgar sentiment, I ask you, what would become of the world? Of what use is it to have all the sentiment in life, if you have not that which makes life itself possible? Can you eat sentiment? Can you harness sentiment in a carriage and make it execute a trottata in the Villa Borghese? Can you change an ounce of sentiment into good silver scudi and make it pay for a journey in the hot weather? No, no, my child. Heaven knows that I am not avaricious. Few men, I think, know better than I that wealth is perishable stuff--but so is this mortal body, and the perishable must be nourished with the perishable, lest dust return to dust sooner than it would in the ordinary course of nature. Money alone will not give happiness, but it is, nevertheless, most important to possess a certain amount of it." "I would rather do without it than be miserable all my life for having got it." "Miserable all your life? Why should you be miserable? No woman should be unhappy who is married to a good man. My dear, this matter admits of no discussion. Frangipani is young, handsome, of irreproachable moral character, heir to a great fortune and to a great name. You desire to be in love. Good. Love will come, the reward of having chosen wisely. It will be time enough then to think of your sentiments. Dear me! if we all began life by thinking of sentiment, where would our existence end?" "Will you please tell me whether you have quite decided that I am to marry Frangipani?" Faustina found her father's discourses intolerable, and, moreover, she had something to say which would be hard to express and still harder to sustain by her actions. "If you insist upon my giving you an answer, which you must have already foreseen, I am willing to tell you that I have quite decided upon the match." "I cannot marry him!" exclaimed Faustina, clasping her hands together and looking into her father's face. "My dear," answered Montevarchi with a smile, "it is absolutely decided. We cannot draw back. You must marry him." "Must, papa? Oh, think what you are saying! I am not disobedient, indeed I am not. I have always submitted to you in everything. But this--no, not this. Bid me do anything else--anything--" "But, my child, nothing else would produce the same result. Be reasonable. You tell me to impose some other duty upon you. That is not what I want. I must see you married before I die, and I am an old man. Each year, each day, may be my last. Of what use would it be that you should make another sacrifice to please me, when the one thing I desire is to see you well settled with a good husband? I have done what I could. I have procured you the best match in all Rome, and now you implore me to spare you, to reverse my decision, to tell my old friend Frangipani that you will not have his son, and to go out into the market to find you another help-meet. It is not reasonable. I had expected more dutiful conduct from you." "Is it undutiful not to be able to love a man one hardly knows, when one is ordered to do so?" "You will make me lose my patience, Faustina!" exclaimed Montevarchi, in angry tones. "Have I not explained to you the nature of love? Have I not told you that you can love your husband as much as you please? Is it not a father's duty to direct the affections of his child as I wish to do, and is it not the child's first obligation to submit to its father's will and guidance? What more would you have? In truth, you are very exacting!" "I am very unhappy!" The young girl turned away and rested her elbow on the table, supporting her chin in her hand. She stared absently at the old bookcases as though she were trying to read the titles upon the dingy bindings. Montevarchi understood her words to convey a submission and changed his tone once more. "Well, well, my dear, you will never regret your obedience," he said. "Of course, my beloved child, it is never easy to see things as it is best that we should see them. I see that you have yielded at last--" "I have not yielded in the least!" cried Faustina, suddenly facing him, with an expression he had never seen before. "What do you mean?" asked Montevarchi in considerable astonishment. "What I say. I will not marry Frangipani--I will not! Do you understand?" "No. I do not understand such language from my daughter; and as for your determination, I tell you that you will most certainly end by acting as I wish you to act." "You cannot force me to marry. What can you do? You can put me into a convent. Do you think that would make me change my mind? I would thank God for any asylum in which I might find refuge from such tyranny." "My daughter," replied the prince in bland tones, "I am fully resolved not to be angry with you. Your undutiful conduct proceeds from ignorance, which is never an offence, though it is always a misfortune. If you will have a little patience--" "I have none!" exclaimed Faustina, exasperated by her father's manner. "My undutiful conduct does not proceed from ignorance--it proceeds from love, from love for another man, whom I will marry if I marry any one." "Faustina!" cried Montevarchi, holding up his hands in horror and amazement. "Do you dare to use SUCH, language to your father!" "I dare do anything, everything--I dare even tell you the name of the man I love--Anastase Gouache!" "My child! My child! This is too horrible! I must really send for your mother." "Do what you will." Faustina had risen to her feet and was standing before one of the old bookcases, her hands folded before her, her eyes on fire, her delicate mouth scornfully bent. Montevarchi, who was really startled almost out of his senses, moved cautiously towards the bell, looking steadily at his daughter all the while as though he dreaded some fresh outbreak. There was something ludicrous in his behaviour which, at another time, would not have escaped the young girl. Now, however, she was too much in earnest to perceive anything except the danger of her position and the necessity for remaining firm at any cost. She did not understand why her mother was to be called, but she felt that she could face all her family if necessary. She kept her eyes upon her father and was hardly conscious that a servant entered the room. Montevarchi sent a message requesting the princess to come at once. Then he turned again towards Faustina. "You can hardly suppose," he observed, "that I take seriously what you have just said; but you are evidently very much excited, and your mother's presence will, I trust, have a soothing effect. You must be aware that it is very wrong to utter such monstrous untruths--even in jest--" "I am in earnest. I will marry Monsieur Gouache or I will marry no one." Montevarchi really believed that his daughter's mind was deranged. His interview with Gouache had convinced him that Faustina meant what she said, though he affected to laugh at it, but he was wholly unable to account for her conduct on any theory but that of insanity. Being at his wits' end he had sent for his wife, and while waiting for her he did not quite know what to do. "My dear child, what is Monsieur Gouache? A very estimable young man, without doubt, but not such a one as we could choose for your husband." "I have chosen him," answered Faustina. "That is enough." "How you talk, my dear! How rashly you talk! As though choosing a husband were like buying a new hat! And you, too, whom I always believed to be the most dutiful, the most obedient of my children! But your mother and I will reason with you, we will endeavour to put better thoughts into your heart." Faustina glanced scornfully at her father and turned away, walking slowly in the direction of the window. "It is of no use to waste your breath on me," she said presently. "I will marry Gouache or nobody." "You--marry Gouache?" cried the princess, who entered at that moment, and heard the last words. Her voice expressed an amazement and horror fully equal to her husband's. "Have you come to join the fray, mamma?" inquired Faustina, in English. "Pray speak in a language I can understand," said Montevarchi who, in a whole lifetime, had never mastered a word of his wife's native tongue. "Oh, Lotario!" exclaimed the princess. "What has the child been telling you?" "Things that would make you tremble, my dear! She refuses to marry Frangipani--" "Refuses! But, Faustina, you do not know what you are doing! You are out of your mind!" "And she talks wildly of marrying a certain Frenchman, a Monsieur Gouache, I believe--is there such a man, my dear?" "Of course, Lotario! The little man you ran over. How forgetful you are!" "Yes, yes, of course. I know. But you must reason with her, Guendalina--" "It seems to me. Lotario, that you should do that--" "My dear, I think the child is insane upon the subject. Where could she have picked up such an idea? Is it a mere caprice, a mere piece of impertinence, invented to disconcert the sober senses of a careful father?" "Nonsense, Lotario! She is not capable of that. After all, she is not Flavia, who always had something dreadful quite ready, just when you least expected it." "I almost wish she were Flavia!" exclaimed Montevarchi, ruefully. "Flavia has done very well." During all this time Faustina was standing with her back towards the window and her hands folded before her, looking from the one to the other of the speakers with an air of bitter contempt which was fast changing to uncontrollable anger. Some last remaining instinct of prudence kept her from interrupting the conversation by a fresh assertion of her will, and she waited until one of them chose to speak to her. She had lost her head, for she would otherwise never have gone so far as to mention Gouache's name, but, as with all very spontaneous natures, with her to break the first barrier was to go to the extreme, whatever it might be. Her clear brown eyes were very bright, and there was something luminous about her angelic face which showed that her whole being was under the influence of an extraordinary emotion, almost amounting to exaltation. It was impossible to foresee what she would say or do. "Your father almost wishes you were Flavia!" groaned the princess, shaking her head and looking very grave. Then Faustina laughed scornfully and her wrath bubbled over. "I am not Flavia!" she cried, coming forward and facing her father and mother. "I daresay you do wish I were. Flavia has done so very well. Yes, she is Princess Saracinesca this evening, I suppose. Indeed she has done well, for she has married the man she loves, as much as she is capable of loving anything. And that is all the more reason why I should do the same. Besides, am I as old as Flavia that you should be in such a hurry to marry me? Do you think I will yield? Do you think that while I love one man, I will be so base as to marry another?" "I have explained to you that love--" "Your explanations will drive me mad! You may explain anything in that way--and prove that Love itself does not exist. Do you think your saying so makes it true? There is more truth in a little of my love than in all your whole life!" "Faustina!" "What? May I not answer you? Must I believe you infallible when you use arguments that would not satisfy a child? Is my whole nature a shadow because yours cannot understand my reality?" "If you are going to make this a question of metaphysics--" "I am not, I do not know what metaphysic means. But I will repeat before my mother what I said to you alone. I will not marry Frangipani, and you cannot force me to marry him. If I marry any one I will have the man I love." "But, my dearest Faustina," cried the princess in genuine distress, "this is a mere idea--a sort of madness that has seized upon you. Consider your position, consider what you owe to us, consider--" "Consider, consider, consider! Do you suppose that any amount of consideration would change me?" "Do you think your childish anger will change us?" inquired Montevarchi, blandly. He did not care to lose his temper, for he was quite indifferent to Faustina's real inclinations, if she would only consent to marry Frangipani. "Childish!" cried Faustina, her eyes blazing with anger. "Was I childish when I followed him out into the midst of the revolution last October, when I was nearly killed at the Serristori, when I thought he was dead and knelt there among the ruins until he found me and brought me home? Was that a child's love?" The princess turned pale and grasped her husband's arm, staring at Faustina in horror. The old man trembled and for a few moments could not find strength to speak. Nothing that Faustina could have invented could have produced such a sudden and tremendous effect as this revelation of what had happened on the night of the insurrection, coming from the girl's own lips with the unmistakable accent of truth. The mother's instinct was the first to assert itself. With a quick movement she threw her arms round the young girl, as though to protect her from harm. "It is not true, it is not true," she cried in an agonised tone. "Faustina, my child--it is not true!" "It is quite true, mamma," answered Faustina, who enjoyed an odd satisfaction in seeing the effect of her words, which can only be explained by her perfect innocence. "Why are you so much astonished? I loved him--I thought he was going out to be killed--I would not let him go alone--" "Oh, Faustina! How could you do it!" moaned the princess. "It is too horrible--it is not to be believed--" "I loved him, I love him still." Princess Montevarchi fell into a chair and burst into tears, burying her face in her hands and sobbing aloud. "If you are going to cry, Guendalina, you had better go away," said her husband, who was now as angry as his mean nature would permit him to be. She was so much accustomed to obey that she left the room, crying as she went, and casting back a most sorrowful look at Faustina. Montevarchi shut the door and, coming back, seized his daughter's arm and shook it violently. "Fool!" he cried angrily, unable to find any other word to express his rage. Faustina said nothing but tried to push him away, her bright eyes gleaming with contempt. Her silence exasperated the old man still further. Like most very cowardly men he could be brutal to women when he was angry. It seemed to him that the girl, by her folly, had dashed from him the last great satisfaction of his life at the very moment when it was within reach. He could have forgiven her for ruining herself, had she done so; he could not forgive her for disappointing his ambition; he knew that one word of the story she had told would make the great marriage impossible, and he knew that she had the power to speak that word when she pleased as well as the courage to do so. "Fool!" he repeated, and before she could draw back, he struck her across the mouth with the back of his hand. A few drops of bright red blood trickled from her delicate lips. With an instinctive movement she pressed her handkerchief to the wound. Montevarchi snatched it roughly from her hand and threw it across the room. From his eyes she guessed that he would strike her again if she remained. With a look of intense hatred she made a supreme effort, and concentrating the whole strength of her slender frame wrenched herself free. "Coward!" she cried, as he reeled backwards; then, before he could recover himself, she was gone and he was left alone. He was terribly angry, and at the same time his ideas were confused, so that he hardly understood anything but the main point of her story, that she had been with Gouache on that night when Corona had brought her home. He began to reason again. Corona knew the truth, of course, and her husband knew it too. Montevarchi realised that he had already taken his revenge for their complicity, before knowing that they had injured him. His overwrought brain was scarcely capable of receiving another impression. He laughed aloud in a way that was almost hysterical. "All!" he cried in sudden exultation. "All--even to their name--but the other--" His face changed quickly and he sank into his chair and buried his face in his hands, as he thought of all he had lost through Faustina's folly. And yet, the harm might be repaired--no one knew except-- He looked up and saw that Meschini had returned and was standing before him, as though waiting to be addressed. The suddenness of the librarian's appearance made the prince utter an exclamation of surprise. "Yes, I have come back," said Meschini. "The matter we were discussing cannot be put off, and I have come back to ask you to be good enough to pay the money." Montevarchi was nervous and had lost the calm tone of superiority he had maintained before his interview with Faustina. The idea of losing Frangipani, too, made his avarice assert itself very strongly. "I told you," he replied, "that I refused altogether to talk with you, so long as you addressed me in that tone. I repeat it. Leave me, and when you have recovered your manners I will give you something for yourself. You will get nothing so long as you demand it as though it were a right." "I will not leave this room without the money," answered Meschini, resolutely. The bell was close to the door. The librarian placed himself between the prince and both. "Leave the room!" cried Montevarchi, trembling with anger. He had so long despised Meschini, that the exhibition of obstinacy on the part of the latter did not frighten him. The librarian stood before the bell and the latch of the door, his long arms hanging down by his sides, his face yellow, his eyes red. Any one might have seen that he was growing dangerous. Instead of repeating his refusal to go, he looked steadily at his employer and a disagreeable smile played upon his ugly features. Montevarchi saw it and his fury boiled over. He laid his hands on the arms of his chair as though he would rise, and in that moment he would have been capable of striking Meschini as he had struck Faustina. Meschini shuffled forwards and held up his hand. "Do not be violent," he said, in a low voice. "I am not your daughter, you know." Montevarchi's jaw dropped, and he fell back into his chair again. "You listened--you saw--" he gasped. "Yes, of course. Will you pay me? I am desperate, and I will have it. You and your miserable secrets are mine, and I will have my price. I only want the sum you promised. I shall be rich in a few days, for I have entered into an affair in which I shall get millions, as many as you have perhaps. But the money must be paid to-morrow morning or I am ruined, and you must give it to me. Do you hear? Do you understand that I will have what is mine?" At this incoherent speech, Montevarchi recovered something of his former nerve. There was something in Meschini's language that sounded like argument, and to argue was to temporise. The prince changed his tone. "But, my dear Meschini, how could you be so rash as to go into a speculation when you knew that the case might not be decided for another week? You are really the most rash man I ever knew. I cannot undertake to guarantee your speculations. I will be just. I have told you that I would give you two thousand--" "Twenty thousand'" Meschini came a little nearer. "Not a single baiocco if you are exorbitant." "Twenty thousand hard, good scudi in cash, I tell you. No more, but no less either." The librarian's hands were clenched, and he breathed hard, while his red eyes stared in a way that began to frighten Montevarchi. "No, no, be reasonable! My dear Meschini, pray do not behave in this manner. You almost make me believe that you are threatening me. I assure you that I desire to do what is just--" "Give me the money at once--" "But I have not so much--murder!! Ah--gh--gh---" Arnodo Meschini's long arms had shot out and his hands had seized the prince's throat in a grip from which there was no escape. There lurked a surprising strength in the librarian's round shoulders, and his energy was doubled by a fit of anger that amounted to insanity. The old man rocked and swayed in his chair, and grasped at the green table-cover, but Meschini had got behind him and pressed his fingers tighter and tighter. His eye rested upon Faustina's handkerchief that lay on the floor at his feet. His victim was almost at the last gasp, but the handkerchief would do the job better. Meschini kept his grip with one hand and with the other snatched up the bit of linen. He drew it tight round the neck and wrenched at the knot with his yellow teeth. There was a convulsive struggle, followed by a long interval of quiet. Then another movement, less violent this time, another and another, and then Meschini felt the body collapse in his grasp. It was over. Montevarchi was dead. Meschini drew back against the bookcases, trembling in every joint. He scarcely saw the objects in the room, for his head swam and his senses failed him, from horror and from the tremendous physical effort he had made. Then in an instant he realised what he had done, and the consequences of the deed suggested themselves. He had not meant to kill the prince. So long as he had kept some control of his actions he had not even meant to lay violent hands upon him. But he had the nature of a criminal, by turns profoundly cunning and foolishly rash. A fatal influence had pushed him onward so soon as he had raised his arm, and before he was thoroughly conscious of his actions the deed was done. Then came the fear of consequences, then again the diabolical reasoning which intuitively foresees the immediate results of murder, and provides against them at once. "Nobody knows that I have been here. Nothing is missing. No one knows about the forgery. No one will suspect me. There is no one in the library nor in the corridor. The handkerchief is not mine. If it was not his own it was Donna Faustina's. No one will suspect her. It will remain a mystery." Meschini went towards the door through which he had entered and opened it. He looked back and held his breath. The prince's head had fallen forward upon his hands as they lay on the table, and the attitude was that of a man overcome by despair, but not that of a dead body. The librarian glanced round the room. There was no trace of a struggle. The position of the furniture had not been changed, nor had anything fallen on the floor. Meschini went out and softly closed the door behind him, leaving the dead man alone. The quiet afternoon sun fell upon the houses on the opposite side of the street, and cast a melancholy reflection into the dismal chamber where Prince Montevarchi had passed so many hours of his life, and in which that life had been cut short so suddenly. On the table before his dead hands lay the copy of the verdict, the testimony of his last misdeed, of the crime for which he had paid the forfeit upon the very day it was due. It lay there like the superscription upon a malefactor's gallows in ancient times, the advertisement of the reason of his death to all who chose to inquire. Not a sound was heard save the noise that rose faintly and at intervals from the narrow street below, the cry of a hawker, the song of a street-boy, the bark of a dog. To-morrow the poor body would be mounted upon a magnificent catafalque, surrounded by the pomp of a princely mourning, illuminated by hundreds of funeral torches, an object of aversion, of curiosity, even of jest, perhaps, among those who bore the prince a grudge. Many of those who had known him would come and look on his dead face, and some would say that he was changed and others that he was not. His wife and his children would, in a few hours, be all dressed in black, moving silently and mournfully and occasionally showing a little feeling, though not more than would be decent. There would be masses sung, and prayers said, and his native city would hear the tolling of the heavy bells for one of her greatest personages. All this would be done, and more also, until the dead prince should be laid to rest beneath the marble floor of the chapel where his ancestors lay side by side. But to-day he sat in state in his shabby chair, his head lying upon that table over which he had plotted and schemed for so many years, his white fingers almost touching the bit of paper whereon was written the ruin of the Saracinesca. And upstairs the man who had killed him shuffled about the library, an anxious expression on his yellow face, glancing from time to time at his hands as he took down one heavy volume after another, practising in solitude the habit of seeming occupied, in order that he might not be taken unawares when an under-servant should be sent to tell the insignificant librarian of what had happened that day in Casa Montevarchi. CHAPTER XXI. Giovanni came home late in the afternoon and found Corona sitting by the fire in her boudoir. She had known that he would return before long, but had not anticipated his coming with any pleasure. When he entered the room she looked up quietly, without a smile, to assure herself that it was he and no one else. She said nothing, and he sat down upon the other side of the fireplace. There was an air of embarrassment about their meetings, until one or the other had made some remark which led to a commonplace conversation. On the present occasion neither seemed inclined to be the first speaker and for some minutes they sat opposite to each other in silence. Giovanni glanced at his wife from time to time, and once she turned her head and met his eyes. Her expression was cold and grave as though she wished him to understand that she had nothing to say. He thought she had never been so beautiful before. The firelight, striking her face at an upward angle, brought out clearly the noble symmetry of her features, the level brow, the wide, delicate nostrils, the even curve of her lips, the splendid breadth of her smooth forehead, shaded by her heavy black hair. She seemed to feel cold, for she sat near the flames, resting one foot upon the fender, in an attitude that threw into relief the perfect curves of her figure, as she bent slightly forward, spreading her hands occasionally to the blaze. "Corona--" Giovanni stopped suddenly after pronouncing her name, as though he had changed his mind while in the act of speaking. "What is it?" she asked indifferently enough. "Would you like to go away? I have been wondering whether it would not be better than staying here." She looked up in some surprise. She had thought of travelling more than once of late, but it seemed to her that to make a journey together would be only to increase the difficulties of the situation. There would be of necessity more intimacy, more daily converse than the life in Rome forced upon her. She shrank from the idea for the very reason which made it attractive to her husband. "No," she answered. "Why should we travel? Besides, with a child so young--" "We might leave Orsino at home," suggested Giovanni. He was not prepared for the look she gave him as she replied. "I will certainly not consent to that." "Would you be willing to take him with you, and leave me here? You could easily find a friend to go with you--even my father. He would enjoy it immensely." There was the shortest possible pause before she answered him this time. It did not escape him, for he expected it. "No. I will not do that, either. I do not care to go away. Why should I, and at such a time?" "I think I will go alone, in that case," said Giovanni quietly, but watching her face. She made no reply, but looked at him curiously as though she suspected him of laying a trap for her. "You say nothing. Is silence consent?" "I think it would be very unwise." "You do not answer me. Be frank, Corona. Would you not be glad to be left alone for a time?" "Why do you insist?" she asked with a little impatience. "Are you trying to make me say something that I shall regret?" "Would you regret it, if it were said? Why not be honest? It would be an immense relief to you if I went away. I could find an excellent excuse and nobody would guess that there was anything wrong." "For that matter--there is nothing wrong. Of course no one would say anything." "I know you will think that I have no tact," Giovanni observed with considerable justice. Corona could not repress a smile at the remark, which expressed most exactly what she herself was thinking. "Frankly--I think it would be better to leave things alone. Do you not think so, too?" "How coolly you say that!" exclaimed Giovanni. "It is so easy for you--so hard for me. I would do anything you asked, and you will not ask anything, because you would make any sacrifice rather than accept one from me. Did you ever really love me, Corona? Is it possible that love can be killed in a day, by a word? I wonder whether there is any woman alive as cold as you are! Is it anything to you that I should suffer as I am suffering, every day?" "You cannot understand--" "No--that is true. I cannot understand. I was base, cowardly, cruel--I make no defence. But if I was all that, and more too, it was because I loved you, because the least suspicion drove me mad, because I could not reason, loving you as I did, any more than I can reason now. Oh, I love you too much, too wholly, too foolishly! I will try and change and be another man--so that I may at least look at you without going mad!" He rose to his feet and went towards the door. But Corona called him back. The bitterness of his words and the tone in which they were spoken hurt her, and made her realise for a moment what he was suffering. "Giovanni--dear--do not leave me so--I am unhappy, too." "Are you?" He had come to her side and stood looking down into her eyes. "Wretchedly unhappy." She turned her face away again. She could not help it. "You are unhappy, and yet I can do nothing. Why do you call me back?" "If I only could, if I only could!" she repeated in a low voice. There was silence for a few seconds, during which Giovanni could hear his heart beat loudly and irregularly. "If I could but move you a little!" he said at last, almost inaudibly. "If I could do anything, suffer anything for you--" She shook her head sorrowfully and then, as though afraid that she had given him pain, she took his hand and pressed it affectionately--affectionately, not lovingly. It was as cold as ice. He sighed and once more turned away. Just then the door opened, and old Pasquale appeared, his face pale with fright. "Eccellenza, a note, and the man says that Prince Montevarchi has just been murdered, and that the note is from Donna Faustina, and the police are in the Palazzo Montevarchi, and that the poor princess is dying, and--" Corona had risen quickly with a cry of astonishment. Giovanni had taken the letter and stood staring at the servant as though he believed that the man was mad. Then he glanced at the address and saw that it was for his wife. "Faustina is accused of the murder!" she exclaimed. "I must go to her at once. The carriage, Pasquale, instantly!" "Faustina Montevarchi--killed her own father!" cried Giovanni in the utmost astonishment. Corona thrust the note into his hands. It only contained a few words scrawled in an irregular hand as though written in great emotion. "Of course it is some horrible mistake," said Corona, "but I must go at once." "I will go with you. I may be able to give some help." Five minutes later, they were descending the stairs. The carriage was not ready, and leaving orders for it to follow them they went out into the street and took a passing cab. Under the influence of the excitement they acted together instinctively. During the short drive they exchanged but few words, and those only expressive of amazement at the catastrophe. At the Palazzo Montevarchi everything was already in confusion, the doors wide open, the servants hurrying aimlessly hither and thither with frightened faces. They had just been released from the preliminary examination held by the prefect of police. A party of gendarmes stood together in the antechamber talking, while one of their number mounted guard at the door with a drawn sabre, allowing no one to leave the house. A terrified footman led Giovanni and Corona to the great drawing-room. The vast chamber was lighted by a single lamp which stood upon a yellow marble pier-table, and cast dim shadows on the tapestry of the walls. The old-fashioned furniture was ranged stiffly around the room as usual; the air was damp and cold, not being warmed even by the traditional copper brazier. The voices of the group of persons collected within the circle of the light sounded hollow, and echoed strangely in the huge emptiness. Dominant above the rest were heard the hard tones of the prefect of police. "I can assure you," he was saying, "that I feel the greatest regret in being obliged to assert my decision." Giovanni and Corona came forward, and the rest made way for them. The prefect stood with his back to the light and to the table, like a man who is at bay. He was of middle height, very dark, and inclining to stoutness. His aquiline features and his eyes, round in shape, but half veiled by heavy lids, gave him something of the appearance of an owl. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and mechanical, and he always seemed to be looking just over the head of the person he addressed. He made no gestures and held himself very straight. Opposite him stood Faustina Montevarchi, her face luminously pale, her eyes almost wild in their fixed expression. She held her hands clasped before her, and her fingers worked nervously. Around her stood her brothers and their wives, apparently speechless with horror, crowding together like frightened sheep before the officer of the law. Neither her mother, nor Flavia, nor San Giacinto accompanied the rest. It would be impossible to imagine a number of persons more dumb and helpless with fear. "Oh Corona, save me!" cried Faustina, throwing herself into her friend's arms as soon as she saw her face. "Will you be good enough to explain what has occurred?" said Giovanni, confronting the prefect sternly. "Do you mean to tell me that you have accused this innocent child of murdering her father? You are mad, sir!" "Pardon me, Signor Principe, I am not mad, and no one can regret more than I what has occurred here," replied the other in loud, metallic tones. "I will give you the facts in two minutes. Prince Montevarchi was found dead an hour ago. He had been dead some time. He had been strangled by means of this pocket handkerchief--observe the stains of blood--which I hold as part of the evidence. The Signora Donna Faustina is admitted to be the last person who saw the prince alive. She admits, furthermore, that a violent scene occurred between her and her father this afternoon, in the course of which his Excellency struck his daughter, doubtless in the way of paternal correction--observe the bruise upon the young lady's mouth. There is also another upon her arm. It is clear that, being young and vigorous and remarkably well grown, she opposed violence to violence. She went behind him, for the prince was found dead in his chair, leaning forward upon the table, and she succeeded in knotting the handkerchief so firmly as to produce asphyxia superinduced by strangulation without suspension. All this is very clear. I have examined every member of the household, and have reluctantly arrived at the conclusion, most shocking no doubt to these pacifically disposed persons, that this young lady allowed herself to be so far carried away by her feelings as to take the life of her parent. Upon this charge I have no course but to arrest her person, the case being very clear, and to convey her to a safe place." Giovanni could scarcely contain his wrath while the prefect made this long speech, but he was resolved to listen to the account given without interrupting it. When the man had finished, however, his anger burst out. "And do you take nothing into consideration," he cried, "but the fact that the prince was strangled with that handkerchief, and that there had been some disagreement between him and his daughter in the course of the day? Do you mean to say, that you, who ought to be a man of sense, believe it possible that this delicate child could take a hale old gentleman by the throat and throttle him to death? It is madness, I say! It is absurd!" "It is not absurd," answered the prefect, whose mechanical tone never changed throughout the conversation. "There is no other explanation for the facts, and the facts are undeniable. Would you like to see the body?" "There are a thousand explanations each ten thousand times as reasonable as the one you offer. He was probably murdered by a servant out of spite, or for the sake of robbing him. You are so sure of your idea that I daresay you did not think of searching the room to see whether anything had been taken or not." "You are under a delusion. Everything has been searched. Moreover, it is quite well known that his deceased Excellency never kept money in the house. There was consequently nothing to take." "Then it was done out of spite, by a servant, unless some one got in through the window." "No one could get in through the window. It was done out of anger by this young lady." "I tell you it was not!" cried Giovanni, growing furious at the man's obstinacy. "There is reason to believe that it was," returned the prefect, perfectly unmoved. Giovanni stamped his foot upon the floor angrily and turned away. Faustina had drawn back a little and was leaning upon Corona's arm for support, while the latter spoke words of comfort in her ear, such words as she could find at such a time. A timid murmur of approval arose from the others every time Giovanni spoke, but none of them ventured to say anything distinctly. Giovanni was disgusted with them all and turned to the young girl herself. "Donna Faustina, will you tell me what you know?" She had seemed exhausted by the struggle she had already endured, but at Sant' Ilario's question, she straightened herself and came forward again one or two steps. Giovanni thought her eyes very strange, but she spoke collectedly and clearly. "I can only say what I have said before," she answered. "My father sent for me this afternoon, I should think about three o'clock. He spoke of my marriage, which he has been contemplating some time. I answered that I would not marry Prince Frangipani's son, because--" she hesitated. "Because?" "Because I love another man," she continued almost defiantly. "A man who is not a prince but an artist." A murmur of horror ran round the little group of the girl's relations. She glanced at them scornfully. "I am not ashamed of it," she said. "But I would not tell you unless it were necessary--to make you understand how angry he was. I forgot--he had called my mother, and she was there. He sent her away. Then he came back and struck me! I put my handkerchief to my mouth because it bled. He snatched it away and threw it on the floor. He took me by the arm--he was standing--I wrenched myself out of his hands and ran away, because I was afraid of him. I did not see him again. Beyond this I know nothing." Giovanni was struck by the concise way in which Faustina told her story. It was true that she had told it for the second time, but, while believing entirely in her innocence, he saw that her manner might easily have made a bad impression upon the prefect. When she had done, she stood still a moment. Then her hands dropped by her sides and she shrank back again to Corona who put her arm round the girl's waist and supported her. "I must say that my sister's tale seems clearly true," said the feeble voice of Ascanio Bellegra. His thin, fair beard seemed to tremble as he moved his lips. "Seems!" cried Corona indignantly. "It is true! How can any one be so mad as to doubt it?" "I do not deny its truth," said the prefect, speaking in the air. "I only say that the appearances are such as to oblige me to take steps--" "If you lay a hand on her--" began Giovanni. "Do not threaten me," interrupted the other calmly. "My men are outside." Giovanni had advanced towards him with a menacing gesture. Immediately Faustina's sisters-in-law began to whimper and cry with fright, while her brothers made undecided movements as though wishing to part the two angry men, but afraid to come within arm's length of either. "Giovanni!" exclaimed Corona. "Do not be violent--it is of no use. Hear me," she added, turning towards the prefect, and at the same time making a gesture that seemed to shield Faustina. "I am at your service, Signora Principessa, but my time is valuable." "Hear me--I will not detain you long. You are doing a very rash and dangerous thing in trying to arrest Donna Faustina, a thing you may repent of. You are no doubt acting as you believe right, but your heart must tell you that you are wrong. Look at her face. She is a delicate child. Has she the features of a murderess? She is brave against you, because you represent a horrible idea against which her whole nature revolts, but can you believe that she has the courage to do such a deed, the bad heart to will it, or the power to carry it out? Think of what took place. Her father sent for her suddenly. He insisted roughly on a marriage she detests. What woman would not put out her whole strength to resist such tyranny? What woman would submit quietly to be matched with a man she loathes? She said, 'I will not.' She even told her father and mother, together, that she loved another man. Her mother left the room, her mother, the only one from whom she might have expected support. She was alone with her father, and he was angry. Was he an enfeebled invalid, confined to his chair, broken with years, incapable of an effort? Ask his children. We all knew him well. He was not very old, he was tall, erect, even strong for his years. He was angry, beside himself with disappointment. He rises from his chair, he seizes her by the arm, he strikes her in the face with his other hand. You say that he struck her when he was seated. It is impossible--could she not have drawn back, avoiding the blow? Would the blow itself have had such force? No. He was on his feet, a tall, angry man, holding her by one arm. Is it conceivable that she, a frail child, could have had the physical strength to force him back to his seat, to hold him there while she tied that handkerchief round his neck, to resist and suppress his struggles until he was dead? Do you think such a man would die easily? Do you think that to send him out of the world it would be enough to put your fingers to his throat--such little fingers as these?" she held up Faustina's passive hand in her own, before their eyes. "A man does not die in an instant by strangling. He struggles, he strikes desperate blows, he turns to the right and the left, twisting himself with all his might. Could this child have held him? I ask it of your common sense. I ask of your heart whether a creature that God has made so fair, so beautiful, so innocent, could do such terrible work. The woman who could do such things would bear the sign of her badness in her face, and the fear of what she had done in her soul. She would tremble, she would have tried to escape, she would hesitate in her story, she would contradict herself, break down, attempt to shed false tears, act as only a woman who has committed a first great crime could act. And this child stands here, submitted to this fearful ordeal, defended by none, but defending herself with the whole innocence of her nature, the glory of truth in her eyes, the self-conscious courage of a stainless life in her heart. Is this assumed? Is this put on? You have seen murderers--it is your office to see them--did you ever see one like her? Do you not know the outward tokens of guilt when they are before your eyes? You would do a thing that is monstrous in absurdity, monstrous in cruelty, revolting to reason, outrageous to every instinct of human nature. Search, inquire, ask questions, arrest whom you will, but leave this child in peace; this child, with her angel face, her fearless eyes, her guiltless heart!" Encouraged by Corona's determined manner as well as by the good sense of her arguments, the timid flock of relations expressed their approval audibly. Giovanni looked at his wife in some surprise; for he had never heard her make so long a speech before, and had not suspected her of the ability she displayed. He was proud of her in that moment and moved nearer to her, as though ready to support every word she had uttered. The prefect alone stood unmoved by her eloquence. He was accustomed in his profession to hear far more passionate appeals to his sensibilities, and he was moreover a man who, being obliged generally to act quickly, had acquired the habit of acting upon the first impulse of his intelligence. For a moment his heavy lids were raised a little, either in astonishment or in admiration, but no other feature of his face betrayed that he was touched. "Signora Principessa," he said in his usual tone, "those are arguments which may be used with propriety by the persons who will defend the accused before the tribunals--" Giovanni laughed in his face. "Do you suppose, seriously, that Donna Faustina will ever be brought to trial?" he asked scornfully. The prefect kept his temper wonderfully well. "It is my business to suppose so," he answered. "I am not the law, nor his Eminence either, and it is not for me to weigh the defence or to listen to appeals for mercy. I act upon my own responsibility, and it is for me to judge whether the facts are likely to support me. My reputation depends upon my judgment and upon nothing else. The fate of the accused depends upon a number of considerations with which I have nothing to do. I must tell you plainly that this interview must come to an end, I am very patient. I wish to overlook nothing. Arguments are of no avail. If there is any better evidence to offer against any one else in this house, I am here to take note of it." He looked coolly round the circle of listeners. Faustina's relations shrank back a little under his glance. "Not being able to find any person here who appears more likely to be guilty, and having found enough to justify me in my course, I intend to remove this young lady at once to the Termini." "You shall not!" said Giovanni, placing himself in front of him in a threatening attitude. "If you attempt anything of the sort, I will have you in prison yourself before morning." "You do not know what you are saying, Signor Principe. You cannot oppose me. I have an armed force here to obey my orders, and if you attempt forcible opposition I shall be obliged to take you also, very much against my will. Donna Faustina Montevarchi, I have the honour to arrest you. I trust you will make no resistance." The semi-comic phrase fell from his lips in the professional tone; in speaking of the arrest as an honour to himself, he was making an attempt to be civil according to his lights. He made a step forward in the direction of the young girl, but Giovanni seized him firmly by the wrist. He made no effort to release himself, however, but stood still. "Signor Principe, be good enough to let go of my hand." "You shall not touch her," answered Giovanni, not relinquishing his grasp. He was beginning to be dangerous. "Signor Principe, release me at once!" said the prefect in a commanding tone. "Very well, I will call my men," he added, producing a small silver whistle with his free hand and putting it to his lips. "If I call them, I shall have to send you to prison for hindering me in the execution of my duty," he said, fixing his eyes on Giovanni and preparing to sound the call. Giovanni's blood was up, and he would not have let the man go. At that moment, however, Faustina broke from Corona's arms and sprang forward. With one hand she pushed back Sant' Ilario; with the other she seized the whistle. "I will go with you!" she cried, speaking to the prefect. "I will go with him!" she repeated, turning to Giovanni. "It is a horrible mistake, but it is useless to oppose him any longer. I will go, I say!" An hysterical chorus of cries from her relations greeted this announcement. Giovanni made a last effort to prevent her from fulfilling her intention. He was too much excited to see how hopeless the situation really was, and his sense of justice was revolted at the thought of the indignity. "Donna Faustina, I implore you!" he exclaimed. "I can still prevent this outrage--you must not go. I will find the cardinal and explain the mistake--he will send an order at once." "You are mistaken," answered the prefect. "He will do nothing of the kind. Besides, you cannot leave this house without my permission. The doors are all guarded." "But you cannot refuse that request," objected Corona, who had not spoken during the altercation. "It will not take half an hour for my husband to see his Eminence and get the order--" "Nevertheless I refuse," replied the official firmly. "Donna Faustina must go with me at once. You are interfering uselessly and making a useless scandal. My mind is made up." "Then I will go with her," said Corona, pressing the girl to her side and bestowing a contemptuous glance on the cowering figures around her. By this time her sisters-in-law had fallen into their respective husband's arms, and it was hard to say whether the men or the women were more hopelessly hysterical. Giovanni relinquished the contest reluctantly, seeing that he was altogether overmatched by the prefect's soldiers. "I will go too," he said. "You cannot object to our taking Donna Faustina in our carriage." "I do not object to that. But male visitors are not allowed inside the Termini prison after dark. The Signora Principessa may spend the night there if it is her pleasure. I will put a gendarme in your carriage to avoid informality." "I presume you will accept my promise to conduct Donna Faustina to the place," observed Giovanni. The prefect hesitated. "It is informal," he said at last, "but to oblige you I will do it. You give your word?" "Yes--since you are able to use force. We act under protest. You will remember that." Faustina's courage did not forsake her at the last moment. She kissed each of her brothers and each of her sisters-in-law as affectionately as though they had offered to bear her company. There were many loud cries and sobs and protestations of devotion, but not one proposed to go with her. The only one who would have been bold enough was Flavia, and even if she had been present she would not have had the heart to perform such an act of unselfishness. Faustina and Corona, Giovanni and the prefect, left the room together. "I will have you in prison before morning," said Sant' Ilario fiercely, in the ear of the official, as they reached the outer hall. The prefect made no reply, but raised his shoulders almost imperceptibly and smiled for the first time, as he pointed silently to the gendarmes. The latter formed into an even rank and tramped down the stairs after the four persons whom they accompanied. In a few minutes the whole party were on their way to the Termini, Faustina with her friends in Sant' Ilario's carriage, the prefect in his little brougham, the soldiers on their horses, trotting steadily along in a close squad. Faustina sat leaning her head upon Corona's shoulder, while Giovanni looked out of the window into the dark streets, his rage boiling within him, and all the hotter because he was powerless to change the course of events. From time to time he uttered savage ejaculations which promised ill for the prefect's future peace, either in this world or in the next, but the sound of the wheels rolling upon the uneven paving-stones prevented his voice from reaching the two women. "Dear child," said Corona, "do not be frightened. You shall be free to-night or in the morning--I will not leave you." Faustina was silent, but pressed her friend's hand again and again, as though she understood. She herself was overcome by a strange wonderment which made her almost incapable of appreciating what happened to her. She felt very much as she had felt once before, on the night of the insurrection, when she had found herself lying upon the pavement before the half-ruined barracks, stunned by the explosion, unable for a time to collect her senses, supported only by her physical elasticity, which was yet too young to be destroyed by any moral shock. CHAPTER XXII. On the following morning all Rome rang with the news that the Saracinesca had lost their title, and that Faustina Montevarchi had murdered her father. No one connected the two events, but the shock to the public mind was so tremendous that almost any incredible tale would have been believed. The story, as it was generally told, set forth that Faustina had gone mad and had strangled her father in his sleep. Every one agreed in affirming that he had been found dead with her handkerchief tied round his neck. It was further stated that the young girl was no longer in the Palazzo Montevarchi, but had been transferred to the women's prison at the Termini, pending further examination into the details of the case. The Palazzo Montevarchi was draped in black, and before night funeral hatchments were placed upon the front of the parish church bearing the Montevarchi arms. No one was admitted to the palace upon any pretext whatever, though it was said that San Giacinto and Flavia had spent the night there. No member of the family had been seen by any one, and nobody seemed to know exactly whence the various items of information had been derived. Strange to say, every word of what was repeated so freely was true, excepting that part of the tale which accused Faustina of having done the deed. What had taken place up to the time when Corona and Giovanni had come may be thus briefly told. Prince Montevarchi had been found dead by the servant who came to bring a lamp to the study, towards evening, when it grew dark. As soon as the alarm was given a scene of indescribable confusion followed, which lasted until the prefect of police arrived, accompanied by a party of police officials. The handkerchief was examined and identified. Thereupon, in accordance with the Roman practice of that day, the prefect had announced his determination of taking Faustina into custody. The law took it for granted that the first piece of circumstantial evidence which presented itself must be acted upon with the utmost promptitude. A few questions had shown immediately that Faustina was the last person who had seen Montevarchi alive. The young girl exhibited a calmness which surprised every one. She admitted that her father had been angry with her and had struck her, but she denied all knowledge of his death. It is sufficient to say that she fearlessly told the truth, so fearlessly as to prejudice even her own family with regard to her. Even the blood on the handkerchief was against her, though she explained that it was her own, and although the bruise on her lip bore out the statement. The prefect was inexorable. He explained that Faustina could be taken privately to the Termini, and that the family might use its influence on the next day to procure her immediate release, but that his duty compelled him for the present to secure her person, that he was responsible, that he was only doing his duty, and so forth and so on. The consternation of the family may be imagined. The princess broke down completely under what seemed very like a stroke of paralysis. San Giacinto and Flavia were not to be found at their house, and as the carriage had not returned, nobody knew where they were. The wives of Faustina's brothers shut themselves up in their rooms and gave way to hysterical tears, while the brothers themselves seemed helpless to do anything for their sister. Seeing herself abandoned by every one Faustina had sent for Corona Saracinesca. It was the wisest thing she could have done. In a quarter of an hour Corona and her husband entered the room together. The violent scene which followed has been already described, in which Giovanni promised the prefect of police that if he persisted in his intention of arresting Faustina he should himself be lodged in the Carceri Nuove in twelve hours. But the prefect had got the better of the situation, being accompanied by an armed force which Giovanni was powerless to oppose. All that could be obtained had been that Giovanni and Corona should take Faustina to the Termini in their carriage, and that Corona should stay with the unfortunate young girl all night if she wished to do so. Giovanni could not be admitted. The prison of the Termini was under the administration of an order of nuns devoted especially to the care of prisoners. The prefect arrived in his own carriage simultaneously with the one which conveyed his prisoner and her friends. As the gate was opened and one of the sisters appeared, he whispered a few words into her ear. She looked grave at first, and then, when she saw Faustina's angel face, she shook her head incredulously. The prefect had accomplished his duty, however. The prison-gates closed after the two ladies, and the sentinel outside resumed his walk, while the carriages drove away, the one containing the officer of the law and the other Giovanni, who had himself driven at once to the Vatican, in spite of the late hour. The great cardinal received him but, to his amazement, refused an order of release. The sister who admitted Corona and Faustina took the latter's hand kindly and looked into her face by the light of the small lantern she carried. "It is some dreadful mistake, my child," she said. "But I have no course but to obey. You are Donna Faustina Montevarchi?" "Yes--this is the Princess Sant' Ilario." "Will you come with me? I will give you the best room we have--it is not very like a prison." "This is," said Faustina, shuddering at the sight of the massive stone walls, quite as much as from the dampness of the night air. "Courage, dear!" whispered Corona, drawing the girl's slight figure close to her and arranging the mantle upon her shoulders. But Corona herself was uneasy as to the result of the ghastly adventure, and she looked anxiously forward into the darkness beyond the nun's lantern. At last they found themselves in a small whitewashed chamber, so small that it was brightly lighted by the two wicks of a brass oil-lamp on the table. The nun left them alone, at Corona's request, promising to return in the course of an hour. Faustina sat down upon the edge of the little bed, and Corona upon a chair beside her. Until now, the unexpected excitement of what had passed during the last three or four hours had sustained the young girl. Everything that had happened had seemed to be a part of a dream until she found herself at last in the cell of the Termini prison, abandoned by every one save Corona. Her courage broke down. She threw herself back upon the pillow and burst into tears. Corona did not know what to do, but tried to comfort her as well as she could, wondering inwardly what would have happened had the poor child been brought to such a place alone. "What have I done, that such things should happen to me?" cried Faustina at last, sitting up and staring wildly at her friend. Her small white hands lay helplessly in her lap and her rich brown hair was beginning to be loosened and to fall upon her shoulders. The tears stood in Corona's eyes. It seemed to her infinitely pathetic that this innocent creature should have been chosen as the victim to expiate so monstrous a crime. "It will be all cleared up in the morning," she answered, trying to speak cheerfully or at least hopefully. "It is an abominable mistake of the prefect's. I will not leave you, dear--take heart, we will talk--the nun will bring you something to eat--the night will soon pass." "In prison!" exclaimed Faustina, in a tone of horror and despair, not heeding what Corona said. "Try and fancy it is not--" "And my father dead!" She seemed suddenly to realise that he was gone for ever. "Poor papa! poor papa!" she moaned. "Oh, I did not mean to be undutiful--indeed I did not--and I can never tell you so now--" "You must not reproach yourself, darling," said Corona, trying to soothe her and to draw the pitiful pale face to her shoulder, while she wound her arm tenderly about the young girl's waist. "Pray for him, Faustina, but do not reproach yourself too much. After all, dear, he was unkind to you--" "Oh, do not say that--he is dead!" She lowered her voice almost to a whisper as she spoke, and an expression of awe came over her features. "He is dead, Corona. I shall never see him again--oh, why did I not love him more? I am frightened when I think that he is dead--who did it?" The question came suddenly, and Faustina started and shuddered. Corona pressed her to her side and smoothed her hair gently. She felt that she must say something, but she hardly expected that Faustina would understand reason. She gathered her energy, however, to make the best effort in her power. "Listen to me, Faustina," she said, in a tone of quiet authority, "and try and see all this as I see it. It is not right that you should reproach yourself, for you have had no share in your father's death, and if you parted in anger it was his fault, not yours. He is dead, and there is nothing for you to do but to pray that he may rest in peace. You have been accused unjustly of a deed which any one might see you were physically incapable of doing. You will be released from this place to-morrow morning, if not during the night. One thing is absolutely necessary--you must be calm and quiet, or you will have brain fever in a few hours. Do not think I am heartless, dear. A worse thing might have happened to you. You have been suspected by an ignorant man who will pay dearly for his mistake; you might have been suspected by those you love." Corona sighed, and her voice trembled with the last words. To her, Faustina was suffering far more from the shock to her sensibilities than from any real grief. She knew that she had not loved her father, but the horror of his murder and the fright at being held accountable for it were almost enough to drive her mad. And yet she could not be suffering what Corona had suffered in being suspected by Giovanni, she had not that to lose which Corona had lost, the dominating passion of her life had not been suddenly burnt out in the agony of an hour, she was only the victim of a mistake which could have no consequences, which would leave no trace behind. But Faustina shivered and turned paler still at Corona's words. "By those I love? Ah no! Not by him--by them!" The blood rushed to her white face, and her hand fell on her friend's shoulder. Corona heard and knew that the girl was thinking of Anastase. She wondered vaguely whether the hot-headed soldier artist had learned the news and what he would do when he found that Faustina was lodged in a prison. "And yet--perhaps--oh no! It is impossible!" Her sweet, low voice broke again, and was lost in passionate sobbing. For a long time Corona could do nothing to calm her. The tears might be a relief to the girl's overwrought faculties, but they were most distressing to hear and see. "Do you love him very much, dear?" asked Corona, when the paroxysm began to subside. "I would die for him, and he would die for me," answered Faustina simply, but a happy smile shone through her grief that told plainly how much dearer to her was he who was left than he who was dead. "Tell me about him," said Corona softly. "He is a friend of mine--" "Indeed he is! You do not know how he worships you. I think that next to me in the world--but then, of course, he could not love you--besides, you are married." Corona could not help smiling, and yet there was a sting in the words, of which Faustina could not dream. Why could not Giovanni have taken this child's straight-forward, simple view, which declared such a thing impossible--because Corona was married. What a wealth of innocent belief in goodness was contained in that idea! The princess began to discover a strange fascination in finding out what Faustina felt for this man, whom she, Corona, had been suspected of loving. What could it be like to love such a man? He was good-looking, clever, brave, even interesting, perhaps; but to love him--Corona suddenly felt that interest in the analysis of his character which is roused in us when we are all at once brought into the confidence of some one who can tell by experience what we should have felt with regard to a third person, who has come very near to our lives, if he or she had really become a part of our existence. Faustina's present pain and sense of danger momentarily disappeared as she was drawn into talking of what absorbed her whole nature, and Corona saw that by leading the conversation in that direction she might hope to occupy the girl's thoughts. Faustina seemed to forget her misfortunes in speaking of Gouache, and Corona listened, and encouraged her to go on. The strong woman who had suffered so much saw gradually unfolded before her a series of pictures, constituting a whole that was new to her. She comprehended for the first time in her life the nature of an innocent girl's love, and there was something in what she learned that softened her and brought the moisture into her dark eyes. She looked at the delicate young creature beside her, seated upon the rough bed, her angelic loveliness standing out against the cold background of the whitewashed wall. The outline seemed almost vaporous, as though melting into the transparency of the quiet air; the gentle brown eyes were at once full of suffering and full of love; the soft, thick hair fell in disorder upon her shoulders, in that exquisite disorder that belongs to beautiful things in nature when they are set free and fall into the position which is essentially their own; her white fingers, refined and expressive, held Corona's slender olive hand, pressing it and moving as they touched it, with every word she spoke. Corona almost felt that some spiritual, half divine being had glided down from another world to tell her of an angel's love. The elder woman thought of her own life and compared it with what she saw. Sold to a decrepit old husband who had worshipped her in strange, pathetic fashion of his own, she had spent five years in submitting to an affection she loathed, enduring it to the very end, and sacrificing every instinct of her nature in the performance of her duty. Liberated at last, she had given herself up to her love for Giovanni, in a passion of the strong kind that never comes in early youth. She asked herself what had become of that passion, and whether it could ever be revived. In any case it was something wholly different from the love of which Faustina was speaking. She had fought against it when it came, with all her might; being gone, it had left her cold and indifferent to all she could still command, incapable of even pretending to love. It had passed through her life as a whirlwind through a deep forest, and its track was like a scar. What Faustina knew, she could never have known, the sudden growth within her of something beautiful against which there was no need to struggle, the whole-hearted devotion from the first, the joy of a love that had risen suddenly like the dawn of a fair day, the unspeakable happiness of loving intensely in perfect innocence of the world, of giving her whole soul at once and for ever, unconscious that there could be anything else to give. "I would die for him, and he would die for me," Faustina had said, knowing that her words were true. Corona would die for Giovanni now, no doubt, but not because she loved him any longer. She would sacrifice herself for what had been, for the memory of it, for the bitterness of having lost it and of feeling that it could not return. That was a state very different from Faustina's; it was pain, not happiness, despair, not joy, emptiness, not fulness. Her eyes grew sad, and she sighed bitterly as though oppressed by a burden from which she could not escape. Faustina's future seemed to her to be like a beautiful vision among the clouds of sunrise, her own like the reflection of a mournful scene in a dark pool of stagnant water. The sorrow of her life rose in her eyes, until the young girl saw it and suddenly ceased speaking. It was like a reproach to her, for her young nature had already begun to forget its trouble in the sweetness of its own dream. Corona understood the sudden silence, and her expression changed, for she felt that if she dwelt upon what was nearest to her heart she could give but poor consolation. "You are sad," said Faustina. "It is not for me--what is it?" "No. It is not for you, dear child." Corona looked at the young girl for a moment and tried to smile. Then she rose from the chair and turned away, pretending to trim the brass oil-lamp with the little metal snuffers that hung from it by a chain. The tears blinded her. She rested her hands upon the table and bent her head. Faustina watched her in surprise, then slipped from her place on the bed and stood beside her, looking up tenderly into the sad dark eyes from which the crystal drops welled up and trickled down, falling upon the rough deal boards. "What is it, dear?" asked the young girl. "Will you not tell me!" Corona turned and threw her arms round her, pressing her to her breast, almost passionately. Faustina did not understand what was happening. "I never saw you cry before!" she exclaimed in innocent astonishment, as she tried to brush away the tears from her friend's face. "Ah Faustina! There are worse things in the world than you are suffering, child!" Then she made a great effort and overcame the emotion that had taken possession of her. She was ashamed to have played such a part when she had come to the place to give comfort to another. "It is nothing," she said, after a moment's pause. "I think I am nervous--at least, I am very foolish to let myself cry when I ought to be taking care of you." A long silence followed, which was broken at last by the nun, who entered the room, bringing such poor food as the place afforded. She repeated her assurance that Faustina's arrest was the result of a mistake, and that she would be certainly liberated in the morning. Then, seeing that the two friends appeared to be preoccupied, she bade them good-night and went away. It was the longest night Corona remembered to have ever passed. For a long time they talked a little, and at length Faustina fell asleep, exhausted by all she had suffered, while Corona sat beside her, watching her regular breathing and envying her ability to rest. She herself could not close her eyes, though she could not explain her wakefulness. At last she lay down upon the other bed and tried to forget herself. After many hours she lost consciousness for a time, and then awoke suddenly, half stifled by the sickening smell of the lamp which had gone out, filling the narrow room with the odour of burning oil. It was quite dark, and the profound silence was broken only by the sound of Faustina's evenly-drawn breath. The poor child was too weary to be roused by the fumes that had disturbed Corona's rest. But Corona rose and groped her way to the window, which she opened as noiselessly as she could. Heavy iron bars were built into the wall upon the outside, and she grasped the cold iron with a sense of relief as she looked out at the quiet stars, and tried to distinguish the trees which, as she knew, were planted on the other side of the desolate grass-grown square, along the old wall that stood there, at that time, like a fortification between the Termini and the distant city. Below the window the sentry tramped slowly up and down in his beat, his steps alone breaking the intense stillness of the winter night. Corona realised that she was in a prison. There was something in the discomfort which was not repugnant to her, as she held the grating in her fingers and let the cold air blow upon her face. After all, she thought, her life would seem much the same in such a place, in a convent, perhaps, where she could be alone all day, all night, for ever. She could not be more unhappy behind those bars than she had often been in the magnificent palaces in which her existence had been chiefly passed. Nothing gave her pleasure, nothing interested her, nothing had the power to distract her mind from the aching misery that beset it. She said to herself a hundred times a day that such apathy was unworthy of her, and she blamed herself when she found that even the loss of the great Saracinesca suit left her indifferent. She did no good to herself and none to any one else, so far as she could see, unless it were good to allow Giovanni to love her, now that she no longer felt a thrill of pleasure at his coming nor at the sound of his voice. At least she had been honest. She could say that, for she had not deceived him. She had forgiven him, but was it her fault if he had destroyed that which he now most desired? Was it her fault that forgiveness did not mean love? Her suffering was not the selfish pain of wounded vanity, for Giovanni's despair would have healed such a wound by showing her the strength of his passion. There was no resentment in her heart, either, for she longed to love him. But even the habit of loving was gone, broken away and forgotten in the sharp agony of an hour. She had done her best to bring it back, she had tried to repeat phrases that had once come from her heart with the conviction of great joy, each time they had been spoken. But the words were dead and meant nothing, or if they had a meaning they told her of the change in herself. She was willing to argue against it, to say again and again that she had no right to be so changed, that there had been enough to make any man suspicious, that she would have despised him had he overlooked such convincing evidence. Could a man love truly and not have some jealousy in his nature? Could a man have such overwhelming proof given him of guilt in the woman he adored and yet show nothing, any more than if she had been a stranger? But the argument was not satisfactory, nor conclusive. If human ills could be healed by the use of logic, there would long since have been no unhappiness left in the world. Is there anything easier than to deceive one's self when one wishes to be deceived? Nothing, surely, provided that the inner reality of ourselves which we call our hearts consents to the deception. But if it will not consent, then there is no help in all the logic that has been lavished upon the philosophy of a dozen ages. Her slender fingers tightened upon the freezing bars, and once more, in the silent night, her tears flowed down as she looked up at the stars through the prison window. The new condition of her life sought an expression she had hitherto considered as weak and despicable, and against which she struggled even now. There was no relief in weeping, it brought her no sense of rest, no respite from the dull consciousness of her situation; and yet she could not restrain the drops that fell so fast upon her hands. She suffered always, without any intermittence, as people do who have little imagination, with few but strong passions and a constant nature. There are men and women whose active fancy is able to lend a romantic beauty to misfortune, which gives some pleasure even to themselves, or who can obtain some satisfaction, if they are poets, by expressing their pain in grand or tender language. There are others to whom sorrow is but a reality, for which all expression seems inadequate. Corona was such a woman, too strong to suffer little, too unimaginative to suffer poetically. There are those who might say that she exaggerated the gravity of the position, that, since Giovanni had always been faithful to her, had acknowledged his error and repented of it so sincerely, there was no reason why she should not love him as before. The answer is very simple. The highest kind of love not only implies the highest trust in the person loved, but demands it in return; the two conditions are as necessary to each other as body and soul, so that if one is removed from the other, the whole love dies. Our relations with our fellow-creatures are reciprocal in effect, whatever morality may require in theory, from the commonest intercourse between mere acquaintances to the bond between man and wife. An honest man will always hesitate to believe another unless he himself is believed. Humanity gives little, on the whole, unless it expects a return; still less will men continue to give when their gifts have been denounced to them as false, no matter what apology is offered after the mistake has been discovered. Corona was very human, and being outwardly cold, she was inwardly more sensitive to suspicion than very expansive women can ever be. With women who express very readily what they feel, the expression often assumes such importance as to deceive them into believing their passions to be stronger than they are. Corona had given all, love, devotion, faithfulness, and yet, because appearances had been against her, Giovanni had doubted her. He had cut the plant down at the very root, and she had nothing more to give. Faustina moved in her sleep. Corona softly closed the window and once more lay down to rest. The hours seemed endless as she listened for the bells. At last the little room grew gray and she could distinguish the furniture in the gloom. Then all at once the door opened, and the nun entered, bearing her little lantern and peering over it to try and see whether the occupants of the chamber were awake. In the shadow behind her Corona could distinguish the figure of a man. "The prince is here," said the sister in a low voice, as she saw that Corona's eyes were open. The latter glanced at Faustina, whose childlike sleep was not interrupted. She slipped from the bed and went out into the corridor. The nun would have led the two down to the parlour, but Corona would not go so far from Faustina. At their request she opened an empty cell a few steps farther on, and left Giovanni and his wife alone in the gray dawn. Corona looked eagerly into his eyes for some news concerning the young girl. He took her hand and kissed it. "My darling--that you should have spent the night in such a place as this!" he exclaimed. "Never mind me. Is Faustina at liberty? Did you see the cardinal?" "I saw him." Giovanni shook his head. "And do you mean to say that he would not give the order at once?" "Nothing would induce him to give it. The prefect got there before me, and I was kept waiting half an hour while they talked the matter over. The cardinal declared to me that he knew there had been an enmity between Faustina and her father concerning her love for Gouache--" "Her love for Gouache!" repeated Corona slowly, looking into his eyes. She could not help it. Giovanni turned pale and looked away as he continued. "Yes, and he said that the evidence was very strong, since no one had been known to enter the house, and the servants were clearly innocent--not one of them betrayed the slightest embarrassment." "In other words, he believes that Faustina actually did it?" "It looks like it," said Giovanni in a low voice. "Giovanni!" she seized his arm. "Do you believe it, too?" "I will believe whatever you tell me." "She is as innocent as I!" cried Corona, her eyes blazing with indignation. Giovanni understood more from the words than she meant to convey. "Will you never forgive?" he asked sadly. "I did not mean that--I meant Faustina. Giovanni--you must get her away from here. You can, if you will." "I will do much for you," he answered quietly. "It is not for me. It is for an unfortunate child who is the victim of a horrible mistake. I have comforted her by promising that she should be free this morning. She will go mad if she is kept here." "Whatever I do, I do for you, and I will do nothing for any one else. For you or for no one, but I must know that it is really for you." Corona understood and turned away. It was broad daylight now, as she looked through the grating of the window, watching the people who passed, without seeing them. "What is Faustina Montevarchi to me, compared with your love?" Giovanni asked. Something in the tone of his voice made her look at him. She saw the intensity of his feeling in his eyes, and she wondered that he should try to tempt her to love him with, such an insignificant bribe--with the hope of liberating the young girl. She did not understand that he was growing desperate. Had she known what was in his mind she might have made a supreme effort to deceive herself into the belief that he was still to her what he had been so long. But she did not know. "For the sake of her innocence, Giovanni!" she exclaimed. "Can you let a child like that suffer so? I am sure, if you really would you could manage it, with your influence. Do you not see that I am suffering too, for the girl's sake?" "Will you say that it is for your sake?" "For my sake--if you will," she cried almost impatiently. "For your sake, then," he answered. "Remember that it is for you, Corona." Before she could answer, he had left the room, without another word, without so much as touching her hand. Corona gazed sadly at the open door, and then returned to Faustina. An hour later the nun entered the cell, with a bright smile on her face. "Your carriage is waiting for you--for you both," she said, addressing the princess. "Donna Faustina is free to return to her mother." CHAPTER XXIII. When Giovanni Saracinesca had visited Cardinal Antonelli on the previous evening, he had been as firmly persuaded that Faustina was innocent, as Corona herself, and was at first very much astonished by the view the great man took of the matter. But as the latter developed the case, the girl's guilt no longer seemed impossible, or even improbable. The total absence of any ostensible incentive to the murder gave Faustina's quarrel with her father a very great importance, which was further heightened by the nature of the evidence. There had been high words, in the course of which the Princess Montevarchi had left the room, leaving her daughter alone with the old man. No one had seen him alive after that moment, and he had been found dead, evidently strangled with her handkerchief. The fact that Faustina had a bruise on her arm and a cut on her lip pointed to the conclusion that a desperate struggle had taken place. The cardinal argued that, although she might not have had the strength to do the deed if the contest had begun when both were on their feet, it was by no means impossible that so old a man might have been overcome by a young and vigorous girl, if she had attacked him when he was in his chair, and was prevented from rising by the table before him. As for the monstrosity of the act, the cardinal merely smiled when Giovanni alluded to it. Had not fathers been murdered by their children before, and in Rome? The argument had additional weight, when Giovanni remembered Faustina's wild behaviour on the night of the insurrection. A girl who was capable of following a soldier into action, and who had spent hours in searching for him after such an appalling disaster as the explosion of the Serristori barracks, might well be subject to fits of desperate anger, and it was by no means far from likely, if her father had struck her in the face from his place at the table, that she should have laid violent hands upon him, seizing him by the throat and strangling him with her handkerchief. Her coolness afterwards might be only a part of her odd nature, for she was undoubtedly eccentric. She might be mad, said the cardinal, shaking his head, but there was every probability that she was guilty. In those days there was no appeal from the statesman's decisions in such matters. Faustina would remain a prisoner until she could be tried for the crime. His Eminence was an early riser, and was not altogether surprised that Giovanni should come to him at such an hour, especially as he knew that the Princess Sant' Ilario had spent the night with Faustina in the Termini prison. He was altogether taken aback, however, by Giovanni's manner, and by the communication he made. "I had the honour of telling your Eminence last night, that Donna Faustina Montevarchi was innocent," began Giovanni, who refused the offer of a seat. "I trusted that she might be liberated immediately, but you have determined otherwise. I am not willing that an innocent person should suffer unjustly. I have come, therefore, to surrender myself to justice in this case." The cardinal stared, and an expression of unmitigated astonishment appeared upon his delicate olive features, while his nervous hands grasped the arms of his chair. "You!" he cried. "I, your Eminence. I will explain myself. Yesterday the courts delivered their verdict, declaring that my cousin San Giacinto is Prince Saracinesca, instead of my father, and transferring to him all our hereditary property. The man who found out that there was a case against us, and caused it to be brought to trial, was Prince Montevarchi. You may perhaps understand my resentment against him. If you recollect the evidence which was detailed to you last night you will see that it was quite possible for me to go to him without being observed. The door chanced to be open, and there was no one in the hall. I am perfectly acquainted with the house. Several hours elapsed between the time when Donna Faustina left her father and the moment when he was found dead in his chair. You can understand how I could enter the room unseen, how angry words naturally must have arisen between us, and how, losing my self-control, I could have picked up Donna Faustina's handkerchief which, as she says, lay upon the floor, and knotted it effectually round the old man's neck. What could he do in my hands? The study is far from the other rooms the family inhabit, and is near the hall. To go quietly out would not have been a difficult matter for any one who knew the house. Your Eminence knows as well as I the shallowness of circumstantial evidence." "And do you tell me, calmly, like this, that you murdered a helpless old man out of revenge?" asked the cardinal, half-indignantly, half-incredulously. "Would I surrender myself as the murderer, for a caprice?" inquired Giovanni, who was very pale. The cardinal looked at him and was silent for a few moments. He was puzzled by what he heard, and yet his common sense told him that he had no course but to liberate Faustina and send Giovanni to prison. He felt, too, that he ought to experience an instinctive repulsion, for the man before him, who, by his own showing, had been guilty of such a horrible crime; but he was conscious of no such sensation. He was a man of exceedingly quick and true intuitions, who judged the persons with whom he had business very accurately. There was a lack of correspondence between his intelligence and his feelings which roused his curiosity. "You have told me a very strange story," he said. "Less strange than the one your Eminence has believed since last night," returned Giovanni calmly. "I do not know. It is more easy for me to believe that the girl was momentarily out of her mind than that you, whom I have known all my life, should have done such a thing. Besides, in telling me your story, you have never once positively asserted that you did it. You have only explained that it would have been possible for a man so disposed to accomplish the murder unsuspected." "Is a man obliged to incriminate himself directly? It seems to me that in giving myself up I have done all that a man's conscience can possibly require--outside of the confessional. I shall be tried, and my lawyer will do what he can to obtain my acquittal." "That is poor logic. Whether you confess or not, you have accused yourself in a way that must tell against you very strongly. You really leave me no choice." "Your Eminence has only to do what I request, to liberate Donna Faustina and to send me to prison." "You are a very strange man," said the cardinal in a musing tone, as he leaned back in his chair and scrutinised Giovanni's pale, impenetrable face. "I am a desperate man, that is all." "Will you give me your word of honour that Faustina Montevarchi is innocent?" "Yes," answered Giovanni without the slightest hesitation, and meeting the gaze of the cardinal's bright eyes unflinchingly. The latter paused a moment, and then turned in his chair, and taking a piece of paper wrote a few words upon it. Then he rang a little hand-bell that stood beside him. His servant entered, as he was folding and sealing the note. "To the Termini prison," he said. "The messenger had better take my carriage," observed Giovanni. "I shall not need it again." "Take Prince Sant' Ilario's carriage," added the cardinal, and the man left the room. "And now," he continued, "will you be good enough to tell me what I am to do with you?" "Send me to the Carceri Nuove, or to any convenient place." "I will do nothing that can be an injury to you hereafter," answered the statesman. "Something tells me that you have had nothing to do with this dreadful murder. But you must know that though you may deceive me--I am not omniscient--I will not tolerate any contempt of the ways of justice. You have surrendered yourself as the criminal, and I intend to take you at your word." "I ask for nothing else. Put me where you please, do what you please with me. It matters very little." "You act like a man who has had an unfortunate love affair," remarked the cardinal. "It is true that you have just lost your fortune, and that may account for it. But I repeat that, whatever your motives may be, you shall not trifle with the law. You wish to be a prisoner. The law will oblige you so far as to comply with your request. I warn you that, after this, you can only obtain your freedom through a proper trial." "Pray let it be so. My motives can be of no importance. The law shall judge the facts and give its verdict." "The law will certainly do so. In the meantime, you will spend the day in a room of my apartments, and this evening, when it is dark, you will be quietly transferred to a place of safety--and secrecy. If the real murderer is ever found, I do not wish your life to have been ruined by such a piece of folly as I believe you are committing. You say you are a desperate man, and you are acting, I think, as though you were. Your family affairs may have led to this state, but they do not concern me. You will, however, be good enough to swear, here, solemnly, laying your hand upon this book, that you will not attempt to destroy yourself." "I swear," said Giovanni, touching the volume which the cardinal presented to him. "Very good. Now follow me, if you please, to the room where you must spend the day." Giovanni found himself in a small chamber which contained only a large writing-table and a couple of chairs, and which seemed to have been destined for some sort of office. The cardinal closed the door, and Giovanni heard him turn the key and remove it from the lock. Then, for the first time, he reflected upon what he had done. He had spoken the truth when he had said that he was desperate. No other word could describe his state. A sort of madness had taken possession of him while he was talking with Corona, and he was still under its influence. There had been something in her manner which had seemed to imply that he was not doing his best to liberate Faustina, and indeed, when he remembered that the girl's innocence was by no means clear to him, he ought not to have been surprised at Corona's imputation. And yet, he had now pledged his word to the cardinal that Faustina had not done the deed. Corona's unwillingness to admit that it was for her own sake she asked his help had driven him nearly out of his mind, and when she had at last said it, even reluctantly, he had immediately resolved to show her what he was willing to do for one word of hers when she chose to speak it. He had from that moment but one thought, to free Faustina at any cost, and no plan suggested itself to him but to surrender himself in the girl's place. As a matter of fact, he could not have accomplished his purpose so quickly or surely in any other way, and perhaps he could not have otherwise accomplished it at all. It had been quite clear to him from the first that the cardinal was prejudiced against Faustina, owing, no doubt, to the representations of the prefect of police. Giovanni had carried the evidence against her clearly in his mind, and as soon as he thought of the expedient he saw how it would have been quite possible for himself, or for any other man who knew the house, to commit the murder. As for the detail concerning the doors being open, there was nothing improbable in it, seeing that there were many servants in the establishment, and that each one would suspect and accuse one of his companions of the carelessness. Nothing was easier than to construct the story, and he had supposed that nothing would be simpler than to make the cardinal believe it. He had been surprised to find himself mistaken upon this point, but he felt a thrill of triumph that more than repaid him for what he had done, when he saw the messenger leave the room with the order to liberate Faustina. Corona had spoken, had asked him to do a hard thing for her sake, and her caprice was satisfied, it mattered little at what cost. She had given him an opportunity of showing what he would do for her, and that opportunity had not been thrown away. But as he sat alone in the little room the cardinal had assigned to him, he began to realise the magnitude of what he had been doing, and to see how his actions would be judged by others. He had surrendered himself as a murderer, and was to be treated as one. When the time came for the trial, might it not happen with him as with many another innocent man who has put himself into a false position? Might he not be condemned? Nothing that he could say hereafter could remove the impression created by his giving himself up to justice. Any denial hereafter would be supposed to proceed from fear and not from innocence. And if he were condemned, what would become of Corona, of his father, of little Orsino? He shuddered at the thought. What, he asked himself, would be the defence? Yesterday afternoon he had been out of the house during several hours, and had walked alone, he hardly remembered where. Since the crisis in his life which had separated him from Corona in fact, if not in appearance, he often walked alone, wandering aimlessly through the streets. Would any of his acquaintance come forward and swear to having seen him at the time Montevarchi was murdered? Probably not. And if not, how could it be proved, in the face of his own statement to the cardinal, that he might not have gone to the palace, seeking an opportunity of expending his wrath on the old prince, that he might not have lost his self-control in a fit of anger and strangled the old man as he sat in his chair? As he himself had said, there was far more reason to believe that the Saracinesca had killed Montevarchi out of revenge, than that a girl like Faustina should have strangled her own father because he had interfered in her love affairs. If the judges took this view of the case, it was clear that Giovanni would have little chance of an acquittal. The thing looked so possible that even Corona might believe it--even Corona, for whose sake he had rushed madly into such desperate danger. And to-day she would not see him; very possibly she would not know where he was. And to-morrow? And the next day? And all the days after that? He supposed that he would be allowed to write to her, perhaps to see her, but it would be hard to explain his position. She did not love him any longer, and she would not understand. He wondered how much she would care, if she really cared at all, beyond a discreet anxiety for his safety. She would certainly not comprehend a love like his, which had chosen such a sacrifice, rather than allow her wish to remain ungratified. How could she, since she did not love him? And yet, it was imperatively necessary that she should be informed of what had happened. She might otherwise suppose, naturally enough, that some accident had befallen him, and she would in that case apply to the police, perhaps to the cardinal himself, to find out where he was. Such a contingency must be prevented, by some means, before night. Until then, she would not be frightened by his absence. There would be time, perhaps, when he was removed to the prison--to the place of safety and secrecy, of which the cardinal had spoken, and which in all probability was the Holy Office. No questions were asked there. There were writing materials on the broad table, and Giovanni began a letter to his wife. After a few minutes, however, he stopped, for he saw from what he had written that he was in no condition to attempt such a task. The words came quickly and fluently, but they expressed what he had no intention of telling Corona again. His love for her was still uppermost in his mind, and instead of trying to explain what had occurred, he found himself setting down phrases that told of nothing but a mad passion. The thought of her cold face when she should read the lines arrested his hand, and he threw down the pen impatiently, and returned to his meditations for a while. What he wanted to do was to tell her in the fewest possible words that he was alive and well. What else should he tell her? The statement would allay any anxiety she might feel, and his absence would doubtless be a relief to her. The thought was bitter, but he knew that nothing exasperates a woman like the constant presence of a man she has loved, who loves her more than ever, and for whom she no longer feels anything. At last he took another sheet of paper and tried again. "Dear Corona--When you get this, Faustina will be at liberty, according to your wish. Do not be anxious if you do not see me for a few days, as I am called away on urgent business. Tell my father, and any of our friends who ask about me, that I am at Saracinesca, superintending the removal of such effects as are not to go to San Giacinto. I will let you know when I am coming back--Your affectionate GIOVANNI." He read the note over twice, and then folded it, addressing it to his wife. His face expressed the most profound dejection when he had finished his task, and for a long time he leaned back in his chair, gazing at the morning sunlight that slowly crept across the floor, while his hands lay folded passively upon the table. The end of his love seemed very bitter as he thought of the words he had written. A few weeks ago to leave Corona thus unexpectedly would have caused her the greatest pain. Now, he felt that he need say nothing, that it would be useless to say anything, more than he had said. It was nothing to her, whether he stayed in Rome or went to the ends of the earth; indeed, he suspected that she would be glad to be left alone--unless she should discover why he had gone, and whither. This last consideration recalled to him his situation, and for a moment he was horrified at his own rashness. But the thought did not hold him long, and presently he asked himself apathetically what it could matter in the end. The hours passed slowly, and still he sat motionless by the table, the folded letter lying before him. The cardinal had scarcely returned to his study when a second card was brought to him. The gentleman, said the servant, had assured him that his Eminence would receive him, as he had important information to give concerning the murder of Prince Montevarchi. The cardinal could not repress a smile as he read the name of Anastase Gouache. The young man entered the room, and advanced in obedience to the cardinal's friendly gesture. He was as pale as death, and his soft dark eyes had an expression of despair in them such as the great man had rarely seen. For the rest, he wore his uniform, and was as carefully dressed as usual. "Your Eminence has doubtless heard of this dreadful murder?" began Gouache, forgetting all formality in the extremity of his excitement. "Yes," said the cardinal, sitting down. "You have something to communicate concerning it, I understand." "Donna Faustina Montevarchi has been charged with the crime, and is in the prison of the Termini," answered the Zouave, speaking hurriedly. "I am here to ask your Eminence to order her release without delay---" "On what grounds?" inquired the statesman, raising his eyebrows a little as though surprised by the way in which the request was made. "Because she is innocent, because her arrest was due to the mistake of the prefect of police--the evidence was against her, but it was absurd to suppose that she could have done it---" "The prefect of police received my approval. Have you any means of showing that she is innocent?" "Showing it?" repeated Gouache, who looked dazed for a moment, but recovered himself immediately, turning white to the lips. "What could be easier?" he exclaimed. "The murderer is before you--I saw the prince, I asked him for his daughter's hand in marriage, he insulted me. I left the room, but I returned soon afterwards. I found him alone, and I killed him--I do not know how I did it---" "With Donna Faustina's handkerchief," suggested the cardinal. "Perhaps you do not remember that it was lying on the floor and that you picked it up and knotted it---" "Yes, yes! Round his neck," cried Gouache nervously. "I remember. But I saw red, everything swam, the details are gone. Here I am--your Eminence's prisoner--I implore you to send the order at once!" The cardinal had hitherto maintained a grave expression. His features suddenly relaxed and he put out his hand. "My dear Monsieur Gouache, I like you exceedingly," he said. "You are a man of heart." "I do not understand---" Anastase was very much bewildered, but he saw that his plan for freeing Faustina was on the point of failure. "I appreciate your motives," continued the statesman. "You love the young lady to distraction, she is arrested on a capital charge, you conceive the idea of presenting yourself as the murderer in her place--" "But I assure your Eminence, I swear--" "No," interrupted the other, raising his hand. "Do not swear. You are incapable of such a crime. Besides, Donna Faustina is already at liberty, and the author of the deed has already confessed his guilt." Anastase staggered against the projecting shelf of the bookcase. The blood rushed to his face and for a moment he was almost unconscious of where he was. The cardinal's voice recalled him to himself. "If you doubt what I tell you, you need only go to the Palazzo Montevarchi and inquire. Donna Faustina will return with the Princess Sant' Ilario. I am sorry that circumstances prevent me from showing you the man who has confessed the crime. He is in my apartments at the present moment, separated from us only by two or three rooms." "His name, Eminence?" asked Gouache, whose whole nature seemed to have changed in a moment. "Ah, his name must for the present remain a secret in my keeping, unless, indeed, you have reason to believe that some one else did the murder. Have you no suspicions? You know the family intimately, it seems. You would probably have heard the matter mentioned, if the deceased prince had been concerned in any quarrel--in any transaction which might have made him an object of hatred to any one we know. Do you recall anything of the kind? Sit down, Monsieur Gouache. You are acquitted, you see. Instead of being a murderer you are the good friend who once painted my portrait in this very room. Do you remember our charming conversations about Christianity and the universal republic?" "I shall always remember your Eminence's kindness," answered Gouache, seating himself and trying to speak as quietly as possible. His nervous nature was very much unsettled by what had occurred. He had come determined that Faustina should be liberated at any cost, overcome by the horror of her situation, ready to lay down his life for her in the sincerity of his devotion. His conduct had been much more rational than Giovanni's. He had nothing to lose but himself, no relations to be disgraced by his condemnation, none to suffer by his loss. He had only to sacrifice himself to set free for ever the woman he loved, and he had not hesitated a moment in the accomplishment of his purpose. But the revulsion of feeling, when he discovered that Faustina was already known to be innocent, and that there was no need for his intervention, was almost more than he could bear. The tears of joy stood in his eyes while he tried to be calm. "Have you any suspicions?" asked the cardinal again, in his gentle voice. "None, Eminence. The only thing approaching to a quarrel, of which I have heard, is the suit about the title of the Saracinesca. But of course that can have nothing to do with the matter. It was decided yesterday without opposition." "It could have nothing to do with the murder, you think?" inquired the statesman with an air of interest. "No. How could it?" Gouache laughed at the idea. "The Saracinesca could not murder their enemies as they used to do five hundred years ago. Besides, your Eminence has got the murderer and must be able to guess better than I what were the incentives to the crime." "That does not follow, my friend. A man who confesses a misdeed is not bound to incriminate any one else, and a man whose conscience is sensitive enough to make him surrender himself naturally assumes the blame. He suffers remorse, and does not attempt any defence, excepting such as you yourself just now gave me, when you said that the prince had insulted you. Enough to give a semblance of truth to the story. By the bye, is that true?" "It is and it is not," answered Gouache, blushing a little. "The poor man, when I began to explain my position, thought--how shall I say? He thought I wanted to sell him a picture. It was not his fault." "Poor man!" sighed the cardinal. "He had not much tact. And so, Monsieur Gouache, you think that the great Saracinesca suit has had nothing to do with the murder?" "It seems to me impossible. It looks rather as though he had been murdered by a servant, out of spite. It is hard to believe that any one not belonging to the house could have done it." "I think the public will agree with you. I will occupy myself with the matter. Perhaps I have got the man safe in that room, but who knows? If you had come first, you might have gone to the Carceri Nuove instead of him. After all, he may be in love too." The cardinal smiled, but Gouache started at the suggestion, as though it hurt him. "I doubt that," he said quickly. "So do I. It would be a strange coincidence, if two innocent men had accused themselves of the same crime, out of love, within twenty-four hours of its being committed. But now that you are calm--yes, you were beside yourself with excitement--I must tell you that you have done a very rash thing indeed. If I had not chanced to be a friend of yours, what would have become of you? I cannot help liking your courage and devotion--you have shown it in sterner matters, and in the face of the enemy--but you might have destroyed yourself. That would have been a great sin." "Is there no case in which a man may destroy himself deliberately?" "You speak of suicide? It was almost that you contemplated. No. The church teaches that a man who takes his own life goes straight to hell. So does Mohammed, for that matter." "In any case?" "In any case. It is a mortal sin." "But," objected Gouache, "let us suppose me a very bad man, exercising a destroying influence on many other people. Suppose, in short, for the sake of argument, that my life caused others to lose their own souls, and that by killing myself I knew that they would all become good again. Suppose then, that I suddenly repented and that there was no way of saving these people but by my own suicide. Would it not be more honourable in me to say, 'Very well, I will submit to damnation rather than send all those others to eternal flames?' Should I not be justified in blowing out my brains?" The cardinal did not know whether to smile or to look grave. He was neither a priest nor a theologian, but a statesman. "My dear friend," he answered at last. "The ingenuity of your suppositions passes belief. I can only say that, when you find yourself in such a bad case as you describe, I will submit the matter for you to the Holy Father himself. But I would strongly advise you to avoid the situation if you possibly can." Gouache took his leave with a light heart, little guessing as he descended the great marble staircase that Giovanni Saracinesca was the prisoner of whom the cardinal had spoken so mysteriously, still less that he, too, had falsely accused himself of having killed poor old Montevarchi. He wondered, as he walked rapidly along the streets in the bright morning sunshine, who the man was, and why he had done such a thing, but his thoughts were really with Faustina, and he longed to see her and to hear from her own lips the true version of what had happened. CHAPTER XXIV. Arnoldo Meschini was fully conscious of what he had done when he softly closed the door of the study behind him and returned to the library; but although he knew and realised that he had murdered his employer, he could not explain the act to himself. His temples throbbed painfully and there was a bright red spot in each of his sallow cheeks. He shuffled about from one bookcase to another, and his hands trembled violently as he touched the big volumes. Now and then he glanced towards one or the other of the doors expecting at every moment that some one would enter to tell him the news, if indeed any one at such a time should chance to remember the existence of the humble librarian. His brain was on fire and seemed to burn the sockets of his eyes. And yet the time passed, and no one came. The suspense grew to be unbearable, and he felt that he would do anything to escape from it. He went to the door and laid his hand upon the latch. For an instant the flush disappeared from his cheeks, as a great fear took possession of him. He was not able to face the sight of Montevarchi's body lying across that table in the silent study. His hand fell to his side and he almost ran to the other side of the library; then, as though ashamed of his weakness he came back slowly and listened at the door. It was scarcely possible that any distant echo could reach his ears, if the household had been already roused, for the passage was long and tortuous, interrupted by other doors and by a winding staircase. But in his present state he fancied that his senses must be preternaturally sharpened and he listened eagerly. All was still. He went back to the books. There was nothing to be done but to make a desperate effort to occupy himself and to steady his nerves. If any one came now, he thought, his face would betray him. There must be a light in his eyes, an uncertainty in his manner which would speak plainly enough to his guilt. He tried to imagine what would take place when the body was found. Some one would enter the room and would see the body. He, or she, would perhaps think that the prince was in a fit, or asleep--who could tell? But he would not answer the voice that called him. Then the person would come forward and touch him--Meschini forced himself to think of it--would touch the dead hand and would feel that it was cold. With a cry of horror the person would hasten from the room. He might hear that cry, if he left the door open. Again he laid his hand upon the latch. His fingers seemed paralysed and the cold sweat stood on his face, but he succeeded in mastering himself enough to turn the handle and look out. The cry came, but it was from his own lips. He reeled back from the entrance in horror, his eyes starting from his head. There stood the dead man, in the dusky passage, shaking at him the handkerchief. It was only his fancy. He passed his hand across his forehead and a sickly look of relief crept over his face. He had been frightened by his own coat, that hung on a peg outside, long and thin and limp, a white handkerchief depending from the wide pocket. There was not much light in the corridor. He crept cautiously out and took the garment from its place with a nervous, frightened gesture. Dragging it after him, he hastily re-entered the library and rolled up the coat into a shape that could not possibly resemble anything which might frighten him. He laid it upon the table in the brightest place, where the afternoon sun fell upon it. There was a sort of relief in making sure that the thing could not again look like the dead man. He looked up and saw with renewed terror that he had left the door open. There was nothing but air between him and the place where that awful shadow had been conjured up by his imagination. The door must be shut. If it remained open he should go mad. He tried to think calmly, but it was beyond his power. He attempted to say that there was nothing there and that the door might as well remain open as be shut. But even while making the effort to reason with himself, he was creeping cautiously along the wall, in the direction of the entrance. By keeping his eyes close to the wooden panelling he could advance without seeing into the corridor. He was within a foot of the opening. Convulsed with fear, he put out his hand quickly and tried to pull the heavy oak on its hinges by the projecting bevel, but it was too heavy--he must look out in order to grasp the handle. The cold drops trickled down from his brow and he breathed hard, but he could not go back and leave the door unclosed. With a suppressed sob of agony he thrust out his head and arm. In a moment it was over, but the moral effort had been terrible, and his strength failed him, so that he staggered against the wainscot and would have fallen but for its support. Some moments elapsed before he could get to a chair, and when he at last sat down in a ray of sunshine to rest, his eyes remained fixed upon the sculptured brass handle of the latch. He almost expected that it would turn mysteriously of itself and that the dead prince would enter the room. He realised that in his present condition he could not possibly face the person who before long would certainly bring him the news. He must have something to stimulate him and deaden his nerves. He had no idea how long a time had elapsed since he had done the deed, but it seemed that three or four hours must certainly have passed. In reality it was scarcely five and twenty minutes since he had left the study. He remembered suddenly that he had some spirits in his room at the top of the palace. Slowly and painfully he rose to his feet and went towards the other exit from the library, which, as in many ancient houses, opened upon the grand staircase, so as to give free access to visitors from without. He had to cross the broad marble landing, whence a masked door led to the narrow winding steps by which he ascended to the upper story. He listened to hear whether any one was passing, and then went out. Once on his way he moved more quickly than seemed possible for a man so bent and mis-shapen. The bright afternoon sun streamed in through the window of his little chamber, a relief from the sombre gloominess of the lofty library, where the straggling rays seemed to make the great hall more shadowy by contrast. But Meschini did not stop to look about him. In a closet in the wall he kept his stores, his chemicals, his carefully-composed inks, his bits of prepared parchment, and, together with many other articles belonging to his illicit business, he had a bottle of old brandy, which the butler had once given him out of the prince's cellar, in return for a bit of legal advice which had saved the servant a lawyer's fee. Arnoldo Meschini had always been a sober man, like most Italians, and the bottle had stood for years unopened in the cupboard. He had never thought of it, but, having been once placed there, it had been safe. The moment had come when the stimulant was precious. His fingers shook as he put the bottle to his lips; when he set it down they were steady. The liquor acted like an enchantment, and the sallow-faced man smiled as he sat alone by his little table and looked at the thing that had restored him. The bottle had been full when he began to drink; the level of the liquid was now a good hand's breadth below the neck. The quantity he had swallowed would have made a temperate man, in his normal state, almost half drunk. He sat still for a long time, waiting to see whether the draught would produce any other effect. He felt a pleasant warmth in his face and hands, the perspiration had disappeared from his brow, and he was conscious that he could now look out of the open door of the library without fear, even if his coat were hanging on the peg. It was incredible to him that he should have been so really terrified by a mere shadow. He had killed Prince Montevarchi, and the body was lying in the study. Yes, he could think of it without shuddering, almost without an unpleasant sensation. In the dead man's own words, it had been an act of divine justice and retribution, and since nobody could possibly discover the murderer, there was matter for satisfaction in the idea that the wicked old man no longer cumbered the earth with his presence. Strange, that he should have suffered such an agony of fear half an hour earlier. Was it half an hour? How pleasantly the sun shone in to the little room where he had laboured during so many years, and so profitably! Now that the prince was dead it would be amusing to look at those original documents for which he had made such skilfully-constructed substitutes. He would like to assure himself, however, that the deed had been well done. There was magic in that old liquor. Another little draught and he would go down to the study as though nothing had happened. If he should meet anybody his easy manner would disarm suspicion. Besides, he could take the bottle with him in the pocket of his long coat--the bottle of courage, he said to himself with a smile, as he set it to his lips. This time he drank but little, and very slowly. He was too cautious a man to throw away his ammunition uselessly. With a light heart he descended the winding stair and crossed the landing. One of Ascanio Bellegra's servants passed at that moment. Meschini looked at the fellow quietly, and even gave him a friendly smile, to test his own coolness, a civility which was acknowledged by a familiar nod. The librarian's spirits rose. He did not resent the familiarity of the footman, for, with all his learning, he was little more than a servant himself, and the accident had come conveniently as a trial of his strength. The man evidently saw nothing unusual in his appearance. Moreover, as he walked, the brandy bottle in his coat tail pocket beat reassuringly against the calves of his legs. He opened the door of the library and found himself in the scene of his terror. There lay the old coat, wrapped together on the table, as he had left it. The sun had moved a little farther during his absence, and the heap of cloth looked innocent enough. Meschini could not understand how it had frightened him so terribly. He still felt that pleasant warmth about his face and hands. That was the door before which he had been such a coward. What was beyond it? The empty passage. He would go and hang the coat where it had hung always, where he always left it when he came in the morning, unless he needed it to keep himself warm. What could be simpler, or easier? He took the thing in one hand, turned the handle and looked out. He was not afraid. The long, silent corridor stretched away into the distance, lighted at intervals by narrow windows that opened upon an inner court of the palace. Meschini suspended the coat upon the peg and stood looking before him, a contemptuous smile upon his face, as though he despised himself for his former fears. Then he resolutely walked towards the study, along the familiar way, down a flight of steps, then to the right--he stood before the door and the dead man was on the other side of it. He paused and listened. All was silent. It was clear to him, as he stood before the table and looked at the body, that no one had been there. Indeed, Meschini now remembered that it was a rule in the house never to disturb the prince unless a visitor came. He had always liked to spend the afternoon in solitude over his accounts and his plans. The librarian, paused opposite his victim and gazed at the fallen head and the twisted, whitened fingers. He put out his hand timidly and touched them, and was surprised to find that they were not quite cold. The touch, however, sent a very unpleasant thrill through his own frame, and he drew back quickly with a slight shiver. But he was not terrified as he had been before. The touch, only, was disagreeable to him. He took a book that lay at hand and pushed it against the dead man's arm. There was no sign, no movement. He would have liked to go behind the chair and untie the handkerchief, but his courage was not quite equal to that. Besides, the handkerchief was Faustina's. He had seen her father snatch it from her and throw it upon the floor, as he watched the pair through the keyhole. A strange fascination kept him in the study, and he would have yielded to it had he not been fortified against any such morbid folly by the brandy he had swallowed. He thought, as he turned to go, that it was a pity the prince never kept money in the house, for, in that case, he might have helped himself before leaving. To steal a small value was not worth while, considering the danger of discovery. He moved on tiptoe, as though afraid of disturbing the rest of his old employer, and once or twice he looked back. Then at last he closed the door and retraced his steps through the corridor till he gained the library. He was surprised at his own boldness as he went, and at the indifference with which he passed by the coat that hung, limp as ever, upon its peg. He was satisfied, too, with the result of his investigations. The prince was certainly dead. As a direct consequence of his death, the secret of the Saracinesca suit was now his own, no one had a share in it, and it was worth money. He pulled out a number of volumes from the shelves and began to make a pretence of working upon the catalogue. But though he surrounded himself with the implements and necessaries for his task, his mind was busy with the new scheme that unfolded itself to his imagination. He and he alone, knew that San Giacinto's possession of the Saracinesca inheritance rested upon a forgery. The fact that this forgery must be revealed, in order to reinstate the lawful possessors in their right, did not detract in the least from the value of the secret. Two courses were open to him. He might go to old Leone Saracinesca and offer the original documents for sale, on receiving a guarantee for his own safety. Or he might offer them to San Giacinto, who was the person endangered by their existence. Montevarchi had promised him twenty thousand scudi for the job, and had never paid the money. He had cancelled his debt with his life, however, and had left the secret behind him. Either Saracinesca or San Giacinto would give five times twenty thousand, ten times as much, perhaps, for the original documents, the one in order to recover what was his own, the other to keep what did not belong to him. The great question to be considered was the way of making the offer. Meschini sat staring at the opposite row of books, engaged in solving the problem. Just then, one of the open volumes before him slipped a little upon another and the page turned slowly over. The librarian started slightly and glanced at the old-fashioned type. The work was a rare one, which he had often examined, and he knew it to be of great value. A new thought struck him. Why should he not sell this and many other volumes out of the collection, as well as realise money by disposing of his secret? He might as well be rich as possess a mere competence. He looked about him. With a little care and ingenuity, by working at night and by visiting the sellers of old books during the day he might soon put together four or five hundred works which would fetch a high price, and replace them by so many feet of old trash which would look as well. With his enormous industry it would be a simple matter to tamper with the catalogue and to insert new pages which should correspond with the changes he contemplated. The old prince was dead, and little as he had really known about the library, his sons knew even less. Meschini could remove the stolen volumes to a safe place, and when he had realised the value of his secret, he would go to Paris, to Berlin, even to London, and dispose of his treasures one by one. He was amazed at the delights the future unfolded to him, everything seemed gilded, everything seemed ready to turn into gold. His brain dwelt with an enthusiasm wholly new to him upon the dreams it conjured up. He felt twenty years younger. His fears had gone, and with them his humility. He saw himself no longer the poor librarian in his slippers and shabby clothes, cringing to his employer, spending his days in studying the forgeries he afterwards executed during the night, hoarding his ill-gotten gains with jealous secrecy, afraid to show to his few associates that he had accumulated a little wealth, timid by force of long habit and by the remembrance of the shame in his early life. All that had disappeared under the potent spell of his new-found courage. He fancied himself living in some distant capital, rich and respected, married, perhaps, having servants of his own, astonishing the learned men of some great centre by the extent of his knowledge and erudition. All the vanity of his nature was roused from its long sleep by a new set of emotions, till he could scarcely contain his inexplicable happiness. And how had all this come to him so suddenly in the midst of his obscure life? Simply by squeezing the breath out of an old man's throat. How easy it had been. The unaccustomed energy which had been awakened in him by the spirits brought with it a pleasant restlessness. He felt that he must go again to his little room upstairs, and take out the deeds and read them over. The sight of them would give an increased reality and vividness to his anticipations. Besides, too, it was just barely possible that there might be some word, some expression which he could change, and which should increase their value. To sit still, poring over the catalogue in the library was impossible. Once more he climbed to his attic, but he could not comprehend why he felt a nervous desire to look behind him, as though he were followed by some person whose tread was noiseless. It was not possible, he thought, that the effects of his draught were already passing off. Such courage as he felt in him could not leave him suddenly. He reached his room and took the deeds from the secret place in which he had hidden them, spreading them out lovingly before him. As he sat down the bottle in his long coat touched the floor behind him with a short, dull thud. It was as though a footstep had sounded in the silent room, and he sprang to his feet before he realised whence the noise came, looking behind him with startled eyes. In a moment he understood, and withdrawing the bottle from his pocket he set it beside him on the table. He looked at it for a few seconds as though in hesitation, but he determined not to have recourse to its contents so soon. He had undoubtedly been frightened again, but the sound that had scared him had been real and not imaginary. Besides, he had but this one bottle and he knew that good brandy was dear. He pushed it away, his avarice helping him to resist the temptation. The old documents were agreeably familiar to his eye, and he read and re-read them with increasing satisfaction, comparing them carefully, and chuckling to himself each time that he reached the bottom of the sheet upon the copy, where there had been no room to introduce that famous clause. But for that accident, he reflected, he would have undoubtedly made the insertion upon the originals, and the latter would be now no longer in his possession. He did not quite understand why he derived such pleasure from reading the writing so often, nor why, when the surrounding objects in the room were clear and distinct to his eyes, the crabbed characters should every now and then seem to move of themselves and to run into each other from right to left. Possibly the emotions of the day had strained his vision. He looked up and saw the bottle. An irresistible desire seized him to taste the liquor again, even if he drank but a drop. The spirits wet his lips while he was still inwardly debating whether it were wise to drink or not. As he returned the cork to its place he felt a sudden revival within him of all he had experienced before. His face was warm, his fingers tingled. He took up one of the deeds with a firm hand and settled himself comfortably in his chair. But he could not read it through again. He laughed quietly at his folly. Did he not know every word by heart? He must occupy himself with planning, with arranging the details of his future. When that was done he could revel in the thought of wealth and rest and satisfied vanity. To his surprise, his thoughts did not flow as connectedly as he had expected. He could not help thinking of the dead man downstairs, not indeed with any terror, not fearing discovery for himself, but with a vague wonderment that made his mind feel empty. Turn over the matter as he would, he could not foresee connectedly what was likely to happen when the murder was known. There was no sequence in his imaginings, and he longed nervously for the moment when everything should be settled. The restlessness that had brought him up to his room demanded some sort of action to quiet it. He would willingly have gone out to see his friend, the little apothecary who lived near the Ponte Quattro Capi. It would be a relief to talk to some one, to hear the sound of a human voice. But a remnant of prudence restrained him. It was not very likely that he should be suspected; indeed, if he behaved prudently nothing was more improbable. To leave the house at such a time, however, would be the height of folly, unless it could be proved that he had gone out some time before the deed could have been done. The porter was vigilant, and Meschini almost always exchanged a few words with him as he passed through the gates. He would certainly note the time of the librarian's exit more or less accurately. Moreover, the body might have been found already, and even now the gendarmes might be downstairs. The latter consideration determined him to descend once more to the library. A slight chill passed over him as he closed the door of his room behind him. The great hall now seemed very gloomy and cold, and the solitude was oppressive. He felt the necessity for movement, and began to walk quickly up and down the length of the library between the broad tables, from one door to the other. At first, as he reached the one that separated him from the passage he experienced no disagreeable sensation, but turned his back upon it at the end of his walk and retraced his steps. Very gradually, however, he began to feel uncomfortable as he reached that extremity of the room, and the vision of the dead prince rose before his eyes. The coat was there again, on the other side of the door. No doubt it would take the same shape again if he looked at it. His varying courage was just at the point when he was able to look out in order to assure himself that the limp garment had not assumed the appearance of a ghost. He felt a painful thrill in his back as he turned the handle, and the cold air that rushed in as he opened the door seemed to come from a tomb. Although his eyes were satisfied when he had seen the coat in the corner, he drew back quickly, and the thrill was repeated with greater distinctness as he heard the bolt of the latch slip into its socket. He walked away again, but the next time he came back he turned at some distance from the threshold, and, as he turned, he felt the thrill a third time, almost like an electric shock. He could not bear it and sat down before the catalogue. His eyes refused to read, and after a lengthened struggle between his fears, his prudence and his economy, he once more drew the bottle from his pocket and fortified himself with a draught. This time he drank more, and the effect was different. For some seconds he felt no change in his condition. Presently, however, his nervousness disappeared, giving place now to a sort of stupid indifference. The light was fading from the clerestory windows of the library, and, within, the corners and recesses were already dark. But Meschini was past imagining ghosts or apparitions. He sat quite still, his chin leaning on his hand and his elbow on the table, wondering vaguely how long it would be before they came to tell him that the prince was dead. He did not sleep, but he fell into a state of torpor which was restful to his nerves. Sleep would certainly come in half an hour if he were left to himself as long as that. His breathing was heavy, and the silence around him was intense. At last the much-dreaded moment came, and found him dull and apathetic. The door opened and a ray of light from a candle entered the room, which was now almost dark. A foot-man and a housemaid thrust in their heads cautiously and peered into the broad gloom, holding the candle high before them. Either would have been afraid to come alone. "Sor Arnoldo, Sor Arnoldo!" the man called out timidly, as though frightened by the sound of his own voice. "Here I am," answered Meschini, affecting a cheerful tone as well as he could. Once more and very quickly he took a mouthful from the bottle, behind the table where they could not see him. "What is the matter?" he asked. "The prince is murdered!" cried the two servants in a breath. They were very pale as they came towards him. If the cry he uttered was forced they were too much terrified to notice it. As they told their tale with every species of exaggeration, interspersed with expressions of horror and amazement, he struck his hands to his head, moaned, cried aloud, and, being half hysterical with drink, shed real tears in their presence. Then they led him away, saying that the prefect of police was in the study and that all the household had been summoned to be examined by him. He was now launched in his part, and could play it to the end without breaking down. He had afterwards very little recollection of what had occurred. He remembered that the stillness of the study and the white faces of those present had impressed him by contrast with the noisy grief of the servants who had summoned him. He remembered that he had sworn, and others had corroborated his oath, to the effect that he had spent the afternoon between the library and his room. Ascanio Bellegra's footman remembered meeting him on the landing, and said that he had smiled pleasantly in an unconcerned way, as usual, and had passed on. For the rest, no one seemed even to imagine that he could have done the deed, for no one had ever heard anything but friendly words between him and the prince. He remembered, too, having seen the dead body extended upon the great table of the study, and he recalled Donna Faustina's tone of voice indistinctly as in a dream. Then, before the prefect announced his decision, he was dismissed with the other servants. After that moment all was a blank in his mind. In reality he returned to his room and sat down by his table with a candle before him. He never knew that after the examination he had begged another bottle of liquor of the butler on the ground that his nerves were upset by the terrible event. About midnight the candle burned down into the socket. Profiting by the last ray of light he drank a final draught and reeled to his bed, dressed as he was. One bottle was empty, and a third of the second was gone. Arnoldo Meschini was dead drunk. CHAPTER XXV. Corona was not much surprised when the messenger brought her carriage and presented the order for Faustina's liberation. When Giovanni had left her she had felt that he would find means to procure the young girl's liberty, and the only thing which seemed strange to her was the fact that Giovanni did not return himself. The messenger said he had seen him with the cardinal and that Sant' Ilario had given the order to use the carriage. Beyond that, he knew nothing. Corona at once took Faustina to the Palazzo Montevarchi, and then, with a promise to come back in the course of the day, she went home to rest. She needed repose even more than Faustina, who, after all, had slept soundly on her prison bed, trusting with childlike faith in her friend's promise that she should be free in the morning. Corona, on the contrary, had passed a wakeful night, and was almost worn out with fatigue. She remained in her room until twelve o'clock, the hour when the members of the family met at the midday breakfast. She found her father-in-law waiting for her, and at a glance she saw that he was in a savage humour. His bronzed face was paler than usual and his movements more sudden and nervous, while his dark eyes gleamed angrily beneath his bent and shaggy brows. Corona, on her part, was silent and preoccupied. In spite of the tragic events of the night, which, after all, only affected her indirectly at present, and in spite of the constant moral suffering which now played so important a part in her life, she could not but be disturbed by the tremendous loss sustained by her husband and by his father. It fell most heavily upon the latter, who was an old man, and whose mind was not engaged by any other absorbing consideration, but the blow was a terrible one to the other also. "Where is Giovanni?" asked Saracinesca brusquely, as they sat down to the table. "I do not know," answered Corona. "The last I heard of him was that he was with Cardinal Antonelli. I suppose that after getting the order to release Faustina he stayed there." "So his Eminence suffered himself to be persuaded that a little girl did not strangle that old tanner," remarked the prince. "Apparently." "If they had taken Flavia it would have been more natural. She would have inaugurated her reign as Princess Saracinesca by a night in the Termini. Delightful contrast! I suppose you know who did it?" "No. Probably a servant, though they say that nothing was stolen." "San Giacinto did it. I have thought the whole matter out, and I am convinced of it. Look at his hands. He could strangle an elephant. Not that he could have had any particular reason for liquidating his father-in-law. He is rich enough without Flavia's share, but I always thought he would kill somebody one of these days, ever since I met him at Aquila." "Without any reason, why should he have done it?" "My dear child, when one has no reason to give, it is very hard to say why a thing occurs. He looks like the man." "Is it conceivable that after getting all he could desire he should endanger his happiness in such a way?" "Perhaps not. I believe he did it. What an abominable omelet--a glass of water, Pasquale. Abominable, is it not, Corona? Perfectly uneatable. I suppose the cook has heard of our misfortunes and wants to leave." "I fancy we are not very hungry," remarked Corona, in order to say something. "I would like to know whether the murderer is eating his breakfast at this moment, and whether he has any appetite. It would be interesting from a psychological point of view. By the bye, all this is very like a jettatura." "What?" "Montevarchi coming to his end on the very day he had won the suit. In good old times it would have been Giovanni who would have cut his throat, after which we should have all retired to Saracinesca and prepared for a siege. Less civilised but twice as human. No doubt they will say now--even now--that we paid a man to do the work." "But it was San Giacinto who brought the suit--" "It was Montevarchi. I have seen my lawyer this morning. He says that Montevarchi sent the people out to Frascati to see San Giacinto and explained the whole matter to them beforehand. He discovered the clause in the deeds first. San Giacinto never even saw them until everything was ready. And on the evening of the very day when it was settled, Montevarchi is murdered. I wonder that it has not struck any one to say we did it." "You did not oppose the suit. If you had, it would have been different." "How could I oppose the action? It was clear from the beginning that we had no chance of winning it. The fact remains that we are turned out of our home. The sooner we leave this the better. It will only be harder to go if we stay here." "Yes," answered Corona sadly. "It will be harder." "I believe it is a judgment of heaven on Giovanni for his outrageous conduct," growled the prince, suddenly running away with a new idea. "On Giovanni?" Corona was roused immediately by the mention of her husband in such a connection. "Yes, for his behaviour to you, the young scoundrel! I ought to have disinherited him at once." "Please do not talk in that way. I cannot let you say--" "He is my own son, and I will say what I please," interrupted Saracinesca fiercely. "He treated you outrageously, I say. It is just like a woman to deny it and defend her husband." "Since there is no one else to defend him, I must. He was misled, and naturally enough, considering the appearances. I did not know that you knew about it all." "I do not know all, nor half. But I know enough. A man who suspects such a woman as you deserves to be hanged. Besides," he added irrelevantly, but with an intuitive keenness that startled Corona, "besides, you have not forgiven him." "Indeed I have--" "In a Christian spirit, no doubt. I know you are good. But you do not love him as you did. It is useless to deny it. Why should you? I do not blame you, I am sure." The prince fixed his bright eyes on her face and waited for her answer. She turned a little paler and said nothing for several moments. Then as he watched her he saw the colour mount slowly to her olive cheeks. She herself could hardly have accounted for the unwonted blush, and a man capable of more complicated reasoning than her father-in-law would have misinterpreted it. Corona had at first been angry at the thought that he could speak as he did of Giovanni, saying things she would not say to herself concerning him. Then she felt a curious sensation of shame at being discovered. It was true that she did not love her husband, or at least that she believed herself unable to love him; but she was ashamed that any one else should know it. "Why will you persist in talking about the matter?" she asked at length. "It is between us two." "It seems to me that it concerns me," returned Saracinesca, who was naturally pertinacious. "I am not inquisitive. I ask no questions. Giovanni has said very little about it to me. But I am not blind. He came to me one evening and said he was going to take you away to the mountains. He seemed very much disturbed, and I saw that there had been trouble between you, and that he suspected you of something. He did not say so, but I knew what he meant. If it had turned out true I think I would have--well, I would not have answered for my conduct. Of course I took his part, but you fell ill, and did not know that. When he came and told me that he had been mistaken I abused him like a thief. I have abused him ever since whenever I have had a chance. It was a vile, dastardly, foolish, ridiculous--" "For heaven's sake!" cried Corona, interrupting him. "Pray, pray leave the question in peace! I am so unhappy!" "So am I," answered Saracinesca bluntly. "It does not add to my happiness to know that my son has made an ass of himself. Worse than that. You do not seem to realise that I am very fond of you. If I had not been such an old man I should have fallen in love with you as well as Giovanni. Do you remember when I rode over to Astrardente, and asked you to marry him? I would have given all I am--all I was worth, I mean, to be in Giovanni's shoes when I brought back your answer. Bah! I am an old fellow and no Apollo either! But you have been a good daughter to me, Corona, and I will not let any one behave badly to you." "And you have been good to me--so good! But you must not be angry with Giovanni. He was misled. He loved me even then." "I wish I were as charitable as you." "Do not call me charitable. I am anything but that. If I were I would--" She stopped short. "Yes, I know, you would love him as you did before. Then you would not be Corona, but some one else. I know that sort of argument. But you cannot be two persons at one time. The other woman, whom you have got in your mind, and who would love Giovanni, is a weak-minded kind of creature who bears anything and everything, who will accept any sort of excuse for an insult, and will take credit to herself for being long-suffering because she has not the spirit to be justly angry. Thank heaven you are not like that. If you were, Giovanni would not have had you for a wife nor I for a daughter." "I think it is my fault. I would do anything in the world to make it otherwise." "You admit the fact then? Of course. It is a misfortune, and not your fault. It is one more misfortune among so many. You may forgive him, if you please. I will not. By the bye, I wonder why he does not come back. I would like to hear the news." "The cardinal may have kept him to breakfast." "Since seven o'clock this morning? That is impossible. Unless his Eminence has arrested him on charge of the murder." The old gentleman laughed gruffly, little guessing how near his jest lay to the truth. But Corona looked up quickly. The mere idea of such a horrible contingency was painful to her, absurd and wildly improbable as it appeared. "I was going to ask him to go up to Saracinesca to-morrow and see to the changes," continued the prince. "Must it be so soon?" asked Corona regretfully. "Is it absolutely decided? Have you not yielded too easily?" "I cannot go over all the arguments again," returned her father-in-law with some impatience. "There is no doubt about it. I expended all my coolness and civility on San Giacinto when he came to see me about it. It is of no use to complain, and we cannot draw back. I suppose I might go down on my knees to the Pope and ask his Holiness for another title--for the privilege of being called something, Principe di Cavolfiore, if you like. But I will not do it. I will die as Leone Saracinesca. You can give Giovanni your old title, if you please--it is yours to give." "He shall have it if he wants it. What does it matter? I can be Donna Corona." "Ay, what does it matter, provided we have peace? What does anything matter in this unutterably ridiculous world--except your happiness, poor child! Yes. Everything must be got ready. I will not stay in this house another week." "But in a week it will be impossible to do all there is to be done!" exclaimed Corona, whose feminine mind foresaw infinite difficulties in moving. "Possible, or impossible, it must be accomplished. I have appointed this day week for handing over the property. The lawyers said, as you say, that it would need more time. I told them that there was no time, and that if they could not do it, I would employ some one else. They talked of sitting up all night--as if I cared whether they lost their beauty sleep or not! A week from to-day everything must be settled, so that I have not in my possession a penny that does not belong to me." "And then--what will you do?" asked Corona, who saw in spite of his vehemence how much he was affected by the prospect. "And then? What then? Live somewhere else, I suppose, and pray for an easy death." No one had ever heard Leone Saracinesca say before now that he desired to die, and the wish seemed so contrary to the nature of his character that Corona looked earnestly at him. His face was discomposed, and his voice had trembled. He was a brave man, and a very honourable one, but he was very far from being a philosopher. As he had said, he had expended all his calmness in that one meeting with San Giacinto when he had been persuaded of the justice of the latter's claims. Since then he had felt nothing but bitterness, and the outward expression of it was either an unreasonable irritation concerning small matters, or some passionate outburst like the present against life, against the world in which he lived, against everything. It is scarcely to be wondered at that he should have felt the loss so deeply, more deeply even than Giovanni. He had been for many years the sole head and master of his house, and had borne all the hereditary dignities that belonged to his station, some of which were of a kind that pleased his love of feudal traditions. For the money he cared little. The loss that hurt him most touched his pride, and that generous vanity which was a part of his nature, which delighted in the honour accorded to his name, to his son, to his son's wife, in the perpetuation of his race and in a certain dominating independence, that injured no one and gave himself immense satisfaction. At his age he was not to be blamed for such feelings. They proceeded in reality far more from habit than from a vain disposition, and it seemed to him that if he bore the calamity bravely he had a right to abuse his fate in his own language. But he could not always keep himself from betraying more emotion than he cared to show. "Do not talk of death," said Corona. "Giovanni and I will make your life happy and worth living." She sighed as she spoke, in spite of herself. "Giovanni and you!" repeated the prince gloomily. "But for his folly--what is the use of talking? I have much to do. If he comes to you this afternoon please tell him that I want him." Corona was glad when the meal was ended, and she went back to her own room. She had promised to go and see Faustina again, but otherwise she did not know how to occupy herself. A vague uneasiness beset her as the time passed and her husband did not come home. It was unlike him to stay away all day without warning her, though she was obliged to confess to herself that she had of late shown very little interest in his doings, and that it would not be very surprising if he began to do as he pleased without informing her of his intentions. Nevertheless she wished he would show himself before evening. The force of habit was still strong, and she missed him without quite knowing it. At last she made an effort against her apathy, and went out to pay the promised visit. The Montevarchi household was subdued under all the outward pomp of a ponderous mourning. The gates and staircases were hung with black. In the vast antechamher the canopy was completely hidden by an enormous hatchment before which the dead prince had lain in state during the previous night and a part of the day. According to the Roman custom the body had been already removed, the regulations of the city requiring that this should be done within twenty-four hours. The great black pedestals on which the lights had been placed were still standing, and lent a ghastly and sepulchral appearance to the whole. Numbers of servants in mourning liveries stood around an immense copper brazier in a corner, talking together in low tones, their voices dying away altogether as the Princess Sant' Ilario entered the open door of the hall. The man who came forward appeared to be the person in charge of the funeral, for Corona had not seen him in the house before. "Donna Faustina expects me," she said, continuing to walk towards the entrance to the apartments. "Your Excellency's name?" inquired the man. Corona was surprised that he should ask, and wondered whether even the people of his class already knew the result of the suit. "Donna Corona Saracinesca," she answered in distinct tones. The appellation sounded strange and unfamiliar. "Donna Corona Saracinesca," the man repeated in a loud voice a second later. He had almost run into San Giacinto, who was coming out at that moment. Corona found herself face to face with her cousin. "You--princess!" he exclaimed, putting out his hand. In spite of the relationship he was not privileged to call her by her name. "You--why does the man announce you in that way?" Corona took his hand and looked quietly into his face. They had not met since the decision. "I told him to do so. I shall be known by that name in future. I have come to see Faustina." She would have passed on. "Allow me to say," said San Giacinto, in his deep, calm voice, "that as far as I am concerned you are, and always shall be, Princess Sant' Ilario. No one can regret more than I the position in which I am placed towards you and yours, and I shall certainly do all in my power to prevent any such unnecessary changes." "We cannot discuss that matter here," answered Corona, speaking more coldly than she meant to do. "I trust there need be no discussion. I even hope that you will bear me no ill will." "I bear you none. You have acted honestly and openly. You had right on your side. But neither my husband nor I will live under a borrowed name." San Giacinto seemed hurt by her answer. He stood aside to allow her to pass, and there was something dignified in his demeanour that pleased Corona. "The settlement is not made yet," he said gravely. "Until then the name is yours." When she was gone he looked after her with an expression of annoyance upon his face. He understood well enough what she felt, but he was very far from wishing to let any unpleasantness arise between him and her family. Even in the position to which he had now attained he felt that there was an element of uncertainty, and he did not feel able to dispense with the good-will of his relations, merely because he was Prince Saracinesca and master of a great fortune. His early life had made him a cautious man, and he did not underestimate the value of personal influence. Moreover, he had not a bad heart, and preferred if possible to be on good terms with everybody. According to his own view he had done nothing more than claim what was legitimately his, but he did not want the enmity of those who had resigned all into his hands. Corona went on her way and found Faustina and Flavia together. Their mother was not able to see any one. The rest of the family had gone to the country as soon as the body had been taken away, yielding without any great resistance to the entreaties of their best friends who, according to Roman custom, thought it necessary to "divert" the mourners. That is the consecrated phrase, and people of other countries may open their eyes in astonishment at the state of domestic relations as revealed by this practice. It is not an uncommon thing for the majority of the family to go away even before death has actually taken place. Speaking of a person who is dying, it is not unusual to say, "You may imagine how ill he is, for the family has left him!" The servants attend the Requiem Mass, the empty carriages follow the hearse to the gates of the city, but the family is already in the country, trying to "divert" itself. Flavia and Faustina, however, had stayed at home, partly because the old princess was really too deeply moved and profoundly shocked to go away, and partly because San Giacinto refused to leave Rome. Faustina, too, was eccentric enough to think such haste after "diversion" altogether indecent, and she herself had been through such a series of emotions during the twenty-four hours that she found rest needful. As for Flavia, she took matters very calmly, but would have preferred very much to be with her brothers and their wives. The calamity had for the time subdued her vivacity, though it was easy to see that it had made no deep impression upon her nature. If the truth were told, she was more unpleasantly affected by thus suddenly meeting Corona than by her father's tragic death. She thought it necessary to be more than usually affectionate, not out of calculation, but rather to get rid of a disagreeable impression. She sprang forward and kissed Corona on both cheeks. "I was longing to see you!" she said enthusiastically. "You have been so kind to Faustina. I am sure we can never thank you enough. Imagine, if she had been obliged to spend the night alone in prison! Such an abominable mistake, too. I hope that dreadful man will be sent to the galleys. Poor little Faustina! How could any one think she could do such a thing!" Corona was not prepared for Flavia's manner, and it grated disagreeably on her sensibilities. But she said nothing, only returning her salutation with becoming cordiality before sitting down between the two sisters. Faustina looked on coldly, disgusted with such indifference. It struck her that if Corona had not accompanied her to the Termini, it would have been very hard to induce any of her own family to do so. "And poor papa!" continued Flavia volubly. "Is it not too dreadful, too horrible? To think of any one daring! I shall never get over the impression it made on me--never. Without a priest, without any one--poor dear!" "Heaven is very merciful," said Corona, thinking it necessary to make some such remark. "Oh, I know," answered Flavia, with sudden seriousness. "I know. But poor papa--you see--I am afraid--" She stopped significantly and shook her head, evidently implying that Prince Montevarchi's chances of blessedness were but slender. "Flavia!" cried Faustina indignantly, "how can you say such things!" "Oh, I say nothing, and besides, I daresay--you see he was sometimes very kind. It was only yesterday, for instance, that he actually promised me those earrings--you know, Faustina, the pearl drops at Civilotti's--it is true, they were not so very big after all. He really said he would give them to me as a souvenir if--oh! I forgot." She stopped with some embarrassment, for she had been on the point of saying that the earrings were to be a remembrance if the suit were won, when she recollected that she was speaking to Corona. "Well--it would have been very kind of him if he had," she added. "Perhaps that is something. Poor papa! One would feel more sure about it, if he had got some kind of absolution." "I do not believe you cared for him at all!" exclaimed Faustina. Corona evidently shared this belief, for she looked very grave and was silent. "Oh, Faustina, how unkind you are!" cried Flavia in great astonishment and some anger. "I am sure I loved poor papa as much as any of you, and perhaps a great deal better. We were always such good friends!" Faustina raised her eyebrows a little and looked at Corona as though to say that her sister was hopeless, and for some minutes no one spoke. "You are quite rested now?" asked Corona at last, turning to the young girl. "Poor child! what you must have suffered!" "It is strange, but I am not tired. I slept, you know, for I was worn out." "Faustina's grief did not keep her awake," observed Flavia, willing to say something disagreeable. "I only came to see how you were," said Corona, who did not care to prolong the interview. "I hope to hear that your mother is better to-morrow. I met Saracinesca as I came in, but I did not ask him." "Your father-in-law?" asked Faustina innocently. "I did not know he had been here." "No; your husband, my dear," answered Corona, looking at Flavia as she spoke. She was curious to see what effect the change had produced upon her. Flavia's cheeks flushed quickly, evidently with pleasure, if also with some embarrassment. But Corona was calm and unmoved as usual. "I did not know you already called him so," said Flavia. "How strange it will be!" "We shall soon get used to it," replied Corona, with a smile, as she rose to go. "I wish you many years of happiness with your new name. Good-bye." Faustina went with her into one of the outer rooms. "Tell me," she said, when they were alone, "how did your husband manage it so quickly? They told me to-day that the cardinal had at first refused. I cannot understand it. I could not ask you before Flavia--she is so inquisitive!" "I do not know--I have not seen Giovanni yet. He stayed with the cardinal when the carriage came for us. It was managed in some way, and quickly. I shall hear all about it this evening. What is it, dear?" There were tears in Faustina's soft eyes, followed quickly by a little sob. "I miss him dreadfully!" she exclaimed, laying her head on her friend's shoulder. "And I am so unhappy! We parted angrily, and I can never tell him how sorry I am. You do not think it could have had anything to do with it, do you?" "Your little quarrel? No, child. What could it have changed? We do not know what happened." "I shall never forget his face. I was dreadfully undutiful--oh! I could almost marry that man if it would do any good!" Corona smiled sadly. The young girl's sorrow was genuine, in strange contrast to Flavia's voluble flippancy. She laid her hand affectionately on the thick chestnut hair. "Perhaps he sees now that you should not marry against your heart." "Oh, do you think so? I wish it were possible. I should not feel as though I were so bad if I thought he understood now. I could bear it better. I should not feel as though it were almost a duty to marry Frangipani." Corona turned quickly with an expression that was almost fierce in its intensity. She took Faustina's hands in hers. "Never do that, Faustina. Whatever comes to you, do not do that! You do not know what it is to live with a man you do not love, even if you do not hate him. It is worse than death." Corona kissed her and left her standing by the door. Was it possible, Faustina asked, that Corona did not love her husband? Or was she speaking of her former life with old Astrardente? Of course, it must be that. Giovanni and Corona were a proverbially happy couple. When Corona again entered her own room, there was a note lying upon the table, the one her husband had written that morning from his place of confinement. She tore the envelope open with an anxiety of which she had not believed herself capable. She had asked for him when she returned and he had not been heard of yet. The vague uneasiness she had felt at his absence suddenly increased, until she felt that unless she saw him at once she must go in search of him. She read the note through again and again, without clearly understanding the contents. It was evident that he had left Rome suddenly and had not cared to tell her whither he was going, since the instructions as to what she was to say were put in such a manner as to make it evident that they were only to serve as an excuse for his absence to others, and not as an explanation to herself. The note was enigmatical and might mean almost anything. At last Corona tossed the bit of paper into the fire, and tapped the thick carpet impatiently with her foot. "How coldly he writes!" she exclaimed aloud. The door opened and her maid appeared. "Will your Excellency receive Monsieur Gouache?" asked the woman from the threshold. "No! certainly not!" answered Corona, in a voice that frightened the servant. "I am not at home." "Yes, your Excellency." CHAPTER XXVI. The amount of work which Arnoldo Meschini did in the twenty-four hours of the day depended almost entirely upon his inclinations. The library had always been open to the public once a week, on Mondays, and on those occasions the librarian was obliged to be present. The rest of his time was supposed to be devoted to the incessant labour connected with so important a collection of books, and, on the whole, he had done far more than was expected of him. Prince Montevarchi had never proposed to give him an assistant, and he would have rejected any such offer, since the presence of another person would have made it almost impossible for him to carry on his business of forging ancient manuscripts. The manual labour of his illicit craft was of course performed in his own room, but a second librarian could not have failed to discover that there was something wrong. Night after night he carried the precious manuscripts to his chamber, bringing them back and restoring them to their places every morning. During the day he studied attentively what he afterwards executed in the quiet hours when he could be alone. Of the household none but the prince himself ever came to the library, no other member of the family cared for the books or knew anything about them. His employer being dead, Meschini was practically master of all the shelves contained. No one disturbed him, no one asked what he was doing. His salary would be paid regularly by the steward, and he would in all probability be left to vegetate unheeded for the rest of his natural lifetime. When he died some one else would be engaged in his place. In the ordinary course of events no other future would have been open to him. He awoke very late in the morning on the day after the murder, and lay for some time wondering why he was so very uncomfortable, why his head hurt him, why his vision was indistinct, why he could remember nothing he had done before going to bed. The enormous quantity of liquor he had drunk had temporarily destroyed his faculties, which were not hardened by the habitual use of alcohol. He turned his head uneasily upon the pillow and saw the bottles on the table, the candle burnt down in the brass candlestick and the general disorder in the room. He glanced at his own body and saw that he was lying dressed upon his bed. Then the whole truth flashed upon his mind with appalling vividness. A shock went through his system as though some one had struck him violently on the back of the head, while the light in the room was momentarily broken into flashes that pained his eyes. He got upon his feet with difficulty, and steadied himself by the bed-post, hardly able to stand alone. He had murdered his master. The first moment in which he realised the fact was the most horrible he remembered to have passed. He had killed the prince and could recall nothing, or next to nothing, that had occurred since the deed. Almost before he knew what he was doing he had locked his door with a double turn of the key and was pushing the furniture against it, the table, the chairs, everything that he could move. It seemed to him that he could already hear upon the winding stair the clank of the gens d'armes' sabres as they came to get him. He looked wildly round the room to see whether there was anything that could lead to discovery. The unwonted exertion, however, had restored the circulation of his blood, and with it arose an indistinct memory of the sense of triumph he had felt when he had last entered the chamber. He asked himself how he could have rejoiced over the deed, unless he had unconsciously taken steps for his own safety. The body must have been found long ago. Very gradually there rose before him the vision of the scene in the study, when he had been summoned thither by the two servants, the dead prince stretched on the table, the pale faces, the prefect, Donna Faustina's voice, a series of questions asked in a metallic, pitiless tone. He had not been drunk, therefore, when they had sent for him. And yet, he knew that he had not been sober. In what state, then, had he found himself? With a shudder, he remembered his terror in the library, his fright at the ghost which had turned out to be only his own coat, his visit to his room, and the first draught he had swallowed. From that point onwards his memory grew less and less clear. He found that he could not remember at all how he had come upstairs the last time. One thing was evident, however. He had not been arrested, since he found himself in his chamber unmolested. Who, then, had been taken in his place? He was amazed to find that he did not know. Surely, at the first inquest, something must have been said which would have led to the arrest of some one. The law never went away empty-handed. He racked his aching brain to bring back the incident, but it would not be recalled--for the excellent reason that he really knew nothing about the matter. It was a relief at all events to find that he had actually been examined with the rest and had not been suspected. Nevertheless, he had undoubtedly done the deed, of which the mere thought made him tremble in every joint. Or was it all a part of his drunken dreams? No, that, at least, could not be explained away. For a long time he moved uneasily from his barricade at the door to the window, from which he tried to see the street below. But his room was in the attic, and the broad stone cornice of the palace cut off the view effectually. At last he began to pull the furniture away from the entrance, slowly at first, as he merely thought of its uselessness, then with feverish haste, as he realised that the fact of his trying to entrench himself in his quarters would seem suspicious. In a few seconds he had restored everything to its place. The brandy bottles disappeared into the cupboard in the wall; a bit of candle filled the empty candlestick. He tore off his clothes and jumped into bed, tossing himself about to give it the appearance of having been slept in. Then he got up again and proceeded to make his toilet. All his clothes were black, and he had but a slender choice. He understood vaguely, however, that there would be a funeral or some sort of ceremony in which all the members of the household would be expected to join, and he arrayed himself in the best he had--a decent suit of broadcloth, a clean shirt, a black tie. He looked at himself in the cracked mirror. His face was ghastly yellow, the whites of his eyes injected with blood, the veins at the temples swollen and congested. He was afraid that his appearance might excite remark, though it was in reality not very much changed. Then, as he thought of this, he realised that he was to meet a score of persons, some of whom would very probably look at him curiously. His nerves were in a shattered condition, he almost broke down at the mere idea of what he must face. What would become of him in the presence of the reality? And yet he had met the whole household bravely enough on the very spot where he had done the murder on the previous evening. He sat down, overpowered by the revival of his fear and horror. The room swam around him and he grasped the edge of the table for support. But he could not stay there all day. Any reluctance to make his appearance at such a time might be fatal. There was only one way to get the necessary courage, and that was to drink again. He shrank from the thought. He had not acquired the habitual drunkard's certainty of finding nerve and boldness and steadiness of hand in the morning draught, and the idea of tasting the liquor was loathsome to him in his disordered state. He rose to his feet and tried to act as though he were in the midst of a crowd of persons. Ape-like, he grinned at the furniture, walked about the room, spoke aloud, pretending that he was meeting real people, tried to frame sentences expressive of profound grief. He opened the door and made a pretence of greeting an imaginary individual. It was as though a stream of cold water had fallen upon his neck. His knees knocked together, and he felt sick with fear. There was evidently no use in attempting to go down without some stimulant. Almost sorrowfully he shut the door again, and took the bottle from its place. He took several small doses, patiently testing the effect until his hand was steady and warm. Ten minutes later he was kneeling with many others before the catafalque, beneath the great canopy of black. He was dazed by the light of the great branches of candles, and confused by the subdued sound of whispering and of softly treading feet; but he knew that his outward demeanour was calm and collected, and that he exhibited no signs of nervousness. San Giacinto was standing near one of the doors, having taken his turn with the sons of the dead man to remain in the room. He watched the librarian and a rough sort of pity made itself felt in his heart. "Poor Meschini!" he thought. "He has lost a friend. I daresay he is more genuinely sorry than all the family put together, poor fellow!" Arnoldo Meschini, kneeling before the body of the man he had murdered, with a brandy bottle in the pocket of his long coat, would have come to an evil end if the giant had guessed the truth. But he looked what he was supposed to be, the humble, ill-paid, half-starved librarian, mourning the master he had faithfully served for thirty years. He knelt a long time, his lips moving mechanically with the words of an oft-repeated prayer. In reality he was afraid to rise from his knees alone, and was waiting until some of the others made the first move. But the rows of lacqueys, doubtless believing that the amount of their future wages would largely depend upon the vigour of their present mourning, did not seem inclined to desist from their orisons. To Meschini the time was interminable, and his courage was beginning to ooze away from him, as the sense of his position acquired a tormenting force. He could have borne it well enough in a church, in the midst of a vast congregation, he could have fought off his horror even here for a few minutes, but to sustain such a part for a quarter of an hour seemed almost impossible. He would have given his soul, which indeed was just then of but small value, to take a sip of courage from the bottle, and his clasped fingers twitched nervously, longing to find the way to his pocket. He glanced along the line, measuring his position, to see whether there was a possibility of drinking without being observed, but he saw that it would be madness to think of it, and began repeating his prayer with redoubled energy, in the hope of distracting his mind. Then a horrible delusion began to take possession of him; he fancied that the dead man was beginning to turn his head slowly, almost imperceptibly, towards him. Those closed eyes would open and look him in the face, a supernatural voice would speak his name. As on the previous afternoon the cold perspiration began to trickle from his brow. He was on the point of crying aloud with terror, when the man next to him rose. In an instant he was on his feet. Both bent again, crossed themselves, and retired. Meschini stumbled and caught at his companion's arm, but succeeded in gaining the door. As he passed out, his face was so discomposed that San Giacinto looked down upon him with increased compassion, then followed him a few steps and laid his hand on his shoulder. The librarian started violently and stood still. "He was a good friend to you, Signor Meschini," said the big man kindly. "But take heart, you shall not be forgotten." The dreaded moment had come, and it had been very terrible, but San Giacinto's tone was reassuring. He could not have suspected anything, though the servants said that he was an inscrutable man, profound in his thoughts and fearful in his anger. He was the one of all the family whom Meschini most feared. "God have mercy on him!" whined the librarian, trembling to his feet. "He was the best of men, and is no doubt in glory!" "No doubt," replied San Giacinto drily. He entertained opinions of his own upon the subject, and he did not like the man's tone. "No doubt," he repeated. "We will try and fulfil his wishes with regard to you." "Grazie, Eccelenza!" said Meschini with great humility, making horns with his fingers behind his back to ward off the evil eye, and edging away in the direction of the grand staircase. San Giacinto returned to the door and paid no more attention to him. Then Meschini almost ran down the stairs and did not slacken his speed until he found himself in the street. The cold air of the winter's day revived him, and he found himself walking rapidly in the direction of the Ponte Quattro Capi. He generally took that direction when he went out without any especial object, for his friend Tiberio Colaisso, the poor apothecary, had his shop upon the little island of Saint Bartholomew, which is connected with the shores of the river by a double bridge, whence the name, "the bridge of four heads." Meschini paused and looked over the parapet at the yellow swirling water. The eddies seemed to take queer shapes and he watched them for a long time. He had a splitting headache, of the kind which is made more painful by looking at quickly moving objects, which, at the same time, exercise an irresistible fascination over the eye. Almost unconsciously he compared his own life to the river--turbid, winding, destroying. The simile was incoherent, like most of his fancies on that day, but it served to express a thought, and he began to feel an odd sympathy for the muddy stream, such as perhaps no one had ever felt before him. But as he looked he grew dizzy, and drew back from the parapet. There must have been something strange in his face, for a man who was passing looked at him curiously and asked whether he were ill. He shook his head with a sickly smile and passed on. The apothecary was standing idly at his door, waiting for a custom that rarely came his way. He was a cadaverous man, about fifty years of age, with eyes of an uncertain colour set deep in his head. An ill-kept, grizzled beard descended upon his chest, and gave a certain wildness to his appearance. A very shabby green smoking cap, trimmed with tarnished silver lace, was set far back upon his head, displaying a wrinkled forehead, much heightened by baldness, but of proportions that denoted a large and active brain. That he took snuff in great quantities was apparent. Otherwise he was neither very dirty nor very clean, but his thumbs had that peculiar shape which seems to be the result of constantly rolling pills. Meschini stopped before him. "Sor Arnoldo, good-day," said the chemist, scrutinising his friend's face curiously. "Good-day, Sor Tiberio," replied the librarian. "Will you let me come in for a little moment?" There seemed to be an attempt at a jest in the question, for the apothecary almost smiled. "Padrone," he said, retiring backwards through the narrow door. "A game of scopa to-day?" "Have you the time to spare?" inquired the other, in a serious tone. They always maintained the myth that Tiberio Colaisso was a very busy man. "To-day," answered the latter, without a smile, and emphasising the word as though it defined an exception, "to-day, I have nothing to do. Besides, it is early." "We can play a hand and then we can dine at Cicco's." "Being Friday in Advent, I had intended to fast," replied the apothecary, who had not a penny in his pocket "But since you are so good as to invite me, I do not say no." Meschini said nothing, for he understood the situation, which was by no means a novel one. His friend produced a pack of Italian cards, almost black with age. He gave Meschini the only chair, and seated himself upon a three-legged stool. It was a dismal scene. The shop was like many of its kind in the poorer quarters of old Rome. There was room for the counter and for three people to stand before it when the door was shut. The floor was covered with a broken pavement of dingy bricks. As the two men began to play a fine, drizzling rain wet the silent street outside, and the bricks within at once exhibited an unctuous moisture. The sky had become cloudy after the fine morning, and there was little light in the shop. Three of the walls were hidden by cases with glass doors, containing an assortment of majolica jars which would delight a modern amateur, but which looked dingy and mean in the poor shop. Here and there, between them, stood bottles large and small, some broken and dusty, others filled with liquids and bearing paper labels, brown with age, the ink inscriptions fading into the dirty surface that surrounded them. The only things in the place which looked tolerably clean were the little brass scales and the white marble tablet for compounding solid medicines. The two men looked as though they belonged to the little room. Meschini's yellow complexion was as much in keeping with the surroundings as the chemist's gray, colourless face. His bloodshot eyes wandered from the half-defaced cards to the objects in the shop, and he was uncertain in his play. His companion looked at him as though he were trying to solve some intricate problem that gave him trouble. He himself was a man who, like the librarian, had begun life under favourable circumstances, had studied medicine and had practised it. But he had been unfortunate, and, though talented, did not possess the qualifications most necessary for his profession. He had busied himself with chemistry and had invented a universal panacea which had failed, and in which he had sunk most of his small capital. Disgusted with his reverses he had gravitated slowly to his present position. Finding him careless and indifferent to their wants, his customers had dropped away, one by one, until he earned barely enough to keep body and soul together. Only the poorest class of people, emboldened by the mean aspect of his shop, came in to get a plaster, an ointment or a black draught, at the lowest possible prices. And yet, in certain branches, Tiberio Colaisso was a learned man. At all events he had proved himself able to do all that Meschini asked of him. He was keen, too, in an indolent way, and a single glance had satisfied him that something very unusual had happened to the librarian. He watched him patiently, hoping to find out the truth without questions. At the same time, the hope of winning a few coppers made him keep an eye on the game. To his surprise he won easily, and he was further astonished when he saw that the miserly Meschini was not inclined to complain of his losses nor to accuse him of cheating. "You are not lucky to-day," he remarked at last, when his winnings amounted to a couple of pauls--a modern franc in all. Meschini looked at him uneasily and wiped his brow, leaning back in the rickety chair. His hands were trembling. "No," he answered. "I am not quite myself to-day. The fact is that a most dreadful tragedy occurred in our house last night, the mere thought of which gives me the fever. I am even obliged to take a little stimulant from time to time." So saying, he drew the bottle from his pocket and applied it to his lips. He had hoped that it would not be necessary, but he was unable to do without it very long, his nerves being broken down by the quantity he had taken on the previous night. Colaisso looked on in silence, more puzzled than ever. The librarian seemed to be revived by the dose, and spoke more cheerfully after it. "A most terrible tragedy," he said. "The prince was murdered yesterday afternoon. I could not speak of it to you at once." "Murdered?" exclaimed the apothecary in amazement. "And by whom?" "That is the mystery. He was found dead in his study. I will tell you all I know." Meschini communicated the story to his friend in a disjointed fashion, interspersing his narrative with many comments intended to give himself courage to proceed. He told the tale with evident reluctance, but he could not avoid the necessity. If Tiberio Colaisso read the account in the paper that evening, as he undoubtedly would, he would wonder why his companion had not been the first to relate the catastrophe; and this wonder might turn into a suspicion. It would have been better not to come to the apothecary's, but since he found himself there he could not escape from informing him of what had happened. "It is very strange," said the chemist, when he had heard all. Meschini thought he detected a disagreeable look in his eyes. "It is, indeed," he answered. "I am made ill by it. See how my hand trembles. I am cold and hot." "You have been drinking too much," said Colaisso suddenly, and with a certain brutality that startled his friend. "You are not sober. You must have taken a great deal last night. A libation to the dead, I suppose, in the manner of the ancients." Meschini winced visibly and began to shuffle the cards, while he attempted to smile to hide his embarrassment. "I was not well yesterday--at least--I do not know what was the matter--a headache, I think, nothing more. And then, this awful catastrophe--horrible! My nerves are unstrung. I can scarcely speak." "You need sleep first, and then a tonic," said the apothecary in a business-like tone. "I slept until late this morning. It did me no good. I am half dead myself. Yes, if I could sleep again it might do me good." "Go home and go to bed. If I were in your place I would not drink any more of that liquor. It will only make you worse." "Give me something to make me sleep. I will take it." The apothecary looked long at him and seemed to be weighing something in his judgment. An evil thought crossed his mind. He was very poor. He knew well enough, in spite of Meschini's protestations, that he was not so poor as he pretended to be. If he were he could not have paid so regularly for the chemicals and for the experiments necessary to the preparation of his inks. More than once the operations had proved to be expensive, but the librarian had never complained, though he haggled for a baiocco over his dinner at Cicco's wine shop, and was generally angry when he lost a paul at cards. He had money somewhere. It was evident that he was in a highly nervous state. If he could be induced to take opium once or twice it might become a habit. To sell opium was very profitable, and Colaisso knew well enough the power of the vice and the proportions it would soon assume, especially if Meschini thought the medicine contained only some harmless drug. "Very well," said the apothecary. "I will make you a draught. But you must be sure that you are ready to sleep when you take it. It acts very quickly." The draught which Meschini carried home with him was nothing but weak laudanum and water. It looked innocent enough, in the little glass bottle labelled "Sleeping potion." But the effect of it, as Colaisso had told him, was very rapid. Exhausted by all he had suffered, the librarian closed the windows of his room and lay down to rest. In a quarter of an hour he was in a heavy sleep. In his dreams he was happier than he had ever been before. The whole world seemed to be his, to use as he pleased. He was transformed into a magnificent being such as he had never imagined in his waking hours. He passed from one scene of splendour to another, from glory to glory, surrounded by forms of beauty, by showers of golden light in a beatitude beyond all description. It was as though he had suddenly become emperor of the whole universe. He floated through wondrous regions of soft colour, and strains of divine music sounded in his ears. Gentle hands carried him with an easy swaying motion to transcendent heights, where every breath he drew was like a draught of sparkling life. His whole being was filled with something which he knew was happiness, until he felt as though he could not contain the overflowing joy. At one moment he glided beyond the clouds through a gorgeous sunset; at another he was lying on a soft invisible couch, looking out to the bright distance--distance that never ended, never could end, but the contemplation of which was rapture, the greater for being inexplicable. An exquisite new sense was in him, corresponding to no bodily instinct, but rejoicing wildly in something that could not be defined, nor understood, nor measured, but only felt. At last he began to descend, slowly at first and then with increasing speed, till he grew giddy and unconscious in the fall. He awoke and uttered a cry of terror. It was night, and he was alone in the dark. He was chilled to the bone, too, and his head was heavy, but the darkness was unbearable, and though he would gladly have slept again he dared not remain an instant without a light. He groped about for his matches, found them, and lit a candle. A neighbouring clock tolled out the hour of midnight, and the sound of the bells terrified him beyond measure. Cold, miserable, in an agony of fear, his nervousness doubled by the opium and by a need of food of which he was not aware, there was but one remedy within his reach. The sleeping potion had been calculated for one occasion only, and it was all gone. He tried to drain a few drops from the phial, and a drowsy, half-sickening odour rose from it to his nostrils. But there was nothing left, nothing but the brandy, and little more than half a bottle of that. It was enough for his present need, however, and more than enough. He drank greedily, for he was parched with thirst, though hardly conscious of the fact. Then he slept till morning. But when he opened his eyes he was conscious that he was in a worse state than on the previous day. He was not only nervous but exhausted, and it was with feeble steps that he made his way to his friend's shop, in order to procure a double dose of the sleeping mixture. If he could sleep through the twenty-four hours, he thought, so as not to wake up in the dead of night, he should be better. When he made his appearance Tiberio Colaisso knew what he wanted, and although he had half repented of what he had done, the renewed possibility of selling the precious drug was a temptation he could not withstand. One day succeeded another, and each morning saw Arnoldo Meschini crossing the Ponte Quattro Capi on his way to the apothecary's. In the ordinary course of human nature a man does not become an opium-eater in a day, nor even, perhaps, in a week, but to the librarian the narcotic became a necessity almost from the first. Its action, combined with incessant doses of alcohol, was destructive, but the man's constitution was stronger than would have been believed. He possessed, moreover, a great power of controlling his features when he was not assailed by supernatural fears, and so it came about that, living almost in solitude, no one in the Palazzo Montevarchi was aware of his state. It was bad enough, indeed, for when he was not under the influence of brandy he was sleeping from the effects of opium. In three days he was willing to pay anything the apothecary asked, and seemed scarcely conscious of the payments he made. He kept up a show of playing the accustomed game of cards, but he was absent-minded, and was not even angry at his daily losses. The apothecary had more money in his pocket than he had possessed for many a day. As Arnoldo Meschini sank deeper and deeper, the chemist's spirits rose, and he began to assume an air of unwonted prosperity. One of the earliest results of the librarian's degraded condition was that Tiberio Colaisso procured himself a new green smoking cap ornamented profusely with fresh silver lace. CHAPTER XXVII. Sant' Ilario had guessed rightly that the place of safety and secrecy to which he was to be conveyed was no other than the Holy Office, or prison of the Inquisition. He was familiar with the interior of the building, and knew that it contained none of the horrors generally attributed to it, so that, on the whole, he was well satisfied with the cardinal's choice. The cell to which he was conveyed after dark was a large room on the second story, comfortably furnished and bearing no sign of its use but the ornamented iron grating that filled the window. The walls were not thicker than those of most Roman palaces, and the chamber was dry and airy, and sufficiently warmed by a huge brazier of coals. It was clear from the way in which he was treated that the cardinal relied upon his honour more than upon any use of force in order to keep him in custody. A silent individual in a black coat had brought him in a carriage to the great entrance, whence a man of similar discretion and of like appearance had conducted him to his cell. This person returned soon afterwards, bringing a sufficient meal of fish and vegetables--it was Friday--decently cooked and almost luxuriously served. An hour later the man came back to carry away what was left. He asked whether the prisoner needed anything else for the night. "I would like to know," said Giovanni, "whether any of my friends will be allowed to see me, if I ask it." "I am directed to say that any request or complaint you have to make will be transmitted to his Eminence by a special messenger," answered the man. "Anything," he added in explanation, "beyond what concerns your personal comfort. In this respect I am at liberty to give you whatever you desire, within reason." "Thank you. I will endeavour to be reasonable," replied Giovanni. "I am much obliged to you." The man left the room and closed the door softly, so softly that the prisoner wondered whether he had turned the key. On examining the panels he saw, however, that they were smooth and not broken by any latch or keyhole. The spring was on the outside, and there was no means whatever of opening the door from within. Giovanni wondered why a special messenger was to be employed to carry any request he made directly to the cardinal. The direction could not have been given idly, nor was it without some especial reason that he was at once told of it. Assuredly his Eminence was not expecting the prince to repent of his bargain and to send word that he wished to be released. The idea was absurd. The great man might suppose, however, that Giovanni would desire to send some communication to his wife, who would naturally be anxious about his absence. Against this contingency, however, Sant' Ilario had provided by means of the note he had despatched to her. Several days would elapse before she began to expect him, so that he had plenty of time to reflect upon his future course. Meanwhile he resolved to ask for nothing. Indeed, he had no requirements. He had money in his pockets and could send the attendant to buy any linen he needed without getting it from his home. He was in a state of mind in which nothing could have pleased him better than solitary imprisonment. He felt at once a sense of rest and a freedom from all responsibility that soothed his nerves and calmed his thoughts. For many days he had lived in a condition bordering on madness. Every interview with Corona was a disappointment, and brought with it a new suffering. Much as he would have dreaded the idea of being separated from her for any length of time, the temporary impossibility of seeing her was now a relief, of which he realised the importance more and more as the hours succeeded each other. There are times when nothing but a forcible break in the current of our lives can restore the mind to its normal balance. Such a break, painful as it may be at first, brings with it the long lost power of rest. Instead of feeling the despair we expect, we are amazed at our own indifference, which again is succeeded by a renewed capacity for judging facts as they are, and by a new energy to mould our lives upon a better plan. Giovanni neither reflected upon his position nor brooded over the probable result of his actions. On the contrary, he went to bed and slept soundly, like a strong man tired out with bodily exertion. He slept so long that his attendant at last woke him, entering and opening the window. The morning was fine, and the sun streamed in through the iron grating. Giovanni looked about him, and realised where he was. He felt calm and strong, and was inclined to laugh at the idea that his rashness would have any dangerous consequences. Corona doubtless was already awake too, and supposed that he was in the country shooting wild boar, or otherwise amusing himself. Instead of that he was in prison. There was no denying the fact, after all, but it was strange that he should not care to be at liberty. He had heard of the moral sufferings of men who are kept in confinement. No matter how well they are treated they grow nervous and careworn and haggard, wearing themselves out in a perpetual longing for freedom. Giovanni, on the contrary, as he looked round the bright, airy room, felt that he might inhabit it for a year without once caring to go out into the world. A few books to read, the means of writing if he pleased--he needed nothing else. To be alone was happiness enough. He ate his breakfast slowly, and sat down in an old-fashioned chair to smoke a cigarette and bask in the sunshine while it lasted. It was not much like prison, and he did not feel like a man arrested for murder. He was conscious for a long time of nothing but a vague, peaceful contentment. He had given a list of things to be bought, including a couple of novels, to the man who waited upon him, and after a few hours everything was brought. The day passed tranquilly, and when he went to bed he smiled as he blew out the candle, partly at himself and partly at his situation. "My friends will not say that I am absolutely lacking in originality," he reflected as he went to sleep. On the morrow he read less and thought more. In the first place he wondered how long he should be left without any communication from the outside world. He wondered whether any steps had been taken towards bringing him to a trial, or whether the cardinal really knew that he was innocent, and was merely making him act out the comedy he had himself invented and begun. He was not impatient, but he was curious to know the truth. It was now the third day since he had seen Corona, and he had not prepared her for a long absence. If he heard nothing during the next twenty-four hours it would be better to take some measures for relieving her anxiety, if she felt any. The latter reflection, which presented itself suddenly, startled him a little. Was it possible that she would allow a week to slip by without expecting to hear from him or asking herself where he was? That was out of the question. He admitted the impossibility of such indifference, almost in spite of himself. He was willing, perhaps, to think her utterly heartless rather than accept the belief in an affection which went no farther than to hope that he might be safe; but his vanity or his intuition, it matters little which of the two, told him that Corona felt more than that. And yet she did not love him. He sat for many hours, motionless in his chair, trying to construct the future out of the past, an effort of imagination in which he failed signally. The peace of his solitude was less satisfactory to him than at first, and he began to suspect that before very long he might even wish to return to the world. Possibly Corona might come to see him. The cardinal would perhaps think it best to tell her what had happened. How would he tell it? Would he let her know all? The light faded from the room, and the attendant brought his evening meal and set two candles upon the table. Hitherto it could not be said that he had suffered. On the contrary, his character had regained its tone after weeks of depression. Another day was ended, and he went to rest, but he slept less soundly than before, and on the following morning he awoke early. The monotony of the existence struck him all at once in its reality. The fourth day would be like the third, and, for all he knew, hundreds to come would be like the fourth if it pleased his Eminence to keep him a prisoner. Corona would certainly never suspect that he was shut up in the Holy Office, and if she did, she might not be able to come to him. Even if she came, what could he say to her? That he had committed a piece of outrageous folly because he was annoyed at her disbelief in him or at her coldness. He had probably made himself ridiculous for the first time in his life. The thought was the reverse of consoling. Nor did it contribute to his peace of mind to know that if he had made himself a laughing-stock, the cardinal, who dreaded ridicule, would certainly refuse to play a part in his comedy, and would act with all the rigour suitable to so grave a situation. He might even bring his prisoner to trial. Giovanni would submit to that, rather than be laughed at, but the alternative now seemed an appalling one. In his disgust of life on that memorable morning he had cared nothing what became of him, and had been in a state which precluded all just appreciation of the future. His enforced solitude had restored his faculties. He desired nothing less than to be tried for murder, because he had taken a short cut to satisfy his wife's caprice. But that caprice had for its object the liberty of poor Faustina Montevarchi. At all events, if he had made himself ridiculous, the ultimate purpose of his folly had been good, and had been accomplished. All through the afternoon he paced his room, alternately in a state of profound dissatisfaction with himself, and in a condition of anxious curiosity about coming events. He scarcely touched his food or noticed the attendant who entered half a dozen times to perform his various offices. Again the night closed in, and once more he lay down to sleep, dreading the morning, and hoping to lose himself in dreams. The fourth day was like the third, indeed, as far as his surroundings were concerned, but he had not foreseen that he would be a prey to such gnawing anxiety as he suffered, still less, perhaps, that he should grow almost desperate for a sight of Corona. He was not a man who made any exhibition of his feelings even when he was alone. But the man who served him noticed that when he entered Giovanni was never reading, as he had always been doing at first. He was either walking rapidly up and down or sitting idly in the big chair by the window. His face was quiet and pale, even solemn at times. The attendant was doubtless accustomed to sudden changes of mood in his prisoners, for he appeared to take no notice of the alteration in Giovanni's manner. It seemed as though the day would never end. To a man of his active strength to walk about a room is not exercise; it hardly seems like motion at all, and yet Giovanni found it harder and harder to sit still as the hours wore on. After an interval of comparative peace, his love for Corona had overwhelmed him again, and with tenfold force. To be shut up in a cell without the possibility of seeing her, was torture such as he had never dreamt of in his whole life. By a strange revulsion of feeling it appeared to him that by taking her so suddenly at her word he had again done her an injustice. The process of reasoning by which he arrived at this conclusion was not clear to himself, and probably could not be made intelligible to any one else. He had assuredly sacrificed himself unhesitatingly, and at first the action had given him pleasure. But this was destroyed by the thought of the possible consequences. He asked whether he had the right to satisfy her imperative demand for Faustina's freedom by doing that which might possibly cause her annoyance, even though it should bring no serious injury to any one. The time passed very slowly, and towards evening he began to feel as he had felt before he had taken the fatal step which had placed him beyond Corona's reach, restless, miserable, desperate. At last it was night, and he was sitting before his solitary meal, eating hardly anything, staring half unconsciously at the closed window opposite. The door opened softly, but he did not look round, supposing the person entering to be the attendant. Suddenly, there was the rustle of a woman's dress in the room, and at the same moment the door was shut. He sprang to his feet, stood still a moment, and then uttered a cry of surprise. Corona stood beside him, very pale, looking into his eyes. She had worn a thick veil, and on coming in had thrown it back upon her head--the veils of those days were long and heavy, and fell about the head and neck like a drapery. "Corona!" Giovanni cried, stretching out his hands towards her. Something in her face prevented him from throwing his arms round her, something not like her usual coldness and reproachful look that kept him back. "Giovanni--was it kind to leave me so?" she asked, without moving from her place. The question corresponded so closely with his own feelings that he had anticipated it, though he had no answer ready. She knew all, and was hurt by what he had done. What could he say? The reasons that had sent him so boldly into danger no longer seemed even sufficient for an excuse. The happiness he had anticipated in seeing her had vanished almost before it had made itself felt. His first emotion was bitter anger against the cardinal. No one else could have told her, for no one else knew what he had done nor where he was. Giovanni thought, and with reason, that the great man might have spared his wife such a blow. "I believed I was doing what was best when I did it," he answered, scarcely knowing what to say. "Was it best to leave me without a word, except a message of excuse for others?" "For you--was it not better? For me--what does it matter? Should I be happier anywhere else?" "Have I driven you from your home, Giovanni?" asked Corona, with a strange look in her dark eyes. Her voice trembled. "No, not you," he answered, turning away and beginning to walk up and down by the force of the habit he had acquired during the last two or three days. "Not you," he repeated more than once in a bitter tone. Corona sank down upon the chair he had left, and buried her face in her hands, as though overcome by a great and sudden grief. Giovanni stopped before her and looked at her, not clearly understanding what was passing in her mind. "Why are you so sorry?" he asked. "Has a separation of a few days changed you? Are you sorry for me?" "Why did you come here?" she exclaimed, instead of answering his question. "Why here, of all places?" "I had no choice. The cardinal decided the matter for me." "The cardinal? Why do you confide in him? You never did before. I may be wrong, but I do not trust him, kind as he has always been. If you wanted advice, you might have gone to Padre Filippo--" "Advice? I do not understand you, Corona." "Did you not go to the cardinal and tell him that you were very unhappy and wanted to make a retreat in some quiet place where nobody could find you? And did he not advise you to come here, promising to keep your secret, and authorising you to stay as long as you pleased? That is what he told me." "He told you that?" cried Giovanni in great astonishment. "Yes--that and nothing more. He came to see me late this afternoon. He said that he feared lest I should be anxious about your long absence, and that he thought himself justified in telling me where you were and in giving me a pass, in case I wanted to see you. Besides, if it is not all as he says, how did you come here?" "You do not know the truth? You do not know what I did? You do not guess why I am in the Holy Office?" "I know only what he told me," answered Corona, surprised by Giovanni's questions. But Giovanni gave no immediate explanation. He paced the floor in a state of excitement in which she had never seen him, clasping and unclasping his fingers nervously, and uttering short, incoherent exclamations. As she watched him a sensation of fear crept over her, but she did not ask him any question. He stopped suddenly again. "You do not know that I am in prison?" "In prison!" She rose with a sharp cry and seized his hands in hers. "Do not be frightened, dear," he said in an altered tone. "I am perfectly innocent. After all, you know it is a prison." "Ah, Giovanni!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "how could you say such a dreadful thing, even in jest?" She had dropped his hands again, and drew back a step as she spoke. "It is not a jest. It is earnest. Do not start. I will tell you just what happened. It is best, after all. When I left you at the Termini, I saw that you had set your heart on liberating poor Faustina. I could not find any way of accomplishing what you desired, and I saw that you thought I was not doing my best for her freedom. I went directly to the cardinal and gave myself up in her place." "As a hostage--a surety?" asked Corona, breathlessly. "No. He would not have accepted that, for he was prejudiced against her. I gave myself up as the murderer." He spoke quite calmly, as though he had been narrating a commonplace occurrence. For an instant she stood before him, dumb and horror-struck. Then with a great heart-broken cry she threw her arms round him and clasped him passionately to her breast. "My beloved! My beloved!" For some moments she held him so closely that he could neither move nor see her face, but the beating of his heart told him that a great change had in that instant come over his life. The cry had come from her soul, irresistibly, spontaneously. There was an accent in the two words she repeated which he had never hoped to hear again. He had expected that she would reproach him for his madness. Instead of that, his folly had awakened the love that was not dead, though it had been so desperately wounded. Presently she drew back a little and looked into his eyes, a fierce deep light burning in her own. "I love you," she said, almost under her breath. A wonderful smile passed over his face, illuminating the dark, stern lines of it like a ray of heavenly light. Then the dusky eyelids slowly closed, as though by their own weight, his head fell back, and his lips turned white. She felt the burden of his body in her arms, and but for her strength he would have fallen to the floor. She reeled on her feet, holding him still, and sank down until she knelt and his head rested on her knee. Her heart stood still as she listened for the sound of his faint breathing. Had his unconsciousness lasted longer she would have fainted herself. But in a moment his eyes opened again with an expression such as she had seen in them once or twice before, but in a less degree. "Corona--it is too much!" he said softly, almost dreamily. Then his strength returned in an instant, like a strong steel bow that has been bent almost to breaking. He scarcely knew how it was that the position was changed so that he was standing on his feet and clasping her as she had clasped him. Her tears were flowing FAST, but there was more joy in them than pain. "How could you do it?" she asked at length, looking up. "And oh, Giovanni! what will be the end of it? Will not something dreadful happen?" "What does anything matter now, darling?" At last they sat down together, hand in hand, as of old. It was as though the last two months had been suddenly blotted out. As Giovanni said, nothing could matter now. And yet the situation was far from clear. Giovanni understood well enough that the cardinal had wished to leave him the option of telling his wife what had occurred, and, if he chose to do so, of telling her in his own language. He was grateful for the tact the statesman had displayed, a tact which seemed also to show Giovanni the cardinal's views of the case. He had declared that he was desperate. The cardinal had concluded that he was unhappy. He had said that he did not care what became of him. The cardinal had supposed that he would be glad to be alone, or at all events that it would be good for him to have a certain amount of solitude. If his position were in any way dangerous, the great man would surely not have thought of sending Corona to his prisoner as he had done. He would have prepared her himself against any shock. And yet he was undeniably in prison, with no immediate prospect of liberty. "You cannot stay here any longer," said Corona when they were at last able to talk of the immediate future. "I do not see how I am to get out," Giovanni answered, with a smile. "I will go to the cardinal--" "It is of no use. He probably guesses the truth, but he is not willing to be made ridiculous by me or by any one. He will keep me here until there can be a trial, or until he finds the real culprit. He is obstinate. I know him." "It is impossible that he should think of such a thing!" exclaimed Corona indignantly. "I am afraid it is very possible. But, of course, it is only a matter of time--a few days at the utmost. If worst comes to worst I can demand an inquiry, I suppose, though I do not see how I can proclaim my own innocence without hurting Faustina. She was liberated because I put myself in her place--it is rather complicated." "Tell me, Giovanni," said Corona, "what did you say to the cardinal? You did not really say that you murdered Montevarchi?" "No. I said I gave myself up as the murderer, and I explained how I might have done the deed. I did more, I pledged my honour that Faustina was innocent." "But you were not sure of it yourself--" "Since you had told me it was true, I believed it," he answered simply. "Thank you, dear--" "No. Do not thank me for it. I could not help myself. I knew that you were sure--are you sure of something else, Corona? Are you as certain as you were of that?" "How can you ask? But you are right--you have the right to doubt me. You will not, though, will you? Hear me, dear, while I tell you the whole story." She slipped from her chair and knelt before him, as though she were to make a confession. Then she took his hands and looked up lovingly into his face. The truth rose in her eyes. "Forgive me, Giovanni. Yes, you have much to forgive. I did not know myself. When you doubted me, I felt as though I had nothing left in life, as though you would never again believe in me. I thought I did not love you. I was wrong. It was only my miserable vanity that was wounded, and that hurt me so. I felt that my love was dead, that you yourself were dead and that another man had taken your place. Ah, I could have helped it! Had I known you better, dear, had I been less mistaken in myself, all would have been different. But I was foolish--no, I was unhappy. Everything was dark and dreadful. Oh, my darling, I thought I could tell what I felt--I cannot! Forgive me, only forgive me, and love me as you did long ago. I will never leave you, not if you stay here for ever, only let me love you as I will!" "It is not for me to forgive, sweetheart," said Giovanni, bending down and kissing her sweet dark hair. "It is for you--" "But I would so much rather think it my fault, dear," she answered, drawing his face down to hers. It was a very womanly impulse that made her take the blame upon herself. "You must not think anything so unreasonable, Corona. I brought all the harm that came, from the first moment." He would have gone on to accuse himself, obstinate and manlike, recapitulating the whole series of events. But she would not let him. Once more she sat beside him and held his hand in hers. They talked incoherently and it is not to be wondered at if they arrived at no very definite conclusion after a very long conversation. They were still sitting together when the attendant entered and presented Giovanni with a large sealed letter, bearing the Apostolic arms, and addressed merely to the number of Giovanni's cell. "There is an answer," said the man, and then left the room. "It is probably the notice of the trial, or something of the kind," observed Giovanni, suddenly growing very grave as he broke the seal. He wished it might have come at any other time than the present. Corona held her breath and watched his face while he read the lines written upon one of the two papers he took from the envelope. Suddenly the colour came to his cheeks and his eyes brightened with a look of happiness and surprise. "I am free!" he cried, as he finished. "Free if I will sign this paper! Of course I will! I will sign anything he likes." The envelope contained a note from the cardinal, in his own hand, to the effect that suspicion had fallen upon another person and that Giovanni was at liberty to return to his home if he would sign the accompanying document. The latter was very short, and set forth that Giovanni Saracinesca bound himself upon his word to appear in the trial of the murderer of Prince Montevarchi, if called upon to do so, and not to leave Rome until the matter was finally concluded and set at rest. He took the pen that lay on the table and signed his name in a broad firm hand, a fact the more notable because Corona was leaning over his shoulder, watching the characters as he traced them. He folded the paper and placed it in the open envelope which accompanied it. The cardinal was a man of details. He thought it possible that the document might be returned open for lack of the means to seal it. He did not choose that his secrets should become the property of the people about the Holy Office. It was a specimen of his forethought in small things which might have an influence upon great ones. When Giovanni had finished, he rose and stood beside Corona. Each looked into the other's eyes and for a moment neither saw very clearly. They said little more, however, until the attendant entered again. "You are at liberty," he said briefly, and without a word began to put together the few small things that belonged to his late prisoner. Half an hour later Giovanni was seated at dinner at his father's table. The old gentleman greeted him with a half-savage growl of satisfaction. "The prodigal has returned to get a meal while there is one to be had," he remarked. "I thought you had gone to Paris to leave the agreeable settlement of our affairs to Corona and me. Where the devil have you been?" "I have been indulging in the luxury of a retreat in a religious house," answered Giovanni with perfect truth. Corona glanced at him and both laughed happily, as they had not laughed for many days and weeks. Saracinesca looked incredulously across the table at his son. "You chose a singular moment for your devotional exercises," he said. "Where will piety hide herself next, I wonder? As long as Corona is satisfied, I am. It is her business." "I am perfectly satisfied, I assure you," said Corona, whose black eyes were full of light. Giovanni raised his glass, looked at her and smiled lovingly. Then he emptied it to the last drop and set it down without a word. "Some secret, I suppose," said the old gentleman gruffly. CHAPTER XXVIII. Arnoldo Meschini was not, perhaps, insane in the ordinary sense of the word; that is to say, he would probably have recovered the normal balance of his faculties if he could have been kept from narcotics and stimulants, and if he could have been relieved from the distracting fear of discovery which tormented him when he was not under the influence of one or the other. But the latter condition was impossible, and it was the extremity of his terror which almost forced him to keep his brain in a clouded state. People have been driven mad by sudden fright, and have gradually lost their intellect through the constant presence of a fear from which there is no escape. A man who is perpetually producing an unnatural state of his mind by swallowing doses of brandy and opium may not be insane in theory; in actual fact, he may be a dangerous madman. As one day followed another Meschini found it more and more impossible to exist without his two comforters. The least approach to lucidity made him almost frantic. He fancied every man a spy, every indifferent glance a look full of meaning. Before long the belief took possession of him that he was to be made the victim of some horrible private vengeance. San Giacinto was not the man, he thought, to be contented with sending him to the galleys for life. Few murderers were executed in those days, and it would be a small satisfaction to the Montevarchi to know that Arnoldo had merely been transferred from his study of the library catalogue to the breaking of stones with a chain gang at Civitavecchia. It was more likely that they would revenge themselves more effectually. His disordered imagination saw horrible visions. San Giacinto might lay a trap for him, might simply come at dead of night and take him from his room to some deep vault beneath the palace. What could he do against such a giant? He fancied himself before a secret tribunal in the midst of which towered San Giacinto's colossal figure. He could hear the deep voice he dreaded pronouncing his doom. He was to be torn to shreds piecemeal, burnt by a slow fire, flayed alive by those enormous hands. There was no conceivable horror of torture that did not suggest itself to him at such times. It is true that when he went to bed at night he was generally either so stupefied by opium or so intoxicated with strong drink that he forgot even to lock his door. But during the day he was seldom so far under the power of either as not to suffer from his own hideous imaginings. One day, as he dragged his slow pace along a narrow street near the fountain of Trevi, his eyes were arrested by an armourer's window. It suddenly struck him that he had no weapon of defence in case San Giacinto or his agents came upon him unawares. And yet a bullet well placed would make an end even of such a Hercules as the man he feared. He paused and looked anxiously up and down the street. It was a dark day and a fine rain was falling. There was nobody about who could recognise him, and he might not have another such opportunity of providing himself unobserved with what he wanted. He entered the shop and bought himself a revolver. The man showed him how to load it and sold him a box of cartridges. He dropped the firearm into one of the pockets of his coat, and smiled as he felt how comfortably it balanced the bottle he carried in the other. Then he slunk out of the shop and pursued his walk. The idea of making capital out of the original deeds concerning the Saracinesca, which had presented itself to him soon after the murder, recurred frequently to his mind; but he felt that he was in no condition to elaborate it, and promised himself to attend to the matter when he was better. For he fancied that he was ill and that his state would soon begin to improve. To go to San Giacinto now was out of the question. It would have been easier for him to climb the cross on the summit of St. Peter's, with his shaken nerves and trembling limbs, than to face the man who inspired in him such untold dread. He could, of course, take the alternative which was open to him, and go to old Saracinesca. Indeed, there were moments when he could almost have screwed his courage to the point of making such an attempt, but his natural prudence made him draw back from an interview in which he must incur a desperate risk unless he had a perfect command of his faculties. To write what he had to say would be merely to give a weapon against himself, since he could not treat the matter by letter without acknowledging his share in the forgeries. The only way to accomplish his purpose would be to extract a solemn promise of secrecy from Saracinesca, together with a guarantee for his own safety, and to obtain these conditions would need all the diplomacy he possessed. Bad as he was, he had no experience of practical blackmailing, and he would be obliged to compose his speeches beforehand with scrupulous care, and with the wisest forethought. For the present, such work was beyond his power, but when he was half drunk he loved to look at the ancient parchments and build golden palaces in the future. When he was strong again, and calm, he would realise all his dreams, and that time, he felt sure, could not be far removed. Nevertheless the days succeeded each other with appalling swiftness, and nothing was done. By imperceptible degrees his horror of San Giacinto began to invade his mind even when it was most deadened by drink. So long as an idea is new and has not really become a habit of the brain, brandy will drive it away, but the moment must inevitably come when the stimulant loses its power to obscure the memory of the thing dreaded. Opium will do it more effectually, but even that does not continue to act for ever. The time comes when the predominant thought of the waking hours reproduces itself during the artificial sleep with fearful force, so that the mind at last obtains no rest at all. That is the dangerous period, preceding the decay and total collapse of the intellect under what is commonly called the fixed idea. In certain conditions of mind, and notably with criminals who fear discovery, the effects of opium change very quickly; the downward steps through which it would take months for an ordinary individual to pass are descended with alarming rapidity, and the end is a thousand times more horrible. Meschini could not have taken the doses which a confirmed opium-eater swallows with indifference, but the result produced was far greater in proportion to the amount of the narcotic he consumed. Before the week which followed the deed was ended, he began to see visions when he was apparently awake. Shapeless, slimy things crawled about the floor of his room, upon his table, even upon the sheets of his bed. Dark shadows confronted him, and changed their outlines unexpectedly. Forms rose out of the earth at his feet and towered all at once to the top of the room, taking the appearance of San Giacinto and vanishing suddenly into the air. The things he saw came like instantaneous flashes from another and even more terrible world, disappearing at first so quickly as to make him believe them only the effects of the light and darkness, like the ghost he had seen in his coat. In the beginning there was scarcely anything alarming in them, but as he started whenever they came, he generally took them as a warning that he needed more brandy to keep him up. In the course of a day or two, however, these visions assumed more awful proportions, and he found it impossible to escape from them except in absolute stupor. It would have been clear to any one that this state of things could not last long. There was scarcely an hour in which he knew exactly what he was doing, and if his strange behaviour escaped observation this was due to his solitary way of living. He did not keep away from the palace during the whole day, from a vague idea that his absence might be thought suspicious. He spent a certain number of hours in the library, doing nothing, although he carefully spread out a number of books before him and dipped his pen into the ink from time to time, stupidly, mechanically, as though his fingers could not forget the habit so long familiar to them. His eyes,--which had formerly been unusually bright, had grown dull and almost bleared, though they glanced at times very quickly from one part of the room to another. That was when he saw strange things moving in the vast hall, between him and the bookcases. When they had disappeared, his glassy look returned, so that his eyeballs seemed merely to reflect the light, as inanimate objects do, without absorbing it, and conveying it to the seat of vision. His face grew daily more thin and ghastly. It was by force of custom that he stayed so long in the place where he had spent so much of his life. The intervals of semi-lucidity seemed terribly long, though they were in reality short enough, and the effort to engage his attention in work helped him to live through them. He had never gone down to the apartments where the family lived, since he had knelt before the catafalque on the day after the murder. Indeed, there was no reason why he should go there, and no one noticed his absence. He was a very insignificant person in the palace. As for any one coming to find him among the books, nothing seemed more improbable. The library was swept out in the early morning and no one entered it again during the twenty-four hours. He never went out into the corridor now, but left his coat upon a chair near him, when he remembered to bring it. As a sort of precautionary measure against fear, he locked the door which opened upon the passage when he came in the morning, unlocking it again when he went away in order that the servant who did the sweeping might be able to get in. The Princess Montevarchi was still dangerously ill, and Faustina had not been willing to leave her. San Giacinto and Flavia were not living in the house, but they spent a good deal of time there, because San Giacinto had ideas of his own about duty, to which his wife was obliged to submit even if she did not like them. Faustina was neither nervous nor afraid of solitude, and was by no means in need of her sister's company, so that when the two were together their conversation was not always of the most affectionate kind. The consequence was that the young girl tried to be alone as much as possible when she was not at her mother's bedside. One day, having absolutely nothing to do, she grew desperate. It was very hard not to think of Anastase, when she was in the solitude of her own room, with no occupation to direct her mind. A week earlier she had been only too glad to have the opportunity of dreaming away the short afternoon undisturbed, letting her girlish thoughts wander among the rose gardens of the future with the image of the man she loved so dearly, and who was yet so far removed from her. Now she could not think of him without reflecting that her father's death had removed one very great obstacle to her marriage. She was by no means of a very devout or saintly character, but, on the other hand, she had a great deal of what is called heart, and to be heartless seemed to her almost worse than to be bad. In excuse of such very untheological doctrines it must be allowed that her ideas concerning wickedness in general were very limited indeed, if not altogether childish in their extreme simplicity. It is certain, however, that she would have thought it far less wrong to run away with Gouache in spite of her family than to entertain any thought which could place her father's tragic death in the light of a personal advantage. If she had nothing to do she could not help thinking of Anastase, and if she thought of him, she could not escape the conclusion that it would be far easier for her to marry him, now that the old prince was out of the way. It was therefore absolutely necessary to find some occupation. At first she wandered aimlessly about the house until she was struck, almost for the first time, by the antiquated stiffness of the arrangement, and began to ask herself whether it would be respectful to the memory of her father, and to her mother, to try and make a few changes. Corona's home was very different. She would like to take that for a model. But one or two attempts showed her the magnitude of the task she had undertaken. She was ashamed to call the servants to help her--it would look as though there were to be a reception in the house. Her ideas of what could take place in the Palazzo Montevarchi did not go beyond that staid form of diversion. She was ashamed, however, and reflected, besides, that she was only the youngest of the family and had no right to take the initiative in the matter of improvements. The time hung very heavily upon her hands. She tried to teach herself something about painting by looking at the pictures on the walls, spending a quarter of an hour before each with conscientious assiduity. But this did not succeed either. The men in the pictures all took the shape of Monsieur Gouache in his smartest uniform and the women all looked disagreeably like Flavia. Then she thought of the library, which was the only place of importance in the house which she had not lately visited. She hesitated a moment only, considering how she could best reach it without passing through the study, and without going up the grand staircase to the outer door. A very little reflection showed her that she could get into the corridor from a passage near her own room. In a few minutes she was at the entrance to the great hall, trying to turn the heavy carved brass handle of the latch. To her surprise she could not open the door, which was evidently fastened from within. Then as she shook it in the hope that some one would hear her, a strange cry reached her ears, like that of a startled animal, accompanied by the shuffling of feet. She remembered Meschini's walk, and understood that it was he. "Please let me in!" she called out in her clear young voice, that echoed back to her from the vaulted chamber. Again she heard the shuffling footsteps, which this time came towards her, and a moment afterwards the door opened and the librarian's ghastly face was close before her. She drew back a little. She had forgotten that he was so ugly, she thought, or perhaps she would not have cared to see him. It would have been foolish, moreover, to go away after coming thus far. "I want to see the library," she said quietly, after she had made up her mind. "Will you show it to me?" "Favorisca, Excellency," replied Meschini in a broken voice. He had been frightened by the noise at the door, and the contortion of his face as he tried to smile was hideous to see. He bowed low, however, and closed the door after she had entered. Scarcely knowing what he did, he shuffled along by her side while she looked about the library, gazing at the long rows of books, bound all alike, that stretched from end to end of many of the shelves. The place was new to her, for she had not been in it more than two or three times in her life, and she felt a sort of unexplained awe in the presence of so many thousands of volumes, of so much written and printed wisdom which she could never hope to understand. She had come with a vague idea that she should find something to read that should be different from the novels she was not allowed to touch. She realised all at once that she knew nothing of what had been written in all the centuries whose literature was represented in the vast collection. She hardly knew the names of twenty books out of the hundreds of millions that the world contained. But she could ask Meschini. She looked at him again, and his face repelled her. Nevertheless, she was too kindhearted not to enter into conversation with the lonely man whom she had so rarely seen, but who was one of the oldest members of her father's household. "You have spent your life here, have you not?" she asked, for the sake of saying something. "Nearly thirty years of it," answered Meschini in a muffled voice. Her presence tortured him beyond expression. "That is a long time, and I am not an old man." "And are you always alone here? Do you never go out? What do you do all day?" "I work among the books, Excellency. There are twenty thousand volumes here, enough to occupy a man's time." "Yes--but how? Do you have to read them all?" asked Faustina innocently. "Is that your work?" "I have read many more than would be believed, for my own pleasure. But my work is to keep them in order, to see that there is no variation from the catalogue, so that when learned men come to make inquiries they may find what they want. I have also to take care of all the books, to see that they do not suffer in any way. They are very valuable. There is a fortune here." Somehow he felt less nervous when he began to speak of the library and its contents and the words came more easily to him. With a little encouragement he might even become loquacious. In spite of his face, Faustina began to feel an interest in him. "It must be very hard work," she remarked. "Do you like it? Did you never want to do anything else? I should think you would grow tired of being always alone." "I am very patient," answered Meschini humbly. "And I am used to it. I grew accustomed to the life when I was young." "You say the collection is valuable. Are there any very beautiful books? I would like to see some of them." The fair young creature sat down upon one of the high carved chairs at the end of a table. Meschini went to the other side of the hall and unlocked one of the drawers which lined the lower part of the bookcases to the height of three or four feet. Each was heavily carved with the Montevarchi arms in high relief. It was in these receptacles that the precious manuscripts were kept in their cases. He returned bringing a small square volume of bound manuscript, and laid it before Faustina. "This is worth an enormous sum," he said. "It is the only complete one in the world. There is an imperfect copy in the library of the Vatican." "What is it?" "It is the Montevarchi Dante, the oldest in existence." Faustina turned over the leaves curiously, and admired the even writing though she could not read many of the words, for the ancient characters were strange to her. It was a wonderful picture that the couple made in the great hall. On every side the huge carved bookcases of walnut, black with age, rose from the floor to the spring of the vault, their dark faces reflected in the highly-polished floor of coloured marble. Across the ancient tables a ray of sunlight fell from the high clerestory window. In the centre, the two figures with the old manuscript between them; Faustina's angel head in a high light against the dusky background, as she bent forward a little, turning the yellow pages with her slender, transparent fingers, the black folds of her full gown making heavy lines of drapery, graceful by her grace, and rendered less severe by a sort of youthfulness that seemed to pervade them, and that emanated from herself. Beside her, the bent frame of the broken down librarian, in a humble and respectful attitude, his long arms hanging down by his sides, his shabby black coat almost dragging to his heels, his head bent forward as he looked at the pages. All his features seemed to have grown more sharp and yellow and pointed, and there was now a deep red flush in the upper part of his cheeks. A momentary light shone in his gray eyes, from beneath the bushy brows, a light of intelligence such as had formerly characterised them especially, brought back now perhaps by the effort to fix his attention upon the precious book. His large, coarse ears appeared to point themselves forward like those of an animal, following the direction of his sight. In outward appearance he presented a strange mixture of dilapidation, keenness, and brutality. A week had changed him very much. A few days ago most people would have looked at him with a sort of careless compassion. Now, there was about him something distinctly repulsive. Beside Faustina's youth and delicacy, and freshness, he hardly seemed like a human being. "I suppose it is a very wonderful thing," said the young girl at last, "but I do not know enough to understand its value. Do my brothers ever come to the library?" She leaned back from the volume and glanced at Meschini's face, wondering how heaven could have made anything so ugly. "No. They never come," replied the librarian, drawing the book towards him instinctively, as he would have done if his visitor had been a stranger, who might try to steal a page or two unless he were watched. "But my poor father was very fond of the books, was he not? Did he not often come to see you here?" She was thinking so little of Meschini that she did not see that he turned suddenly white and shook like a man in an ague. It was what he had feared all along, ever since she had entered the room. She suspected him and had come, or had perhaps been sent by San Giacinto to draw him into conversation and to catch him in something which could be interpreted to be a confession of his crime. Had that been her intention, his behaviour would have left little doubt in her mind as to the truth of the accusation. His face betrayed him, his uncontrollable fear, his frightened eyes and trembling limbs. But she had only glanced at him, and her sight wandered to the bookcases for a moment. When she looked again he was moving away from her, along the table. She was surprised to see that his step was uncertain, and that he reeled against the heavy piece of furniture and grasped it for support. She started a little but did not rise. "Are you ill?" she asked. "Shall I call some one?" He made no answer, but seemed to recover himself at the sound of her voice, for he shuffled away and disappeared behind the high carved desk on which lay the open catalogue. She thought she saw a flash of light reflected from some smooth surface, and immediately afterwards she heard a gurgling sound, which she did not understand. Meschini was fortifying himself with a draught. Then he reappeared, walking more steadily. He had received a severe shock, but, as usual, he had not the courage to run away, conceiving that flight would inevitably be regarded as a proof of guilt. "I am not well," he said in explanation as he returned. "I am obliged to take medicine continually. I beg your Excellency to forgive me." "I am sorry to hear that," answered Faustina kindly. "Can we do nothing for you? Have you all you need?" "Everything, thank you. I shall soon be well." "I hope so, I am sure. What was I saying? Oh--I was asking whether my poor father came often to the library. Was he fond of the books?" "His Excellency--Heaven give him glory!--he was a learned man. Yes, he came now and then." Meschini took possession of the manuscript and carried it off rather suddenly to its place in the drawer. He was a long time in locking it up. Faustina watched him with some curiosity. "You were here that day, were you not?" she asked, as he turned towards her once more. The question was a natural one, considering the circumstances. "I think your Excellency was present when I was examined by the prefect," answered Meschini in a curiously disagreeable tone. "True," said Faustina. "You said you had been here all day as usual. I had forgotten. How horrible it was. And you saw nobody, you heard nothing? But I suppose it is too far from the study." The librarian did not answer, but it was evident from his manner that he was very much disturbed. Indeed, he fancied that his worst fears were realised, and that Faustina was really trying to extract information from him for his own conviction. Her thoughts were actually very far from any such idea. She would have considered it quite as absurd to accuse the poor wretch before her as she had thought it outrageous that she herself should be suspected. Her father had always seemed to her a very imposing personage, and she could not conceive that he should have met his death at the hands of such a miserable creature as Arnoldo Meschini, who certainly had not the outward signs of physical strength or boldness. He, however, understood her words very differently and stood still, half way between her and the bookcases, asking himself whether it would not be better to take immediate steps for his safety. His hand was behind him, feeling for the revolver in the pocket of his long coat. Faustina was singularly fearless, by nature, but if she had guessed the danger of her position she would probably have effected her escape very quickly, instead of continuing the conversation. "It is a very dreadful mystery," she said, rising from her chair and walking slowly across the polished marble floor until she stood before a row of great volumes of which the colour had attracted her eye. "It is the duty of us all to try and explain it. Of course we shall know all about it some day, but it is very hard to be patient. Do you know?" she turned suddenly and faced Meschini, speaking with a vehemence not usual for her. "They suspected me, as if I could have done it, I, a weak girl! And yet--if I had the man before me--the man who murdered him--I believe I would kill him with my hands!" She moved forward a little, as she spoke, and tapped her small foot upon the pavement, as though to emphasise her words. Her soft brown eyes flashed with righteous anger, and her cheek grew pale at the thought of avenging her father. There must have been something very fierce in her young face, for Meschini's heart failed him, and his nerves seemed to collapse all at once. He tried to draw back from her, slipped and fell upon his knees with a sharp cry of fear. Even then, Faustina did not suspect the cause of his weakness, but attributed it to the illness of which he had spoken. She sprang forward and attempted to help the poor creature to his feet, but instead of making an effort to rise, he seemed to be grovelling before her, uttering incoherent exclamations of terror. "Lean on me!" said Faustina, putting out her hand. "What is the matter? Oh! Are you going to die!" "Oh! oh! Do not hurt me--pray--in God's name!" cried Meschini, raising his eyes timidly. "Hurt you? No! Why should I hurt you? You are ill--we will have the doctor. Try and get up--try and get to a chair." Her tone reassured him a little, and her touch also, as she did her best to raise him to his feet. He struggled a little and at last stood up, leaning upon the bookcase, and panting with fright. "It is nothing," he tried to say, catching his breath at every syllable. "I am better--my nerves--your Excellency--ugh! what a coward I am!" The last exclamation, uttered in profound disgust of his own weakness, struck Faustina as very strange. "Did I frighten you?" she asked in surprise. "I am very sorry. Now sit down and I will call some one to come to you." "No, no! Please--I would rather be alone! I can walk quite well now. If--if your Excellency will excuse me, I will go to my room. I have more medicine--I will take it and I shall be better." "Can you go alone? Are you sure?" asked Faustina anxiously. But even while she spoke he was moving towards the door, slowly and painfully at first, as it seemed, though possibly a lingering thought of propriety kept him from appearing to run away. The young girl walked a few steps after him, half fearing that he might fall again. But he kept his feet and reached the threshold. Then he made a queer attempt at a bow, and mumbled some words that Faustina could not hear. In another moment he had disappeared, and she was alone. For some minutes she looked at the closed door through which he had gone out. Then she shook her head a little sadly, and slowly went back to her room by the way she had come. It was all very strange, she thought, but his illness might account for it. She would have liked to consult San Giacinto, but though she was outwardly on good terms with him, and could not help feeling a sort of respect for his manly character, the part he had played in attempting to separate her from Gouache had prevented the two from becoming intimate. She said nothing to any one about her interview with Meschini in the library, and no one even guessed that she had been there. CHAPTER XXIX. In spite of his haste to settle all that remained to be settled with regard to the restitution of the property to San Giacinto, Saracinesca found it impossible to wind up the affair in a week as he had intended. It was a very complicated matter to separate from his present fortune that part of it which his cousin would have inherited from his great-grandfather. A great deal of wealth had come into the family since that time by successive marriages, and the management of the original estate had not been kept separate from the administration of the dowries which had from time to time been absorbed into it. The Saracinesca, however, were orderly people, and the books had been kept for generations with that astonishing precision of detail which is found in the great Roman houses, and which surpasses, perhaps, anything analogous which is to be found in modern business. By dint of perseverance and by employing a great number of persons in making the calculations, the notaries had succeeded in preparing a tolerably satisfactory schedule in the course of a fortnight, which both the principal parties agreed to accept as final. The day fixed for the meeting and liquidation of the accounts was a Saturday, a fortnight and two days after the murder of Prince Montevarchi. A question arose concerning the place of meeting. Saracinesca proposed that San Giacinto and the notaries should come to the Palazzo Saracinesca. He was ready to brave out the situation to the end, to face his fate until it held nothing more in store for him, even to handing over the inventory of all that was no longer his in the house where he had been born. His boundless courage and almost brutal frankness would doubtless have supported him to the last, even through such a trial to his feelings, but San Giacinto refused to agree to the proposal. He repeatedly stated that he wished the old prince to inhabit the palace through his lifetime, and that he should even make every effort to induce him to retain the title. Both of these offers were rejected courteously, but firmly. In the matter of holding the decisive meeting in the palace, however, San Giacinto made a determined stand. He would not on any account appear in the light of the conqueror coming to take possession of the spoil. His wife had no share in this generous sentiment. She would have liked to enjoy her triumph to the full, for she was exceedingly ambitious, and was, moreover, not very fond of the Saracinesca. As she expressed it, she felt when she was with any of them, from the old prince to Corona, that they must be thinking all the time that she was a very foolish young person. San Giacinto's action was therefore spontaneous, and if it needs explanation it may be ascribed to an inherited magnanimity, to a certain dignity which had distinguished him even as a young man from the low class in which he had grown up. He was, indeed, by no means a type of the perfect nobleman; his conduct in the affair between Faustina and Gouache had shown that. He acted according to his lights, and was not ashamed to do things which his cousin Giovanni would have called mean. But he was manly, for all that, and if he owed some of his dignity to great stature and to his indomitable will, it was also in a measure the outward sign of a good heart and of an innate sense of justice. There had as yet been nothing dishonest in his dealings since he had come to Rome. He had acquired a fortune which enabled him to take the position that was lawfully his. He liked Flavia, and had bargained for her with her father, afterwards scrupulously fulfilling the terms of the contract. He had not represented himself to be what he was not, and he had taken no unfair advantage of any one for his own advancement. In the matter of the suit he was the dupe of old Montevarchi, so far as the deeds were concerned, but he was perfectly aware that he actually represented the elder branch of his family. It is hard to imagine how any man in his position could have done less than he did, and now that it had come to a final settlement he was really anxious to cause his vanquished relations as little humiliation as possible. To go to their house was like playing the part of a bailiff. To allow them to come to his dwelling suggested the journey to Canossa. The Palazzo Montevarchi was neutral ground, and he proposed that the formalities should be fulfilled there. Saracinesca consented readily enough and the day was fixed. The notaries arrived at ten o'clock in the morning, accompanied by clerks who were laden with books, inventories and rolls of manuscript. The study had been selected for the meeting, both on account of its seclusion from the rest of the house and because it contained an immense table which would serve for the voluminous documents, all of which must be examined and verified. San Giacinto himself awaited the arrival of the Saracinesca in the great reception-room. He had sent his wife away, for he was in reality by no means so calm as he appeared to be, and her constant talk disturbed him. He paced the long room with regular steps, his head erect, his hands behind him, stopping from time to time to listen for the footsteps of those he expected. It was the great day of his life. Before night, he was to be Prince Saracinesca. The moments that precede a great triumph are very painful, especially if a man has looked forward to the event for a long time. No matter how sure he is of the result, something tells him that it is uncertain. A question may arise, he cannot guess whence, by which all may be changed. He repeats to himself a hundred times that failure is impossible, but he is not at rest. The uncertainty of all things, even of his own life, appears very clearly before his eyes. His heart beats fast and slow from one minute to another. At the very instant when he is dreaming of the future, the possibility of disappointment breaks in upon his thoughts. He cannot explain it, but he longs to be beyond the decisive hour. In San Giacinto's existence, the steps from obscurity to importance and fortune had, of late, been so rapidly ascended that he was almost giddy with success. For the first time since he had left his old home in Aquila, he felt as though he had been changed from his own self to some other person. At last the door opened, and Saracinesca, Giovanni, and Corona entered the room. San Giacinto was surprised to see Giovanni's wife on an occasion when the men alone of the family were concerned, but she explained that she had come to spend the morning with Faustina, and would wait till everything was finished. The meeting was not a cordial one, though both parties regarded it as inevitable. If Saracinesca felt any personal resentment against San Giacinto he knew that it was unreasonable and he had not the bad taste to show it. He was silent, but courteous in his manner. Giovanni, strange to say, seemed wholly indifferent to what was about to take place. "I hope," said San Giacinto, when all four were seated, "that you will consent to consider this as a mere formality. I have said as much through my lawyers, but I wish to repeat it myself in better words than they used." "Pardon me," answered Saracinesca, "if I suggest that we should not discuss that matter. We are sensible of your generosity in making such offers, but we do not consider it possible to accept them." "I must ask your indulgence if I do not act upon your suggestion," returned San Giacinto. "Even if there is no discussion I cannot consent to proceed to business until I have explained what I mean. If the suit has been settled justly by the courts, it has not been decided with perfect justice as regards its consequences. I do not deny, and I understand that you do not expect me to act otherwise, that it has been my intention to secure for myself and for my children the property and the personal position abandoned by my ancestor. I have obtained what I wanted and what was my right, and I have to thank you for the magnanimity you have displayed in not attempting to contest a claim against which you might have brought many arguments, if not much evidence. The affair having been legally settled, it is for us to make whatever use of it seems better in our own eyes. To deprive you of your name and of the house in which you were born and bred, would be to offer you an indignity such as I never contemplated." "You cannot be said to deprive us of what is not ours, by any interpretation of the word with which I am acquainted," said Saracinesca in a tone which showed that he was determined to receive nothing. "I am a poor grammarian," answered San Giacinto gravely, and without the slightest affectation of humility. "I was brought up a farmer, and was only an innkeeper until lately. I cannot discuss with you the subtle meanings of words. To my mind it is I who am taking from you that which, if not really yours, you have hitherto had every right to own and to make use of. I do not attempt to explain my thought. I only say that I will neither take your name nor live in your house while you are alive. I propose a compromise which I hope you will be willing to accept." "I fear that will be impossible. My mind is made up." "I propose," continued San Giacinto, "that you remain Prince Saracinesca, that you keep Saracinesca itself, and the palace here in Rome during your lifetime, which I trust may be a long one. After your death everything returns to us. My cousin Giovanni and the Princess Sant' Ilario--" "You may call me Corona, if you please," said the princess suddenly. Her eyes were fixed on his face, and she was smiling. Both Saracinesca and Giovanni looked at her in surprise. It seemed strange to them that she should choose such a moment for admitting San Giacinto to a familiarity he had never before enjoyed. But for some time she had felt a growing respect for the ex-innkeeper, which was quickened by his present generosity. San Giacinto's swarthy face grew a shade darker as the blood mounted to his lean cheeks. Corona had given him one of the first sensations of genuine pleasure he had ever experienced in his rough life. "Thank you," he said simply. "You two, I was going to say, have palaces of your own and cannot have such close associations with the old places as one who has owned them during so many years. You," he continued, turning to the old prince, "will, I hope, accept an arrangement which cannot affect your dignity and which will give me the greatest satisfaction." "I am very much obliged to you," answered Saracinesca promptly. "You are very generous, but I cannot take what you offer." "If you feel that you would be taking anything from me, look at it from a different point of view. You would be conferring a favour instead of accepting one. Consider my position, when I have taken your place. It will not be a pleasant one. The world will abuse me roundly, and will say I have behaved abominably towards you. Do you fancy that I shall be received as a substitute for the Prince Saracinesca your friends have known so long? Do you suppose that the vicissitudes of my life are unknown, and that no one will laugh behind my back and point at me as the new, upstart prince? Few people know me in Rome, and if I have any friends besides you, I have not been made aware of the fact. Pray consider that in doing what I ask, you would be saving me from very unpleasant social consequences." "I should be doing so at the cost of my self-respect," replied the old man firmly. "Whatever the consequences are to you, the means of bearing them will be in your hands. You will have no lack of friends to-morrow, or at least of amiable persons anxious to call themselves by that name. They will multiply this very night, like mushrooms, and will come about you freshly shaved and smiling to-morrow morning." "I am afraid you do not understand me," said San Giacinto. "I can leave you the title and yet take one which will serve as well. You would call yourself Prince Saracinesca and I should be Saracinesca di San Giacinto. As for the palace and the place in the mountains, they are so insignificant as compared with the rest that it could not hurt your self-respect to live in them. Can you not persuade your father?" He turned to Giovanni who had not spoken yet. "You are very good to make the proposal," he answered. "I cannot say more than that. I agree with my father." A silence followed which lasted several minutes. Corona looked from one to the other of the three men, wondering how the matter would end. She understood both parties better than they understood each other. She sympathised with the refusal of her husband and his father. To accept such an offer would put them in a position of obligation towards San Giacinto which she knew they could never endure, and which would be galling to herself. On the other hand she felt sorry for their cousin, who was evidently trying to do what he felt was right and generous, and was disappointed that his advances should be repelled. He was very much in earnest, or he would not have gone so far as to suggest that it would be a favour to him if they took what he offered. He was so simple, and yet so dignified withal, that she could not help liking him. It was not clear to her, however, that she could mend matters by interfering, nor by offering advice to the one or sympathy to the other. Saracinesca himself was the first to break the silence. It seemed to him that everything had been said, and that nothing now remained but to fulfil the requisite formalities. "Shall we proceed to business?" he inquired, as though ignoring all the previous conversation. "I believe we have a great deal to do, and the time is passing." San Giacinto made no reply, but rose gravely and made a gesture signifying that he would show the way to the study. Saracinesca made a show of refusing to go out first, then yielded and went on. San Giacinto waited at the door for Corona and Giovanni. "I will join you in a moment--I know the way," said the latter, remaining behind with his wife. When they were alone he led her towards one of the windows, as though to be doubly sure that no one could hear what he was about to say. Then he stood still and looked into her eyes. "Would you like us to accept such a favour from him?" he asked. "Tell me the truth." "No," answered Corona without the least hesitation. "But I am sorry for San Giacinto. I think he is really trying to do right, and to be generous. He was hurt by your father's answer." "If I thought it would give you pleasure to feel that we could go to Saracinesca, I would try and make my father change his mind." "Would you?" She knew very well what a sacrifice it would be to his pride. "Yes, dear. I would do it for you." "Giovanni--how good you are!" "No--I am not good. I love you. That is all. Shall I try?" "Never! I am sorry for San Giacinto--but I could no more live in the old house, or in Saracinesca, than you could. Do I not feel all that you feel, and more?" "All?" "All." They stood hand in hand looking out of the window, and there were tears in the eyes of both. The grasp of their fingers tightened slowly as though they were drawn together by an irresistible force. Slowly they turned their faces towards each other, and presently their lips met in one of those kisses that are never forgotten. Then Giovanni left her where she was. All had been said; both knew that they desired nothing more in this world, and that henceforth they were all to each other. It was as though a good angel had set a heavenly seal upon the reunion of their hearts. Corona did not leave the room immediately, but remained a few moments leaning against the heavy frame of the window. Her queenly figure drooped a little, and she pressed one hand to her side. Her dark face was bent down, and the tears that had of old come so rarely made silver lines upon her olive cheeks. There was not one drop of bitterness in that overflowing of her soul's transcendent joy, in that happiness which was so great and perfect that it seemed almost unbearable. And she had reason to be glad. In the midst of a calamity which would have absorbed the whole nature of many men, Giovanni had not one thought that was not for her. Giovanni, who had once doubted her, who had said such things to her as she dared not remember--Giovanni, suffering under a blow to his pride, that was worse almost than total ruin, had but one wish, to make another sacrifice for her. That false past, of which she hated to think, was gone like an evil dream before the morning sun, that true past, which was her whole life, was made present again. The love that had been so bruised and crushed that she had thought it dead had sprung up again from its deep, strong roots, grander and nobler than before. The certainty that it was real was overwhelming, and drowned all her senses in a trance of light. Faustina Montevarchi entered the drawing-room softly, then, seeing no one, she advanced till she came all at once upon Corona in the embrasure of the window. The princess started slightly when she saw that she was not alone. "Corona!" exclaimed the young girl. "Are you crying? What is it?" "Oh, Faustina! I am so happy!" It was a relief to be able to say it to some one. "Happy?" repeated Faustina in surprise. "But there are tears in your eyes, on your cheeks--" "You cannot understand--I do not wonder--how should you? And besides, I cannot tell you what it is." "I wish I were you," answered her friend sadly. "I wish I were happy!" "What is it, child?" asked Corona kindly. Then she led Faustina to a stiff old sofa at one end of the vast room and they sat down together. "What is it?" she repeated, drawing the girl affectionately to her side. "You know what it is, dear. No one can help me. Oh, Corona! we love each other so very much!" "I know--I know it is very real. But you must have a little patience, darling. Love will win in the end. Just now, too--" She did not finish the sentence, but she had touched a sensitive spot in Faustina's conscience. "That is the worst of it," was the answer. "I am so miserable, because I know he never would have allowed it, and now--I am ashamed to tell you, it is so heartless!" She hid her face on her friend's shoulder. "You will never be heartless, my dear Faustina," said Corona. "What you think, is not your fault, dear. Love is master of the world and of us all." "But my love is not like yours, Corona. Perhaps yours was once like mine. But you are married--you are happy. You were saying so just now." "Yes, dear. I am very, very happy, because I love very, very dearly. You will be as happy as I am some day." "Ah, that may be--but--I am dreadfully wicked, Corona!" "You, child? You do not know what it is to think anything bad!" "But I do. I am so much ashamed of it that I can hardly tell you--only I tell you everything, because you are my friend. Corona--it is horrible--it seems easier, more possible--now that he is gone--oh! I am so glad I have told you!" Faustina began to sob passionately, as though she were repenting of some fearful crime. "Is that all, darling?" asked Corona, smiling at the girl's innocence, and pressing her head tenderly to her own breast. "Is that what makes you so unhappy?" "Yes--is it not--very, very dreadful?" A fresh shower of tears accompanied the question. "Perhaps I am very bad, too," said Corona. "But I do not call that wickedness." "Oh no! You are good. I wish I were like you!" "No, do not wish that. But, I confess, it seems to me natural that you should think as you do, because it is really true. Your father, Faustina, may have been mistaken about your future. If--if he had lived, you might perhaps have made him change his mind. At all events, you can hope that he now sees more clearly, that he understands how terrible it is for a woman to be married to a man she does not love--when she is sure that she loves another." "Yes--you told me. Do you remember? It was the other day, after Flavia had been saying such dreadful things. But I know it already. Every woman must know it." There was a short pause, during which Corona wondered whether she were the same person she had been ten days earlier, when she had delivered that passionate warning. Faustina sat quite still, looking up into the princess's face. She was comforted and reassured and the tears had ceased to flow. "There is something else," she said at last. "I want to tell you everything, for I can tell no one else. I cannot keep it to myself either. He has written to me, Corona. Was it very wrong to read his letter?" This time she smiled a little and blushed. "I do not think it was very wrong," answered her friend with a soft laugh. She was so happy that she would have laughed at anything. "Shall I show you his letter?" asked the young girl shyly. At the same time her hand disappeared into the pocket of her black gown, and immediately afterwards brought out a folded piece of paper which looked as though it had been read several times. Corona did not think it necessary to express her assent in words. Faustina opened the note, which contained the following words, written in Gouache's delicate French handwriting-- "MADEMOISELLE--When you have read these lines, you will understand my object in writing them, for you understand me, and you know that all I do has but one object. A few days ago it was still possible for us to meet frequently. The terrible affliction which has fallen upon you, and in which none can feel deeper or more sincere sympathy than I, has put it out of your power and out of mine to join hands and weep over the present, to look into each other's eyes and read there the golden legend of a future happiness. To meet as we have met, alone in the crowded church--no! we cannot do it. For you, at such a time, it would seem like a disrespect to your father's memory. For myself, I should deem it dishonourable, I should appear base in my own eyes. Did I not go to him and put to him the great question? Was I not repulsed--I do not say with insult, but with astonishment--at my presumption? Shall I then seem to take advantage of his death--of his sudden and horrible death--to press forward a suit which he is no longer able to oppose? I feel that it would be wrong. Though I cannot express myself as I would, I know that you understand me, for you think as I do. How could it be otherwise? Are we not one indivisible soul, we two? Yes, you will understand me. Yes, you will know that it is right. I go therefore, I leave Rome immediately. I cannot inhabit the same city and not see you. But I cannot quit the Zouaves in this time of danger. I am therefore going to Viterbo, whither I am sent through the friendly assistance of one of our officers. There I shall stay until time has soothed your grief and restored your mother to health. To her we will turn when the moment has arrived. She will not be insensible to our tears and entreaties. Until then good-bye--ah! the word is less terrible than it looks, for our souls will be always together. I leave you but for a short space--no! I leave your sweet eyes, your angel's face, your dear hands that I adore, but yourself I do not leave. I bear you with me in a heart that loves you--God knows how tenderly." Corona read the letter carefully to the end. To her older appreciation of the world, such a letter appeared at first to be the forerunner of a definite break, but a little reflection made her change her mind. What he said was clearly true, and corresponded closely with Faustina's own view of the case. The most serious obstacle to the union of the lovers had been removed by Prince Montevarchi's death, and it was inconceivable that Gouache should have ceased to care for Faustina at the very moment when a chance of his marrying her had presented itself. Besides, Corona knew Gouache well, and was not mistaken in her estimate of his character. He was honourable to Quixotism, and perfectly capable of refusing to take what looked like an unfair advantage. Considering Faustina's strange nature, her amazing readiness to yield to first impulses, and her touching innocence of evil, it would have been an easy matter for the man she loved to draw her into a runaway match. She would have followed him as readily to the ends of the earth as she had followed him to the Serristori barracks. Gouache was not a boy, and probably understood her peculiarities as well as any one. In going away for the present he was undoubtedly acting with the greatest delicacy, for his departure showed at once all the respect he felt for Faustina, and all that devotion to an ideal honour which was the foundation of his being. Though his epistle was not a model of literary style it contained certain phrases that came from the heart. Corona understood why Faustina was pleased with it, and why instead of shedding useless tears over his absence, she had shown such willingness to let her friend read Gouache's own explanation of his departure. She folded the sheet of paper again and gave it back to the young girl. "I am glad he wrote that letter," she said after a moment's pause. "I always believed in him, and now--well, I think, he is almost worthy of you, Faustina." Faustina threw her arms around Corona's neck, and kissed her again and again. "I am so glad you know how good he is!" she cried. "I could not be happy unless you liked him, and you do." All through the morning the two friends sat together in the great drawing-room talking, as such women can talk to each other, with infinite grace about matters not worth recording, or if they spoke of things of greater importance, repeating the substance of what they had said before, finding at each repetition some new comment to make, some new point upon which to agree, after the manner of people who are very fond of each other. The hours slipped by, and they were unconscious of the lapse of time. The great clocks of the neighbouring church towers tolled eleven, twelve, and one o'clock, and yet they had more to say, and did not even notice the loud ringing of the hundred bells. The day was clear, and the bright sunlight streamed in through the high windows, telling the hour with a more fateful precision than the clocks outside. All was peace and happiness and sweet intercourse, as the two women sat there undisturbed through the long morning. They talked, and laughed, and held their hands clasped together, unconscious of the rest of the world. No sound penetrated from the rest of the house to the quiet, sunlit hall, which to Faustina's mind had never looked so cheerful before since she could remember it. And yet within the walls of the huge old palace strange things were passing, things which it was well that neither of them should see. Before describing the events which close this part of my story, it is as well to say that Faustina has made her last appearance for the present. From the point of view which would have been taken by most of her acquaintances, her marriage with Gouache was a highly improbable event. If any one desires an apology for being left in uncertainty as to her fate, I can only answer that I am writing the history of the Saracinesca and not of any one else. There are certain stages in that history which are natural halting-places for the historian himself, and for his readers if he have any; and it is impossible to make the lives of a number of people coincide so far as to wind them up together, and yet be sure that they will run down at the same moment like the clocks of his Majesty Charles the Fifth. If it were, the world would be a very different place. CHAPTER XXX. The scene in the study, while the notary read through the voluminous documents, is worth describing. At one end of the large green table sat San Giacinto alone, his form, even as he sat, towering above the rest. The mourning he wore harmonised with his own dark and massive head. His expression was calm and thoughtful, betraying neither satisfaction nor triumph. From time to time his deep-set eyes turned towards Saracinesca with a look of inquiry, as though to assure himself that the prince agreed to the various points and was aware that he must now speak for the last time, if he spoke at all. At the other end of the board the two Saracinesca were seated side by side. The strong resemblance that existed between them was made very apparent by their position, but although, allowing for the difference of their ages, their features corresponded almost line for line, their expressions were totally different. The old man's gray hair and pointed beard seemed to bristle with suppressed excitement. His heavy brows were bent together, as though he were making a great effort to control his temper, and now and then there was an angry gleam in his eyes. He sat square and erect in his seat, as though he were facing an enemy, but he kept his hands below the table, for he did not choose that San Giacinto should see the nervous working of his fingers. Giovanni, on the other hand, looked upon the proceedings with an indifference that was perfectly apparent. He occasionally looked at his watch, suppressed a yawn, and examined his nails with great interest. It was clear that he was not in the least moved by what was going on. It was no light matter for the old nobleman to listen to the documents that deprived him one by one of his titles, his estates, and his other wealth, in favour of a man who was still young, and whom, in spite of the relationship, he could not help regarding as an inferior. He had always considered himself as the representative of an older generation, who, by right of position, was entitled to transmit to his son the whole mass of those proud traditions in which he had grown up as in his natural element. Giovanni, on the contrary, possessed a goodly share of that indifference that characterises the younger men of the nineteenth century. He was perfectly satisfied with his present situation, and had been so long accustomed to depend upon his personality and his private fortune, for all that he enjoyed or required in life, that he did not desire the responsibilities that weigh heavily upon the head of a great family. Moreover, recent events had turned the current of his thoughts into a different direction. He was in his way as happy as Corona, and he knew that real happiness proceeds from something more than a score of titles and a few millions of money, more or less. He regarded the long morning's work as an intolerable nuisance, which prevented him from spending his time with his wife. In the middle of the table sat the two notaries, flanked by four clerks, all of them pale men in black, clean shaved, of various ages, but bearing on their faces the almost unmistakable stamp of their profession. The one who was reading the deeds wore spectacles. From time to time he pushed them back upon his bald forehead and glanced first at San Giacinto and then at Prince Saracinesca, after which he carefully resettled the glasses upon his long nose and proceeded with his task until he had reached the end of another set of clauses, when he repeated the former operation with mechanical regularity, never failing to give San Giacinto the precedence of the first look. For a long time this went on, with a monotony which almost drove Giovanni from the room. Indeed nothing but absolute necessity could have kept him in his place. At last the final deed was reached. It was an act of restitution drawn up in a simple form so as to include, by a few words, all the preceding documents. It set forth that Leone Saracinesca being "free in body and mind," the son of Giovanni Saracinesca deceased, "whom may the Lord preserve in a state of glory," restored, gave back, yielded, and abandoned all those goods, titles, and benefices which he had inherited directly from Leone Saracinesca, the eleventh of that name, deceased, "whom may the Lord preserve in a state of glory," to Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto, who was "free in body and mind," son of Orsino Saracinesca, ninth of that name, deceased, "whom may the Lord, etc." Not one of the quaint stock phrases was omitted. The notary paused, looked round, adjusted his spectacles and continued. The deed further set forth that Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto aforesaid, acknowledged the receipt of the aforesaid goods, titles, and benefices, and stated that he received all as the complete inheritance, relinquishing all further claims against the aforesaid Leone and his heirs for ever. Once more the reader paused, and then read the last words in a clear voice-- "Both the noble parties promising, finally, in regard to the present cession, to take account of it, to hold it as acceptable, valid, and perpetual, and, for the same, never to allow it to be spoken of otherwise." A few words followed, setting forth the name of the notary and the statement that the act was executed in his presence, with the date. When he had finished reading all, he rose and turned the document upon the table so that the two parties could stand opposite to him and sign it. Without a word he made a slight inclination and offered the pen to Saracinesca. The old gentleman pushed back his chair and marched forward with erect head and a firm step to sign away what had been his birthright. From first to last he had acknowledged the justice of his cousin's claims, and he was not the man to waver at the supreme moment. His hair bristled more stiffly than ever, and his dark eyes shot fire, but he took the pen and wrote his great strong signature as clearly as he had written it at the foot of his marriage contract five and thirty years earlier. Giovanni looked at him with admiration. Then San Giacinto, who had risen out of respect to the old man, came forward and took the pen in his turn. He wrote out his name in straight, firm characters as usual, but at the end the ink made a broad black mark that ended abruptly, as though the writer had put the last stroke to a great undertaking. "There should be two witnesses," said the notary in the awkward silence that followed. "Don Giovanni can be one," he added, giving the latter the only name that was now his, with a lawyer's scrupulous exactness. "One of your clerks can be the other," suggested Saracinesca, who was anxious to get away as soon as possible. "It is not usual," replied the notary. "Is there no one in the palace? One of the young princes would do admirably." "They are all away," said San Giacinto. "Let me see--there is the librarian. Will he answer the purpose? He must be in the library at this hour. A respectable man--he has been thirty years in the house. For that matter, the steward is probably in his office, too." "The librarian is the best person," answered the notary. "I will bring him at once--I know the way." San Giacinto left the study by the door that opened upon the passage. The others could hear his heavy steps as he went rapidly up the paved corridor. Old Saracinesca walked up and down the room unable to conceal his impatience. Giovanni resumed his seat and waited quietly, indifferent to the last. Arnoldo Meschini was in the library, as San Giacinto had anticipated. He was seated at his usual place at the upper end of the hall, surrounded by books and writing materials which he handled nervously without making any serious attempt to use them. He had lost all power of concentrating his thoughts or of making any effort to work. Fortunately for him no one had paid any attention to him during the past ten days. His appearance was dishevelled and slovenly, and he was more bent than he had formerly been. His eyes were bleared and glassy as he stared at the table before him, assuming a wild and startled expression when, looking up, he fancied he saw some horrible object gliding quickly across the sunny floor, or creeping up to him over the polished table. All his former air of humility and shabby respectability was gone. His disordered dress, his straggling grayish hair that hung from beneath the dirty black skullcap around his misshapen ears, his face, yellow in parts and irregularly flushed in others, as though it were beginning to be scorched from within, his unwashed hands, every detail of his appearance, in short, proclaimed his total degradation. But hitherto no one had noticed him, for he had lived between his attic, the deserted library and the apothecary's shop on the island of Saint Bartholomew. His mind had almost ceased to act when he was awake, except in response to the fear which the smallest circumstances now caused him. If he had dreams by night, he saw visions also in the day, and his visions generally took the shape of San Giacinto. He had not really seen him since he had met him when the prince lay in state, but the fear of him was, if anything, greater than if he had met him daily. The idea that the giant was lying in wait for him had become fixed, and yet he was powerless to fly. His energy was all gone between his potations and the constant terror that paralysed him. On that morning he had been as usual to the Ponte Quattro Capi and had returned with the means of sleep in his pocket. He had no instinct left but to deaden his sensations with drink during the hours of light, while waiting for the time when he could lie down and yield to the more potent influence of the opium. He had therefore come back as usual, and by force of habit had taken his place in the library, the fear of seeming to neglect his supposed duties forbidding him to spend all his time in his room. As usual, too, he had locked the door of the passage to separate himself from his dread of a supernatural visitation. He sat doubled together in his chair, his long arms lying out before him upon the books and papers. All at once he started in his seat. One, two, one two--yes, there were footsteps in the corridor--they were coming nearer and nearer--heavy, like those of the dead prince--but quicker, like those of San Giacinto--closer, closer yet. A hand turned the latch once, twice, then shook the lock roughly. Meschini was helpless. He could neither get upon his feet and escape by the other exit, nor find the way to the pocket that held his weapon. Again the latch was turned and shaken, and then the deep voice he dreaded was heard calling to him. "Signor Meschini!" He shrieked aloud with fear, but he was paralysed in every limb. A moment later a terrible crash drowned his cries. San Giacinto, on hearing his agonised scream, had feared some accident. He drew back a step and then, with a spring, threw his colossal strength against the line where the leaves of the door joined. The lock broke in its sockets, the panels cracked under the tremendous pressure, and the door flew wide open. In a moment San Giacinto was standing over the librarian, trying to drag him back from the table and out of his seat. He thought the man was in a fit. In reality he was insane with terror. "An easy death, for the love of heaven!" moaned the wretch, twisting himself under the iron hands that held him by the shoulders. "For God's sake! I will tell you all--do not torture me--oh! oh!--only let it be easy--and quick--yes, I tell you--I killed the prince--oh, mercy, mercy, for Christ's sake!" San Giacinto's grip tightened, and his face grew livid. He lifted Meschini bodily from the chair and set him against the table, holding him up at arm's length, his deep eyes blazing with a rage that would soon be uncontrollable. Meschini's naturally strong constitution did not afford him the relief of fainting. "You killed him--why?" asked San Giacinto through his teeth, scarcely able to speak. "For you, for you--oh, have mercy--do not--" "Silence!" cried the giant in a voice that shook the vault of the hall. "Answer me or I will tear your head from your body with my hands! Why do you say you killed him for me?" Meschini trembled all over, and then his contorted face grew almost calm. He had reached that stage which may be called the somnambulism of fear. The perspiration covered his skin in an instant, and his voice sank to a distinct whisper. "He made me forge the deeds, and would not pay me for them. Then I killed him." "What deeds?" "The deeds that have made you Prince Saracinesca. If you do not believe me, go to my room, the originals are in the cupboard. The key is here, in my right-hand pocket." He could not move to get it, for San Giacinto held him fast, and watched every attempt he made at a movement. His own face was deathly pale, and his white lips were compressed together. "You forged them altogether, and the originals are untouched?" he asked, his grasp tightening unconsciously till Meschini yelled with pain. "Yes!" he cried. "Oh, do not hurt me--an easy death--" "Come with me," said San Giacinto, leaving his arms and taking him by the collar. Then he dragged and pushed him towards the splintered door of the passage. At the threshold, Meschini writhed and tried to draw back, but he could no more have escaped from those hands that held him than a lamb can loosen the talons of an eagle when they are buried deep in the flesh. "Go on!" urged the strong man, in fierce tones. "You came by this passage to kill him--you know the way." With a sudden movement of his right hand he launched the howling wretch forward into the corridor. All through the narrow way Meschini's cries for mercy resounded, loud and piercing, but no one heard him. The walls were thick and the distance from the inhabited rooms was great. But at last the shrieks reached the study. Saracinesca stood still in his walk. Giovanni sprang to his feet. The notaries sat in their places and trembled. The noise came nearer and then the door flew open. San Giacinto dragged the shapeless mass of humanity in and flung it half way across the room, so that it sank in a heap at the old prince's feet. "There is the witness to the deeds," he cried savagely. "He forged them, and he shall witness them in hell. He killed his master in this very room, and here he shall tell the truth before he dies. Confess, you dog! And be quick about it, or I will help you." He stirred the grovelling creature with his foot. Meschini only rolled from side to side and hid his face against the floor. Then the gigantic hands seized him again and set him on his feet, and held him with his face to the eight men who had all risen and were standing together in wondering silence. "Speak!" shouted San Giacinto in Meschini's ear. "You are not dead yet--you have much to live through, I hope." Again that trembling passed over the unfortunate man's limbs, and he grew quiet and submissive. It was all as he had seen it in his wild dreams and visions, the secret chamber whence no sound could reach the outer world, the stern judges all in black, the cruel strength of San Giacinto ready to torture him. The shadow of death rose in his eyes. "Let me sit down," he said in a broken voice. San Giacinto led him to a chair in the midst of them all. Then he stood before one of the doors, and motioned to his cousin to guard the other. But Arnoldo Meschini had no hope of escape. His hour was at hand, and he knew it. "You forged the deeds which were presented as originals in the court. Confess it to those gentlemen." It was San Giacinto who spoke. "The prince made me do it," answered Meschini in low tones. "He promised me twenty thousand scudi for the work." "To be paid--when? Tell all." "To be paid in cash the day the verdict was given." "You came to get your money here?" "I came here. He denied having promised anything definite. I grew angry. I killed him." A violent shudder shook his frame from head to foot. "You strangled him with a pocket handkerchief?" "It was Donna Faustina's?" "The prince threw it on the ground after he had struck her. I saw the quarrel. I was waiting for my money. I watched them through the door." "You know that you are to die. Where are the deeds you stole when you forged the others?" "I told you--in the cupboard in my room. Here is the key. Only--for God's sake---" He was beginning to break down again. Perhaps, by the habit of the past days he felt the need for drink even in that supreme moment, for his hand sought his pocket as he sat. Instead of the bottle he felt the cold steel barrel of the revolver, which he had forgotten. San Giacinto looked towards the notary. "Is this a full confession, sufficient to commit this man to trial?" he asked. But before the notary could answer, Meschini's voice sounded through the room, not weak and broken, but loud and clear. "It is! It is!" he cried in sudden and wild excitement. "I have told all. The deeds will speak for themselves. Ah! you would have done better to leave me amongst my books!" He turned to San Giacinto. "You will never be Prince Saracinesca. But I shall escape you. You shall not give me a slow death--you shall not, I say--" San Giacinto made a step towards him. The proximity of the man who had inspired him with such abject terror put an end to his hesitation. "You shall not!" he almost screamed. "But my blood is on your head--Ah!" Three deafening reports shook the air in rapid succession, and all that was left of Arnoldo Meschini lay in a shapeless heap upon the floor. While a man might have counted a score there was silence in the room. Then San Giacinto came forward and bent over the body, while the notaries and their clerks cowered in a corner. Saracinesca and Giovanni stood together, grave and silent, as brave men are when they have seen a horrible sight and can do nothing. Meschini was quite dead. When San Giacinto had assured himself of the fact, he looked up. All the fierce rage had vanished from his face. "He is dead," he said quietly. "You all saw it. You will have to give your evidence in half an hour when the police come. Be good enough to open the door." He took up the body in his arms carefully, but with an ease that amazed those who watched him. Giovanni held the door open, and San Giacinto deposited his burden gently upon the pavement of the corridor. Then he turned back and re-entered the room. The door of the study closed for ever on Arnoldo Meschini. In the dead silence that followed, San Giacinto approached the table upon which the deed lay, still waiting to be witnessed. He took it in his hand and turned to Saracinesca. There was no need for him to exculpate himself from any charge of complicity in the abominable fraud which Montevarchi had prepared before he died. Not one of the men present even thought of suspecting him. Even if they had, it was clear that he would not have brought Meschini to confess before them a robbery in which he had taken part. But there was that in his brave eyes that told his innocence better than any evidence or argument could have proclaimed it. He held out the document to Saracinesca. "Would you like to keep it as a memento?" he asked. "Or shall I destroy it before you?" His voice never quavered, his face was not discomposed. Giovanni, the noble-hearted gentleman, wondered whether he himself could have borne such a blow so bravely as this innkeeper cousin of his. Hopes, such as few men can even aspire to entertain, had been suddenly extinguished. A future of power and wealth and honour, the highest almost that his country could give any man, had been in a moment dashed to pieces before his eyes. Dreams, in which the most indifferent would see the prospect of enormous satisfaction, had vanished into nothing during the last ten minutes, almost at the instant when they were to be realised. And yet the man who had hoped such hopes, who had looked forward to such a future, whose mind must have revelled many a time in the visions that were already becoming realities--that man stood before them all, outwardly unmoved, and proposing to his cousin that he should keep as a remembrance the words that told of his own terrible disappointment. He was indeed the calmest of those present. "Shall I tear it to pieces?" he asked again, holding the document between his fingers. Then the old prince spoke. "Do what you will with it," he answered. "But give me your hand. You are a braver man than I." The two men looked into each other's eyes as their hands met. "It shall not be the last deed between us," said Saracinesca. "There shall be another. Whatever may be the truth about that villain's work you shall have your share--" "A few hours ago, you would not take yours," answered San Giacinto quietly. "Must I repeat your own words?" "Well, well--we will talk of that. This has been a terrible morning's work, and we must do other things before we go to business again. That poor man's body is outside the door. We had better attend to that matter first, and send for the police. Giovanni, my boy, will you tell Corona? I believe she is still in the house." Giovanni needed no urging to go upon his errand. He entered the drawing-room where Corona was still sitting beside Faustina upon the sofa. His face must have been pale, for Corona looked at him with a startled expression. "Is anything the matter?" she asked. "Something very unpleasant has occurred," he answered, looking at Faustina. "Meschini, the librarian, has just died very suddenly in the study where we were." "Meschini?" cried Faustina in surprise and with some anxiety. "Yes. Are you nervous, Donna Faustina? May I tell you something very startling?" It was a man's question. "Yes--what is it?" she asked quickly. "Meschini confessed before us all that it was he who was the cause--in fact that he had murdered your father. Before any one could stop him, he had shot himself. It is very dreadful." With a low cry that was more expressive of amazement than of horror, Faustina sank into a chair. In his anxiety to tell his wife the whole truth Giovanni forgot her at once. As soon as he began to speak, however, Corona led him away to the window where they had stood together a few hours earlier. "Corona--what I told her is not all. There is something else. Meschini had forged the papers which gave the property to San Giacinto. Montevarchi had promised him twenty thousand scudi for the job. It was because he would not pay the money that Meschini killed him. Do you understand?" "You will have everything after all?" "Everything--but we must give San Giacinto a share. He has behaved like a hero. He found it all out and made Meschini confess. When he knew the truth he did not move a muscle of his face, but offered my father the deed he had just signed as a memento of the occasion." "Then he will not take anything, any more than you would, or your father. Is it quite sure, Giovanni? Is there no possible mistake?" "No. It is absolutely certain. The original documents are in this house." "I am glad then, for you, dear," answered Corona. "It would have been very hard for you to bear--" "After this morning? After the other day in Holy Office?" asked Giovanni, looking deep into her splendid eyes. "Can anything be hard to bear if you love me, darling?" "Oh my beloved! I wanted to hear you say it!" Her head sank upon his shoulder, as though she had found that perfect rest for which she had once so longed. Here ends the second act in the history of the Saracinesca. To trace their story further would be to enter upon an entirely different series of events, less unusual perhaps in themselves, but possibly worthy of description as embracing that period during which Rome and the Romans began to be transformed and modernised. In the occurrences that followed, both political and social, the Saracinesca bore a part, in that blaze of gaiety which for many reasons developed during the winter of the Oecumenical Council, in the fall of the temporal power, in the social confusion that succeeded that long-expected catastrophe, and which led by rapid degrees to the present state of things. If there are any left who still feel an interest in Giovanni and Corona, the historian may once more resume his task and set forth in succession the circumstances through which they have passed since that memorable morning they spent at the Palazzo Montevarchi. They themselves are facts, and, as such, are a part of the century in which we live; whether they are interesting facts or not, is for others to judge, and if the verdict denounces them as flat, unprofitable and altogether dull, it is not their fault; the blame must be imputed to him who, knowing them well, has failed in an honest attempt to show them as they are. THE END.